Stalinism's long war against an 87-year-old revolutionary ship of the CP's military apparatus and took part in the insurrection of September 1923.
Already in 1923, Gatchev solidarized with the positions of the left opposition in the Bolshevik Party. In April 1925,
A founder of the Bulgarian Communist Party and of the Trotskyist opposition in that country, Dimitar Gatchev is now 87 years old and has spent 23 years in prison. Today, once again, he is being subjected to persecution in his country. Cyril SMUGA
Oppositionist? The Bulgarian Stalinists have banned this word from their vocabulary. "Persons who have documents or express views not in conformity with those of the authorities are subject to penalties of up to five years in prison for 'agitation and propaganda hostile to the state, " the 1984 report of Amnesty sued beyond the borders of the country. In this respect, the Bulgarian secret police has continued the notorious tradition of the Stalinist GPU.
If because of historical chance someone sentenced to 15 years in prison camps, which measure up in every respect to their Soviet models, finally gets out of them, that does not mean that that person will be forgotten. And if the circumstances are not favorable for the police persecuting such a person by "legal" means, they will do it by sending gangs of thugs to "work him over" and pillage his appartment. In short, they will use all the means of intimidation that a state apparatus has for undercover operations.
If the person attacked complains to the police, demands that they do their duty with respect to the hooligans, they laugh in his face, they advise him to he recant, publicly condemn the political ideas he has fought for his entire life.
He refuses, and the rancor of the apparatchiks against him is redoubled, the persecution grows worse. A petty bureaucrat is on the lookout his entire life for the means that will enable him to climb to a higher rank, he casts an avid eye at the automobile in which his chief parades, at the villa of a colleague who has made it, at the color TV set in a neighbor's home. Could such a product of the Bulgarian state apparatus even try to understand why someone would refuse to reach out to grasp the honors for which he has longed his entire life?
No! That is why Bulgarian cops feel directly concerned by the fate of the oppositionist. They are even ready to outdo themselves to break such a person. In fact, an oppositionist is a danger to the regime, not just because of what he or she might write or say but above all because of the example of human integrity such a person gives.
The existence of such an oppositionist is a grain of sand in the all-powerful police machine of the state. His or her integrity points up the cupidity of all the small and great dignitaries of the regime. The name of such a person is Dimitar Gatchev.
he was arrested, along with hundreds of CP activists, following a series of bombings that the Bulgarian police attributed to the Communists. Dimitar Gatchev was condemned to death. But he was not to be executed.
The "reactionary Bulgarian butchers," as the working-class press throughout the world then called them, measured the effect of the first executions and then commuted the death sentences of those who were not in the first lot shipped to
In prison (where he would remain until 1932), Gatchev took an active part in the debates that were rocking the CP. These discussions were provoked both by the errors the party had made in Bulgaria (1) and by the reverberations of the differences that were rending the Russian party. It was in Plovdiv fortress that Gatchev formed the first Bulgarian Trotskyist group, which published the bulletin Liberation.
From this group arose in 1945, the Internationalist Communist Party, which asked for recognition as the Bulgarian section of the Fourth International. In a united front with the anarchists and the left peasant party, the Internationalist Communist Party took part in the strug gle to defend democratic rights. At the time, Gatchev was one of the leaders od the League to Defend Human and Civil Rights and led the Plovdiv section of this organization.
Gatchev was the political secretary of the International Communist Party. But
"think it over,"
they intimidate in a
"chummy" way that everything might work itself out, that he might get an apartment in a more secure neighborhood, to say nothing of the honors he might be the Communist Party, the Bulgarian secentitled to, on just one condition - that
International Viewpoint 28 January 1984
Born in 1897, Dimitar Gatchev became a doctor and a lawyer and joined the Socialist Party of Bulgaria at a young age. Later he participated in founding tion of the Communist International.
the activity of this party, as well as that of other revolutionary currents, such as the anarchists, was intolerable for the gain influence in some factories and proving capable of offering an initial element of leadership for workers' strikes.
In May, June and July, the police struck. The Internationalist Communis Party was broken up, its activists sem tenced to long terms in prison. Dimitar Gatchev was sentenced to life in prison. He got out only in 1962, after the Twen ty-Second Congress of the Soviet CP. In the camps, his conduct was exemplary, and he always refused to make the slightest concession to the Stalinists.
Now the Bulgarian bureaucrats are trying once again to break this exemplary militant. 1. The failure of the Bulgarian insurrection was a major issue in the early Communist In ternational and the debate around this one of the elements in the formation of the Lett Opposition. Thus, there has been a longer tradition of Trotskyist work in Bulgaria tha most other East European countries.
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