Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists)
불가리아 사회민주노동당(협의파)
The party that began with the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party founded by Dimitar Blagoev in 1891 and was carried on by the revolutionary Marxist wing after the split of 1903. It put class struggle and the organisation of the industrial working class first and opposed the First World War. On joining the Comintern in 1919 it became the Bulgarian Communist Party.
In depth
In July 1891, on Blagoev's initiative, the social-democratic circles of Tarnovo, Gabrovo, Sliven, Stara Zagora, Kazanlak and other towns united to form the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. In 1892 a reformist group led by Yanko Sakazov founded a separate Bulgarian Social Democratic Union, but in 1894 the two joined as the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party. The Marxist wing gained ground from the Fourth Congress of 1897, and from January of that year Blagoev edited the theoretical journal Novo Vreme.
The quarrel over class cooperation ended in a split at the Tenth Congress in 1903. The Marxists formed a separate party, the 'Narrow Socialists' (Tesnyaks), while the reformists, who wanted a broad organisation of all 'productive strata', formed the Broad Socialists. The Narrow Socialists concentrated on building the party among the industrial working class rather than a broader framework that would also appeal to the peasantry, and their call to confiscate all private property held back their electoral success. Georgi Dimitrov was secretary from 1904 of the trade-union federation the Narrows controlled, and Vasil Kolarov joined the Central Committee in 1905.
At the Zimmerwald Conference the party supported the Zimmerwald Left; it opposed the First World War and sympathised with the October Revolution. Under Bolshevik influence it accepted Leninism, and under Blagoev's leadership it applied to join the Communist International in 1919, reorganising as the Bulgarian Communist Party.