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THE EFFORTS OF THE YUGOSLAV COMMUNIST PARTY TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE MACEDONIAN
REFUGEE ORGANIZATIONS IN BULGARIA
(September 1944 - June 1946)
Prof. Dr. Dobrin Michev
The study of the policy of the Yugoslav Communist Party, more particularly towards the Macedonian Refugee organizations in Bulgaria, though in a most concise form, reveals extremely interesting facts and methods of overt anti-Bulgarian activity by a neighboring country and a “fraternal” communist party which have left lasting traces in the national destiny of our people. The subject is doubtless of major scientific and topical political significance.
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The considerable political concessions on the Macedonian question, made by the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists), under the impact of a number of external and internal factors, gave fresh impulses to the YCP and the Belgrade Government to launch an aggressive and many-sided campaign for the denationalization of the Bulgarian population in Vardar Macedonia, the Pirin area and the refugee organizations in all parts of Bulgaria. With the co-operation of the BWP (C) on September 17, 1944 the Macedonian National Committee was disbanded and an Initiative Committee of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria was set up. Irrespective of the fact that the fundamental task of the I nit iati ve Committee was to extol the Republic of Macedonia, to prepare the return of the refugees to the Vardar area and especially to popularize the incorporation of the Pirin area in the Republic of Macedonia, the Skopie party and state officials did not recognize the legitimacy of the Initiative Committee. A new political centre of Skopie propaganda in Bulgaria was established: a Provisional Representation of the Republic of Macedonia. The Provisional Representation strictly fulfilled the instructions of S.V. Tempo, L. Kulishevski and other Skopie and Belgrade politicians and statesmen.
Serious struggles on questions of princ iple went on between the Provision Representation and the Initiative Committee. The Provisional Representation strove to turn the Initiative Committee into its section, to subject its work to Yugoslavia's denationalizing, anti-Bulgarian policy. This extremist policy of Skopie and Belgrade towards Bulgaria, the Bulgarian people, culture and history was unlawfully assisted by a number of party and youth leaders, on a regional and all-Bulgarian scale, who had been taken prisoner of the unscientific, anti-Bulgarian thesis of the Comintern and the BCP on the Bulgarian national question.
It is known that from amidst the circles of the Macedonian refugee organizations in Bulgaria, scores of prominent Bulgarian statesmen emerged, leaders of political parties and movements, authoritative leaders of important national liberation organizations, who again waged a struggle against the aggressive policy of denationalization of the Republic of Macedonia and against Belgrade's hegemony. The resistance to the policy of the Yugoslav Communist Party assumed a variety of forms and methods: from boycotting the “cultural” work of the Skopie emissaries to open sabotages and armed activity. Throughout the period, the most effective work was that by which it was proved that the historic fate of the refugee organizations rested in their preservation as Bulgarian, and of their members as Bulgarians who had found shelter within the confines of Bulgaria after the two national catastrophes.
Up to June 1946, in spite of everything, the policy of the Yugoslav
Communist Party and the Yugoslav state machine failed to gain success in
their policy of denationalization among the Bulgarian population in the
Pirin area and the refugee organizations. It had to be supported by administrative
command methods by the BCP and the state authorities, particularly by the
pressure of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavra on Bulgaria, included
in the number of the vanquished countries in the Second World War, a state
without a peace treaty.