 |
 |
Il documento θ in
lingua inglese. Chi avesse tempo e voglia di tradurlo contatti il webmaster.
While the Yugoslav and
Greek partisans of WWII are widely known, the Albanian partisans
slightly less so, very very few people have ever heard about the
Bulgarian partisan movement. Though small and of little
consequence in deciding the outcome of WWII, the story still needs
to be told, though. This is an attempt at it.
Defeat from the outset
The history of the Bulgarian partisans started right after the
invasion of the USSR by Nazi Germany and her allies on 22 June
1941. Two days after this, on 24 June 1941, the Politburo of the
BKP (Bulgarian Communist Party) decided to start preparing for
armed resistance. A Central Military Commission was created with
the aim of preparing and leading the armed struggle, but
historical experience with a failed revolt in 1923, that had
brought hell down over the party had contributed to a general
resentment at starting armed resistance. Adding to the general
confusion preventing any concerted attempt at partisan warfare was
the arrest of 244 prominent communist functionaries on 3 July. By
September the immunity of the Communist deputies of parliament had
been lifted, too, and 3 out of the 5 members of the Politburo had
been arrested.
As a result of the general confusion caused by this disruption,
the resistance was very small in scale, consisting initially only
of fighting groups, groups of 3 to 6 "legals", living ordinary
lives at day and engaging in small-scale sabotage at night. No
actual partisan bands (consisting of illegals that had had to
leave society altogether) were active yet. The only centrally
planned undertaking that took place at this time was an abortive
attack on the Gonda Voda concentration camp, where the arrested
communists had been sent along with the other Bulgarian political
prisoners. A group of communists from Southern Bulgaria was
assembled on 15 August 1941 and tried to spring the prisoners from
the camp. Poorly trained and armed, the attempt failed. Another
attempt a forthnight later failed, too.
In order to strengthen the movement, the USSR during the months
August to October sent in all 58 Bulgarian ιmigrι communists into
Bulgaria, either dropped by parachute or put ashore from Soviet
U-boats on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. This undertaking, too,
was a failure, and of the 58 20 were shot on arrival. Most of the
remainder were caught within days of their arrival in Bulgaria,
and the result of the operation was zero. By the end of 1941,
between 7 and 800 communists had been arrested. Initially the
party had managed to regroup and mainting control, but a wave of
arrests starting in February 1942 brought the Central Committee
and the Central Military Commission to a collapse, thereby
practically ending all central conduct of the resistance.
Urban Guerrillas
Since partisan warfare had lost all significance by the middle
of 1942, the communists looked for another way of fighting. By
early 1943, they had finally found it: assassination of important
personalities. During the months of February to May 1943 several
personalities, mostly police agents and politicians were shot by
communist fighting groups consisting of "legal" cadres, living
normal lives in daytime.
The first to be shot, on 13 February 1943, was retired general
Hristo Lukov, leader of the pro-German Legionary movement, and by
many thought to be the Germans favourite choice for a leader to
substitute Zar Boris for. An unsuccessful attempt was made on
Lukovs secretary on 6 April, but the failure was made good on 15
April, when Sotir Yanev, the chairman of the Committee of Foreign
Relations of the Bulgarian parliament was assassinated. Next was
Colonel Pantev, the Chairman of the Military Court in Sofia, who
died at the hands of the same team that had killed General Hristo
Lukov.
At this time, police controls had been strengthened so much as to
make further conduct of urban guerrilla warfare difficult, and
added to the misgiving the party leadership had in the first place
of assassinating public persons (it alienated possible political
allies), the assassination campaign was wound down. Though
assassinations did occur after May (the Deputy Governor of Plovdiv
was killed in July 1943), assassination as a form of combat was
left behind.
Revival
The successive waves of arrests had by the end of 1941 forced
a number of communists out of society, and the first partisan
bands were in operation, the first one in Pirin (Bulgarian)
Macedonia lead by a veteran communist named Nikola Parapunov.
Growth of the partisan movement was very slow, though, and by the
end of 1942, police estimates put the strength of the partisans at
only 183 men organized in 25 bands in the country at large,
discounting the areas acquired by Bulgaria in 1941.
Soviet successes on the Eastern Front and Yugoslav partisan
successes in Yugoslavia, as well as continuing arrest waves (6.700
communists had been arrested during the 1941 to 1943 period) led
more men into the movement, bringing the strength of it to 372 in
March and 650 in 47 bands by June 1943. Increasing numbers brought
about the need for a reorganisation of the command structure, and
all the partisans units entered the new the Peoples Revolutionary
Army of Liberation (Narodno Osvoboditelna Vustanicheska Armiia, or
NOVA), led by the General Staff of the Resistance, the former
Central Military Commission. During March and April 1943, Bulgaria
proper (including a few small areas of Greek Thrace and Macedonia
and Yugoslav Macedonia) was divided into 12 Insurrection Military
Zones (VOZ), numbered I to XII.
Increasing numbers brought about an increased level of action,
too: the number of partisan actions rose from 12 (!) in January
1943 to 28 in February, 83 in March, 72 in April, 125 in May and
145 in June. The sudden drop in March can probably be attributed
to the Bulgarian army blockade of the Sredna Gora Mountains, a
partisan stronghold for 20 days in March and April (see below).
Sometimes several bands would come together under one command and
form a detachment, the detachment "Anton Ivanov" with 100 men in
May 1943 being an example. The most successful of the detachments
was the detachment of Slavcho Trunski, who operated his unit in
the Trunski region on the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border, and was thus
able to seek refuge and supplies with the Yugoslav partisans in
Vardar (Yugoslav) Macedonia. Sometimes it even came to small-scale
joint actions between Bulgarian and Yugoslav partisan units.
Seeing the increase in strength, the Bulgarian police in
cooperation with regular army units imposed a 20 day blockade
during the months of march and April 1943 in the Sredna Gora
mountain, one of the two main partisan strongholds in Bulgaria
proper (the other being the Rhodopi mountains). This tactic did
not help, though, as the partisans could mostly survive by just
laying low.
The second part of 1943 saw more expansion of the partisan forces.
The old partisan detachments spawned off new units (among others
the "Vasil Levski" partisan unit, that was expanded into a brigade
in 1944), and 14 entirely new units came into being around among
others Pleven, Jambol, Pasardshik and Varna. Accordingly, the
number of partisan actions increased, too, from 174 in July over
187 in August, 214 in September, 274 in October to 280 in
November. Though these actions included burnings of factories, saw
mills, and attacks on mines, most were of rather less
significance, and the impact of the partisans remained small.
Partisan bands (Chetas) were on average only a dozen men strong,
and were mostly concerned with their own survival.
One of the Insurrection Military Zones, VI VOZ "Burgas", can give
a picture of the level of partisan activity. Of the 5 partisans
detachments (Otryadi), that operated in the zone, No. 1 repeatedly
suffered heavy losses, and had practically disappeared by the end
of 1943. No. 2 was more successful, raided a coal mine in August
and occupied the town of Golyamo Schivachevo and executed its
mayor in September. During December it, along with many other
partisan units, suffered heavy losses, though. The other three
detachments were of virtually no significance.
A winter of defeat
During the latter part of 1943, the level of armed resistance
increased, and additional numbers of communist ιmigrιs were sent
from the USSR. They were, however, too small in number to matter
militarily, and brought no supplies with them. The British, on the
other hand, sent a mission under Major Mostyn Davies, that joined
Trunskis Bulgarian Partisans on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border in
December 1943.
During the same time the first large-scale desertion of soldiers
of the Bulgarian army took place, 75 soldiers joining the
partisans in the Yugoslav free zone as the 1st Soldiers battalion
of the Bulgarian resistance. As the one half of the General Staff
of the Resistance at the same time joined the partisans in the
Yugoslav free zone around Kalna in SE Serbia, they achieved a
considerable concentration of forces there. The General Staff had
been split in two due to the allied bombing and subsequent
disruption of communications in Bulgaria, the one half going to
Plovdiv to lead the resistance in Bulgaria proper, the other one
going to the free zone centred on Kalna to lead the partisans
there.
To better facilitate communications with the partisans, the
British sent in a second British military mission during January
of 1944. Trying to remedy a general lack of weaponry among the
partisans (the partisan weaponry at the end of 1943 only included
563 rifles, 314 pistols, 13 submachine guns and 9 machine guns),
15 drops of supplies were planned during February and the first
half of March, but only 3 of them came to anything. The partisan
trust in the British did not improve through that experience.
In Bulgaria proper, the partisans did not enjoy any of the
"luxuries" that those in Macedonia did. They had no free zones to
flee to, received no supplies from abroad, and were in general
subject to repeated attacks. In early 1944, a special Gendarmerie
with its own cavalry and mechanised units was also formed with the
sole purpose of fighting the partisans. Police reprisals against
suspected partisans and partisan helpers did produce numbers of
new recruits, but at the same time the police actions also scared
the populace away from helping the partisans. Thus increasing
numbers saw smaller sources of food, and hunger became the steady
companion of the partisans. Morale plummeted, and some partisans
deserted and tried to return to their villages. Partisan leaders
had to resort to summary execution on charges of desertion. In the
partisan detachment "Anton Ivanov", partisans were executed for
having stolen food from each others.
The detachment itself was annihilated in March, when 135 of its
153 men were lost in a matter of days, either being killed in
combat, or captured and beheaded by the Gendarmerie. At the same
time, two members (Hristo Michailov and Vlado Georgiev) of the
Central Committee of the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist
Party found their deaths. The winter saw the number of partisan
actions dwindle to 95 in January, though it picked up and
increased to 159 in February. As 1944 began, partisan strength lay
at around 2.000 men.
To the offensive
From the outset,
the spring of 1944 did not look promising for the partisans: the
fate of the "Anton Ivanov" partisan detachment has already been
mentioned, and the Bulgarian army also launched an attack on the
main partisan grouping in the Kalna free zone in SE Serbia in late
March, where the first British mission was wiped out. The
partisans soon regained strength, though, and in late 1944, the
first two partisan brigades were formed in Macedonia, namely the
1st and 2nd "Sofian" Brigades.
These were intended to let the Bulgarians go over to the
offensive: the British had in cooperation with the Bulgarians and
Yugoslavs laid out a plan to establish a free zone, that would
stretch from Kratovo and Kumanovo in N-Macedonia to Kiustendil in
W-Bulgaria, and thus give the Bulgarians a free zone of their own
on their own soil. It was launched on 25 April 1944, but though
the Yugoslavs initially made some gains around Kratovo (the
Bulgarian partisans were directed ad Kiustendil in Bulgaria), the
operation ended in total failure, and had to be aborted.
With the milder weather came not only increasing strength for the
Macedonian partisans, but also for the partisans in Bulgaria
proper. The "Chavdar" Brigade was formed in April as the first
there, and during May two other brigades came to: the "Vasil
Levski" and "Khristo Botev" Brigades. At this time, the "Chavdar"
Brigade had reached a strength of 437 men, being the largest
partisan unit in Bulgaria proper.
Thus, an opportunity of creating a free zone in the Sredna Gora
Mountains of Bulgaria proper was seen, and the 2nd "Sofian"
Brigade was sent out from the Kalna free zone on its "Long March"
on 12 May 1944. Along with it went the second British Military
Mission. It was planned, that the brigade would penetrate into
Bulgaria, go North of the capital of Sofia, then meet up with a
number of partisans detachments in the Sredna Gora Mountains to
the East of Sofia. It was thought, that the brigade would reach
its destination sometime in early June, but problems plagued the
endeavour from he outset: the British lost contact with Cairo, and
many of the partisans groups with which the brigade was to
establish contact failed to show on time. It nevertheless managed
to push past the capital and cross the Iskur River, then head for
Botevgrad NE of Sofia before it was intercepted by Bulgarian army
units at the village of Litakovo. Most of the partisans were
killed during the ensuing battle, others being captured and shot
over the following days. Major Frank Thompson, the leader of the
British Military Mission was court-martialled and shot.
Summer and the coup
The most reliable sources show, that by the early summer of 1944,
the partisans had increased in strength to around 4.000 men, armed
with 2.026 rifles, 190 submachine guns, 885 pistols, 1.800 hand
grenades, 129 light and medium, and 16 heavy machine guns. German
suggestions, that the partisans had 12.000 men by 1 July 1944 can
more or less be dismissed as probably based on overstated
Bulgarian guesses. An example: the "Vassil Levski" partisan
detachment (one of the most active units) in the Varna region was
estimated at 3.000 men. Its real strength lay at 150.
Though the summer of 1944 did not see any actions as spectacular
as the ones of the spring, none were needed either. A new
government had been formed on 1 June 1944, and that, and events on
the frontlines (the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944, for one)
gave the partisans an advantage. Though negotiations between the
government on the one hand and the communist-led Fatherland Front
and the tolerated opposition on the other were opened with the aim
of bringing Bulgaria out of the war, no results ensued. In the
end, Soviet fortunes on the Eastern Front against Romania, and the
fact that the government did not scale the attacks on the
partisans down brought about the end of the negotiations.
Instead the scale of partisan actions increased greatly, and
averaged 500 in both July and August. As before, most of the
actions were on a small scale, and the partisans remained more a
potential threat than an actual one. In their most dramatic raid
during June 1944, where the partisans stopped a train on the
Kazanluk-Plovdiv rail line, ordered all crew and passengers (among
them Peter Kioseivanov, vice president of the parliament and
brother of the former premier) , they were thus interrupted and
put to flight by an army force sent out to the rescue of the
train. The force consisted of four soldiers and a lieutenant.
During August, the Bulgarian government tried to save itself as
best it could. While envoys were sent to the Western Allies, the
only ones with whom Bulgaria was at war, to find some kind of
peace accord, Bulgaria declared itself neutral in the war between
the Soviet Union and Germany. At the same time, seeing that the
partisans had to be removed before the Soviets turned up at the
Bulgarian northern border, the Bulgarian government launched two
drives to achieve this aim: on the one hand, a general amnesty was
promised for all partisans, and on the other, a massive effort by
the army, police and gendarmerie, named "Operation Bogdan", was
launched during August. Both efforts failed. In the end, it did
not matter, either.
On 20 August, the Soviets launched their Jassy-Chisinau offensive,
that totally smashed the 6th German and 3rd and 4th Romanian
armies. Soviet troops rolled south, and on 30 August the USSR
announced that it did not recognize the Bulgarian declaration of
neutrality, and at the same time requested permission to enter
Bulgarian territory. Soviet planes also dropped weapons to the
Bulgarian partisans for the first time in late August, thus making
it possible for the partisans to form their first divisions, the
1st "Sofian" Peoples Liberation Division.
The day after (31 August), the Bulgarian government stepped down,
and the Western Allies broke off negotiations. The same day as
Soviet troops showed up on the Bulgarian northern border, the
Bulgarian government tried to appease them by granting amnesties,
outlawing all fascist organisation and pulling back the occupation
troops in Serbia. The next day, the Germans began disarming the
Bulgarian troops retreating from Serbia, but ended up fighting
them, when two Bulgarian regiments refused to be disarmed.
A Bulgarian declaration of war against Germany was considered on 5
September, but postponed when the prime minister was advised by
the minister of war, who was secretly in league with the
communists, to wait 72 hours. This gave the partisans the time
they needed to organise a coup and take over the government.
Communist-organised demonstrations had already begun on the 4th,
and now partisan units began converging on the capital. While
communist-led strikes and demonstrations multiplied, the "Shopski"
partisan detachment was smuggled into town and placed directly
under the partisan general staff. All over the country, army units
were proving to be increasingly unreliable, not surprising
considering that the Minister of War was in league with the
communists. Under the impression of the massing Soviet troops on
the border, the Chief of Police was also quickly won over.
By now, just on the eve of the coup, that would bring the
communist-led Fatherland Front to power, the partisans probably
had around 10.000 men, up from 4.000 only 3 months earlier. Their
equipment, increased among others by Soviet drops, consisted of
7.660 rifles, 850 submachine guns, 3.180 pistols, 402 light and
medium, and 38 heavy machineguns, 5.700 hand grenades and 9
mortars.
The Soviet Army finally invaded Bulgaria on 8 September 1944. A
few hours later, the Bulgarian government finally found resolve to
declare war on Germany. Bulgaria was thus in the peculiar position
to be at war with both all the major Allies as well as Germany at
the same time. With Bulgarian army units deserting all over the
place, the partisans finally struck: most of the Sofia garrison
had been dispersed to outlying towns as a result of Allied
bombings, and thus the government was left dangerously vulnerable.
During the early hours of 9 September, partisans and sympathizers
from the Sofian Military Academy and the army occupied key points
throughout the capital, and with the help of the Minister of War,
the partisans were let into the War Ministry, where the government
was concentrated.
Though it would take them another year with peoples courts and
rigged elections before they had eliminated the democratic
opposition, the communist were in power, and were in no way
inclined to let go og it again.
|
Storia
della Bulgaria | Bibliografia
In queste pagine
pubblichiamo alcuni documenti relativi alla storia
della Bulgaria e ai suoi rapporti con i paesi vicini.
Le opinioni
espresse sono quelle dei rispettivi autori; la pubblicazione non
implica una condivisione da parte degli responsabili del sito. |
|
|
