Post-war Period
Members of the IMRO (United) participated in the forming of Republic of Macedonia a federal state of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and some of the leading members entered the government: Dimitar Vlahov, Panko Brashnarov, Pavel Shatev (the latter was the last surviving member of "Gemidzhii" or "Varkarides" in Greek, the group that executed the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903). However, they were quickly ousted by cadres loyal to the Yugoslav Communist Party in Belgrade, who had had pro-Serbian leanings before the war. According to Macedonian historian Ivan Katardjiev such Macedonian activists came from IMRO (United) and the Bulgarian Communist Party never managed to get rid of their pro-Bulgarian bias and on many issues opposed the Serbian-educated leaders, who held most of the political power. Pavel Shatev went as far as to send a petition to the Bulgarian legation in Belgrade protesting the anti-Bulgarian policies of the Yugoslav leadership and the Serbianisation of the Bulgarian language.
From the start, the Yugoslav authorities organised frequent purges and trials of Macedonian communists and non-party people charged with autonomist deviation. Many of the left-wing IMRO government officials, including Pavel Shatev and Panko Brashnarov, were purged from their positions too, then isolated, arrested, imprisoned or executed by the Yugoslav federal authorities on various (in many cases fabricated) charges including: pro-Bulgarian leanings, demands for greater or complete independence of Yugoslav Macedonia, collaboration with the Cominform after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, forming of conspirative political groups or organisations, demands for greater democracy, etc. One of the victims of these campaigns was Metodija Andonov Cento, a wartime partisan leader and president of ASNOM, who was convinced of having worked for a "completely independent Macedonia" as an IMRO member. A survivor among the communists associated with the idea of Macedonian autonomy was Dimitar Vlahov, who was used "solely for window dressing".
On the other hand, former Mihailovists were also persecuted by the Belgrade-controlled authorities on accusations of collaboration with the Bulgarian occupation, Bulgarian nationalism, anti-communist and anti-Yugoslav activities, etc. Notable victims included Spiro Kitinchev, mayor of Skopje, Ilija Kocarev, mayor of Ohrid and Georgi Karev, the mayor of Krushevo during the Bulgarian occupation and brother of Ilinden revolutionary Nikola Karev. Another IMRO activist, Sterio Guli, son of Pitu Guli, reportedly shot himself upon the arrival of Tito's partisans in Krushevo in despair over what he saw as a second period of Serbian dominance in Macedonia. Also Shatorov's supporters in Vardar Macedonia, called Sharlisti, were systematically exterminated by the YCP in the autumn of 1944, and repressed for their anti-Yugoslav and pro-Bulgarian political positions.
IMRO's supporters in Bulgarian Pirin Macedonia fared no better. With the help of some former Protogerovists, their main activists were hunted by the Communist police and many of them killed or imprisoned. Because some IMRO supporters openly opposed the then official policy of Communist Bulgaria to promote Macedonian ethnic consciousness in Pirin Macedonia they were repressed or exiled to the interior of Bulgaria. Many from this persecuted people emigrated through Greece and Turkey to Western countries. At this period the American and Greek intelligence services recruited some of them, trained them and later used this so called "Goryani" as spies and saboteurs, smuggling them back to Communist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
Despite the fact that Yugoslav Macedonian historical scholarship reluctantly acknowledged the Bulgarian ethnic self-identification of the Ilinden IMRO leaders, they were adopted in the national pantheon of Yugoslav Macedonia as ethnic Macedonians. Official Yugoslav historiography asserted a continuity between the Ilinden of 1903 and the Ilinden of ASNOM in 1944 ignoring the fact that the first one included the uprising in the Adrianople part of Thrace region as well. The names of the IMRO revolutionaries Gotse Delchev, Pitu Guli, Dame Gruev and Yane Sandanski were included in the lyrics of the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia Denes nad Makedonija ("Today over Macedonia").
Read more about this topic: Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
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