Communist September Uprising in Bulgaria 1923

The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) chose to remain neutral during the bloody overthrow of the government of Aleksandur Stamboliiski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, in June 1923, hoping the warring factions would destroy each other. However, the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow rejected neutrality in a telegram on June 14, 1923, and called for a joint struggle with the peasantry. The wave of government terror that followed the putsch created a situation which the Comintern decided to exploit in the pursuit of world revolution. An added impetus was the fact that Vasil Kolarov, as secretary general of the Comintern and heir-apparent to Dimitur Blagoev in the leadership of the BCP, was in an ideal position to direct the venture. He went to Bulgaria and convinced the communists to launch an uprising as soon as possible, based on an alliance of workers and peasants, for the purpose of establishing a Bolshevik regime in the country. It was a tall order, given the antagonism between the communists and agrarians and the lack of planning for an insurrection. Bulgarian party leaders, particularly the secretary, Todor Lukanov, opposed the Comintern line as promising only failure and destruction of the party, but Kolarov, aided by Georgi Dimitrov and others, prevailed with a decision in August to launch the uprising the following month.

Meanwhile, the government, anticipating what was to come, enacted a draconian Law on the Defense of the State, which provided for stern measures against any form of subversion. The reactionary Bulgarian government, under the leadership of Aleksandur Tsankov, learned of the communist plans in advance, being informed of the plot by an intercepted communication from Moscow to Sofia. It launched a preemptive strike and arrested more than two thousand communist functionaries on September 12, 1923. Nevertheless, communist uprisings erupted on September 23, 1923, in the districts of Nova Zagora, Stara Zagora, Pleven, and Trnovo. Villages and towns were occupied and revolutionary committees were set up.

Ill-prepared, the September uprising sputtered without coordination in several areas even before the appointed time. It was more effective in northwest Bulgaria, near the Yugoslav border, where Kolarov and Dimitrov took charge in the hope of converging with insurgents on Sofia. The capital and other major urban centers, however, remained quiet, despite the communist claims of strength in the cities. Within four days the uprising was over and Kolarov and Dimitrov fled, with hundreds of followers, to Yugoslavia. Casualties were never confirmed, but the communists accepted the figure of about 5000 killed for the uprising and the mop-up operations after it; other sources suggest that between ten and thirty thousand died. In reprisals for the revolt, Macedonian terrorist groups again played a leading role. The shoddy venture shattered the organizational structure and the morale of the BCP and left it torn by the questions of who bore the blame and which course it was to take after the fiasco. The government, invoking the Law on the Defense of the State, had the party judicially declared outside the law in January 1924. It remained in legal limbo until 1944.

References

Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II, 132-3; Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, 86; Bulgaria - A Country Study.

Category

TBD

Region

TBD

State(s)

TBD

Belligerents

TBD

Dispute

TBD

Initiation Date

TBD

Termination Date

TBD

Duration

TBD

Outcome

TBD

Fatalities

TBD

Magnitude

TBD