Yugoslav Partisans ~32,000 Bulgarian soldiers in Southern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia (May 1941 – September 1944)[5] ~300,000 (Army Group E in October 1944)[6] Uprisings 1942 1943 1944 1945 Central Europe Germany Italy Spain (Spanish Civil War) Albania Austria Baltic states Belgium Bulgaria Burma China Czechia Denmark France Germany Greece Italy Japan Jewish Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Slovakia Spain Soviet Union Yugoslavia Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia started with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Under the pressure of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, part of the Macedonian communists began in October 1941 a political and military campaign to resist the occupation of Vardar Macedonia.

He revitalized parts of his old organisation and ordered them to enter Vardar Macedonia and infiltrate the local Bulgarian administration, waiting for an opportunity to take over control and create a pro-German Macedonian state.

The idea for the formation of these units came from Stefan Simeonov, chief of the Police in Skopje district, and former Internal Dobrujan Revolutionary Organisation četnik, and was approved by minister of the interior Petur Gabrovski.

After the arrest of Lazar Koliševski in November, the new executive body of the Macedonian Regional Committee continued to share Shatorov's pro-Bulgarian ideas and re-established close contact with the BCP.

Between 1941 and 1943, Tito have sent five emissaries to Macedonia, to persuade his ill-disciplined comrades, but their efforts had limited success, and the Regional Committee was de facto under the control of the BCP.

The first Central Committee (CC of the CPM) was composed as of Yugoslav communists as Strahil Gigov, Kuzman Josifovski Pitu, Cvetko Uzunovski, Mara Naceva and Bane Andreev.

The territory of Vardar Macedonia was divided into five operative zones, and efforts were made to make direct contact with the liberation movements in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece.

The date of the creation of its first major unit, the Mirče Acev Battalion, is August 18, 1943 on Mount Slavej between Ohrid and Kičevo, then in the Italian occupation zone.

Svetozar Vukmanović put forward the idea of a joint Balkan Headquarters to exercise supreme control over the partisan movements in Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece.

Harsh rule by the occupying forces and a number of Allied victories showing that the Axis might lose the war encouraged more Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito.

[71] It was anticipated by the Germans that members of IMRO would form the core of the armed forces of a future Independent Macedonia led by Ivan Mihailov.

In the battle for the village of Sejac, the Vardar Chetnik Corps was totally destroyed, suffering 53 casualties (46 shot by partisans and 7 drowned in the river Pčinja while attempting to flee).

Because of increased partisan activity, the main supply lines for the German Army group "E" stationed in Greece and Albania were constantly ambushed and at the same time, the HQ of the MNOV was making plans to liberate western Macedonia and sent the 1st Macedonian-Kosovo Assault Brigade there.

On 2 August 1944, on the 41st anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising, the first session of the newly created Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) was held at the St. Prohor Pčinjski monastery.

To the displeasure of those preferring joining the Yugoslav Socialist Federation, Metodija Andonov-Čento was elected president and Panko Brashnarov (former member of IMRO) vice-president.

The Manifesto of ASNOM eventually became a compromise between the "maximalists" and the "minimalists" – the unification of the Macedonian people was discussed and propagandized but the decision was ultimately reached that Vardar Macedonia would become a part of the new Communist Yugoslavia.

The proponents of the "maximalist" line were in favor of the creation of an independent United Macedonian state which would have ties with Yugoslavia, but not necessarily inclusion in a Yugoslav Federation.

[80] Based on German telegrams from the time, Ivan Mihailov was offered the establishment of such a state, but by 18:00 (6 pm) on 6 September, he declined for inability to gather support.

[92] As a result, the Gotse Delchev brigade was set up and equipped in Sofia by the Bulgarian government providing the basis for the deployment of considerable Yugoslav troops in Vardar Macedonia.

On a series of maps from Army Group E, showing its withdrawal through Macedonia and Southern Serbia, as well as in the memoirs of its chief of staff, there is almost no indication of Yugoslav Partisan units, but only Bulgarian divisions.

So even older left-wing politicians, who were at some degree pro-Bulgarian oriented, were purged from their positions, then isolated, arrested and imprisoned on fabricated charges, as foreign agents, demanding greater independence, forming of conspirative political groups and the like.

At the same time sizable part of the local administration, the soldiers recruited in the Bulgarian Army and the police officers stationed in Vardar Macedonia were native from the area.

[147][148] Even the only victim of the attack on 11 October 1941, celebrated today as the day of the Macedonian Uprising against fascism, was a local man conscripted in the Bulgarian police.

[149] Yugoslav Macedonian historians have accused the Bulgarian forces of several atrocities, most prominent among which is the massacre of 12 young civilians at the village of Vataša, but the officer commanding the operation was also a local staff.

[152] Today are some revisionist opinions in North Macedonia, this conflict was merely a civil war,[153] and the significant resistance movement against the Bulgarians is only a historical myth.

[156][157] Per German military historian Karl Hnilicka, the Bulgarians developed their advance towards Skopje into a large-scale offensive, which gave rise to the danger for Army Group E of being cut off.

Bulgarian members of the European Parliament – expressed outrage over the film and claimed it was an attempt to manipulate the Balkan history and to spread hate against Bulgaria.

[175] According to the opinion of the former Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski, these reactions are organized by the post-Yugoslav deep state, and are the result of ignorance, hypocrisy or politicking.

[176] On the other hand, another former Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, reacted that Macedonians and Bulgarians were a single people, finally separated intentionally by the Yugoslav policy after the WWII.