874.00/8–745: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6:15 p.m.]
426. In my telegram 78 of February 10 I said that there is a feeling that the non-Communist elements in the government showed great weakness in bowing without protest to the severity of the sentences of the Peoples’ Courts and that they had become more completely than ever prisoners of their Communist colleagues. I pointed out that responsibility for the excesses was collective.
I recalled the foregoing this a.m. while listening to an estimate of the local political situation and of the probable trend of events if a way is not found to delay general elections scheduled for August 26 given to me by a Bulgarian of leftist but patroiotic views known to me for many years and in whose sober qualities I have considerable confidence. He said that the Communists in the government know that free elections would place the Agrarians in power and that the Agrarian mass would exact heavy penalties of those responsible for the excesses of the militia and of the People’s Courts. In his estimation the Communists are prepared to go to any length to retain power. He believes that in the circumstances no appeal to the better instincts of such men as Kimon Georgiev and Petko Stainov to delay elections can be effective; that the responsibilities of these non-Communist government leaders are as grave as those of the Communists and that they know there is no turning back. Nevertheless my informant deeply hopes that every effort will be made by the US and UK to postpone elections. It is his conviction that if elections are held August 26 the first note [vote?] of the “Red Parliament” will be to declare Bulgaria a Soviet republic following which Russia will cede northern Dobrudja to Bulgaria thus giving the two states a common frontier. The next step would be for Bulgaria to ask for incorporation into Russ-Soviet system. Under these circumstances Russians would have little interest in whether we accept the election results or not, or whether we would or would not conclude a treaty with or about Bulgaria. The relationship between such possible developments and the problem of the Straits and of other Turkish territory in Europe and Salonika is too obvious to require elaboration.
I do not report the foregoing as a rumor but as the conviction of a solid intelligent Bulgarian who possesses a knowledge of what is going on in the minds of Communist leaders here including some of the general officers placed in the Bulgarian Army by Moscow.
Repeated to Moscow as 220.