874.00/5–1245: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:45 p.m.]
249. Conversations with Professor Ganev, the Senior Regent, and Nikola Petkov, leader of the Agrarians in the present Government, have served to confirm in detail the picture of the local confusion of mind of the preoccupation of public opinion over the country’s immediate future and of internal political discord that I have sought to record in my telegrams 238, May 1, 2 p.m.; 242, May 9, 2 p.m.; 247, May 10, 6 p.m. and 248, May 11, 6 p.m.42
The regent explained to me that the Russians’ supported tactics of the Communists to pulverize the Agrarians and to preserve and dominate the FF are totally incompatible with the concept of September 9, 1944, revolution as the beginning of personal and political liberty in Bulgaria. He said the country is wholeheartedly behind a policy of friendship with Russia and of recognition of Russia’s legitimate rights of defense in limitrophe states but that only the Communists want to see Bulgaria change from one master—Germany to another—the USSR. He expressed the deep hope the Anglo-Saxon powers and particularly the United States would now make their influence felt there in line with their commitments at Yalta and under the terms of the armistice convention.
Ganev is a non-party supporter of the September 9 revolution and of the legitimacy of Russian influence in the Balkans so long as that influence does not have aggression as its objective. But the following facts are as apparent to him as they are to any objective observer here at this time. Filov and his cohorts, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the King and his chosen men, turned Bulgaria over to Germany. This cabal governed without public support through secret police and the exploitation of fear, fear induced by concentration camps and even assassination if necessary. Their motives however were not personal gain but based on a conception of Bulgaria’s true interests. For this misjudgement of the real interest of the Bulgarian people, these men are all dead today. But today the Communists believing that they alone have divined the real interests of the Bulgarian people seek to dominate the political scene and resort to methods not unlike those employed by Filov and company. The militia of today is no more respectful of personal rights and liberties than were the secret police of the former regime. Today prison walls are bursting with inmates lodged there without even the formulation of charges.
[Page 213]And whereas Filov and company fostered the extension of Germany’s influence so do the Communists today seek to deliver the country to the USSR. It is for this reason and for this reason alone that Burov, Gichev and Mushanov, all strong men who believe in the independence of their country, are in prison. The Regent said that a short time ago he had hoped these three leaders would be released on May Day or Easter (May 6) but that at the last moment Tsola Drago Itcheva43 and the Communists said “no”.
The Regent asked me to encourage Petkov to come to grips with the actual situation by sticking to his decision to resist the Communists and Obbov in their efforts to dominate the Agrarians within the FF. With Petkov I went over much of the same ground as was covered by the Regent. Petkov told me Biryusov had warned him that it was dangerous to fall into the same fault that had put G. M. Dimitrov out of the party and under house arrest; namely, to be known as a friend of Britain and the United States. I could not refrain from remarking that this could hardly be construed as a friendly comment from one of our Allies and certainly not one in the spirit of the Yalta Declaration about which President Roosevelt had said to the United States Congress44 “We met in the Crimea determined to settle this matter of liberated areas. I am happy to confirm to the Congress that we did arrive at a settlement—a unanimous settlement. Final decisions in these areas are going to be made jointly”.
Petkov also gave the lie to Molotov’s statement in the latter’s letter of April 11 to Ambassador Harriman that “there is no intention to carry on elections in Bulgaria in the near future”. He pointed to the fact known to every one in Bulgaria that the Communists are pressing hard to dominate the Agrarians in the FF or to pulverize them with a view to forcing immediate elections that will give them domination of Parliament. I told Petkov I did not believe that the United States Government would condone such tactics or ever accept the outcome of such elections. He told me in conclusion that the cessation of hostilities against Germany and the conduct of the United States and United Kingdom in the Polish imbroglio45 had helped him to decide that the moment had arrived to give no further ground.
After considerable reflection on the above conversations I have come to the conclusion that Ganev and Petkov did not seek these conversations with any hope of furthering their own political aspirations but because both are deeply conscious that they are now dealing with a situation that may set the course of their country, perhaps for many [Page 214] years to come. The issue is clear, I believe. It is as I stated in my telegram 242 of May 9, whether Bulgaria shall go the Russian way under Communist domination or whether it will be permitted to continue as an independent European state having useful political and economic ties with the West as well as the East.
Repeated to Moscow as 118 and AmPolAd as 129.
- Nos. 238 and 248 not printed.↩
- Tsola Dragoycheva, secretary-general of the National Committee of the Fatherland Front.↩
- Message of March 1, Department of State Bulletin, March 4, 1945, p. 321, or Congressional Record, vol. 91, pt. 2, p. 1618.↩
- See vol. v, pp. 110 ff.↩