Bulgarian Agrarian National Union
불가리아 농민민족동맹
A Bulgarian agrarian movement founded in 1899 as a professional organisation of peasants that soon became a political party. After the First World War it formed Aleksandar Stamboliyski’s single-party government, which was overthrown by the coup of 9 June 1923. It then split into several wings; in 1945–1947 its main body under Nikola Petkov resisted the communist takeover and was dissolved, while one faction remained a satellite party of the communist regime.
In depth
According to the Bulgarian source, the agrarian movement grew out of local organisations founded in the late 1890s by village teachers, agronomists and others, and became active in 1899 in reaction to the Liberal government’s attempt to restore the tithe in kind. The founding congress of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union met at Pleven on 28–30 December 1899, with Yanko Zabunov as leader. It began as a professional and educational organisation, but became a party when its third congress in 1901 decided to field election candidates. The young journalist Aleksandar Stamboliyski developed the “estate theory” and wrote its first programme in 1905. The Union opposed the monarch’s personal rule and militarism, and firmly opposed Bulgaria’s entry into the Second Balkan War and the First World War.
After winning the most seats in the August 1919 election, Stamboliyski led a coalition government, and in May 1920 an agrarian single-party government was formed. Within a few years it passed over a hundred laws, introducing limits on landholding, compulsory labour service, longer compulsory schooling and a progressive tax. But its anti-urban rhetoric, the violence of its paramilitary Orange Guard, corruption and administrative incompetence turned most of the elite against it. The coup of 9 June 1923 overthrew the government, and Stamboliyski and many Union activists were killed.
From 1926 the Union split into the Vrabcha 1 wing led by Dimitar Gichev, the right-wing “Orange” union and other groups. Vrabcha 1 joined the government in 1931 as part of the centrist People’s Bloc, and in 1932 former émigrés formed the Pladne wing. After the coup of 19 May 1934 the Union was banned together with the other parties. The Pladne wing cooperated with the Communists and joined the National Committee of the Fatherland Front in August 1943.
After the coup of 9 September 1944 the Union was legalised and G. M. Dimitrov was elected its chief secretary, but he resigned under Soviet pressure and Nikola Petkov succeeded him. In May 1945 pro-communists led by Georgi Traykov held a separate conference, splitting the Union into a pro-communist “official” BANU and the BANU–Nikola Petkov. During the communists’ liquidation of the opposition in 1947, Petkov’s Union was dissolved. The official Union remained a satellite party, led by Traykov in 1947–1974 and Petar Tanchev in 1974–1989. After 1989 several parties claiming its tradition emerged, some of which took part in governments in the 1990s, but their influence later declined.