76

p In the years 1936 to 1939, when the great fight of democracy against fascism was being waged in Spain, the Bulgarian people were being held down by a monarchical fascist dictatorship. The Communist Party had gone underground back in 1923. After the military fascist coup d’etat of May 19, 1934, all political parties had been banned. By means of fascist terror and social demagogy a handful of big capitalists and bankers under the aegis of the monarchy had the power firmly in their hands. The anti-national foreign policy of the ruling clique drove Bulgaria into the embraces of the Hitlerite aggressors. But Bulgarian fascism, unlike German, was incapable of gaining wide support among the masses. The revolutionary traditions of the armed uprisings of 1918 and 1923 were still strong among the people. Mass sympathy was on the side of the forces opposing fascism.

p The most active of these forces was the Bulgarian Communist Party which, although operating illegally, had a powerful influence in town and country. The Bulgarian Popular Agricultural Union (BPAU), the mass peasant party, also played a big part in the struggle against the monarcho-fascist government. The opposition included also the petty-bourgeois political organisation Zveno (Link), which had considerable influence among military circles and the democratic-minded intelligentsia, the Social- Democratic, democratic and radical parties, and other political groupings. The Communist Party made every effort to build up a Popular Front uniting all the country’s anti-fascist forces for the overthrow of the monarcho-fascist regime. An intense struggle between democracy and fascist reaction was developing in Bulgaria.

p Naturally enough, the events in Spain, where this struggle had flared up into civil war roused a widespread response among Bulgarians. The attitude of the political parties and the masses to these events diverged sharply from the position of official circles. The government of Georgy Kyoseivanov joined the “non- 77 intervention" agreement and declared a position of neutrality in relation to the belligerents—Republicans and Francoists. In practice it did everything it could to support the insurgents and undermine the interests of the legal Spanish Government. In August 1936 the Bulgarian Government not only prohibited the export and transit of arms to Spain but also virtually stopped all trade with the Spanish Republic. On April 9, 1937, it published the Decree on Non-Participation of Bulgarian Subjects in the Spanish Civil War. This created a barrier only for the departure of antifascist volunteers because hardly anyone wanted to fight on the side of Franco.

p Although Bulgaria still had official diplomatic relations with the Spanish Republic, the Bulgarian Government allowed a representative of the Spanish insurgents to stay in Sofia and granted him freedom of action, while interfering with the normal work of the Spanish Republic’s mission in a variety of ways.

p The government censorship restricted publication of truthful information on the events in Spain, while the yellow pro-fascist press, using all the tricks of corrupt bourgeois journalism, tried to smear the government of the Popular Front. It was particularly zealous in denigrating the idea of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, and also in arguing that the Republicans’ struggle against the insurgents had no real backing and was therefore hopeless. Slanderously accusing the USSR of one-sided intervention in internal Spanish affairs and intimidating the ordinary public with talk of a military threat, the reactionary papers pumped the idea that all resistance to German-Italian intervention in Spain would lead to war in Europe.

p The semi-official newspaper Ones (Today), organ of the fascist Popular Social Movement, the paper Slovo (Word) and other similar publications conducted a frantic campaign against the Spanish Popular Front and praised Franco to the skies. For them the insurgents were “courageous”, “patriotic” Spaniards rebelling against the “regime of terror”, against “unprecedented violation of individual freedom and private property".

p The attacks on the Spanish Repubic came not only from the right but also from the “left”, from numerically small groups of Bulgarian anarchists, and also Trotskyites who called for a “ proletarian revolution" against the government of the Popular Front.

p In contrast to these forces that were hostile to the Spanish people, the overwhelming majority of the democratic public and bourgeois anti-fascist opposition, despite differences of opinion and some wavering (particularly over the question of non- intervention), was in sympathy with the Spanish Republic and the cause that it was defending.

p The consistent defender of the Spanish people was the vanguard of the working class—the Communists. They were joined by 78 the Left-wing Socialists, the Left-wing majority of the Agricultural Union and members of the Zveno organisation.

p The Communist Party launched a big propaganda campaign in defence of the Spanish Republic, published illegal newspapers and leaflets. It also used the pages of the legal democratic papers and magazines (for example, the weekly Zarya (Dawn), Stranitsy (Pages) and Globus (Globe) which continued to appear despite the strict censorship and frequent government bans. The Communists also brought a large quantity of progressive literature from abroad that gave an objective account of the situation in Spain. The Soviet and Spanish broadcasts in Bulgarian were an effective form of propaganda in defence of the Spanish people.

p The communist and democratic press exposed the insurgents as being directly responsible for the civil war and stressed the terroristic nature of Spanish fascism. “The medieval Spanish Inquisition pales in comparision with the white terror sweeping through the provinces captured by the insurgents”, stated the leaflet Spain in the Struggle Against Fascism that was illegally distributed by the Communists. “In Spain people are fighting against wild beasts,” wrote the newspaper Zashchita (Defence), the illegal organ of IRA in Bulgaria, on June 15, 1937. These papers reported the heroic exploits of the Spanish anti-fascists and expressed admiration for their selfless struggle.

p The revolutionary poet Nikola Vaptsarov devoted to the heroism of the Spanish people several of his poems—“Spain”, “Dream”, “Song to a Comrade”, “Song to Wife" and “Letter”— considered by progressive literary critics to be some of the best and most impressive works on this subject in world poetry.

p The courage of the defenders of Madrid was hailed by the writer Svetoslav Minkov in his book Madrid Is Burning. “These people,” he wrote “deserve all admiration, and their great feat—our profound respect."  [78•1  The same feeling (although in a more veiled form because of the harsher censorship) was expressed by the poet Mladen Isayev in his book The Unquiet Planet, published in 1937.

p In her articles What I Saw in Spain the writer Maria Grubeshliyeva had high praise for the valour of the Spanish people, particularly the people of Madrid, selfless defenders of their home city. She wrote: “Madrid has displayed remarkable staunchness and steadfastness. Never before has a city, in conditions of modern warfare and under continuous bombardment, been able to resist with such heroism and resolve."  [78•2 

p The Communist writer Krystu Belev in his book Spain Calls, published in Paris in the autumn of 1937 and later illegally 79
Bulgarian volunteers: officers and political commissars distributed in Bulgaria, gave a glowing account of the courageous work of the Bulgarian volunteers in Spain and of the wonderful job the Spanish workers and peasants were doing in the rear to help defeat the fascists.

p On the occasion of the second anniversary of the civil war the newspaper Zarya of July 27, 1938, wrote: “It would be hard to find in human history a more heroic epic of the struggle of a whole people against enslavers and aggressors.”

p The communist and democratic press produced a mass of evidence to show how the fascist powers were helping the insurgents and severely criticised the policy of “non-intervention”. “It is only neutrality’ that helps the Spanish insurgents to crucify the Republic, to undermine the foundation of world democracy,” wrote the newspaper Tribuna published by Communists and Left-wing Socialists^ on October 10, 1936. “Raise the blockade of the Spanish Republic!" demanded the democratic newspaper Vedrina ( Freshness) on September 18, 1936. “The London Non-intervention Committee is a piece of terrible and cynical hypocrisy,” stated the weekly Stranitsy on October 27, 1937.

p In the conditions created in Bulgaria by the monarcho-fascist police regime it was very difficult to express sympathy for the Spanish Republic by organising conferences, meetings and demonstrations. The Bulgarian anti-fascists showed their solidarity mainly by sending messages of greetings from the workers, peasants, young people and soldiers. “We shall never stop thinking for a moment about the valiant struggle of the Spanish people against 80 the insurgent generals,” wrote a group of soldiers of the Sofia garrison in a letter to Largo Caballero, Premier of the Spanish Republic. The illegal All-Bulgaria Conference of the Trade-Union United Front sent a message to the heroic Spanish workers. In the summer of 1937, sixty-nine prominent Bulgarian doctors in a letter to Lord Robert Cecil, Chairman of the International Peace Committee, presented a protest against the fascist terror in Spain and expressed their solidarity with the Spanish democrats.

p One concrete result of the activity of the Communists and all anti-fascists in support of the Spanish Republic was the collection of means of material assistance. Money, clothing, medicines and food supplies were collected all over the country illegally.

p The Bulgarian Government was forced in some measure to heed the voice of the people. Neither the head of the Bulgarian Government Kyoseivanov nor any of his ministers, although entirely on Franco’s side, dared to come out openly in his support. Despite the fact that it allowed an unofficial representative of the insurgents to reside in Sofia as early as 1936, the Bulgarian Government did not recognise the Franco regime in November 1936, as did the other fascist states, but only in March 1939, that is, after the “democratic” governments of Britain and France had done so.

p As in other countries, many anti-fascists in Bulgaria were keen to go and fight for Spanish freedom. In January 1937, a Bulgarian delegation, including YCLers and members of the socialist and agricultural youth unions, visited the USSR. A report presented to the Communist Youth International stated that thousands of Bulgarian young people wanted to fight for Republican Spain, but that the government was putting all kinds of obstacles in their way and the majority were unable to carry out their wish. All the same despite the obstacles and restrictions, nearly 460 Bulgarian volunteers fought in Spain. More than two-thirds of the Bulgarian volunteers were Communists. Nearly all the rest were non-party or sympathisers of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The volunteers also included a few anarchists, Social-Democrats and members of the Agricultural Union.

p Many Communist volunteers were active members of the Party and the Young Communist League, and some of them were members of their central committees (Sybi Dimitrov, Ruben Avramov, Spas Georgiyev, Dimitr Papajakov, Kosta Penev, Blagoi Ivanov, Raiko Damyanov). These well-tried members of the Communist Party had much practical experience of setting up illegal organisations among the civilian population and in the army in conditions of harsh fascist dictatorship, experience of leading mass armed struggle against reaction. They had been through all the horrors of the fascist prisons and faced death more than once. The rich 81

Bulgarian volunteers.
First row left to right: engineer Zhecho Gyumyushev (Raiko Gryncharov),
Ferdinand Kozovsky (Colonel Petrov), Karlo Lukanov (Colonel Belov),
engineer Ivan Shcherev (Jaroslav Tasek)
experience of the Bulgarian volunteers in political and armed struggle was of significant help to them in the tasks they had to perform in Spain.

p Most of the Bulgarian volunteers had a good mastery of military and technical skills. Their best military experts were the Bulgarian political emigres who had lived in the USSR. There were about a hundred of them. They had taken part in the September uprising of 1923 and in the guerrilla movement in Bulgaria from 1924 to 1925; they had also served at some time in the Bulgarian Army, and during their stay in the USSR, in the Red Army. They included highly qualified engineers and doctors. All those with a sound military, political and professional background were appointed to responsible posts by the Spanish Government or given commands in the International Brigades. Ferdinand Kozovsky (Colonel Petrov) and Tsvyatko Radoinov (Colonel Radionov) were military advisers on sectors of the Madrid Front. Pyotr Panchevsky, who had graduated a military engineering academy in the USSR, was adviser to the chief of the engineer corps of the Spanish Republic. He was involved in the preparation and conduct of a number of major operations. Ruben Avramov (Miguel Gomez) worked at the central school for commissars and helped to edit the magazine El Comisario, organ of the General Military Commissariat.

82

p A group of Bulgarian volunteers took an active part in organising and operating the international brigade base at Albacete. In the second half of 1937 Karlo Lukanov (Belov) was chief of the base. Under his leadership much was done to strengthen the apparatus and organise schools for training volunteers in various military skills. Georgi Mikhailov (Zhelezov) was in charge of the personnel department of the International Brigades from 1937 to 1938. Bulgarian officers took part in the formation and work of training centres in Pozorrubio, Casas Ibanez, Cambrills, Figueras, Olot, and elsewhere. Lyubomir Todorov (Karbov), Doncho Dyankov, Iliya Balev and others were of great help in organising the central supply service in Albacete catering for the International Brigades. Its chief from December 1936 to June 1937 was Karbov, under whose direction supply services were set up in the brigades.

p There were twenty-five Bulgarian officers working as military instructors, mainly in the Spanish units, where officers as well as soldiers often lacked sufficient military training. They taught the Spaniards and officers and men of other nationalities weaponhandling and the tactics of modern warfare. This work continued even during military operations and at the front line in the heat of battle.

p The Bulgarian volunteers worked and fought as instructors or advisers in many Republican formations and units—in eight corps, 14 divisions and more than 20 brigades. In the medical service of the International Brigades, its central and lower echelons, there were fifteen Bulgarians working alongside doctors of other nationalities in organising and administering medical aid: Tsvetan Kristanov (Oscar Telge), Peter Kolarov (Franek), Konstantin Michev (Minkov), Simeon Grozev, killed at Brunete, Georgi Dobrev Stoyev (Schwarz), Raiko Radevsky (Rodez), and others. Doctor Kristanov was for a long time chief of the medical service of the International Brigades, and Kolarov and Michev his deputies.

p The following figures show the scale of activity of the Bulgarian and other doctors in the international medical service. At the beginning of 1938 it had 240 doctors of various nationalities, more than 800 people with intermediate medical qualifications and about 1,500 junior medical assistants and helpers. They served seventeen permanent hospitals with five to six thousand beds. In addition, in 1937 nearly forty mobile field hospitals, that were either closed down or passed on to the medical services of the Spanish units when the International Brigades were moved to another front, were organised on the fighting lines. Its ambulances and transports made a total of 170 vehicles. All together in 1937, 27,015 wounded soldiers, internationalists and Spaniards, passed through the permanent hospitals.

p There were twenty Bulgarian engineers and several technicians working in the war industry of the Spanish Republic, sharing 83 their experience and knowledge with Spanish experts and helping to arrange the production of arms and ammunition. Engineer Stoiko Marinov (Paul Samter) was appointed chief of the artillery section of the Arms Commissariat on February 1, 1937. Engineers Nikolai Vasilev Kolarov and Nedelcho Chobanov were working on orders from the Ministry of Defence. Kolarov was an adviser to the engineering units of the Central Front. He took an active part in building the railway that joined Madrid with the Valencian line and facilitated the transportation of supplies to the capital and the Central Front and also the strategic movement of troops. Chobanov taught at a sapper school and at the same time supervised the building of roads and fortifications on the Ebro sector.

p Engineers Ivan Shcherev (Tasek) and Zhecho Gyumyushev (Gryncharov) and Spanish engineers organised production of searchlights for anti-aircraft defence in Madrid. The greater part of the Bulgarian volunteers were in the field army, mainly in the infantry and artillery units, and they fought on nearly all fronts of the Republic.

p Some individual Bulgarian volunteers took part in the fighting against the fascists as early as the summer of 1936, and also in the first regular international unit—the llth Brigade, which was formed at the beginning of November 1936. On November 9, 1936, it counter-attacked the fascists in the Madrid park Casa de Campo, in the University City, and threw them back beyond the River Manzanares. It was here that the Bulgarian Ferdinand Kozlovsky (Petrov) began his military service and was appointed second- incommand of the newly organised 12th International Brigade, under the Hungarian Mate Zalka (Lukacs).

p This brigade received most of the Bulgarian volunteers arriving in Spain at that time. They were all enlisted in the Balkan company of the Thaelmann Battalion, which consisted of volunteers of Balkan and Slav nationalities. The company took part in all the glorious campaigns of the 12th Brigade, from the first attack on the Cerro de los Angeles Height on November 13, 1936, and the fighting in the University City to the triumphant defeat of the Italian intervention forces in March 1937. In April and May 1937 the Balkan Company became the nucleus of the reformed battalion named after the Yugoslav Communist revolutionary Djuro Djakovic; this battalion was commanded by the Bulgarian volunteer Nikola Marinov (Khristov), who had formerly commanded the Balkan Company.

p During the heavy fighting in the University City the 12th Brigade relieved the llth, which had been exhausted by the ten days’ battle and heavy losses. On November 19 to 20 the Balkan Company occupied the building of the Agricultural Science Faculty but was attacked by fascist tanks from the rear. Withdrawing to 84 new positions in the University City and suffering heavy losses, it held up the further advance of the fascists who were trying to break through to the districts of Madrid proper. The next day the company counter-attacked under the command of Captain Khristov.

p After stubborn fighting in the University City in the western sector of the Madrid defences the 12th Brigade launched a successful offensive on the Guadalajara sector along the Zaragoza highway at the beginning of January. As part of the Dabrowski Battalion the Balkan Company stormed the village of Almadrones, taking prisoners and equipment. Other battalions of the brigade liberated the populated areas of Algora and Mirabueno.

p Two months later the Balkan Company was once again on the Guadalajara sector. Two international brigades—llth and 12th— and other shock units of the Republican Army faced up to an attack by four divisions of the Italian expeditionary corps at the beginning of March. Captain Khristov was put in charge of this sector of the front with the task of securing the brigade’s right flank and the whole group of Republican troops. The Balkan Company with the Spanish units attached to it carried out this task. On March 18 the Republican front launched a counter-offensive and the Balkan troops and other attacking units of the 12th Brigade entered Brihuega that evening.

p In the battle on the Jarama in February 1937 two groups of Bulgarians fought as part of the Balkan Company and in the ranks of the Georgi Dimitrov Battalion of the newly formed 15th International Brigade. This battalion included twenty Bulgarian volunteers. The commander of its first company, where the Bulgarians were concentrated, was Mavrodiyev (Ivan Tsipurkov); the commissar of the company and later of the whole battalion was Dobroyev (Miron Georgiyev). The battalion was commanded by Ivan Ivanov Paunov (Grebenarov), an outstanding figure in the military organisation of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the twenties, who had received his military training in the Soviet Union. A highly skilled officer, devoted and extremely brave, warm-hearted in his relations with his subordinates and much loved by them, Grebenarov was for all a splendid example of courage and resolve in battle.

p In The Book of the 15th Brigade, published by its commissariate in Madrid in 1938, the Dimitrov Battalion was described as follows: “They had justifiably earned a record as our crack battalion. At the Jarama . . . they were the core of resistance in every defence, the spearhead of every attack."  [84•1 

p The battalion went into action on February 12 in the sector where the main forces of the fascists tried to break through. For many 85 days the Dimitrov men fought off several attacks every day by Moroccans and frequently counter-attacked themselves. The battalion commander, the company commanders and all other officers and commissars of the battalion were always in the front ranks of the fighting men in these engagements, encouraging them and leading the attacks. Grebenarov, Mavrodiyev, Pyotr Aleksiyev and other Bulgarians died heroically in these battles. The casualty lists testify to the self-sacrifice and heroism of the volunteers in the bloody fighting on the Jarama: after five days—from February 12 to 17—only 215 men were left out of the 565 of the Dimitrov Battalion. Other battalions of the 15th Brigade suffered similar losses.

p Nearly all the Bulgarian volunteers in the Djakovic and Dimitrov battalions, the Vasil Kolarov Battery and the tank units took part in the next big battle on the Madrid Front, the Brunete operation in July 1937.

p The Djakovic Battalion consisted of volunteers from the Balkan countries and Spaniards. Bulgarian officers and instructors took an active part in organising and training the men of the battalion. Besides the battalion commander, Khristov, and several staff officers, two of its company commanders and a number of platoon and section commanders were also Bulgarian volunteers. This battalion, which was part of the 45th Division, arrived at the front near Brunete on July 14, 1937, when the Republican Army’s offensive had halted and it took up defence, beating off fascist attacks. The battalion engaged in heavy defensive fighting and launched several counter-attacks. During one of them Georgi Zhulev, one of the battalion’s staff officers, Captain Todorov, a company commander, and other Bulgarian volunteers died heroically.

p The Dimitrov Battalion, which had not yet rested after four months of positional warfare on the Jarama, marked the first day of the Brunete operation by successfully attacking the enemy position at Villanueva de la Canada and took part in the Republican Army’s seizure of the town. For three weeks the Dimitrov men were in the field, inflicting heavy losses on the fascists, and losing a larger part of their own men. By the end of the operation only 143 were left out of 445. The Bulgarians, like the other Dimitrov men under the command of the Hungarian volunteer Mihaly SzaU vai, known under the pseudonym of Chapayev, devoted every effort to make the operation successful in the unbearable July heat and under a murderous enemy fire. They were set a fine example by the battalion commissar, the Bulgarian Prodan Tabakov, who more than once led the men in attack, organised fighting reconnaissance and led units of the battalion out of encirclement.

p Nine Bulgarian tank officers, who arrived in Spain in March 1937, received their baptism of fire at Brunete. Commanding 86 tanks and tank platoons, they took part in offensive and defensive operations. The Bulgarian tank men formed part of the tank unit which on July 23 to 25, at the Republican Army’s gravest hour, counter-attacked the enemy infantry that had broken through, and helped to restore the position at the front.

p In October of the same year on the Aragon Front the Bulgarian tank men took part in an abortive tank attack at Fuentes del Ebro. In the extremely difficult conditions of this battle, which took place over marshy ground, the Republican tank crews, including the Bulgarians, showed heroism and self-control. For example, tank commander Georgi Toshev (Khristo Doichev), after successfully disengaging, returned to help his comrades whose tanks had been bogged down or were crippled by the enemy. The platoon’s second-in-command Georgi Yankov (Mirko Stankov), whose tank caught fire and whose gun and machine-gun were put out of action, was surrounded by fascists but did not lose his self-control, broke through the enemy ring and brought his tank out of battle. Boris Shishkov (Spas Belkov Filippov), second-in-command of a tank regiment, chose to die in a burning tank rather than surrender to the fascists. G. Toshev and V. Kunchev came out of battle badly wounded.

p During the Republican Army’s offensive operations on the Aragon Front, which began on August 22, 1937, the Djakovic and Dimitrov battalions also took part in the assault on and liberation of the towns of Quinto and Belchite, which the nazi military engineers had turned into fortresses. The Dimitrov Battalion displayed splendid fighting qualities in desperate street fighting.

p After the Aragon operations the Dimitrov Battalion and the Djakovic and Masaryk battalions became part of the newly organised “Slavonic” International Brigade, which was given the number 129. In March and April 1938, when the insurgents and intervention forces broke through the Aragon Front and struck eastwards, cutting the territory of Republican Spain in two, the 129th International Brigade held up the enemy on the main breakthrough sector, and then became part of the Levante Front, at which Franco struck his next blow. For successful fulfilment of these missions the 129th Brigade received a commendation from the corps commander and was awarded the Medal of Valour by the Spanish Government.

p A group of Bulgarian volunteers (forty men) was put into the separate battalion of the 45th Division (the so-called Divisionario), which was operating on the northern flank of the breakthrough. Most of them were killed or wounded in the exceptionally stubborn and bitter fighting during the last major operation of the Republican forces on the River Ebro. The Bulgarian gunners of the 45th and 35th divisions also took part in this action.

87

p This brief account of the operations of the Bulgarian volunteers should be concluded with a mention of the Kolarov Battery and the Bulgarian airmen.

p The battery was formed in March 1937 as a unit of the Slavonic heavy artillery battalion. The forty Bulgarian volunteers who served in this battery and battalion fought for over a year on the Southern Front.

p Three Bulgarian pilots, Zakhary Zakhariyev, Kirill Kirillov and Nikolai Vatov, arrived in Spain with other internationalist airmen in August 1936, when the Spanish Republic had only a few pilots and old-fashioned aircraft. The Italo-German air force was in command of the air. In this difficult situation the Bulgarian airmen in September and October bombed enemy targets and engaged in combat with the fascist aircraft. For their exploit in Spain Vatov and Kirillov were decorated with the Soviet Orders of the Red Banner and Zakhariyev became Hero of the Soviet Union.

p On September 23, 1938, after the withdrawal of the international brigaders from the front, the volunteers from countries ruled by reaction and fascism, including the Bulgarians, could not return home. Because the government of Bulgaria had deprived them of citizenship, the Bulgarian volunteers remained in Spain while waiting permission to enter some other country. Together with other international brigaders they again took up arms to check the invasion of Catalonia by the Franco troops and Italian interventionists and to cover the evacuation of the civil population. On February 8, 1939, the volunteers, along with the last Spanish units crossed the French frontier maintaining strict discipline. The French authorities put them in concentration camps.

p This was the beginning of a long and persistent struggle for the liberation of the Bulgarian volunteers. Bulgarian public opinion succeeded in gaining permission for some of them to return to their homeland. Many of them went to the USSR and other countries or returned to Bulgaria illegally. Others succeeded in escaping from the camps and later joined the French and Belgian Resistance movements. The Bulgarian brigader Todor Angelov became one of the outstanding leaders of the anti-fascist Resistance in Belgium and died a hero. Grateful Belgium erected a memorial to him in Brussels.

p In rendering the Spanish Republic moral, material and military assistance, the Bulgarian anti-fascists performed their internationalist duty and made a modest contribution to the struggle of the Spanish people against the onslaught of internal and world fascism.

p It must be noted that the movement in aid of the Spanish Republic was of considerable help to the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party for the setting up of a Popular Front in Bulgaria itself.

88

p The Spanish events exerted a positive influence on the Bulgarian anti-fascist movement and enriched it with fighting experience for further armed struggle against fascism from 1941 to 1944. Immediately after Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union the BCP steered a course towards armed uprising. The former fighters of the International Brigades who had been living in emigration in the Soviet Union returned to Bulgaria (in submarines or by air). On arriving in their country, they immediately joined with other international brigaders in organising armed anti-fascist Resistance in Bulgaria. In this tough period its leaders included the former volunteers Sybi Dimitrov, Tsvyatko Radoinov, Dimo Dichev, Spas Georgiyev, Avgust Popov, Vlado Trichkov, Sybi Dichev, Vlado Georgiyev, Raiko Damyanov, Boris Popov and Kirill Khalachev. During the popular uprising of September 9, 1944, a former international brigader Blagoi Ivanov was deputy commanderin-chief of the rebel forces. Sybi Dimitrov, Tsvyatko Radoinov, Yordan Kiskinov and many other international brigaders gave their lives for the victory of the Bulgarian people.

p After the triumph of the popular uprising the great majority of former volunteers took responsible posts in the Party, the army, the economy, the administrative apparatus and in mass public organisations. The former international brigaders who became prominent figures in the state and Party of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria include ministers Dimo Dichev (Yanov), Ruben Avramov (Miguel Gomez), Karlo Lukanov (Belov) and Pyotr Panchevsky and generals Ferdinand Kozovsky (Petrov), Blagoi Ivanov, Zakhary Zakhariyev and Kirill Kirillov.

Socialist Bulgaria has high regard for the heroism of the international brigades. The Presidium of the People’s Assembly of Bulgaria expressed this nation-wide recognition when it decorated the former fighters of the International Brigades with the Order of "People’s Freedom. 1941-1944”, First Class.