ers to endure indefinitely, this illusion was
dispelled as Bulgaria soon succumbed completely to Soviet influence.

THE COMMUNIST STATE

Growth of the Communist Party

In 1891 the Social Democratic Party was founded; the Communist party was
eventually an offshoot of this movement. By 1903 the Social Democrats
had begun to split into what were known as the "broad" and "narrow"
factions. The broad faction retained the ideology of social democracy,
but the narrow faction became the Bulgarian counterpart of the Russian
Bolsheviks; its leader was Dimiter Blagoev, the so-called father of
Bulgarian communism. In 1919 the narrow faction split off from the
Second Socialist International and assumed the name Bulgarian Communist
Party (BKP). Although the party had great prestige abroad, it failed to
enjoy domestic popularity. The most popular party at the time--and that
favored by the peasant class, which was predominant in this
still-agrarian society--was the Bulgarian Agrarian Union. The BKP, on
the other hand, was composed almost exclusively of intellectuals and
students and held little appeal for the working and peasant classes.

In 1923 there was an unsuccessful attempt by the Communists to bring the
country to revolution. When this uprising was quelled, the Communists
turned to terrorism in order to gain their goals, and in 1925 a plot to
assassinate King Boris was formulated. Once again the Communists met
with failure, as the king not only lived but grew more powerful. In the
last half of the 1920s the party faded from the scene, but by the early
1930s it was again revived and grew in popularity.

During the late 1930s the party went underground as the king increased
his power. In 1939 the Communists reappeared and merged with the
left-wing Workers Party; in the 1939 elections the party doubled its
representation and took on an air of greater respectability. In 1941,
while the war was under way, the Communists realized that Bulgaria was
falling into the German camp. Although they were powerless to stop this
alliance, their activity in evoking pro-Soviet sentiment was successful
to the extent that--coupled with the basically favorable sentiments of
the Bulgarian people toward the Russians--it prevented the monarchy from
declaring war against the Soviet Union.

Once the Germans began to invade the Soviet Union itself, the Bulgarian
Communists committed themselves to a policy of armed resistance, known
as the partisan