Born in Shumen the son of an army colonel, Dochev worked in the civil service from 1926 to 1932 when he went to Sofia University to study law and politics.

[1] His movement adopted its more familiar name of the Union of Bulgarian National Legions in 1937 and the following year it split with Dochev leading one wing away from the main group under Hristo Lukov.

[3] The sentences were not carried out however as he remained in exile and before long he returned to political activism, with his journal Bulgaria appearing in Salzburg in 1945 followed by the formation of the virulently anti-communist Bulgarian National Front in 1947.

[3] Dochev continued his political activity in Canada, organising the Bulgarian National Front both there and in the United States as soon as he arrived in 1951.

[5] Dochev, by then Honorary Chairman of the Bulgarian National Front, returned to Bulgaria late in 1991, still unsure about whether or not his death sentence continued to stand, with even President Zhelyu Zhelev uncertain.