From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 52, 23 July 1923, p. 537.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2022). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
June 23, 1923
Forward to the battle against the Government of the white coup d’etat in Bulgaria!
Up with the government of Workers and Peasants!
To the Bulgarian workers and peasants!
To the international working class!
Comrades! Brothers and sisters! In Bulgaria a small clique of bankrupt bureaucrats, unemployed officers and profiteers have seized the Government by means of a military coup d’etat. The very same people who drove the Bulgarian people into the world war, who have 200,000 lives upon their consciences, who have been thrice kicked out of office by the Bulgarian people in democratic elections, this very clique has dared to seize power. It introduces a reign of the most atrocious terrorism against the great majority of the population, against the workers and peasants. The prisons of Bulgaria are being filled with workers and peasants, the villages are abandoned to the mercy of reactionary adventurers under the guise of so-called punitive expeditions. They shoot the leaders of the peasantry, but they have not the courage to confess their responsibility for their deeds Tomorrow they will begin the assassination of the leaders of the working class.
The white coup d’etat of the Bulgarian bureaucrats, generals and profiteers was perpetrated with the aid of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of the Second International. This Party, which shares the guilt for the crime of the Bulgarian war-government, is a Party upon which all workers have turned their backs, so that it has shrunk to nothing, and serves only as a fig-leaf to the counter-revolutionary coup d’etat. By this it has proved itself worthy of Noske, Turati, and their like, who paved the way for the white coup d’etat in Germany and Italy respectively.
The coup d’état was consummated with the aid of the scum of the European counter-revolution, with the aid of Wrangel officers and with the support of Horthy’s hangmen and the Roumanian bayars. Capitalist Europe, which has so hypocritically attempted to arouse the so-called civilised world against the Red terror, makes haste to recognise these murderers and incendiary adventurers. The British Government, the Government of the English junkers and manufacturers, supports them, in the hope that Bulgaria will become a bulwark against Soviet Russia. The Italian Government supports them because it considers the military adventurers of Sofia, as a possible aid in a campaign against Jugo-Slavia. The capitalist world has approved of the white coup d’état in Bulgaria. The Fascist bands of all countries see in it the proof that the desire alone is sufficient to enable one to put his foot upon the neck of the people of the working class. We, the Communist International, the union of all the militant workers of East and West, call the Bulgarian workers and peasants, and the international working class to the battle against the Bulgarian usurpers of power.
Peasants of Bulgaria! To you the victory of the white clique is a lesson which you ought to assimilate, if you wish to throw off the yoke that is being imposed on you. The peasant Government of Stambuliski was overthrown because it failed to form an alliance with the workers of the cities. The interests of the great majority of the Bulgarian peasants, who are poor, go hand in hand with the interests of the workers and artisans of the cities. Stambuliski persecuted the working class. He lost the only support which he might have gained in the cities, against the clique of bureaucrats and officers who had been exploiting and enslaving the Bulgarian people during four decades, and will now continue to do so, since Stambuliski has paid for his policy with his life. But the Bulgarian peasants continue to live. They win be compelled to fight, if they do not wish to be further treated like cattle. We call upon them to unite with the workers of the cities and to start the fight under the slogan of the establishment of a government of the workers of the cities and villages.
Last updated on 3 September 2022