REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

BULGARIA AND THE BULGARIANS IN THE
IDEOLOGY OF YUGOSLAV COMMUNISTS
Milen MIHOV 1
Abstract: The formation of communist Yugoslavia goes through formation of a federal state after
the Soviet pattern. The project implementation requires the formation of People’s Republic of
Macedonia as a national state of the “Macedonian nation”. The communist project of Macedonia
is characterized not by its ideological construction but by the underlying nationalism. Maintaining
the stable image of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians as enemies and cause of the partition of
Macedonia is of great importance for the internal consolidation of Yugoslavia.
The creation of communist Yugoslavia after World War II is an implementation of a
geopolitical project aiming at preserving the territorial status quo of the Balkans which
was imposed by the peace treaties of Versailles. The invasion of the Red Army and its
key role in the military operations on the peninsula determine the primary role of the
Soviet Union in settling the postwar organization of the peninsula. During the
negotiations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain on October 9 – 11, 1941, the
Great Powers distributed the spheres of influence in the region. The conversations in
Moscow between Stalin and Churchill ended with an agreement with percentage
expression and provide dominant influence of the Soviet Union in Romania, Hungary and
Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia was divided equally. In return for the big concessions in
Eastern Europe Churchill gets Stalin’s consent for dominating British influence in Greece
equal to that of the Soviet Union in Romania. The application of these agreements in
practice depends on the military presence of each of the countries in the region[5] [i].
The arrangements concerning Yugoslavia are based on imaginary balance between the
powers but in fact the military actions lead to imposing the total power of the communist
movement which is connected with the Soviet Union. This is especially true for Vardar
Macedonia which, after the withdrawal of the Bulgarian armies in September 1944, was
occupied by the powers of the Wehrmacht. On the basis of the agreement from October 5,
1944 between Bulgaria and Tito’s Yugoslavia, signed under the auspices of Stalin in
Craiova, the Bulgarian army emancipates from the German occupation the Valley of
Vardar and actively participates in the Belgrade invasion operation of the Red Army in
the composition of the Third Ukraine Front. In the agreement the Patriotic Front
government makes serious concessions to the Yugoslav communists since it is obliged to
let the Yugoslav partisans enter first the places emancipated by the Bulgarian army.
Completion of military operations in Vardar Macedonia is followed by an immediate
withdrawal of the Bulgarians troops which leads to full imposing of the communist
government in the region [8][ii].
1 St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo.