When the Soviets occupied the country in September 1944, the government of the so-called Fatherland Front (Otechestven Front) seized power from the existing government within five days of the occupation. On September 9, 1944, the Fatherland Front—under the leadership of Georgiev—officially took control of the country on what was then termed an interim basis. On October 28, 1944, an armistice was signed between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, which stated that all territories gained by Bulgaria since 1941 would be surrendered. Only southern Dobrudzha, taken from Romania in 1940, was to be retained. The agreement also established the Allied Control Commission in Sofia under direct Soviet control.
The results of the war for Bulgaria were mixed. In terms of financial burdens Bulgaria's position was relatively favorable compared with that of other countries on the losing side. In terms of territorial losses, which resulted in a legacy of bitterness and continued irredentism, its position was poor. As Bulgaria had suffered over 30,000 casualties in the war, the Allies imposed relatively light peace terms. The Soviet Union extracted no reparations from Bulgaria, despite the fact that reparations were demanded from Germany, Hungary, and Romania. Yugoslavia also canceled Bulgaria's debts. Overall war damages to the country itself were generally moderate.
In terms of losses, however, Bulgaria not only lost most of the territories it had regained at the beginning of the war but also ultimately lost its constitutional monarchy and became a Soviet satellite. Although it was allowed to retain southern Dobrudzha, all the territories that were of significance to Bulgaria's sense of nationhood were gone. Macedonia reverted to Yugoslavia, and Thrace to Greece. The Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1947, confirmed Bulgaria's pre-1941 boundaries. Not only had Bulgaria lost these prized territories, but her sovereignty as a nation was severely curtailed by the Soviet military occupation. Both the armistice agreement of September 1944 and the British-Soviet agreement of October of that year recognized Soviet dominance in the country. Although this power over the country was not expected by the Western powers to endure indefinitely, this illusion was dispelled as Bulgaria soon succumbed completely to Soviet influence.
THE COMMUNIST STATE
Growth of the Communist Party
In 1891 the Social Democratic Party was founded; the Communist party was eventually an offshoot of this movement. By 1903 the Social Democrats had begun to split into what were known as the "broad" and "narrow" factions. The broad faction retained the ideology of social democracy, but the narrow faction became the Bulgarian counterpart of the Russian Bolsheviks; its leader was Dimiter Blagoev, the so-called father of Bulgarian communism. In 1919 the narrow faction split off from the Second Socialist International and assumed the name Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP). Although the party had great prestige abroad, it failed to enjoy domestic popularity. The most popular party at the time—and that favored by the peasant class, which was predominant in this still-agrarian society—was the Bulgarian Agrarian Union. The BKP, on the other hand, was composed almost exclusively of intellectuals and students and held little appeal for the working and peasant classes.
In 1923 there was an unsuccessful attempt by the Communists to bring the country to revolution. When this uprising was quelled, the Communists turned to terrorism in order to gain their goals, and in 1925 a plot to assassinate King Boris was formulated. Once again the Communists met with failure, as the king not only lived but grew more powerful. In the last half of the 1920s the party faded from the scene, but by the early 1930s it was again revived and grew in popularity.
During the late 1930s the party went underground as the king increased his power. In 1939 the Communists reappeared and merged with the left-wing Workers Party; in the 1939 elections the party doubled its representation and took on an air of greater respectability. In 1941, while the war was under way, the Communists realized that Bulgaria was falling into the German camp. Although they were powerless to stop this alliance, their activity in evoking pro-Soviet sentiment was successful to the extent that—coupled with the basically favorable sentiments of the Bulgarian people toward the Russians—it prevented the monarchy from declaring war against the Soviet Union.
Once the Germans began to invade the Soviet Union itself, the Bulgarian Communists committed themselves to a policy of armed resistance, known as the partisan movement. Historians dispute the extent of partisan activity; some state that it did not become active until the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in 1943, and others claim that the movement was active from the onset of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
In 1942, on the initiative of Dimitrov, the Fatherland Front was established. The organization was essentially a coalition, composed of members of the Workers Party, the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, the Social Democratic Party and the BKP. Its purpose was to overthrow Boris and rid the country of the Germans, simultaneously forming a new government that could more adequately meet the needs of the workers and the peasants.