May Manifesto

They felt the Bulgarians were the most revolutionary in desiring an overthrow of the First World War peace settlements enforced by the national bourgeois establishment of the Balkan states.

[1] To further its goals, the BCP enlisted the support of leftist former activists in Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), who espoused pro-Balkan Federation views.

At the Balkan Communist Conference in Vienna in May 1922, the Bulgarian delegate Vasil Kolarov first raised the issue of Macedonian and Thracian autonomy.

Knowing the proposal was a threat to their countries borders, the Greek and Yugoslav delegates were unable to endorse it at this stage; however, in order for any chance of success, the communists needed the support of the IMRO.

Continuing into 1924, the secret negotiations between the Federalists, BCP and IMRO representatives were conducted to unite all groups under the same goal: the independence or autonomy of a Macedonian state.

[3] This communist-influenced document reads for a creation of a Macedonian state for the reasons of: "endowed with the most varied natural riches and a favorable climate; with its ethnically diverse population of upwards of 2,302,000 persons; with a strategic and economic position in the middle of the Balkans [...] has all the rights and conditions necessary for an independent political existence.

It also declares its goal to be the "liberation and reunion of the separated parts of Macedonia in a fully autonomous and independent political unit within its natural geographic and ethnic frontiers".

The IMRO led by Mihailov took actions against the left-wing assassinating Dimo Hadzhidimov, Arseni Yovkov, Vladislav Kovachev, Aleksandar Bujnov, Chudomir Kantardzhiev, Stojo Hadzhiev, overall ca.

Meanwhile, in 1928 Mihailov proposed a new plan calling for unification of Macedonia region into a single state, that would be independent from Bulgaria, but should be with prevailing ethnic Bulgarian element.

The May Manifesto published in the Ilinden newspaper in Sofia