State Security and the Transformations in Bulgaria (September 1944 - December 1947) (740 pages) [CRYPTOME]

Part of the Bulgarian State Security in Communist Era Files collection.

FORWARD

Documents are the most valuable sources for historians. And documentary heritage of the State Security is indeed a rich treasury for researchers. For the most part unknown and unexplored, for years kept at the archives of different institutions (mainly the Ministry of the Interior), these records have for long remained difficult or impossible to access. The big change came with the adoption of the Access and Disclosure of the Documents and Announcing Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens to the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Armed Services Act. State Security documents were declassified according to this Act and consolidated in one centralized archive under the direct control of the Files Committee, endorsed by the Parliament in 2007. It is a major achievement by the Committee to collect, preserve and ensure citizen access to these documents as provided by law.

You are holding in your hands the fourth volume of the series of collections of documents, result of the publishing activity of the Files Committee. The collection State Security and the Changes in Bulgaria: September 1944-December 1947 deals with the establishment and consolidation of power of the Fatherland Front in the country during the first years following the coup d'etat of 9 September 1944. The role of the State Security in the radical changes of the period is broadly reflected in remaining documentary evidences of its activities.

The select documents come from two main sources: Fund 1 (Secretariat) and Fund 13 (Fight against internal counter-revolution). The first contains mainly normative and administrative acts: ministerial orders, work instructions, reports and accounts of various State Security departments, divisions and groups. The second reflects the activities of leading State Security structures in the fight against "internal counter-revolution". Initial manifestations of this fight were exposing, tracking, arresting, investigating and bringing "enemy elements" to the so called People's Court. It was mainly former police staff, gendarmes, officers, Members of Parliament, among others, who were given that label. Combating enemy elements was a priority task for central groups (named after their central location in the building of the People's Militia Directorate and working along specific lines).

There were, furthermore, a number of groups outside of the central building, each operating in several administrative regions. Central groups became progressively streamlined: group for combating "anarchists and Trotskyites"; group dealing with Orthodox clergy and fascist organisations; group for the oppositionist Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union (BAPU); transport group, etc. An investigation and tracking group of special operative workers was formed in 1945 as Division "E" within the State Security Department. In the years 1946 and 1947, groups working along specific lines established an even broader agents' network among investigated persons, and outside groups continued to collaborate mainly with informers among the members of the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists) and the Youth Workers' Union. Due to the nature of these groups' activities, preserved records of their work are for the most part comprised of denunciations, information and intelligence data.

2000 archival units of several hundreds of pages from both Fund 1 and Fund 13 have been reviewed, and a number of 200 select documents have made their way to readers of the electronic version of the collection. 135 of them have found place in the abridged paper version. Their wide variety content includes orders, ordinances, instructions, reports, circular letters, denunciations, information, requests, letters, memorandums and statements, communications, leaflets, radiograms, graphics, plans, accounts, interviews, bulletins (information, special, confidential and secret). The more specific documents in the collection are, among others, handwritten notes of the Minister of the Interior, Anton Yugov, the indictment against Nikola Petkov and the protocol for transfer of the detained former regents from the Russian General Command to the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior.

This phototype edition comprises archive materials published in a chronological order. The internal division of the publication covers three periods: the first is from 9 September 1944 to the legalization of oppositionist parties in September 1945; the second is from October 1944 to October 1946, when elections for the 6th Grand National Assembly were held; the third period is November 1946–December 1947, when the actual transition to one-party system took place. This division allows better readability and facilitates reader orientation. With a view to enhanced comprehension, a list is prepared of short descriptive annotations for individual documents.

The main objective of the selection process is to reveal the rich variety of documents in terms of type, origin, function and content. State Security archives are just as large-scale and broad-range as its activities and presence in virtually every sphere of life. The collection aims to illustrate with documents the omnipresence of the State Security, and to show that repression was an important part of its arsenal, but also to reveal the human factor behind the system. It was an organism of people and nothing human was alien to them: self-interest, envy, careerism, revenge, love, greed; it all seeps through the pages of archives and comes once again to remind that the personal factor plays an essential and sometimes critical role in history.

This collection would not have been possible without the partnership support of the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior, and personally of Deputy Minister Veselin Vuchkov, methodological leader of the working group from the Information and Archives Directorate of the Ministry, providing advisory assistance in the selection process of relevant documents.

We would like to personally thank all members of the group: Slavcho Slavchev, Yan Hadzhinikolov, Mariana Dzhambova, Velichka Velcheva and Krasimira Kalcheva, whose timely assistance and responsiveness made it possible to finish the printing of this edition in time. We extend our thanks to all members of the CDDAABCSSISBNA staff, who took part in its preparation.

It is our belief that every one of you, dear readers, will find something from this rich assortment of documents to sparkle your interest, captivate your imagination or your sense of historical research, make you turn and read these pages, maybe even embark on your own search in the vast archival collection of the Files Committee.

Todor Trifonov

Member of the CDDAABCSBNAF