September Uprising (Bulgaria)
The September Uprising ( Bulgarian Септемврийско въстание ) was an uprising initiated by the Bulgarian Communist Party that was supposed to begin on the night of September 23, 1923. A premature attack by the insurgents as well as numerous other mistakes and mishaps on their side favored the rapid suppression of the September uprising by the Bulgarian army .
prehistory
The September uprising of the communists was preceded by a military coup on the night of June 8th to 9th, 1923 . The military carried out a coup under the command of Captain Ivan Walkow, the chairman of the military union , against the government under Aleksandar Stambolijski , the leader of the " Peasant People's Union ". Armed resistance arose everywhere, in which the paramilitary organization of the Peasant People's League, the " Orange Guard ", intervened. The communists maintained strict neutrality, since from their point of view it was a dispute "between the urban and the rural bourgeoisie ". The tightly organized army prevailed. On June 14 Stambolijski got that in the region of Pazardzhik had led the fight in person, captive, tortured and finally by members of the IMRO ( Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization murdered). Many supporters of the farmers' union were also executed out of court.
procedure
The new government also persecuted the communists, and on September 12, 1923, about 2,500 of them were jailed . The Communist Party (KP), which had stood aside indifferently in the smashing of the Stambolijski government, now called for an uprising against the new government. Behind this was the late realization that Stambolijski's peasant regime was ideologically more progressive and thus ultimately more beneficial to the cause of communism than the right-wing conservative regime that came to power after the coup.
The call for an uprising was only met to a greater extent in northwestern Bulgaria, particularly in the Vratsa district and in the central Stara Sagora and Plovdiv districts . There were also minor surveys in Pirin-Macedonia and some other parts of the country, but in others the appeal was simply ignored by the local Communist Party officials. In the capital Sofia it was mostly calm.
Since the uprising actions had begun too early in some parts of the country, a unified high command of the rebels de facto did not pass and the Bulgarian army controlled the railways, their rapid troop movements were making possible the revolt was put down relatively quickly. In addition, the Bulgarian armed forces received support from units of Macedonian irregular and “white” Russian emigrants when it was suppressed . As early as September 28, the leaders of the uprising gave their fighters the order to withdraw to Yugoslavia in view of the superiority of the government forces.
According to the Bulgarian Communist Party, more than 5,000 people fell victim to the fighting and subsequent reprisals by the government, known as “white terror”. Around 15,000 alleged or real supporters and sympathizers of the insurgents were initially arrested.
Leading personalities
One of the leading figures in the September uprising was Georgi Dimitrov . The "Red Pope Andrej" from the city of Lom , who was hanged on September 30, 1923, became the legendary figure of the uprising .
Reception history
In Bulgarian Marxist historiography, the September uprising was transfigured as the "first anti-fascist uprising in the world organized and led by a communist party". September 23, the day on which the uprising was to begin, was considered "Day of the Bulgarian People's Army" in the People's Republic of Bulgaria .
literature
- Raymond Detrez: Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria (= Historical Dictionaries of Europe, No. 46 ). 2nd ed., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Lanham, Maryland-Toronto-Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-0-8108-4901-3 , pp. 400f. (Keyword: September 1923 Uprising ).
- Dimiter Trifonow: The September uprising of 1923. In: Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire, No 60: Edition Bulgare. Edited by the Commission Internationale d'Histoire Militaire. Translated from Bulgarian by Sofia-Press. Sofia 1984, ISSN 0254-8186 , pp. 162-180.