THE ORGANIZATION’S ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL POLICIES

THE ORGANIZATION’S ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL POLICIES

As was mentioned earlier, the Internal Organization’s ultimate goal was to gain full political autonomy for the Macedonian people through an uprising. In order to achieve that, however, the population needed to be organized and armed for a long struggle. At the same time, during this long preparatory period, the Organization couldn’t ignore the extremely difficult economic situation in which the people had found themselves, especially in the Macedonian villages. Major reforms could be expected after Macedonia’s liberation but until then it was necessary to do something to at least partially improve the situation for the exploited people who were expected to endure the long struggle. The Organization proposed the following:

1) Protect the villagers and their properties from various thugs, exploiters, tithe collectors, etc., and

2) Struggle to liberate the villagers from having to work for free for the estates as well as struggle to increase their wages, etc.

The direct bearers of the Organization’s economic policies were the detachments. Almost everything they did, while organizing the Macedonian villagers and recruiting the Macedonian people for a revolutionary struggle was usually closely connected to actions taken to improve the people’s lives. On top of that, the agitation and actions the detachments undertook, whenever possible, were done in the interest of those who were oppressed. So almost everything the Organization did, to prepare the masses for an armed uprising, was done as protector of the people and was in their interests. This policy, of course, was the result of the very character of the people’s movement, which sought to solve the broader problems in Macedonia.

At the centre of the Organization’s economic policy was the struggle against serfdom and against exploitation by the Beys in general. Nikola Petrov-Rusinski, a detachment leader, in one of his speeches to his detachment, in June 1901, among other things, said: “It will be necessary for you to get acquainted with land assets and estates, about which you will often hear from me in the village organizational assemblies, especially in the villages held by some great estate owners... for whose properties tomorrow the Organization will say: ‘Stop, these properties belong to the people who labour in them. You are nothing but leeches that suck the people’s blood. The people who work on these properties will become their rulers without giving even a penny to yesterday’s estate owners’...”

This is what detachment leader Slaveiko Arsov said about how the Internal Organization dealt with exploitation by the Beys: “The organization took measures to abolish requirements for giving free labour during the holidays. Our people were forbidden to work at all, even if the Ottomans paid them... The Ottomans felt strongly that this was a ‘devilish thing’… the work of the Committees...”

It is well-known that usury (a practice of lending money and charging the borrower’s interest) was one of the greatest evils that put many poor villagers and citizens into economic ruin. The Organization fought against this practice by helping people put an end to this kind of crime. According to Arsov “when people saw that the Organization was trying to help them avoid this crime, they began to turn to their local detachments for help. In cases such as these the detachments instructed them, for example, not to give the lenders more than 20 percent interest, especially to those who were asking for 60% or even 100%, and to tell them that if they persisted, or if they took the borrowers to the Ottoman courts, they would answer to the detachment”.

The Organization also fought hard against the Ottoman tax system, especially against the big tithe tax collectors. It fought and destroyed the looting gangs that plundered villages, looted homes and caused destruction, especially in western Macedonia, etc.

The Organization’s entire economic policy was seen as a positive step in the right direction by the oppressed Macedonian population. As a result more people became active and not only contributed materially to the revolutionary movement but also joined the struggle for national and economic liberation.

The Internal Organization was also put in a situation where it had to struggle against the population’s great cultural backwardness. Even though the Greek Patriarchate and Bulgarian Exarchate had opened schools in many Macedonian villages and towns (for propaganda purposes), illiteracy in Macedonia was enormous, especially in the villages. People still believed in superstitions and practiced harmful customs and traditions. The low cultural level and the primitive situation in the Macedonian villages wasn’t only harmful to the interests of the people, but also negatively reflected on the course of the liberation movement. The Organization couldn’t always tolerate some positions taken and was forced to intervene and, to the best of its ability, fight to elevate the general culture in the masses.

As was mentioned earlier, most of the Macedonian people, who used to recognize the Greek Patriarchate’s religious authority before the revolutionary period, were now turning to the Bulgarian Exarchate which, due to its Slavic character, was closer to the population than the Greek Church. And in time, most of the churches and schools in Macedonia fell into the hands of the Exarchate which, through them, carried out its nationalist - Greater Bulgarian activities. This Exarchate policy which called for Macedonia to join Bulgaria not only contradicted the Organization’s agenda which called for “full political autonomy for Macedonia”, but also affected the Greater Bulgarian, Greater Greek and Greater Serbian bourgeoisie interests in Macedonia.

The Bulgarian Exarchate position towards the Organization was basically hostile. According to one author, “The Exarchate, by its deep essence, was purely supreme. The exarchate authorities, expressing the desires of the corrupt and powerful bourgeois elements, were completely loyal to the Ottoman authorities and publicly expressed their hostility towards the Internal Organization.”

In other words, the Exarchate’s position towards the Organization was in fact favourable to the Ottoman authorities. Among other things, this position was mentioned in a newspaper in 1899 which, among other things, wrote: “Bishops are indifferent to the suffering endured by their flocks from the Ottoman knife. They appear to support the harsh Ottoman rule... they are deaf to the sounds of torment coming out of people’s souls...”

Now that we know what the Exarchate was all about, we can easily understand why it persecuted the progressive teachers, including Gotse Delchev, Damian Gruev, Pere Toshev and many others who led the Organization. Fearing what the real Macedonian teachers and the real Macedonian national educational programs would do to its propaganda, the Exarchate did its best to prevent Macedonian schools from opening in the villages.

Given the harm the Exarchate propaganda was causing, the Organization had no choice but to direct its cultural and educational policies primarily against it. In other words, the Organization did everything it could to liberate the Macedonian schools and churches not only from the grips of the Exarchate, but also from the conservative and harmful influence of the Patriarchate, etc. For that purpose, the Organization aspired to take control of all church and school leaderships, open weekly schools for adults and attract progressive teachers to work in them, open schools where there were none and so on. To achieve this, the Organization was often forced to use intimidation and force. According to Rusinski the Organization had to use force against the Bishop of the Ohrid Exarchate who not only didn’t want to accept a request from the Internal Organization’s regional leadership to appoint teachers to expand the Organization, but deprived 14 villages of their teachers. In November 1901, Rusinski forcibly entered the Diocese and, with a weapon in his hand, demanded that the bishop appoint teachers to the villages. He said: “It isn’t you who supports these teachers. The people support you… But you aren’t supporting them…”

The Organization vigorously fought against superstition, harmful traditions, debauchery, etc. According to Slaveiko Arsov the people in Resen Region even wanted to ban unnecessary and expensive luxury items from their dresses such as velvet, silk, silver, money, jewelry, etc.

According to Slaveiko Arsov, the Organization was also forced to intervene in the churches to stop drunkenness and fighting. The Macedonian people had a tradition of providing food and drink at funerals, during church service, on holidays, etc. People were expected to bring a lot of food and drink to these events which

usually included roasted lamb, other foods, wine, rakia (brandy), etc. Partakers often got drunk, especially during memorials, and ended up yelling and fighting. Because everyone was invited to attend, most of these disturbances were caused by strangers. In addition to the embarrassment the family hosting the event faced, caused by the drunkenness and fighting, these customs also cost a lot of money. A family usually paid no less than 10-15 grosha. So in order to minimize the violence and reduce costs to a reasonable level, the Organization often had to intervene.

Statements made by a number of contemporaries and documents left behind, show that the Organization’s cultural and educational policies, in the broadest sense, yielded positive results and were of great importance in the struggle against foreign influence and harmful customs. Like its economic policies, the cultural and educational policies also played a significant role in raising the Internal Organization’s authority and its ability to attract the masses in its endeavour to re-educate them, especially in the villages.