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The Bulgarian History Podcast · Eric Halsey

231 Strange Bedfellows

·37 min·2 clips
The State Protection Act makes revolutionary ideology punishable by up to death.
Tsankov's regime consolidates after the coup. It moves quickly on trade, currency, and agrarian rollback. The constitutional bloc is dissolved. In its place, a new democratic alliance forms around the military league and traditional parties. Meanwhile, the communists prepare the uprising Moscow has ordered. Georgy Dmitrov tries to widen the party's appeal, and that effort fails. The Great Communist September Uprising is then preempted by arrests and breaks out in piecemeal, chaotic fashion. It is crushed in days. The Bulgarian Communist Party is declared illegal and forced underground. The aftermath turns to people's courts and wartime reckonings. The National Assembly backs a referendum on putting wartime government figures and people involved in the June 1923 trial on trial. It also grants broad amnesties to leftists, agrarian supporters, and even some of the coup organizers. Another amnesty follows months later. Tsankov's government also bans non-essential imports to keep foreign capital from leaving the country. The broad socialists issue an ultimatum, have it rejected, and leave the government. The Democrats later split too, even though the alliance still holds a majority. That pressure creates strange bedfellows, with communists, agrarians, and Vanmaroe finding room to cooperate while the Comintern still demands another uprising. But with Vanmaroe fracturing and violence already spiraling, the episode leaves the outcome uncertain and sets up an even bloodier next turn.

As heard by us

A clear look at how Tsankov's rule turns Bulgarian politics into a shifting set of alliances and splits.

Strange Bedfellows tracks the Tsankov regime as it turns the aftermath of a coup into day-to-day rule. The National Assembly moves through amnesties and economic controls, the constitutional bloc is dissolved, and both the broad left and the Democratic Party lose ground as…

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When the anti-Tsankov camp starts turning into strange bedfellows.

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