The obituary of leading Bulgarian woman Communist Anna Majmunkova. Comrade Majmunkova was one of hundreds murdered by reactionaries in the aftermath of a failed rising and 1925’s Sofia Cathedral bombing.

‘Anna Majmunkova’ by Edda Baum from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 6 No. 6. January 21, 1926.

On the 6th of June 1925 our Comrade Anna Majmunkova was dragged by the blood-hounds of the murderous Zankov government to the Sofia cemetery where they severed her head from her body. This murder was preceded by cruel tortures: the brutal white guardist officers mishandled the defenceless woman and violated her in the most bestial manner. In the course of 28 days she was repeatedly “cross-examined”, which means that she was tortured and illtreated in the most diabolical manner, in order to extort a confession from her. It was with great difficulty that a comrade was able to recognise in the countenance covered with wounds and distorted with mental agony, our comrade Anna Majmunkova.

“Tell the comrades that I have betrayed nothing”, these were the last words of Anna Majmunkova, this was the last greeting, the last charge of the dead to the living. Anna Majmunkova came from a petty bourgeois family and was for several years engaged as a teacher, before she placed her powers, her knowledge and experience in the service of the toiling and exploited masses of Bulgaria. Anna Majmunkova did not belong to those intellectuals who are swept into the proletarian camp on the rising revolutionary flood and who when this flood ebbs, when the proletariat is temporarily defeated, return back from whence they came, into the bourgeois camp.

Anna Majmunkova belonged to the revolutionary movement since 1910. Ever since then she was an active member of the “Tjesnjaki“, the bolshevist wing of the social democratic Party of Bulgaria, which had already separated from the latter in 1903 and conducted an obstinate fight against the opportunist tendencies of the social democratic party.

Anna Majmunkova was a member of the Central Committee for work among the women. The periodical “Ravanstwo” (Equality) which she edited, was a flag around which the exploited and enslaved proletarian women in the town and village rallied in increasing numbers. In addition to her work of enlightening and organizing the proletarian women in Bulgaria, comrade Anna Majmunkova took part in all actions of the Party and served it continually with her voice and pen. Anna Majmunkova’s nature was characterised by an extraordinarily profound seriousness; everything she said or wrote bore the stamp of a strong sense of responsibility. Her speeches were not rousing; but were always carefully thought out and prepared, and therefore left a deep impression. In 1923, after the insurrectionary movement in Chaskovo (Southern Bulgaria), she was arrested, but shortly afterwards released under the condition that she did not leave this town. In spite of this she returned to Sofia, where she placed all her powers in the service of the cause and by her activity won the esteem and confidence of the working masses. In 1924 she edited the women’s paper “Robotnitcha” (The Woman Worker). Soon afterwards the paper was suppressed and Anna Majmunkova was again arrested. After some time she was again released — and again took up illegal revolutionary work. She remained at her post until, after the outrage in the Cathedral, she fell into the hands of the officers, who did not relinquish their prey alive.

The murder of Anna Majmunkova was not the result of a spontaneous outburst of rage on the part of a furious and misguided crowd. It was not the carrying out of a “judicial” sentence, but nevertheless it was the deliberate well-thought-out act of white class justice carried out in cold blood. Anna Majmunkova had really merited the deadly hate of her class enemies by a life full of work and struggle in the service of the emancipation of the enslaved masses of the people of Bulgaria. The deadly blow which put an end to the life of this self-sacrificing and true fighter, was directed in the first place against the Communist Party of Bulgaria, so hated by the bourgeois pack. The social democratic parties of all countries pass over this act of bourgeois justice in profound silence. They maintain silence not only in this case of the murder of the “guilty” woman champion, they also maintain silence regarding the numerous murders of defenceless women and children, who were only connected with the Communist Party and its cause by family ties. The social democracy also maintains silence regarding the news of the murder of Anka Dimitrova, a woman of 60 years, because she refused to divulge where her son, a political refugee, had fled. It also says nothing regarding the murder of Mrs. Nemova, who was so ill-treated that it was impossible to remove her clothes from her swollen body. The social democrats remain silent regarding the news of the murder of Mrs. Krotnov, who was murdered in bed along with her child at her breast. The “crime” of this unfortunate woman was that the hangmen assumed that she, as well as her husband, who was also killed, sympathised with the insurgent peasants. The fate of the young woman student Zora Dragotchova, who had been condemned to death and whose execution was only postponed because she had been violated and had become pregnant, did not disturb the Second International and the Social democratic Parties affiliated to it.

The social democracy maintains a conspiracy of silence. The workers and peasants in almost all countries also remain silent. But this stillness cannot last for ever. Indeed there are people who in this stillness hear the workers and peasants gnashing their teeth; those workers and peasants who appear docile today, will tomorrow raise the flag that has slipped from the hands of Anna Majmunkova — the flag which will lead them to inevitable struggles and to the inevitable victory of the enslaved proletarian masses in all countries. On this day the social democratic workers will return to the old flag, and, shoulder to shoulder with the communist workers, will fight for the common Cause and for the common victory.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1926/v06n06-jan-21-1926-Inprecor.pdf