Front Matter - Part 01

Metodija Shatorov Sharlo

(Political views)

By Riste Bunteski - Bunte (Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Metodija Shatorov Sharlo

(Political views)

Original Publication

,jPYIHTB0 3a Haywa H ymeTHOCT - HpneH, CKoHje 1996 Published by:

Risto Ste IM 1 fov Publications Toronto, Canada Copyright © 2023 by Riste Bunteski - Bunte rstefov@hotrnail.com e-book edition July 6, 2023 Introduction This publication is a modest contribution to Metodija Shatorov one hundred years after his birth.

Metodija Shatorov participated in the Macedonian national liberation movement and had followed the communist ideology since he was very young. His educational and intellectual qualities enabled him to master the Macedonian national liberation movement's historical authenticity with all its positive and negative aspects.

In 1920 Shatorov joined the Emigrant Communist Union (ECU), organized in Sofia, and since then was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP). Soon afterwards, due to his intense activities, he was promoted to a higher position in the Party.

Shatorov greatly supported Macedonia's affirmation and the Macedonian national individuality. At the same time he greatly opposed external propaganda, regardless of where it came from, because it was always aimed at liquidating the Macedonian national consciousness and instilling someone else's.

He was one of the top VMRO (United) activists of his time. Three regional VMRO (United) conferences (1926, 1928 and 1935) were held when he led the Organization. They were held in the Pirin part of Macedonia in order to elect regional committees. During these conferences Shatorov provided updates on the Organization's role and activities.

In 1928 the Bulgarian police discovered his activities and arrested him. He spent eleven months in an investigative prison. He was released on July 23, 1929. Soon afterwards he left for Moscow where he completed a course on Lenin's set of guidelines.

During a Bulgarian led Supremacist VMRO session held in 1931, headed by Vancho Mihailov, he was sentenced to death in absentia for being involved and active in the Macedonian VMRO (United).

In 1935 Shatorov was elected secretary of the VMRO (United)

Regional Committee for the Pirin part of Macedonia. During his term he issued several proclamations and articles in the interest of the Macedonian national revolutionary movement. He did this to strengthen the Macedonian national consciousness in order to prevent Macedonians from being assimilated into the Bulgarian fold.

The Communist International Seventh Congress was held in Moscow in the summer of 1935, which created conditions for a general popular front against fascism, which at this time was on the rise and nations and states were in danger of falling under fascist slavery. Six months after this Congress, thirty communist party officials and world leaders met in Moscow under strict secrecy.

Among others, the meeting was attended by Blagoja Parovich, Josip Broz Tito and Metodija Shatorov - a Macedonian. 1 Positions taken and conclusions reached at the Communist International Seventh Congress as well as their implementation and practices by communist parties in the world were discussed during this meeting.

Shatorov found himself in Paris in 1938-39 in connection with the Spanish Revolution. He returned to Prilep in November 1939.

He was elected political secretary of the Communist Party Provincial Committee in Macedonia in the spring of 1940. Under his leadership the Provincial Committee made plans to expand the party organization in order to organize a general Macedonian national front and a trade union movement. At the First Party Conference held on September 8, 1940, a Resolution with program principles was adopted. The Provincial Committee issued proclamations which contained elements of the program principles, which greatly influenced the Macedonian organizational forces to act.

Proclamations and appeals were written in the Macedonian language, which increased their importance.

By doing this Shatorov re-energized the Macedonian people's Macedonian national aspirations for the realization of their centuries-old ideals - the unification of all the divided Macedonian 'Karlo Steiner "Novratak iz Gulag", Globus, Zagreb, 1985, p. 176.

parts and for the creation of a Macedonian state, equal to those of the neighbouring Balkan states.

All this time, Shatorov actively advocated for the formation of an independent Macedonian communist party with a single leadership for all of ethnic and geographic Macedonia. He opposed the Macedonian communists who were led by neighbouring communist parties.

Due to Shatorov's program principles, in 1941, opposition began to intensify against the agreement made during the Fifth Land Conference held in Zagreb in 1940 regarding the Serbian colonists in Macedonia, as well as the Macedonian national front. After Yugoslavia was occupied there was a clash between the Provincial Committee and the CPY. The program that Shatorov advocated for, calling for cooperation between the Provincial Committee with all neighbouring communist parties, was opposed by the CPY which imposed its own program. According to the CPY, the Provincial Committee should only have been tied to the CPY Central Committee and the liberation of the Vardar part of Macedonia should only be realized within the framework of Yugoslavia.

Shatorov's position regarding the liberation of Macedonia, however, called for an independent Macedonian republic that would encompass the entire Macedonian region that included the Aegean, Vardar and Pirin parts of Macedonia as an equal state to the other Balkan states.

Immediately after the fascists attacked the USSR, Shatorov issued a proclamation to the Macedonian people to establish a provincial military commission, prepare subversive groups and train them in the handling of weapons, and organize workshops to build certain kinds of weapons. These preparations made it possible to establish the Skopje partisan detachment on August 22, 1941.

In time Shatorov's program carried out by the Provincial Committee began to contradict the CPY Central Committee's program. This prompted an individual to accuse Shatorov of wrong doing without establishing the actual situation. Tito ' s indictment letters against Shatorov were based on the information given by this one person. It is interesting that the so called "mistakes" in each subsequent letter widened and with time became more numerous. In the end Shatorov was accused of being a counter-revolutionary, a traitor, a saboteur, a national chauvinist and was threatened with all kinds of legal charges. Furthermore, there were contradictions in Tito' s letters. In one letter Shatorov was accused of connecting himself to the Bulgarian Communist Party immediately after Yugoslavia was occupied. In another letter he was accused of transferring the Macedonian organization to the Bulgarian Communist Party.

However, in one of Tito's letters dated September 4, 1941, addressing the Macedonian communists, Tito wrote: "To this day we still don't know if he connected and merged the party organization with the Bulgarian one." However, the truth is that during Shatorov' s time, the Provincial Committee was called the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party in Macedonia and was never called the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Macedonia, nor was it called the Provincial Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

In the middle of September 1941, the legally elected Provincial Committee was suspended due to all of these accusations. Shatorov was removed from his position as Political Secretary of the Communist Party and expelled from the Party. The CPY instructor named the newly appointed Provincial Committee as the "Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Provincial Committee for Macedonia." A short time later Shatorov left for Sofia where he joined the anti-fascist front, actively worked as a member and official of the Bulgarian party and participated in the struggle against fascism. The Bulgarian fascist authorities handed Shatorov two death sentences, one in 1943 and the other in the spring of 1944.

Shatorov died on September 4, 1944. At the time he was commander of the Third Military Operational Area in a battle near Pazardzhik in Bulgaria.

At this point I want to express my gratitude to the Republic of Macedonia's Ministry of Science, which provided me the funds to print this book. I also want to thank A.D. "Radobank" Skopje and to all the people who contributed in certain ways to create this publication.

I. General information about Metodija Shatorov Metodija Shatorov belongs to the "Shatorovci" family in Prilep. The family got its nickname from a locality near Prilep called "Shatorov Kamen". One of Metodija's grandfathers was engaged in animal husbandry and grazed and kept his cattle in Shatorov Kamen from where the family got its nickname "Shatoro". It was customary in Prilep for the family to keep the nickname as a family surname.

Metodija's grandfather's name was Trajko. He belonged to one of the older families in Prilep. His grandmother's name was Ana and she too belonged to a Prilep family. His father Tase and mother Jonka had 16 children. After their first two - Talia and Gena, all their other children died one after another in childbirth until Metodija, who was born 12 years after his last living sister.

According to popular belief and following a neighbour's suggestion, who allegedly dreamt that Jonka shouldn't be giving birth in her house, but in another house to avoid another unfortunate death, Metodija's mother followed her neighbour's suggestion and stayed with a close relative in Prilep a few days before giving birth to her son Metodija on January 10, 1897. For the family, of course, it was a great joy that a live and healthy male child was born. As a result of the family's great love, and to prove that something was true, they swore by Metodija's name (Zhimi Metodija!). After Metodija was born his mother gave birth to two more sons, Kiro and Todor, and another daughter, Blaga.

Metodija spent his childhood in Prilep. He completed his primary education in Prilep, and high school in Bitola. He was placed in a boarding school in Bitola. After he finished high school in Bitola, he enrolled at the Teacher's School in Skopje and graduated on June 24, 1915. The certificate he obtained read: "CBe4oTIaHcTBo KpaieBcKe cprice yqllTejbcKe ifiKOJile 0 y'-IHTeJTCKOM HcrnITy 3peJIE0cT14. F. MeTo,rwje ifiaTopoBilk" (Testimony of the Royal Serbian Teacher's School about the teacher's maturity exam. G.

Methodije Shatorovich). He completed his teacher's education with honours. Based on his good marks the examination board recognized his maturity and ability to be an A category teacher. His certificate was validated on August 17, 1918 by the Ministry of Education in Sofia, which Metodija needed to continue his education, i.e. to enroll in a faculty in Sofia, because at that time this part of Macedonia was under the occupation of the Bulgarian Empire. 2 Metodija's education enabled him to have wider contacts in various environments and to meet intellectuals from various fields, which contributed to correctly perceive and experience the situations in Macedonia, especially the anti-Macedonian propaganda that was spread by the Bulgarians, Serbians and Greeks. Of particular importance were the conditions in Macedonia caused by the wars of 1912-18, the suffering of the Macedonian people and their consequences, dying of hunger and disease, the mobilization of Macedonians in the occupying armies (Bulgarian and Serbian) and their use in the front lines, where they died for the interests of the occupying monarchies. He learned about Macedonia's dismemberment which led to great human tragedies, to even greater economic exhaustion and to the Macedonian population's impoverishment. He learned about the wars and the results they left behind and, finally, the measures taken by the occupying authorities for the denationalization and assimilation of the Macedonian people.

These tragic events left a deep impression in him.

It was under these conditions that Metodija Shatorov decided to immigrate to Sofia at the end of 1918, where he joined, that is, became a member of the Union of Banking and Commercial Officers. Since he actively worked and was involved in higher youth organizations in Prilep, he continued those same activities in Sofia.

After the Emigrant Communist Union was established in 1920 in Sofia, he became a member and since then had been a member of the Communist Party. Since he was deeply involved in this Union he was raised to a notable among the activists and because of that in 1923 he became member of the Communist Party in Sofia. When Alexander Stamboliski's progressive government was in power in 1927, Shatorov worked for the progressive forces in Bulgaria. In 1925, he joined the Communist Party of Bulgaria's Sofia District Committee. In April 1925, he was arrested by the Bulgarian police and was kept in prison until June, 1925, but due to lack of evidence 2 According to the narrative of Maria, Metodija Shatorov's granddaughter.

he wasn't convicted but was interned in Gorna Dzhumaija in the Pirin part of Macedonia. After his release, for a short time, he was appointed Secretary of the Sofia City Committee. In the fall of 1925, when VMRO (United) was organized, Metodija Shatorov was one of its active founders. After the Central Committee was elected, it was decided to form three regional committees, namely: one for the Vardar part of Macedonia, which was under Serbian rule, one for the Pirin part, which was under Bulgarian rule and one for the Aegean part of Macedonia, which was under Greek rule.

II. Metodija Shatorov's involvement in organizing VMRO (United) and his views on the Macedonian national question The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) Central Committee held its first extended plenum in Vienna in 1926. Coordination and management of affairs between the Macedonian refugees in Bulgaria and the Macedonians living in the Pirin part of Macedonia (under Bulgarian rule) was on their agenda. A governing body was established at this session at the BPC Executive Bureau (EB) level to work inside the country and a special committee was elected to work with various national organizations. Included among the elected members of this committee were: Metodija Shatorov, Hr.

Kalajdziev and Hr. Moskov.

In 1926, Shatorov organized an illegal conference in the districts that were assigned to him in which he began to lay the foundations for a VMRO (United) for the part of Macedonia that was under Bulgarian rule. The following people were present at this conference: M. Shatorov, H. Kalajdzhiev, S. Kavrakirov, B. Mihov, B. Mitrev and F. Poptodorov. After that Shatorov wrote a report defining what VMRO (United) stood for and its role as a Macedonian organization. At the same conference a VMRO (United) District Committee for the Pirin part of the Macedonia was elected. Hristo Kalajdzhiev was elected secretary. This was how VMRO (United) started out but achieved insignificant results due to the unclear attitude the BCP and Executive Bureaux leaderships took which opposed the idea of creating new, separate from the existing, legal and illegal emigrant and national revolutionary organizations.

1. Report entitled "History and essence of VMRO

(United)" Decho Dobrinov, VMRO (United) Sofia University Publishing House, 1933, p. 119 (From here on he will be referred to as D.

Dobrinov).

Eftim Georgiev, Simeon Kavrakirov, Central Union of Macedonian Educational Societies, Sofia, 1969, p. 8, 9.

According to its content the report entitled "History and essence of VMRO (United)" is one of the most important political documents, which best expresses Metodija Shatorov's political views. This is what was said in the report:

"VMRO (United)'s foundation was laid in 1925. But VMRO (United) cannot exist in isolation without being connected to the old Macedonian national revolutionary movement. It has to appear as the sole successor of Gotse Delchev's VMRO, which accepted and developed its ideas and continued the real revolutionary struggle for the national and economic liberation of the Macedonian people. So naturally VMRO (United)'s roots should be sought in the epic Macedonian past, which uncovers the period of the Macedonian revival.

The Macedonian liberation movement has had its own importance since it first began. It started out spontaneously, as a movement driven by the Macedonian peasants who struggled against the plundering and suppression of the Sultan's Ottoman administration and feudal beys. This was a movement led mostly by Macedonian haiduks (rebels that fought against the Ottomans) who, even without a clear goal in their struggle, expressed indignation and became outlaws and began to help those who needed help. Disgruntled farmers, whose way of earning a living was destroyed by external imperialist competition, had become a mass phenomenon. At the same time industries began to appear in Macedonia, driven mainly by foreign capital, and also began to exploit the Macedonian workers.

These were the conditions which forced the people to act with a specific goal in mind - mass struggle for the liberation of the entire Macedonian population. It was under these conditions that our first apostles of the Macedonian revolutionary movement, Gotse Delchev, Petar Arsov, Gjorche Petrov, Damian Gruev, Pere Toshev, Jane Sandanski, Vasil Glavinov, etc., who were inspired by liberating ideas from abroad, returned to their homeland to organize their people and lead them into a massive revolutionary struggle.

The first VMRO Central Committee was created in Macedonia in 1895, and in a few years it turned into a genuine people's revolutionary organization which included all the people (especially many peasants) and gained extraordinary trust among the broad layers of the people.

The old VMRO achieved its success thanks to the support it received from the common workers and from the village servants who were exploited and oppressed by the Ottoman beys and wealthy masters. This is how the Macedonian national revolutionary movement's deep national character had been since Delchev and Sandanski's time. The old VMRO won over the common people and stirred up the masses. And on top of protecting them from economic abuse, the old VMRO also strived to create a Macedonian state. But then there were those who opposed the creation of a Macedonian state, they were the supremacists hidden inside the Organization, whose actual goal was to promote Bulgarian belligerent policies and convince the Macedonian people to accept Macedonia's autonomy as the first step towards its accession to Bulgaria. But the old VMRO leadership, the true representatives of the Macedonian people's interests, predicted that taking the autonomy route would be wrong, even though it looked like it was an easier way to achieve independence, especially since the "great powers" were willing to help. The old VMRO leadership insisted that this would be a mistake. There was no doubt that the first apostles who led the Macedonian revolutionary movement at the time wanted an independent Macedonian state: "A free and independent Macedonia with broad rights for the poor and for all inhabitants, regardless of their nationality" (Goce Delchev). This was their aim. The heroic internal Macedonian revolutionary movement persistently struggled against both Ottoman slavery and the belligerent aspirations of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, that is, against their authoritarian agents. The old VMRO opposed the Balkan state military plans and provocations for dividing Macedonia, and instead led a people's mass revolutionary struggle. "Liberating Macedonia", said Delchev, "lays in the internal armed uprising.., who thinks otherwise, is lying to himself and to others... " And as such, the Macedonian national-revolutionary movement defended the Macedonian people's independence from Balkan state aspiration, and stood for anti-war, anti-supremacy and for an internal revolution. The old VMRO was a nationalistic but not a chauvinistic organization. It waged a fierce struggle against the chauvinists and tried to unite all the Macedonian people and all nationalities living in Macedonia for a single struggle against the Ottoman oppressor. It was not a struggle against the Turks in general, but against those who ruled the social strata of the Ottoman nation and enslaved Macedonia. The old VMRO was against political oppression and economic theft aimed at the working masses in Ottoman ruled Macedonia. "I don't hate the Ottomans as a people, only their management system." This is how Gotse Delchev described the real causes of slavery in Macedonia. As revolutionary representatives of the Macedonian people, the old VMRO leadership hated any kind of reaction-tyranny and opposed the monarchy. The old VMRO leadership's wishes were to create a free Macedonia.

They wanted Macedonia to be organized like Switzerland, a democratic republic.

The Macedonian people were brought up in the spirit of the old VMRO's ideals and were steadily organized to prepare for a decisive clash with the enemy. The mass uprising took place on Ilinden, on August 2, 1903 (July 20 thby the old calendar). And thus, the most famous page in Macedonian history, the Ilinden epic, was written with the blood often thousand of Macedonia's children. But unfortunately, as predicted, the uprising was doomed to collapse due to supremacist interference and to the meddling of Bulgarian leaders led by Tsar Ferdinand. The Bulgarian supreme committee (the supremacists) was created in Sofia and was composed mainly of Bulgarian officers who, by order of the Bulgarian Court, forced an early uprising before the Macedonian people were fully prepared.

The supremacists made many promises but did not deliver. These were false promises with aims at subduing the internal Macedonian organization and placing it under supremacist control. In effect the supremacists prepared new tactics for the uprising. They sent Boris Sarafov and other supremacists like him to Macedonia to take over the organization. The supremacists were apparently aiming to penetrate VMRO from within and take it over. Boris Sarafov took advantage of Damian Gruev's good nature, naivety and temporary political slippage. He also gained the support of Garvanov, another imbedded supremacist, and found himself at the top of the VMRO Central Committee. Unfortunately at that time (the end of 1902 and the beginning of 1903) Gotse Delchev, Gjorche Petrov and other prominent Macedonian figures were outside Macedonia, some as members of the organization's foreign representatives. It was under these conditions that the Solun Resolution was hurriedly adopted by the 20 delegates (mostly chosen supporters of Sarafov and Gavranov) for an early uprising. The Solun Resolution was then confirmed by the Smilevo Congress, led by Damian Gmev. The early uprising was decided without the support of the Macedonian leadership. In fact most of the far-seeing, prominent Macedonian leaders such as Gotse Delchev, Gjorche Petrov, Jane Sandanski, Pere Toshev, Dimo H. Dimov, Chernopeev, etc., were against an early uprising. Only Damian Gruev was in solidarity with Sarafov and the supremacists. The supremacists wanted an early uprising in order to compromise the revolutionary struggle. They wanted to disillusion the people so that they would lose faith in their own forces and turn to the Bulgarian army for assistance. The general public was unaware of the supremacist leadership's intentions and participated in the armed struggle for their own liberation. The people responded to the call for revolt because their leaders asked them to. Over the years the Organization had taught them that they needed to win their own economic and national liberation with their own forces, through a mass armed struggle. It wasn't the people's fault that the uprising failed. It was the fault of the supremacist element which had infiltrated the VMRO top leadership. The actual Ilinden uprising was never a supremacist act, it was a people's act which took place under the centralist banner.

But even though the centralists opposed the early uprising and declared the Solun Resolution pure foolishness, even though they knew the people weren't ready to fight and win, and even though there would be dire consequences for them, which would surely bring destruction, when the people rose up, their true leaders fearlessly stood with them in the forefront in the heat of the struggle, as real people's revolutionaries. The Ilinden uprising failed; the Ottoman response was violent and devastating. Many people died.

In that respect, the supremacists triumphed. But regardless of its results the Ilinden epic inspired the Macedonian masses and still continues to inspire them to this day. The Macedonian people are proud of Ilinden and see it as the only way to Macedonia's freedom.

The national and revolutionary theory and practice of the internal Macedonian liberation movement was also applied during the Young Turk uprising in 1908. The Seres, Strumitsa and Solun revolutionary districts, controlled mainly by Sandanski, Chernopeiv and Apostol Vojvoda, opposed the VMRO Supreme Central Committee (the supremacists) and, together with the Young Turks, participated in the Turkish Empire's democratic revolution which in fact was initiated from above and not through an uprising of the masses. Those who supported the Young Turk coup came out with their own platform, which corresponded to the economic, cultural and political interests of the Macedonian peasants, artisans and workers. They took advantage of the situation and exploited the broad and massively legal struggle to liberate Macedonia. In view of that, the Macedonian people sent their representatives to the Ottoman parliament. They were protected by certain democratic rights and freedoms they had won. Then when the Ottoman reactionaries in Istanbul raised their heads, Jane Sandanski led the Macedonian revolutionary army and, together with the Russian revolutionary regiments, left Macedonia and headed towards Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, and thanks to them the reactionaries were destroyed. But the Young Turks, representatives of the then advanced Turkish bourgeoisie, proved to be inconsistent even in the first days of taking power. They were hesitant and extremely limited revolutionaries. They didn't remove the monarchical institution but were content with replacing one sultan with another - his brother.

They didn't remove the privileges of the Ottoman elite, and instead increased the Macedonian people's obligations, especially their military service. They didn't provide the Macedonian people the national and economic freedoms they promised, they only allowed them some political rights (the right to choose and elect representatives in the parliament, etc.). The dam of absolutism, however, was breached and political rights could be used to branch out into a broader mass struggle, with which the people could win a number of other economic, cultural and political rights before achieving complete liberation. This is what Sandanski and all the others wanted, especially those who remained faithful to the principles of the internal Macedonian revolutionary organization.

However, even under these conditions the supremacists continued to play a mischievous role directed from the outside. Their aim was to continue forcing surprise attacks and terrorist provocations in Macedonia in order to provoke the Ottoman government into attacking the people and to accelerate the transformation of the Young Turks into a counter-revolutionary force, to compromise the revolt and with all this to create conditions for Bulgaria and other Balkan states to attack the Ottomans with aims at invading and partitioning Macedonia. And that was the course taken in 1912 which led to the First Balkan War. That anti-Macedonian course came from the new supremacists Todor Aleksandrov and Aleksandar Protegerov, members of the VMRO Supreme Central Committee, who remained faithful to the Bulgarian imperialist policy, both during the First World War and after it ended. They, together with their Bulgarian leaders, were the main culprits for the new and worse conditions created in Macedonia (broken up, suppressed and destroyed by Sofia, Belgrade and Athens).

After all the misfortunes the Macedonian people had suffered, their trust evaporated especially from the illusions created by the supremacists about some kind of "liberation", which was supposed to come from Bulgaria and the other Balkan countries. This was the first major defeat for the supremacists. This opened up new opportunities for renewing the old VMRO and for creating a new unique and massive movement, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of their predecessors. In this regard, this was a good start. A temporary board was created in 1919 and headed by Gjorche Petrov, Dimo Hadzhi Dimov, Pavel Hristov, Hristo Jankov and others. Its aim was to unify all the anti-supremacist revolutionary forces in Macedonia, regardless of their party affiliation. At that time, however, the revolutionary workers' party wasn't yet fully free to act. On top of that all national movements and working masses without distinction were thrown under the influence of the bourgeoisie in order to prevent the working class from realizing its class interests. By now the revolutionary proletariat party figured that the national movements had outlived their time and were returning to capitalism. This was in the era when proletarian revolutions struggling for socialism were flourishing. Unfortunately at that time the social forces did not fully understand the deep national character of the national movements in the era of imperialism. They had not yet grasped that these movements struggled for freeing the nationally oppressed from colonial exploitation, especially the peasants, who appeared as a natural ally of the proletariat for a general struggle against a common enemy - imperialism. The revolutionary proletariat party underestimated the national feelings of the enslaved Macedonian people and skipped a whole stage in their struggle, the struggle for national (democratic)

liberation, and in this way, they invited the Macedonian masses to struggle directly for Soviet power and socialism, which supposedly offered a solution to the national question. Pursuing this kind of policy on national issues, the revolutionary party of workers abandoned the renewal of the all-Macedonian national revolutionary movement and set aside its member Dimo H. Dimov from heading the temporary representation. In its place it created the Emigrant Communist Union, which included only a narrow circle of Macedonians who the Communist Party favoured. The broad nationally minded population remained outside of it, even more so because that alliance specifically included the emigrants and excluded the nationally oppressed masses in Macedonia under Bulgarian rule. Not supported by the revolutionary proletariat party, Dimo H. Dimov was dismissed. After that the temporary representation was disbanded. Later the Federated Macedonian National Organization was created but it remained weak because it stood as a purely revolutionary organization.

The reactionaries unfortunately benefited the most from these Macedonian revolutionary weaknesses and fragmentations.

Encouraged by the so-called "cheren block", T. Alexandrov and A.

Protogerov restored VMRO and put a mask of autonomy on it in order to attract as many Macedonians as possible and convinced them to aid fascism against the rising revolutionary will in Petrich Region and in the Bulgarian interior. And so once again VMRO fell into the hands of the supremacists and was used to execute a fascist military coup in September 1923, which suppressed a peasant and general worker uprising. However, there were many Macedonian activists and citizens in the ranks of the supremacist led VMRO who joined VMRO with sincere intentions of truly fighting to liberate Macedonia. Many of them belonged to emigrant organizations and most did not agree with VMRO's new role. They were outraged by the idea that VMRO would fight to protect and guard fascism and struggle against the workers and peasants in Bulgaria and in Bulgarian ruled Macedonia. For that reason many Macedonians began to oppose VMRO internally as well as in the emigrant organizations. (This included the Ilinden organization, its governing body and its editorial office.) Those opposing the supremacist led VMRO called for the unification of all Macedonian forces to fight against the supremacists and to orient themselves towards a single anti-imperialist, anti-fascist front. This revolutionary movement, which opposed the supremacists, gained strength in 1924, when the communist party corrected its position on the national question and when the Macedonian communists took an active role in the Macedonian national movement for the advancement of the idea of liberating Macedonia. This movement became so strong that in 1924, it frightened Al. Tsankov's government to approach the Serbian government and together began to persecute the Macedonian people, the Macedonian press and all Macedonian journalistic activities. This pressed T. Alexandrov, A. Protogerov and Petar Chaulev, the third VMRO Central Committee member, to sign the historic VIENNA MANIFESTO. The Manifesto included the principles of the organization's new orientation for starting a real revolutionary struggle in alliance with all revolutionary factors in the Balkans against the Balkan imperialists and struggle for a free and independent Macedonia. This was the Macedonian national liberation movement's new program which united all the revolutionary Macedonian forces to work for a general struggle. It also inspired the people and created an atmosphere of enthusiasm especially among the Macedonian emigrants. This was encouragement for success.

Under strong pressure from their Bulgarian handlers, T. Alexandrov and A. Protogerov shamefully renounced the Manifesto and once again returned to the service of the Bulgarian imperialists. But the Vienna Manifesto didn't lose any of its significance. It remained and continued to be a base for unification for all the Macedonian revolutionary forces in a single internal Macedonian national and revolutionary organization. As a result, the foundations for VMRO (United) were laid in 1925, which included in its ranks the old centralists from the Ilinden era, the federalists, the left from the autonomist organization, the Macedonian communists and people from the young Macedonian generation. Thus, the Macedonian people found a new revolutionary organization to lead their struggle, under new conditions but again for Macedonian national independence.

As the sole successor of Delchev's VMRO, the new VMRO (United) accepted all the positive qualities and revolutionary principles under which the Macedonian masses were brought up.

VMRO (United) proudly carried the past glorious Macedonian revolutionary legacy, whose main conductors and heroes were Gotse Delchev, Jane Sandanski, Gjorche Petrov, Pere Toshev, Chemopeev and Dimo H. Dimov.

But in order to be able to continue the work of the first Macedonian revolutionaries with dignity, VMRO (United) needed to learn from the experiences and mistakes that they had made which had put the Macedonian people in jeopardy but without swerving away from the old Macedonian movement's ideology and practice.

Unfortunately the old VMRO was unclear and fell into contradictions when it came to the basic question about the Macedonian people's nationality. It recognized and, as a thorn in the eyes of the supremacists, highlighted the existence of the Macedonian people in an independent geographical and economic Macedonian entity, which had the right to separate into an independent Macedonian state. But at the same time the old VMRO wrongly believed that the Slavic speaking Macedonians were Bulgarians. In that lies the reason why it could not carry out the struggle against the supremacists and against the Bulgarian belligerent policy towards Macedonia. Conviction prevailed in the old VMRO that the independent struggle of the Macedonian people for a separate Macedonian state was dictated by maneuvering political reasons: not because Macedonia wasn't Bulgarian, not because it shouldn't join Bulgaria, but because other interested countries wouldn't allow such a merger. It was this deeply untrue position that forced all Macedonian revolutionaries to become volunteers in the Bulgarian army during the Balkan War against the Ottomans, a big mistake with disastrous consequences for the Macedonian people. The basic and most important reason for the historically wrong course of action taken was hidden in the damage the supremacists and Bulgarian belligerent policies had caused against the Macedonian people. By allowing Bulgarians to function inside Macedonia they temporarily overshadowed the national feeling of independence among the Macedonian people.

Unfortunately VMRO (United) was unable to learn lessons from the disastrous mistakes the Macedonians had made in the past. It could not help but loudly shout at the Bulgarian and Balkan imperialists:

Get your bloody hands off Macedonia! It could not help but fight for the Macedonian people's preservation and against their assimilation... It could not help but promote Macedonian national feeling: they are Macedonians; they are not Serbians, Greeks, or Bulgarians, but a separate Macedonian nation. Therefore, and precisely because of this, VMRO (United) laid a solid base for the Macedonian liberation movement for a principled and rational struggle for a free and independent Macedonian state. In that regard, VMRO (United) not only corrected and supplemented the old VMRO, but continued to deliver on the promises Delchev, Arsov, Teodosij Skopski and others made, who wanted and worked for the creation of Macedonian national literature, independent Macedonian schools and an autocephalous Macedonian church. VMRO (United)

restored the Macedonian newspaper "Loza", published in the 1880s and edited in the Macedonian language ,which proclaimed the existence of an independent Macedonian nationality and pleaded for an independent Macedonian state.

The old VMRO falsely believed that the great western European powers would help the Macedonian people. That is why it created the slogan "Autonomy for Macedonia under the patronage of the great powers". The old VMRO did not understand the imperialist character of the great powers, which had turned the Ottoman Empire into their own semi-colony and were competing to completely subjugate it and erase it from the map as a state. Macedonia was an enslaved country existing inside this feudal, absolutist and semi-colonial Ottoman region. It wasn't only enslaved by its Ottoman masters, but was also enslaved by the great imperialist states, the great powers, which were looking to expand their growing colonies.

They too were robbing Macedonia. Obviously, the old VMRO did not understand the situation correctly and should not have placed its hopes in those countries. On the other hand, the modern Macedonian national liberation movement worked and fought during a different revolutionary time. When it became clear to everyone that the "great powers" had a bloodthirsty nature, the marking of the opposite fronts, that of the revolutionaries and that of the reactionaries, also became clear. And naturally, VMRO (United) could not want an autonomous Macedonia under the patronage of the "great powers", because that would mean that we ourselves would open the doors to our native country for its conquest by the big imperialist countries, which would mean that the Macedonian people would be no less enslaved in the future than they are today. A true national revolutionary movement, such as ours, cannot, in its desire, tear its people away from being enslaved by the Ottomans and clear the way for certain other belligerents (Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece) to enslave them. All imperialists are enemies of the Macedonian people, just as they are enemies of all oppressed peoples. This is why VMRO (United) led the Macedonian national liberation struggle on an anti-imperialist basis.

The old VMRO was not a chauvinistic organization; it wanted brotherhood and "cultural competition between nations". It "did not hate the Ottomans as a people, it hated their lordly system of governance". The old VMRO accepted people from all nationalities living in Macedonia in its ranks; it fought for Macedonia's liberation and to gain "broad rights for the poor from all nationalities living in Macedonia" (Delchev). Unfortunately, after it began its revolutionary activities, it did not take the second big step and build a single front that included all the oppressed nationalities in Macedonia and did not invite the impoverished Turkish people to join the general struggle against the Sultan and his Beys. Such an attempt was not made even during the Ilinden Uprising, when all the people of all nationalities inside Macedonia were concerned. Also excluded was the Turkish national element which became a target for some. In Kostur Region for example, some insurgents, inspired by the supremacists, set fire to Turkish villages. No one did anything to provide aid for the Turkish people in the entire Ottoman Empire.

This is because the old VMRO counted on the support of the "great powers", and not on the Turkish people, Balkan people, Europe and the world. It was in 1908-09 that the Sandinistas became aware for the first time of the necessity to build a single front using all revolutionary forces. In Macedonia and Turkey the brilliant fulfillment of a single front was demonstrated by the Young Turks during their uprising. The old VMRO accepted this tactic and adapted it to the conditions of the newly enslaved Macedonia invaded, occupied and partitioned by Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek imperialists. The Macedonian people's closest allies in their struggle for freedom and independence were the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek workers and peasants, as well as other oppressed peoples and nationalities in Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria. Other allies were colonial dependent nations and progressive social forces in Europe and the world. The Macedonian people today have another great and strong friend - the USSR, which has provided us with an ideal solution to the national question in the former Russian Empire which openly helps all enslaved peoples in the struggle against imperialist slavery and for self-determination and national independence.

The old VMRO worked with the people and for the people, and in that respect it was a people's organization. However, at the same time it practiced guerilla warfare, expropriation and terrorist activities. Most of the activities conducted by Delchev's VMRO were agitation and propaganda in an attempt to raise the peasants to rebel against paying the sultan taxes, against serving their beys and for appropriating land and livestock for the benefit of the peasants.