The organisation, which counted Bulgarian anarchists among its membership, planned for the liberation of Thrace and Macedonia from Ottoman rule and the establishment of a socialist order in the Balkans.

Once the uprising was initiated and insurgents captured much of the region, the Strandzha Commune was proclaimed, definitively establishing communism in the areas liberated from Ottoman control.

Gerdzhikov and the IMARO attempted to elicit international support for the national liberation struggles in Macedonia and Thrace, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

The Strandzha Commune left a lasting legacy as the first distinctively modern attempt to establish libertarian communism, inspiring the consolidation of the Bulgarian anarchist movement and preceding the uprising of the Makhnovshchina in Ukraine.

While men formed local militias and began training for the coming uprising, women, children and the elderly worked cooperatively in the fields.

[18] In the rebel strongholds of Malko Tarnovo, Lozengrad and Bunarhisar, the uprising grew into a mass movement, with people of all ages and genders helping to prepare the insurrection.

Women harvested crops for the movement's food supply, stashed weapons for fighters and acted as liaisons for the militias, even designing and manufacturing flags for the uprising.

But Gerdzhikov successfully requested its postponement to the following week, as the Adrianpolitan revolutionaries were not yet ready to carry out their own uprising, which was planned to hinder the transfer of the Ottoman Army to Macedonia.

28 July] 1903, rendezvoued with other members of the Adrianopolitan revolutionary leadership – Stamat Ikonomov, Lazar Madzharov and Hristo Silyanov – in the village of Golyamo Kokorafi.

Ikonomov had initially proposed that they begin by attacking Malko Tarnovo, but his plan was opposed by the others due to lack of information on the local garrison's numbers.

The revolutionary leadership demanded he abdicate command to Nunkov, but he didn't answer, and by the time that the uprising started, increased Ottoman security provisions left him unable to carry out any further actions.

[26] At 01:30, Gerdzhikov's militia marched on Vasiliko, where they surrounded the government offices and Turkish quarter, positioned themselves on the roads through town and cut its telegraph lines.

[18] That same night, local militias in Peneka [tr; bg] cut the region's telegraph lines, drove the police out of the village and attacked the nearby army garrison.

In Zvezdets, the Ottoman barracks were set on fire and its soldiers fled, with reinforcements from Malko Tarnovo later being surrounded by the entrenched rebels, forcing them to flee back where they came.

In Derekovo, Lazar Madzharov led 300 rebels, armed mostly with axes and clubs, in an attack on the local garrison, taking the town and cutting its telegraph lines.

All of the immediate tasks of the uprising were largely fulfilled, hampering the transfer of Ottoman troops to Macedonia, disrupting their communications network and besieging the district's last garrison holding out in Malko Tarnovo.

After initial operations went well, Gerdzhikov contacted his fellow commanders in order to attempt a coordinated attack against Malko Tarnovo, but found them preoccupied with their own fronts.

[18] The revolutionaries succeeded in capturing large parts of East Thrace,[17] encompassing 92 Greek and Bulgarian villages that consisted of over 17,000 houses in total.

[29] During this time, Strandzha existed as a stateless society, without anyone attempting to build a state structure, establish a system of authority or issue unilateral decrees.

In order to administer their new society, the villages of Strandzha elected commissions, each answerable to their local militias, who as an armed force were responsible for the protection of the Commune.

The rebels opted against using the term "General Staff" due to its militarist connotations, the leadership of the Commune was called the "Leading Combat Body", established to temporarily act as the executive power and coordinate military operations until the end of the conflict.

There were also disagreements within the anarchist leadership over organisational questions: the "Boatmen", such as Slavi Merdzhanov, Petar Mandzhukov and Petar Sokolov, wished to remain operationally separate from the IMARO; the independent anarchists Nikola Dechev, Varban Kilifarski and Konstantin Nunkov [bg] also supported organisational autonomy; but their commander-in-chief Mihail Gerdzhikov warned against engaging in small-scale partisan activity and advocated full participation within the IMARO, in order to coordinate their revolutionary activities at scale.

Communism proved particularly enticing to the poor residents of the region, who had little to lose from the new system and whose lot improved once they were no longer subject to the whims of their landlords.

The number of victims in East Thrace was comparatively higher than Macedonia, as the autocratic Sultan Abdul Hamid II did not want to tolerate an uprising so close to Istanbul.

The ensuing repression encouraged the Bulgarian national liberation movement to divert funds towards aiding refugees fleeing the two regions, while holding mass demonstrations throughout Bulgaria.

One evening he met with a Japanese diplomat, who expressed sympathy for the Macedonian people and pledged his support in terms of financial aid and the supply of arms.

[15] At the time of the uprising, Mihail Gerdzhikov considered it necessary for anarchists to participate in the Bulgarian national liberation movement, in order to advance libertarian communism.

[18] But the Strandzha commune would leave a lasting legacy within the Bulgarian anarchist movement, as the first attempt in the world to establish a libertarian communist society.

[15] In many ways, the Strandzha Commune preceded the structure of the Makhnovshchina, which saw its army as a temporary necessity and left the organization of civil society to popularly elected free soviets.