Born in western Bulgaria, Dimitrov worked as a printer and trade unionist during his youth. He was elected to theBulgarian parliament as a socialist during theFirst World War and campaigned against his country's involvement in the conflict, which led to his brief imprisonment forsedition. In 1919, he helped found theBulgarian Communist Party. Two years later, he moved to theSoviet Union and was elected to the executive committee ofProfintern. In 1923, Dimitrov led afailed communist uprising against the government ofAleksandar Tsankov and was subsequently forced into exile. He lived in the Soviet Union until 1929, at which time he relocated to Germany and became head of the Comintern operations in central Europe.
Dimitrov rose to international prominence in the aftermath of the 1933Reichstag fire trial. Accused of plotting the arson, he refused counsel and mounted an eloquent defence against his Nazi accusers, in particularHermann Göring, ultimately winning acquittal. After the trial he relocated to Moscow and was elected head of Comintern.
In 1946, Dimitrov returned to Bulgaria after 22 years in exile and was elected prime minister of the newly founded People's Republic of Bulgaria. He negotiated withJosip Broz Tito to create afederation of Southern Slavs, which led to the1947 Bled accord. The plan ultimately fell apart over differences regarding the future of the joint country as well as theMacedonian question, and was completely abandoned following thefallout between Stalin and Tito. Dimitrov died after a short illness in 1949 inBarvikha near Moscow. Hisembalmed body was housed in theGeorgi Dimitrov Mausoleum inSofia until its removal in 1990; the mausoleum was demolished in 1999.
The first of eight children, Dimitrov was born inKovachevtsi, in present-dayPernik Province, to refugee parents from Ottoman Macedonia (a mother fromBansko and a father fromRazlog). His father was a rural craftsman, forced by industrialisation to become a factory worker. His mother, Parashkeva Doseva, was aProtestantChristian, and his family is sometimes described as Protestant.[2] The family moved toRadomir and then toSofia.[3] Several of Georgi's siblings engaged in leftist political activities. His brother Nikola moved to Russia and joined theBolsheviks in Odessa. In 1908, Nikola was arrested and exiled to Siberia where he died in 1916.[4] Georgi's brother Konstantin became a trade union leader but was killed in theFirst Balkan War in 1912. One of his sisters, Lena, married a future communist leader,Valko Chervenkov.
Portrait of a young Dimitrov in 1911
Dimitrov was sent to Sunday school by his mother, who wanted him to be a pastor, but he was expelled at age 12. He then trained as acompositor,[4] and became active in thelabor movement in the Bulgarian capital. By age 15, he was an active trade union member. By age 18 in 1900, he was secretary of the Sofia branch of the printers' union.
In 1911, he spent a month in prison for libeling an official of the rival Free Federation of Trade Unions, whom he accused of strike-breaking. In 1913, he was elected to the Bulgarian Parliament. He opposed government policies in theBalkan Wars andWorld War I. In 1915, he voted against awarding new war credits and denounced Bulgarian nationalism, for which he received short prison sentences.[5] In summer 1917, after he intervened in defense of wounded soldiers who were being ordered by an officer to clear out of a first-class railway carriage, Dimitrov was charged with incitement to mutiny, stripped of his parliamentary immunity, and imprisoned on 29 August 1918.[6] Released in 1919, he went underground and made two failed attempts to visit Russia, finally reaching Moscow in February 1921. He returned to Bulgaria later in 1921, but then travelled again to Moscow and was elected in December 1922 to the Executive Bureau ofProfintern, the communist trade union international.[5]
Dimitrov in 1923
In June 1923, when Bulgarian Prime MinisterAleksandar Stamboliyski was deposed through acoup d'état, Dimitrov andKhristo Kabakchiev, the leading communists in Bulgaria at the time, resolved not to take sides,[7] a decision condemned by the Comintern as a "political capitulation" brought on by the party's "dogmatic-doctrinaire approach".[8] AfterVasil Kolarov had been sent from Moscow to impose a change in the Bulgarianparty line, Dimitrov accepted the Comintern's authority. In September 1923, he and Kolarov led the faileduprising against the regime ofAleksandar Tsankov, which cost the lives of possibly five thousand communist supporters during the fighting and the reprisals which followed. Despite its failure, the attempt was approved by the Comintern, and secured the positions of Kolarov and Dimitrov – who escaped via Yugoslavia to Vienna – as the joint leaders of the Bulgarian CP.
The political struggle in Bulgaria intensified in 1925. Dimitrov's only surviving brother, Todor, was arrested and killed that year by royal police.[4] After the April 1925St Nedelya Church assault, which was a terrorist bomb attack carried out by members of the Bulgarian CP, Dimitrov was triedin absentia in May 1926 and sentenced to death, although he had not approved the attack. Living underpseudonyms, he remained in theSoviet Union until 1929, when he was ousted from his Bulgarian CP leadership role by a faction of younger, more left-wing activists.[7] Dimitrov then relocated toGermany where he was given charge of the Central European section of the Comintern. In 1932, he was appointed Secretary General of theWorld Committee Against War and Fascism, replacingWilli Münzenberg.[9]
Dimitrov was living in Berlin in early 1933 whenAdolf Hitler and the Nazis took power. On the night of 27 February, the German parliament building, theReichstag, was severely damaged in an arson attack. A Dutch communist,Marinus van der Lubbe, was found near the scene of the crime and presumed to be the culprit. Hitler quickly blamed a Communist conspiracy for the arson, and the Nazis proceeded to make mass arrests. On 9 March, Dimitrov was arrested based on the evidence of a waiter who claimed to have seen "three Russians" (in reality, Dimitrov and two other Bulgarians,Vasil Tanev, andBlagoy Popov, both of whom were members of the faction that had supplanted Dimitrov in the Bulgarian Communist Party)[7] talking in a cafe with Van der Lubbe. Dimitrov would remain in Nazi detention until the following February. His diary entries during this period tended to be "dry and elliptical, and occasionally obscure" since he knew they would be subject to examination by his captors.[10]
TheReichstag fire trial lasted from September to December 1933. Because it occurred at theReich Supreme Court inLeipzig, it is often referred to as the Leipzig Trial. Dimitrov decided to refuse counsel and defend himself against his Nazi accusers, most famouslyHermann Göring. Dimitrov used the trial as an opportunity to defend the Communist ideology. Explaining why he chose to speak in his own defense, Dimitrov said:
I admit that my tone is hard and grim. The struggle of my life has always been hard and grim. My tone is frank and open. I am used to calling a spade a spade. I am no lawyer appearing before this court in the mere way of his profession. I am defending myself, an accused Communist. I am defending my political honor, my honor as a revolutionary. I am defending my Communist ideology, my ideals. I am defending the content and significance of my whole life. For these reasons every word which I say in this court is a part of me, each phrase is the expression of my deep indignation against the unjust accusation, against the putting of this anti-Communist crime, the burning of the Reichstag, to the account of the Communists.[11]
Dimitrov's calm conduct of his defence, and the accusations he directed at his prosecutors, won him world renown.[12] In Europe, a popular saying spread across the Continent: "There is only one brave man in Germany, and he is a Bulgarian."[13] Among those impressed with Dimitrov was the noted U.S. attorneyArthur Garfield Hays, co-founder of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union. Hays attended the Leipzig Trial and devoted a chapter to it in his 1942 autobiography. In an oft-quoted passage, Hays wrote of Dimitrov:
I have never seen such a magnificent exhibition of moral courage. The man was not only brave but reckless, and selflessly so. Whenever he got to his feet, he would by force of his personality place the court, the prosecutors, the German audience, and the Nazis on the defensive.[14]
This striking characterization was cited in multiple American newspaper reviews of Hays' book and helped introduce Dimitrov's name throughout the U.S.[15]
Dimitrov (standing in the background to the right) giving a speech in the trial of theReichstag fire, 1933
On 23 December 1933, the verdicts were read. While Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death, the judge acquitted Dimitrov, Tanev, and Popov because of insufficient evidence to connect them to what the judge was convinced was a conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag.[16] The three Bulgarians were expelled from Germany and sent to the USSR.
When Dimitrov arrived in Moscow on 28 February 1934, he was encouraged byJoseph Stalin to end the practice of denouncing Social Democrats as 'social fascists', practically indistinguishable from actual fascists, and to instead promote "united front" tactics against the threat ofEuropean fascism. In April, as Dimitrov's fame grew in the wake of the Leipzig Trial, he was appointed a member of the Executive of Comintern and of its political secretariat, in charge of the Anglo-American and Central European sections. He was being groomed to take control of the Comintern from two of the so-called "Old Bolsheviks",Iosif Pyatnitsky andWilhelm Knorin, who had held the position since 1923. Finally, in 1934, Stalin chose Dimitrov to head the international organization. At this point, Tzvetan Todorov writes, Dimitrov "became part of the Soviet leader's inner circle."[17]
From 25 July to 20 August 1935, the7th World Congress of the Communist International met in Moscow. Dimitrov was the dominant presence; he was elected the Comintern's General Secretary. His impassioned anti-fascist speeches at the Congress were transcribed and published in a September 1935 pamphlet,The United Front Against Fascism, which went through numerous editions over the ensuing years.[18]
During theGreat Purge in the Soviet Union, Dimitrov knew about the mass arrests, but did almost nothing. In November 1937, he was told by Stalin to lure the German communistWilli Münzenberg to the USSR so that he could be arrested. Dimitrov did not object and did as he was told. He noted in his diary whenJulian Leszczyński,Henryk Walecki, and several members of his staff were arrested, but again did nothing, though he did raise questions when the NKVD representative in Comintern,Mikhail Trilisser, was arrested.[19]
In 1946, Dimitrov returned to Bulgaria after 22 years in exile. After areferendum abolished the monarchy in September, Bulgaria was declared apeople's republic. Later that year, he succeededKimon Georgiev asPrime Minister, though Dimitrov had already been the most powerful man in the country since the monarchy was abolished two months earlier. He retained his Soviet citizenship.
One of Dimitrov's first acts as Prime Minister was to negotiate withJosip Broz Tito on the creation of a Federation of theSouthern Slavs. The Bulgarian and Yugoslav Communist leaderships had been discussing this matter since November 1944.[20] The idea was based on the fact that Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were the only two homelands of theSouthern Slavs, and were separated from the rest of the Slavic world. The idea eventually resulted in the1947 Bled accord, signed by Dimitrov and Tito, which called for abandoning frontier travel barriers, arranging for a future customs union, and having Yugoslavia unilaterally forgive Bulgarian war reparations. The preliminary plan for the federation included the incorporation of theBlagoevgrad Region ("Pirin Macedonia") into thePeople's Republic of Macedonia and the return of theWestern Outlands fromSerbia toBulgaria. In anticipation of this, Bulgaria accepted teachers fromYugoslavia who started to teach the newly codifiedMacedonian language in the schools in Pirin Macedonia, and also issued an order that theBulgarians of the Blagoevgrad Region should claim аMacedonian identity.[21]
However, differences soon emerged between Dimitrov and Tito with regard to both the future joint country and the Macedonian question. Whereas Dimitrov envisaged a state where Yugoslavia and Bulgaria would be placed on an equal footing and Macedonia would be more or less attached to Bulgaria, Tito saw Bulgaria as a seventh republic in an enlarged Yugoslavia tightly ruled from Belgrade.[22] Their differences also extended to the national character of theMacedonians; whereas Dimitrov considered them to be an offshoot of theBulgarians,[23] Tito regarded them as an independent nation of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Bulgarians.[24] The initial tolerance for theMacedonization ofPirin Macedonia gradually grew into outright alarm.
By January 1948, Tito's plans to annex Bulgaria andAlbania had become an obstacle to policy of theCominform and the otherEastern Bloc countries.[20] In December 1947,Enver Hoxha and an Albanian delegation were invited to a high-level meeting in Bulgaria. Dimitrov was aware of the subversive activity ofKoçi Xoxe and other pro-Yugoslav Albanian officials. He told Enver Hoxha during the meeting: "Look here, Comrade Enver, keep the Party pure! Let it be revolutionary, proletarian and everything will go well with you!"[25]
After the initial rupture, Stalin invited Dimitrov and Tito to Moscow regarding the recent incident. Dimitrov accepted the invitation, but Tito refused, and sent his close associateEdvard Kardelj instead.[20] The resulting rift between Stalin and Tito in 1948 gave the Bulgarian Government an eagerly-awaited opportunity of denouncing Yugoslav policy in Macedonia as expansionistic, and of revising its policy on the Macedonian question.[22] The ideas of aBalkan Federation and aUnited Macedonia were abandoned, the Macedonian teachers were expelled and the teaching ofMacedonian throughout the province was discontinued. At the 5th Congress of theBulgarian Workers' Party (Communists), Dimitrov accused Tito of "nationalism" and hostility towards the internationalist communists, specifically the Soviet Union.[26] Despite the fallout, Yugoslavia did not reverse its position on renouncing Bulgarian war reparations, as defined in the1947 Bled accord.
In 1906, Dimitrov married his first wife,Serbian emigrant milliner, writer and socialistLjubica Ivošević, with whom he lived until her death in 1933.[3] While in the Soviet Union, Dimitrov married his second wife, theCzech-born Roza Yulievna Fleishmann (1896–1958), who gave birth to his only son, Mitya, in 1936. The boy died at age seven ofdiphtheria. While Mitya was alive, Dimitrov adopted Fani, a daughter ofWang Ming, the actingGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 1931.[3][27] He and his wife adopted another child, Boiko Dimitrov, born 1941.
Dimitrov died on 2 July 1949 in theBarvikhasanatorium nearMoscow. The speculation[20][28] that he had been poisoned has never been confirmed, although his health seemed to deteriorate quite abruptly. The supporters of the poisoning theory claim that Stalin did not like the "Balkan Federation" idea of Dimitrov and his closeness with Tito.[20][28]
A large painted statue of Dimitrov survives in the centre of Place Bulgarie inCotonou, Republic ofBenin, decades after the country abandonedMarxism–Leninism and the colossal statue ofVladimir Lenin was removed from Place Lenine.
In then-East Berlin'sPankow district, a street that since 1874 had been named Danziger Straße — after the formerly German city Danzig (nowGdańsk, Poland) — was in 1950 renamed Dimitroffstraße (Dimitrov Street) by the Communist East German regime. It also lent its name to an U-Bahn station. After German unification, the Berlin Senate in 1995 restored the street's name to Danziger Straße, and the U-Bahn station was renamedEberswalder Straße.
In July 1982, there was a centennial celebration of Dimitrov's birth held at Mahatma Gandhi Hall in London. A lecture from the event was printed in the pamphlet,Georgi Dimitrov: Fighter Against Fascism.[29]
In 1974, the song Mavra Korakia along with 20 songs of album "Antartika" (The Guerilla [Songs]) were published byNotis Mavroudis andPetros Pandis, as part of the return ofKKE in Greece during theMetapolitefsi. The song is a glorification of the Leipzig Trial of Dimitrov, Tanev and Popov, emphasising Dimitrov's ability to avoid hanging. It is widely sung in the left-wing circles of Greek society.[30]
The square Fővám tér and the street Máriaremetei út inBudapest,Hungary were named after Dimitrov between 1949 and 1991. In the square, a bust of him was erected in 1954, replaced by a full-length statue in 1983, which was then relocated to the eponymous street a year later. Both sculptures are exhibited since 1992 in theMemento Park.
Szentlőrincpuszta, part ofÉrsekvadkert was calledDimitrovpuszta (Dimitrov Plains) between 1955 and the late 1990s.
TheSandinista government ofNicaragua renamed one ofManagua's central neighbourhoods "Barrio Jorge Dimitrov" to commemorate him during that country's revolution in the 1980s.
In Bucharest, a boulevard was named after him (Bulevardul Dimitrov). In 1990, following thefall of Communism in Eastern Europe, this boulevard was renamed in honor of the former RomanianKing Ferdinand I (Bulevardul Ferdinand).
During the times of the communist rule, an important chemical factory inBratislava was called "Chemické závody Juraja Dimitrova" (colloquially Dimitrovka) in his honour. After theVelvet Revolution, it was renamed Istrochem.
After the1963 Skopje earthquake,Bulgaria joined the international reconstruction effort by donating funds for the construction of a high school, which opened in 1964. In order to honor the donor country's first post-World War II president, thehigh school was named after Georgi Dimitrov, a name it still bears today.
The town ofCaribrod (Цариброд) in what was then thePeople's Republic of Serbia,FPRY was renamed in 1950 to Dimitrovgrad (Димитровград) to honor the late Bulgarian leader, despite theTito-Stalin split. The name has been kept since, although in recent years the local city council has tried to restore the old name (most recently in 2019), and some people prefer the older name to avoid confusion with theDimitrovgrad in Bulgaria.
^Dimitrov, Georgi (1968). "Concluding Speech before the Leipzig Trial".And Yet It Moves!. Sofia: Sofia Press Agency. p. 15.
^Arendt, Hannah.Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York: The Viking Press, 1965. p. 188
^John D. Bell,The Bulgarian Communist Party from Blagoev to Zhivkov, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1985, p. 47
^Hays, Arthur Garfield (1942).City Lawyer: The Autobiography of a Law Practice. Simon and Schuster. p. 363.ASINB0000EEJMA.
^Seaver, Edwin; McKown, Robin (26 August 1942)."Reading and Writing".The Windham County Observer. p. 3 – via Library of Congress. A similar book review appeared two days earlier inThe Milwaukee Journal under the title, "The Man Who Defied Goering, Yet Lived".
^Dimitrov, Georgi (September 1935).The United Front Against Fascism. Marxist Pamphlets No. 3. New York: New Century Publishers. Dimitrov's speeches appeared later under slightly altered book titles:The United Front Against Fascism and War andThe United Front - The Struggle Against Fascism and War.
^Sygkelos, Yannis (2011).Nationalism from the Left: The Bulgarian Communist Party During the Second World War and the Early Post-War Years. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 156.ISBN978-9004192089.
^abWilkinson, H.R. (1951).Maps and Politics. A Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia. Liverpool University Press. pp. 311–312.LCCN53000427.OCLC298105343.
^Meier, Viktor (2005).Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise. Routledge. p. 183.ISBN1134665113.
^Poulton, Hugh (2000).Who Are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. pp. 107–108.ISBN1850655340.
Dallin, Alexander; Firsov, Fridrikh Igorevich, eds. (2000).Dimitrov and Stalin, 1934–1943: Letters from the Soviet Archives. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN0300080212.
Stankova, Marietta (2010).Georgi Dimitrov: A Life (Communist Lives). London: I. B. Tauris.ISBN978-1845117283.
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