The war against the insurgent workers and peasants of Bulgaria by the fascist Zankoff regime was also waged against their children.

‘Children as Victims of the White Terror in Bulgaria’ by Robert from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 6 No. 3. January 14, 1926.

The following article was written before the recent change of government in Bulgaria, but this in no way reduces the importance of the facts given or in any renders less necessary international action on behalf the young victims of White Terror in Bulgaria. Ed.

The children of the working class of Bulgaria are suffering under the White Terror, not only indirectly in consequence of the persecution, arrest and murder of their parents and adult brothers and sisters but, in spite of their tender age and in spite of their “political immaturity” from the bourgeois point of view, they are exposed to the same persecutions including condemnation and murder as the adults. In Bulgaria, dozens of children have been and are being killed, others are condemned to death, hundreds of children were arrested with their parents, especially at the time of the great wholesale arrests, and interned, others again were separated from their parents, left to their own devices and exposed to death from starvation.

After the suppression of the September revolution in 1923, and the carnage organised by the Government bandits among the persons arrested and imprisoned, a campaign of murder took place in the towns and villages among the families and connections of the insurgent workers and peasants. The Government bands and especially the Wrangelists and Macedonians who had been bribed, beheaded and killed even quite small children with the cry of rage: “We must exterminate communism down to the roots; therefore we must destroy the children of the cursed communists also lest they grow into avengers!” Many such murders of children are to be recorded, especially in the villages of the Vratza district, the centre of the September revolution.

In all the other big massacres also which were instituted by the murderous Government of Zankoff-Volkoff among the workers of Bulgaria, children were killed, especially in the last carnage after the outrage in the cathedral of Sofia, dozens of children being killed; further in the incinerated villages of Muchovo (Pazardschik district) Osmanli (Plovidic district) and others. Up to now the following typical cases of murder of children have been confirmed:

In the immediate neighbourhood of the station of Belovo, 26 persons were slaughtered in a meadow. Not far from this place, a whole family, father, mother and 6 year old child were also found slaughtered.

It was such a horrible sight that peasants, passing by, fainted.

In the village of Alexandrovo, Svischtov district, a whole family consisting of father, mother, grandfather, daughter, son-in-law and four children between the ages of four and twelve were found murdered in a bestial way.

In Sofia, the wife of Captain Krotneft was murdered in bed with her infant in the same night in which her husband, who was suspected of sympathising with and abetting united from fighters, was arrested and his corpse thrown into the street.

The 14-year-old son of the “illegal” Borometschkoff from Sofia whose father fell in a heroic fight, was arrested and cruelly tortured in order to extort from him statements as to the whereabouts and the activity of his father. As he would betray nothing, he was killed.

No small number of the children of the thousands of persons arrested and driven out of the country were literally left to themselves and died of starvation. We will only quote one case of this kind here:

There lived in Sofia in the Czar Simeon street a woman worker called Dimitrova, the wife of an emigrant. After the explosion in the cathedral she was arrested and afterwards interned. Her two children, a boy of twelve and a girl of eight were left without any help. No one dared to stand by them for fear of being suspected of abetting illegal elements. The two unfortunate children were admitted to hospital shortly before they died of starvation. It was too late to save them and their mother went our of her mind in her despair.

The number of children arrested and interned is also enormous. At the time of the wholesale arrests after the September insurrection and the outrage in the cathedral of Sofia, the prisons were inadequate to hold the large number of men, women and children arrested, and barracks, schools and even private houses had to be used as prisons. The children were threatened and tortured in the same way as the adults, in order to extort from them statements as to the whereabouts or illegal activities of their parents and adult relations.

In the trials of young persons, especially of school children, as is well known, boys and girls of 16 and less, were accused of conspiracy (taking part in communist education circles) and the public prosecutor even demanded that they be sentenced to death. The trials of schoolchildren in Berkovitza and Sofia are characteristic examples.

The distress and misery of thousands and thousands of children of the arrested workers, peasants and intellectuals among the people, beggar description. More than 4000 people are at present interned in Bulgaria for political reasons! The thousands of children of the more than 20,000 workers, peasants and intellectuals killed during the 22 years rule of the sanguinary Zankoff Government, are in similar distress. These children are not only deprived of their parents and relations, the murderous Government even condemns any assistance given them as abetting illegal persons! Even foreign humanitarian and cultural circles are not allowed to give them help. Money sent for this purpose, is either confiscated, as was the case with the sum sent by the English delegation of women or such delegations are turned out of the country (Czech delegation) or are refused entry to the country (Vienna, Austria) and (Basle, Switzerland).

The courageous part taken by a large number of children in the September insurrection and their attitude towards the tortures show how the children of the working population of Bulgaria react to these persecutions. The following examples are characteristic of the psychological effect on the children of the horrible atmosphere of blood in the present Bulgaria.

In the memorandum “Bulgaria’s Stream of Blood”, published by the “German League for Human Rights”, the following report appeared on p. 28:

“The school inspector Dr. N. Pentscheff writes as follows on the effect of the events in Bulgaria: (‘Radical’, May 27th, 1925): ‘Ask them (the children) about the recent sad events in public life, and you will come across incredible curiosities. My son, a boy in the third class for instance, told me three days ago, that they are very fond of playing communists in school, one is Friedmann (a communist hanged in Sofia), another Peter Abadjeff (a communist condemned to death), a third Petrini (a peasant leader and deputy murdered in prison and sentenced to death when he was dead), a fourth Minkoff (a murdered communist) etc. The other boys are the police who are to persecute, arrest and condemn the first group. I was surprised, even children in the elementary schools then live through these events!”

The inhabitants of that part of Sofia in which Friedmann etc. were executed, relate that children, in playing at a public execution, actually hanged the child who was representing Friedmann!

Two months after the outrage of April 16th, an inquiry was made in some of the secondary schools of Sofia among the boys of 11-13, as to their attitude towards the outrage, with the following result: 70% condemned it; 20% declared it to be a well deserved reply to the speculators, usurers, exploiters and executioners of the people; 10% expressed the opinion that it was an atrocity but that those who carried it out acted from noble motives against the oppressors and tortures of the people.

Both the school teachers and the bourgeois Press were bitterly disappointed at the result of the inquiry. If we bear in mind the sanguinary atmosphere of terror of those times, if we recall the reactionary school regime under Zankoff as Minister for Education and remember that most of the children of the persecuted communists and members of the Peasants’ League were excluded from school, we must acknowledge that the 30% of the scholars gave a correct verdict of the children of Bulgaria on the murderous regime of Zankoff and Wolkoff.

On the resumption of the international Bulgarian campaign, the proletariat of the whole world must insist upon:

Immediate amnesty for the parents and adult brothers and sisters of the Bulgarian children who are under arrest!

State support for the orphans whose fathers and mothers have been murdered without any kind of verdict or legal procedure, or by the court-martial!

Permission to give support to the children of the victims of the White Terror!

Permit to leave the country for orphans so that they can be admitted to proletarian or humanitarian children’s homes!

An enquiry into the atrocities in Bulgaria and the punishment of the guilty persons!

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. Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1926/v06n03-jan-14-1926-Inprecor.pdf