Europe’s Liberation 80 Years On: Bulgaria
Bulgaria has one of the oldest traditions of anti-fascist struggle in Europe, dating back to the 1920s. The self-serving narratives of contemporary political forces have obscured this rich heritage.
Group of Bulgarian partisans of the Fatherland Front in 1944. (Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
When speaking of the Bulgarian anti-fascist movement (or rather movements), most sources focus exclusively on the small armed resistance and the coalition of the Fatherland Front, which toppled the Axis-allied monarcho-fascist regime that held power between 1941 and 1944. A closer look, however, shows us that Bulgarian anti-fascism had a much longer lifespan.
Notably, two events that took place in Bulgaria in 1923 compete for the title of “the first anti-fascist rebellion in world history”: the peasant-led resistance to the June 9 military coup d’état against the agrarian government of Aleksandar Stamboliiski; and the communist-led (though also largely peasant-based) uprising against the self-appointed government of Aleksandar Tsankov in late September 1923.
“Open Terrorist Dictatorship”
At the time of the anti-agrarian coup, the communists declared a position of neutrality, calling it an “infight between urban and rural bourgeoisie.” This was despite the fact that peasants formed the core of the communist movement in largely agrarian Bulgaria, whether during the poorly organized 1923 uprising or the guerrilla warfare of the 1940s.
One of the leaders of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP), Georgi Dimitrov, who defended the line of neutrality in June 1923, defined fascism as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” The military coup and ensuing authoritarian rule of the ironically named Democratic Alliance — which literally and metaphorically beheaded Stamboliiski’s majority government — embodied this definition.
The capitalist-military clique around Tsankov, who received the sobriquet “Bloodsucker” from his opponents, not only brutally crushed both rebellions and permanently outlawed the communist opposition. It also reinstated large agrarian and industrial capital interests under the guise of economic protectionism. These were interests that Stamboliiski had curtailed through redistributive land reform, progressive taxation, and a push toward a Balkan Federation.
The new regime also reversed the marginal but growing progressive direction of Bulgarian politics over previous decades, marked by strikes, bills, and reforms, and driven by elected communist mayors, parliamentarians, and union leaders. Today the hegemonic view in Bulgaria erases the progressive, democratic interwar legacy of communists and agrarians while celebrating the interwar capitalist “democracy” as an aspirational ideal.
Who are the “heroes” remembered by Bulgarian radical anti-communists? As an example, Tsankov — a member of an increasingly radicalized right-wing elite, which sympathized with Benito Mussolini and later Adolf Hitler — founded the Nazi-inspired National Social Movement. This group was rendered redundant by an even more radical military-led formation, Zveno (“Link”), which banned all political parties and unions after another coup d’état in 1934.
Ambiguities of Anti-Fascism
Zveno persecuted communists and paved the way for the dictatorial monarcho-fascist regime of 1935–44 that aligned Bulgaria with the Axis. Tsankov was loyally appointed prime minister in exile by the Axis when the Red Army entered Sofia in September 1944 and local communist guerrillas took power.
Ironically, it was rentier capitalist Kimon Georgiev — co-organizer of the June 9, 1923, coup, former Democratic Alliance minister, Zveno founder, and 1934 coup leader — who assumed power after the Soviet advance. He did so with the support of the communists, despite his fascist past.
The BCP, which later claimed full ownership of the anti-fascist struggle, was not the only force that fought fascism. Bulgarian anarchist formations throughout the first half of the twentieth century vehemently opposed capitalism, the monarchy, and the military-industrial nexus subservient to imperial interests on Europe’s periphery. They fought alongside communists and peasants in both 1923 and 1944.
The post-WWI agrarian movement also opposed big capital, great power interests, and war, although its paramilitary Orange Guard was far from cooperative with communists. Yet these potential progressive alliances were marginalized in the framework of the Fatherland Front during WWII.
Organized by the communists after Germany’s violation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in mid-1941, the Front united a wide coalition of social democrats, agrarians, and even fascistic but anti-German elements like Georgiev. They agreed on ending the Axis alliance, withdrawing troops from Serbia, granting political amnesty, repealing antisemitic laws, and abolishing the monarchy. The allegedly shared ideal of restoring democratic freedoms was never put in place after 1944.
Rival Narratives
Today a strongly polarized Bulgarian society, amid soaring global polarization, is left with only two publicly dominant and opposing narratives of these events. Engulfed in neotraditionalist and neonationalist oligarchic politics, the Bulgarian Socialist (in name only) Party (BSP) presents itself as the heir to the 1944 anti-fascist uprising and the period of socialist rule in a way that seemingly unproblematically translates into allegiance to contemporary post-Soviet Russia. Yet the BSP sidelines half a century of uncompromising grassroots organizing among workers, peasants, and soldiers, in democratic and guerrilla forms alike, as well as the progressive anti-racist and feminist politics of communism before and after the war.
Opposed to it stand a wide range of anti-communist parties. While sympathetic to the BSP’s anti-migrant, anti-feminist, and antisocial policies, they bemoan the legacy of 1944 as one of “Soviet Army occupation” and mourn the victims of the “red terror.” These political forces conveniently forget the anti-communist persecution and violence of the interwar era and credit the anti-fascist liberation of Europe to the United States and its Western allies, legitimating the past and present violence of NATO and its proxies.
There are positive lessons to be drawn from the interwar Bulgarian left: its persistent, deep anti-fascist organizing among the popular masses despite volatile political conditions; its combination of parliamentary and guerrilla tactics; and its capacity to coordinate a strategic coalition like the Fatherland Front at a critical moment.
However, learning from past mistakes is equally vital. Presenting 1923 or 1944 as a case of “country-wide democratic anti-fascist rebellions” — let alone as “socialist revolutions” — obscures the messy, constrained political choices, challenges, and compromises that a violently persecuted movement faced in extreme adversity.
The failure of the BCP to support the peasant-led rebellion in 1923 still haunts us today. The BCP’s record of alienating (before later persecuting and killing) natural allies like agrarians and anarchists, while favoring last-minute elite coalitions with former enemies, has left an uneasy air in our anti-fascist pantheon.