874.00/3–245: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 3—1:35 p.m.]
110. See my 94, February 20, 3 p.m.86 Since Yugov’s87 prediction of early elections, I have found occasion to discuss the election problem with most of the Bulgarian political leaders including Sola Dragoycheva, Secretary General of the National Committee of the Fatherland Front, who with “Major General” Terpeshev (see my 12, December 888), Yugov and Georgi Dimitrov, Secretary General in Moscow of the Comintern, constitute the real instrument of concealed Russian policy in Bulgaria, which is to make of this country a Soviet satellite.
These talks have served to strengthen my conviction that if the Communists are successful in imposing joint FF lists of candidates against the desire of others, particularly the Agrarians, for individual party lists, the Bulgarian people will once again be deprived of the right to express their will in general elections, and a new clique this time the Communists, instead of the Palace Camarilla and the Fascists, will have tricked the people into ceding their sovereign rights.
There can be no doubt that the FF enjoys great popular support throughout the country. It overthrew the hated regime that had subordinated the country and people to Germany, that had perpetrated racial and class cruelties, and that had ousted the Peasant Government of the early 1920’s and had brutally killed the peasant leader, the now almost legendary Stambolisky.
The FF might be likened to a pyramid, the basic mass of which is constructed of the stones of peasant enthusiasm for their political organization, the Agrarian party. Certainly in any free election today, this party would poll at least 60% of the vote. It might be said that the middle structure of the pyramid is composed of the stones of the small Social Democratic party and of the professional groups associated with that party such as the school teachers, the postal and telegraph employees and the participants in the rather highly-developed cooperative movement of the country. The upper structure of the pyramid is composed of Zveno, representing the anti-monarchical element of the army and Bulgarian intellectuals, and the Communist party which claims 250,000 adherents out of a total population of approximately 7,000,000.
[Page 168]Sola Dragoycheva has told me that present circumstances require the preservation of the FF; therefore, that joint lists of candidates must be the formula adopted for the elections. She says that all “rightminded” people are supporters of the FF. She divides those Bulgarians who oppose the front into two categories, the Fascists who must be destroyed, the Nationalists who must be reeducated. She is willing that the Nationalists shall constitute the “free opposition” during the period necessary for their reeducation, but she does not admit the right of anyone within the FF to place individual-party allegiance above allegiance to the front FF.
A national congress of the Front has been called for March 9. Its object is to exploit for election purposes the popularity that has accrued to it through the overthrow of the old regime and to establish a “just basis for the proportion of participation in the joint lists by the four parties constituting the Front. As the Communists have gained a superior position in the local and district committees of the FF so shall the Communist delegates to the National Congress be the most numerous. From that point to predominance on the joint lists, too, should prove an easy path if the Agrarians can be held in line. The Agrarian Party leaders tell me that they will not knuckle down to this Communist maneuver under the slogan of “preservation of the Front.” This remains to be seen. Certainly the Agrarians are most anxious for signs from us and the British that it really was intended at Yalta to assure elections in ex-satellite countries that would permit the democratic elements of each country freely to express their will. I myself believe that it is infinitely more important to permit the Bulgarian peasantry to elect candidates desired by it than to perpetuate the FF. The backbone of this country is the peasantry and its Agrarian Party. Also important in the country’s life is the Communist Party because of its energy and determination. However there is no natural bond between the two and there is no justifiable reason why the former should be compelled by regard for preservation of the movement that overthrew the Fascist regime to cede supremacy to the latter in the parliament that will convoke the Grand National Assembly and that in effect will determine the future form of government for Bulgaria. At the present time it appears that the Communists are seeking a formula that would assure to them from 50 to 60 percent participation on the joint lists and accord only from 20 to 30 percent for the Agrarians and from 10 to 20 percent for Zveno and the Social Democrats.
Repeated to Moscow as 41 and to AmPolAd as 48.
- Not printed.↩
- Anton Stanov Yugov, Bulgarian Minister of Interior and member of the Communist Party.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iii, p. 499.↩