Small but Vociferous

Abstract

The activism of Bulgarian émigré anti-communists in the United States emerged during the cold war. Their beliefs contained anti-communist and nationalist convictions that were inherited from the interwar politics in Bulgaria and evolved in response to the policies of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) in 1944–48 and Bulgaria’s alliance with the Soviet Union. Most of the twentieth century in Bulgaria was marked by collisions between the Communists and their opponents. During the interwar period, the Communist revolutionary flame provoked social turmoil, such as the September Uprising in 1923, which the authorities vigorously suppressed. When the end of World War II presented new opportunities, leaders of the Communist Party grasped them decisively. They gained popularity while the former regime and monarchy, discredited by their alliance with Nazis during the World War II, were losing social respect. Then, in the late 1940s, the BCP took the control of the state. It banned political opposition; gradually consolidated one-party rule; nationalized private companies, mines, and banks; and substituted Bulgarian national values with the Communist ideology. Although these changes completely reshaped Bulgarian society, some Bulgarians remained firmly anti-communist. Their position was based on an ultimate disagreement with the Communist Party’s policies, a feeling of threatened personal freedom, uncertainty about the new situation, and sentiments of hurt national pride due to Bulgarian subordination to the Soviet Union.KeywordsCommunist PartyIntelligence ServiceInterwar PeriodSoviet BlocCommunist RuleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.