COLLISION WITH THE MRO CENTRAL COMMITTEE

COLLISION WITH THE MRO CENTRAL COMMITTEE

The digging of the tunnel in 1900 and the Gemidzhii movement after Solun did not attract the MRO Central Committee’s attention and did not create any serious problems in the relationship between the MRO Central Committee and the Gemidzhii. Now, however, mainly due to Ivan Garvanov’s tactlessness and inability to establish good relations with the Gemidzhii and to convince them to take into account the wider interests of the revolutionary movement, relations between them turned bad and even unruly. This very much complicated the situation and became detrimental to the development of revolutionary events in Macedonia.

Ivan Garvanov wrote to Gotse Delchev several times complaining that Ortse Popiordanov, Kosta Kirkov and Ilia Trchkov campaigned

in Solun, Kukush and Veles against the MRO. When he was in Kukush, Ortse reportedly ridiculed the MRO people and so did some of the other Gemidzhii. In general, Garvanov tried to convince Delchev that the Gemidzhii had a negative influence and that something should be done to stop it.

In 1902 when Ortse went to Sofia to discuss the dynamite supply issue, Delchev spoke to him about the deteriorating relations between the Gemidzhii and the MRO Central Committee and specifically about Ivan Garvanov’s problem with him.

But despite Ortse’s indignation for Garvanov’s unjustified slanders and intimidation directed against him and the Gemidzhii, Ortse expressed his own opinion. He told Delchev that if any of the Gemidzhii in Solun, Veles or any other place were harmed by the people from the MRO Central Committee, they would not look for the killer but would take revenge by killing members of the MRO Central Committee. Delchev, who always sympathized with the Gemidzhii, promised Ortse that he would write about this to the Central Committee and that things would be settled.

Unfortunately relations between the Gemidzhii and the MRO Central Committee could not be easily patched up. Garvanov did not like the arrangement and felt like he was being shaken down by the Gemidzhii in Solun. This arrangement, Garvanov thought, could only be achieved by force. However, it was never a good idea to use force against the Gemidzhii, the very people who were ready to give up their lives at a moment’s notice. Besides, Ortse repeatedly told Garvanov that if his people (executioners) tried to kill any of the Gemidzhii in Solun or Veles, he would hold Garvanov responsible and Garvanov himself would pay with his own life. “Ivan Garvanov,” wrote Shatev, “knew Ortse Popiordanov very well since he had been a student, and got to know him even better after he had the opportunity to meet with him. Garvanov was familiar with Ortse’s determination, hardness and courage…” Other members of the MRO Central Committee, who were in agreement with Garvanov, were always kind to the Gemidzhii. The so-called “executioners” who worked for the MRO Central Committee were well aware of Ivan Garvanov’s relationship with the Gemidzhii, but would not take any action against them.

Relations between the MRO Central Committee and the Gemidzhii fell to their lowest in the beginning of 1903. As promised, Boris Sarafov did buy the dynamite and, through Marseilles, sent it in 17 barrels marked medicine against phylloxera. The barrels were sent to the Dede-Agach customs house, because custom control in Solun was much stricter. When the dynamite arrived Ortse made a deal with a Greek merchant named D. Evangelidis to have it picked up at the Dede-Agach customs depot and deliver it to Solun. Ortse offered Evangelidis 100 lira, half to be paid before the job and half upon delivery of the dynamite. But, as it turned out, Evangelidis was close to Professor A. Naumov (brother-in-law) who worked at the Exarchate gymnasium with Garvanov and was in part responsible for the formation of the “Revolutionary Brotherhood”, mentioned earlier. Before leaving for Dede-Agach, Evangelidis told Garvanov Ortse’s secret. Garvanov, who was more afraid of the Gemidzhii than he was of the Ottoman authorities, decided to prevent this large amount of dynamite from falling into Gemidzhii hands. He told Evangelidis that the “goods” actually belonged to the MRO and that Ortse and his companions were working for the MRO. He then advised Evangelidis to hand over the dynamite to another person, appointed by Garvanov himself. The dynamite was to be handed over as soon as it was taken out of the customs house. Garvanov told Evangelidis that the person who was going to pick up the dynamite would pay him the rest of the money.

After waiting for 2 to 3 days and having heard nothing from Evangelidis, Ortse became concerned and decided to go to Dede-Agach. He looked for Evangelidis but he was nowhere to be found. Ortse figured the dynamite had been discovered and confiscated, and that the Greek was locked up in a jail somewhere. He also began to think that maybe the dynamite had never been sent. At the request of the Gemidzhii, Sarafov ordered an investigation into which “goods” had been picked up from the customs depot on January 17, 1903 (Shatev was in possession of a copy of this document). Ortse later found out that the “goods”, 1,000 kg of dynamite, had arrived at the Dede-Agach customs depot and were picked up by Evangelidis through commissioner Dzhan Milidsanis. But after that the dynamite was discovered and confiscated by the authorities, the

commissioner was arrested and taken to Odrin, while Evangelidis fled to Athens.

Later, when the Gemidzhii were all arrested and sent to Edi-kule prison in Solun, Garvanov denied that he had anything to do in connection with this dynamite.

“I don’t know anything about this and I have contributed nothing to the disappearance of any dynamite,” he said.

This is what Boris Sarafov said in regards to the disappearance of the dynamite: “I bought 1,000 kg of dynamite so that they could do some serious damage in Solun. We bought it in Paris. It was melinite and did not look like any ordinary dynamite that the Turks might be familiar with (it was a yellow powder, 1,000 packets weighing 1 kg each). We thought that it would be possible to pass it through the Turkish customs offices as a cure for phylloxera. I called on a Greek from Solun who introduced us to another Greek from Dede-Agach and we shipped him two drums of the real cure against phylloxera. They easily passed through the customs house. We then sent the melinite but the doctor in Dede-Agach decided to have it tested. He sent a sample to Tsari Grad and discovered that it was dynamite. The Turks threw the dynamite into the sea. The Greek escaped to Athens.”

So according to Sarafov the dynamite was seized in the customs depot, but according to the Gemidzhii it was seized after it was taken out of the customs depot. But the question of Garvanov’s role in this affair still remains unanswered. To their end the Gemidzhii remained convinced that Ivan Garvanov was somehow responsible for losing their dynamite. (Ibid, 264-265, H. Silianov, 252; Memoirs - Damian Gruev..., 72. Simeonov and T. Organdzhiev wrote that the dynamite was lifted by Garvanov.)

The end result; the Gemidzhii lost the long-anticipated shipment of explosives. Even Ortse was surprised. Despite his bad relations with the MRO Central Committee, he never thought that Garvanov would go this far. However, as a sober realist, he immediately asked his comrades in Bulgaria to find him more dynamite and send it to him in Solun.

With the loss of the dynamite the Gemidzhii had to curb their activities but not their hatred for Garvanov. Their hatred for him grew in proportion to their torment and difficulties in procuring more dynamite. Their desire to take revenge on Garvanov at any cost became an integral part of their mission.

Knowing this, Garvanov asked for their removal from Solun. “His greatest wish was,” wrote Shatev, “to remove us (the Gemidzhii) from Solun at any cost even if we had to die in some prison cell, only if we were not in Solun, where he wanted to be safe to pursue his goals as a violent leader of a movement of which he soon became an adversary, and now, after one incident in a series of complicated events, he became a leading figure.” (Shatev, 293-294.)

Garvanov’s attempts to “discipline” the Gemidzhii from the point of view of the Organization’s interests could be justified. Looking through the prism of those interests, the prevention of a thousand kilograms of dynamite from coming into the hands of a bunch of “undisciplined” assassins could also be justified. However, the question is: “Was Garvanov truly guided by the interests of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization or did he do this for personal reasons? There are reasons to believe that Garvanov despised the Gemidzhii for purely personal reasons. If he truly believed that the Gemidzhii were “dangerous” then why not stop them everywhere in Macedonia, why only in Solun? Months before the Ilinden Uprising, Garvanov proposed that Ortse Popiordanov be given some money to carry out “similar” missions outside of Solun, perhaps in Skopje, Veles, even in Bitola. It would appear that Garvanov wanted to remove the Gemidzhii from Solun, away from him and his activities which served Bulgarian interests. Starting something in Bitola Region, for example, where the MRO was very strong and preparing for a massive uprising, could take attention away from Solun and from Garvanov who wanted to use the MRO more as a means of achieving goals that had little to do with the efforts of the people for the emergence of an autonomous Macedonia.

In describing the general characteristics of the MRO Central Committee headed by Garvanov, P. Shatev, among other things, correctly wrote:

“The members of the new Central Committee were all inexperienced compared to the old members Dr. Tatarchev, P. Toshev, Hadzhinikolov and Hristo Matov who were arrested in 1901. They were mainly teachers and merchants who were primarily working on their own jobs. Leading the MRO for them was a sideline activity. Unfortunately the Organization was so centralized that even the most minute activities needed decisions from the Central Committee in Solun. However, measures undertaken by the IMRO required much more attention than was actually provided. The activities undertaken were difficult even for professional and experienced revolutionaries, such as responding to propaganda, agitation, preparation, training, let alone managing revolutionary activities in the whole of Macedonia.

As a result of the Central Committee’s incompetence and passivity the Organization’s leadership strands were lost and the IMRO in fact became a fully decentralized organization.

For practical purposes the MRO Central Committee in Solun might have been non-existent but at the same the Committee had a growing desire to keep its hands in everything and wanted all the revolutionary regions to come to it. But, in cases where the Committee was not familiar with the local conditions, it did more damage than good to the movement. The members of the new Central Committee were nothing more than just ordinary people. They were selected randomly from a pool of people who wanted to benefit from serving the Exarchate and improve their own positions in society...” (Ibid, 290-294. Garvanov in his short memoirs devotes only one page to the Gemidzhii. Most of the information provided was incorrect – Memoirs... Ivan Garvanov, 135.)

Because they never did and did not want to have any connection with the MRO Central Committee in Solun, because they did not interfere in MRO affairs and never tried to spread their ideology and their way of struggling among the general population, the Gemidzhii felt that Ivan Garvanov had no right and no basis to hate them. The

new MRO Central Committee had no right to think that Solun was an exclusive area for MRO action and to challenge the right of others and the Gemidzhii to fight in the same city. In other words (the Gemidzhii reasoned), nobody had the right to challenge their desire to die in their native country, “in Macedonia’s capital city”.

It is understandable that nobody had the right to challenge the desire of members of the Gemidzhii circle to fight for Macedonia’s freedom. However, their opinion that, since they were not members of the Organization, its Central Committee had no right or interest in their actions, in principle, was incorrect. Just because the composition of the new Central Committee did not have the necessary moral and political qualities and could not properly manage the Macedonian people’s liberation struggle, the interests of an entire revolutionary movement could not be ignored.

However, the strained relations did not lead to an open conflict between the two sides. And despite the fact that Garvanov, in addition to slandering them, threatened to use force to remove them from Solun, there was no physical conflict between the MRO and the Gemidzhii. The Gemidzhii were determined to endure and avoid any incident that could be a cause for their removal, while Garvanov, for many reasons, even fearing for his own life, never sent his “executioners” against them. (Garvanov claims that at one point the Central Committee threatened the Gemidzhii that if they didn’t leave Solun they would all be executed. So they left the city for two days. How much of this is true we don’t know.) After the 1,000 kg dynamite was captured, Garvanov did not believe that they would be pursuing a different avenue to obtain more explosives.

Due to lack of sufficient dynamite, the Gemidzhii definitely gave up the idea of expanding their actions outside of Solun. The dynamite that they had already acquired could not even satisfy their needs in Solun. That is why they decided to get more dynamite… at any cost.

In 1902 melinite was purchased from abroad and sent to the Macedonian border to be used by the Organization in Bulgaria. The Gemidzhii used this opportunity to purchase 200 kg of it. P. Shatev was assigned the task of organizing its transfer to Solun. The melinite was stored in Kiustendil, near the border. To do this Shatev

contacted Todor Aleksandrov whom he knew from before. In 1902/1903 Alexandrov was a teacher in Kochani and a member of the local MRO leadership. Based on conversations he had with Shatev while Shatev was interned in Kratovo, Alexandrov knew a little something about the Gemidzhii and their intentions so he decided to help them. Shatev shipped the melinite to the village Sasa in Bulgaria where it was received by Gero, an experienced courier, working for the MRO. The melinite was then transferred from Sasa to Kochani. It was transported hidden in hay because this route was frequently used for transporting hay at this time of year. The melinite was divided up into shipments of 20-30 kg and transferred to Kochani. (While Shatev claimed that the melinite, about 200 kg, was purchased, T. Organdzhiev (cf. his article, 121) wrote that the dynamite, about 100 kg, was stolen somewhere in Iambol Region.)

The main trade commodity in Kochani was rice. Transporting anything else could easily cause suspicion in the competent government authorities. It was also a volatile time (beginning of 1903) when there was a strong movement of battalions, couriers, weapons… being transferred throughout all of Macedonia. In other words, preparations were being made for the uprising. Clashes with the Ottoman army and police became very common, and distrust by the authorities towards everything that was Christian was reaching new heights. Transferring the dynamite under these conditions, which had to be transported along the imperial road to Veles and from there by rail to Solun, was really an unpredictable and dangerous task. However, that task was successfully performed by T. Organdzhiev.

Organdzhiev went to Kochani, connected with the people who kept the dynamite and arranged for its transfer. Every Tuesday, on market day, the “tenants” transported 1 to 2 loads of rice to Veles. A few kilos of dynamite were hidden in each bag. Unfortunately even rice was not spared from being checked. The inspectors checking the rice, to make sure nothing was smuggled, usually looked for tobacco. They would poke the rice bags with a special iron rod. But in order not to have their bags poked it was common for the “tenants” to offer the inspectors bribes.

When the rice arrived at the designated Inn in Veles, it was picked up by Todor Organdzhiev and transferred to his uncle Nikola Organdziev’s house.

Todor Organdzhiev then took the dynamite out of the rice sacks and placed it in oil cans. The weight of the dynamite in the cans had to correspond to the weight of the oil. After that the cans had to be properly sealed by a skilled person who could be trusted. From there the dynamite cans, together with the oil cans, were transported to Solun by rail and delivered to a designated address. The first shipment of two cans to arrive in Solun was picked up by Ortse and Kosta. The inspectors wanted to check the cans but while Ortse and Kosta were arguing about how much to bribe him, their helper, a Gypsy boy, grabbed the cans and, while the inspector was distracted, took them away. They did the same with the next four shipments.

In the end the Gemidzhii had about 280 kilograms of dynamite in their possession. The tunnel to the Bank had already been dug and there were no plans to dig another tunnel in Solun or anywhere else. This meant that from this moment forward they were ready to act. There was less dynamite than what they had in mind but it was enough to carry out their mission in Solun.