Chapter II

Chapter II

Article 1

Seeing that they are parts of a bigger whole, through their campaigns the detachments will teach the population who they are, the basic idea for their existence, their purpose, their duties and contents of the entire Organization’s statute.

Article 2

In places where branches of the Organization function fully, detachments will work to train their members to become serious fighters who will fight for the nation. Detachments will try to prepare its fighters to act for the Organization when given the opportunity and teach them that loyalty and obedience are of paramount importance. In places where formal branches of the Organization don’t exist, but exist only in basics, the detachments will need to upgrade these branches to their fullest working capacity. This has to be done in ways that correspond to the rulebook and the statute! The detachments must report their undertakings to the appropriate District Committee and request orders from them and guidance if required.

Article 3

By persuading the population and by morally influencing their spirits, the people will be encouraged to take up arms voluntarily. Chapter III

Article 4

With strong support from their District and Village Committees, the detachments will appoint police and secret postal liaisons. They will also prepare lists of Village Committee members, along with a brief description of their lives. In short, detachments are expected to implement all the provisions in the rulebook correctly. All provisions that haven’t been realized so far need to be implemented.

The rulebook contained 45 articles which detailed detachment rights and responsibilities.

The District detachments played a very important role in the work done for the Macedonian people’s liberation movement. They engaged in agitation, spreading revolutionary information, recruiting fighters, training members of the Organization to handle weapons, assisting the Organization in acquiring weapons, fighting against bandit gangs, carrying out judgments against traitors and spies, etc.

The top role for creating detachments and training them belonged to Gotse Delchev. Gotse was the number one teacher when it came to teaching detachment leaders how to lead. The detachment leaders in turn loved and respected Gotse as their leader. He was seen as the first and legendary detachment leader (Commander in Chief). The people loved and respected Gotse as well as the detachments he created. The people’s love for the detachments is immortalized in the many songs they sang about them. Here is one of those songs:

What I love, dear little one, what is precious, To watch them, dear little one, the revolutionaries, How they wear, dear little one, their hats, Like the Solun girl cabaret dancers... How they wear, dear little one, their cloaks, Like the Turks, dear little one, wear their capes... How they wear, dear little one, their cartridge straps, Like the girls in Kochani wear their belts... How they carry, dear little one, their rifles,

Like the Skopje girls carry their umbrellas... How they wear, dear little one, their revolvers, Like the Pirin girls wear their buckles... How they wear, dear little one, their socks, Like the Bitola girls wear their stockings…

Delchev’s training establishment was developing very rapidly such that its activities exceeded the limits provided by the rulebook. The detachments began to take over more and wider functions and increased their involvement and right to act. They started solving all problems on their own as they encountered them in the field. They took on the role of judges, economists, educators, etc. In fact they expanded their roles so much that in many districts they actually pushed back the district governing bodies and became the centres of organizational activities.

During the pre-Ilinden period the detachments were structure as follows:

1) Global or enforcement detachment, usually one for the whole of Macedonia.

2) District detachment - one for each district.

3) Central detachment – usually formed in larger districts from several neighbouring village detachments and subordinated to the District detachment.

4) Village detachment - one for each village, composed of villagers who are members of the Organization mobilized when needed, such as to provide assistance to the regular detachments or to others. In some areas village detachments that had wider functions were called village militias.

THE REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION’S EXPANSION

After its so-called infant period, which lasted until 1896, the Organization began to rapidly grow and expanded its Macedonian revolutionary movement activities. While initially the basic element that filled its ranks was primarily made up of city intelligencia and the guilds, after 1896 poor peasants from the villages began to fill its ranks. Soon the organization changed from being predominantly urban to predominantly rural. The villagers became the Organization’s basic army that carried forward the Macedonian liberation movement.

In a relatively short period of time, up until the Ilinden Uprising, a dense network of revolutionary committees and groups was created in all towns and villages. Revolutionary detachments appeared everywhere. Couriers appeared all over the country supplying the Organization with weapons, information and new recruits. In other words, the people were being prepared for a massive uprising.

The Bitola Revolutionary District was the fastest to prepare for the revolt and a significant credit for that belongs to Gotse Delchev. Namely because of the historic tour he took through western Macedonia in 1901 which, to some extent, was a milestone in the development of the liberation movement in that area. Delchev’s tour was one of the longest and most fruitful events in his revolutionary life. He arrived in Prilep and then Bitola by way of Kochani, Maleshevo, Radovish and Tikvesh, where he visited Gruev in prison, and then went to Lerin and finished his tour in Kostur Region.

Delchev was capable of rapidly orienting himself towards the more important needs of a district and engaged himself in solving the most important and sometimes most painful problems. In this way he met many local revolutionaries and visited many villages. For example in the village Konomladi (Kolomnati), Delchev gave all the villagers an opportunity to come before him and complain about everything that bothered them, including any troubles they had with their local detachment. According to Slaveiko Arsov, one of Delchev’s companions, all the villagers came out to see him and complained about everything, including divorce, theft, quarrels between women... and so on. As a result all their complaints were looked at and problems resolved impartially. At the end, the villagers were told they were forbidden from going to Ottoman courts to settle their problems. They were also told to refrain from committing acts of theft, immorality, drunkenness, etc. Delchev then assembled all the men who had not yet joined the Organization and asked them to take the oath of loyalty. Delchev did the same in all the villages he visited. And he visited many villages including Smrdesh, D’mbeni, Zagorichani, Visheni and others in Kostur Region, Rakita (Kailari Region), Ekshisu, Patele, Ostrvo and others. According to Giorgi Pophristov, one of the leaders in this district, after Delchev arrived in the Bitola Revolutionary District, his presence was immediately felt and the district began to grow in strength. The people began to arm themselves much faster and were in the mood for a great fight.

During his tour of these areas Delchev was accompanied by Marko Lerinski’s famous detachment.