A BALKAN TANGLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 125, 29 May 1925, Page 6

A BALKAN TANGLE.

I Four Agrarians have been sentenced to death in connection with the recent outrages at Sofia, when bombs were thrown which killed large numbers of people who were attending a funeral service. The outrage itself was undoubtedly the work of the Communists, and was , planned by the Pan-Balkan Communist Union, which is an offshoot of the Third International. ■ But the Communists have cleverly used the discontent of (he Bulgarian Agrarians, or I farmers, against the present Government in order to foment general discontent throughout Bulgaria, and, if possible, plunge the country into civil war. The Bulgarians are essentially an agricultural-people, but at present they are under a Government which is chiefly representative of the military and bourgeois classes of. the towns, and the peasants are seeking an opportunity to rise against their military and bourgeois I masters, avenge their dead leader, Stami bouliski, and regain political control. Tho peasants have no national leader and consequently it has not been difficult ■ for Communists from Moscow to take an active part in fomenting discontent among the farmers. The peasants are naturally strongly opposed to the doctrines of Commuism, since they are mostly small landed proprietors, who would be the first to rebel against Moscow's economic theories. Unfortunately .the extreme Agrarians, though they, dislike Communist doctrines, are working with the Communist revolutionaries in the hope of avenging their dead leader and deposing tho present rulers., The situation has been further complicated by the tension existing between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia over the raids made from neighbouring Yugoslav districts into Bulgarian territory. It is said that there is a general feeling in the Balkans that the Bulgarian outbreak is the beginning of a far-flung j Bolshevist plot to. win over the Balkans Jto Communism, since by doiner so Russia J micht regain Bessarabia and be in a double respect nearer to the coal of I eeneral European revolution. Bulgaria has paid dearly for having given any heed to the bidding of Moscow. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of deaths and arrests were the toll exacted for the I explosion of ' a bomb by Communists. Communist outrages have led to the substitution., of military courts for the J ordinary tribunals, . and thus Bulgaria I has .lost much of her liberty between the terror of the revolutionaries and the stern renressive measures of the military. The best solution of the present difficulty would seem to be the formation of a new Cabinet representing a compromise with the Agrarians, since it is only thus that the Communist, menace can be adequately met.