Bulgarian Communist Party
불가리아 공산당
The party formed when the Narrow faction of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party, created by the split of 1903, joined the Comintern in 1919 and changed its name. Banned in 1924 after the failure of the September Uprising of 1923, it took power in the Fatherland Front coup of 9 September 1944 and ruled Bulgaria until 1990. On 3 April 1990 it renamed itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
In depth
The party's roots lay in the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party founded at the Buzludzha congress of 1891 and in the ‘Narrow Socialists’ faction of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party created by the split of 1903. Led by Dimitar Blagoev, the Narrow Socialists opposed the First World War and sympathised with the October Revolution, and at a congress in Sofia on 28 May 1919 they adopted the name ‘Bulgarian Communist Party (Narrow Socialists)’ and joined the Comintern. The party won 18% and 47 seats in the August 1919 election and had more than 38,000 members on the eve of June 1923.
The central leadership stayed neutral during the coup of 9 June 1923, but under Comintern pressure it decided in August on a new uprising, and Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov led the September Uprising. The uprising failed, and in April 1924 the Supreme Court of Cassation dissolved the party under the Law for the Defence of the State. On 16 April 1925 the party's military organisation carried out the bombing of St Nedelya Church in Sofia, which brought massive repression. In 1927 a Workers' Party was set up as a legal front, and in 1938 it merged with the illegal Communist Party to form the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists).
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 the party declared armed struggle and led the partisan movement and the formation of the Fatherland Front. On 9 September 1944 army units that had gone over to the Fatherland Front, aided by partisans, seized Sofia and overthrew the government of Konstantin Muraviev. After the 1946 referendum on the republic and the elections to the Grand National Assembly, Dimitrov became prime minister, and in 1947 opposition leaders were imprisoned and their parties dissolved. At its Fifth Congress at the end of 1948 the party resumed the name Bulgarian Communist Party. After Dimitrov died in July 1949, Valko Chervenkov became first secretary, and in the same year Traicho Kostov was tried and hanged in December. The English source dates the party's rule from 1946, the Bulgarian source from 1944.
Todor Zhivkov became first secretary in 1954 and led the party until 1989. Agricultural collectivisation was completed in 1956–1958; Bulgaria was a founding member of Comecon in 1949 and of the Warsaw Pact in 1955, and sent troops to crush the Prague Spring in 1968. In the 1980s the party carried out the so-called ‘Revival Process’, forcing Turks and others to adopt Bulgarian names. At the end of 1989 the party had about one million members.
At the November 1989 plenum Zhivkov stepped down and Petar Mladenov became leader. According to the English source, Mladenov announced on 11 December that the party was giving up its guaranteed right to rule. In early 1990 the 14th Extraordinary Congress adopted a ‘Manifesto for Democratic Socialism’, and after an internal referendum the party renamed itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party on 3 April 1990. Several small parties later claimed to be the successor of the Bulgarian Communist Party.