Execution of Mr Petkov

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25301, 29 September 1947, Page 6

Execution of Mr Petkov

The Bulgarian spokesman in Paris, who (as is reported this morning) dismissed press protests against the execution of Mr Petkov as “ part of ‘■the campaign against Russia and “ other European States ”, championed two badly maligned countries indeed. If the Bulgarian government is to be counted solely responsible for Mr Petkov’s trial and death —as Russia by refusing to “inter“fere in the internal affairs of Bul- “ garia ” made it out to be—it has a heavy responsibility. Mr Petkov was the leader of the Agrarian Union, or peasants’ party, the chief party outside the Communists’ Fatherland Front. He had, as the Paris spokesman acknowledged and discounted it, a “tendency against the “ fascist Bulgarian Government ” which jackalled for Hitler—a tendency so openly and courageously pursued that only the known strength of the people’s support for hint saved his life. He signed the armistice for Bulgaria as one of the obviously trustworthy representatives of a free Bulgaria. When the elections were held, late last year, gross abuses could not prevent his party’s gaining 30 per cent, of the votes cast. The Agrarian Union in

fact demonstrated that it was a political force which eould not be ignored; and the Fatherland Front therefore determined to dissolve it. |lt carried out “ a campaign of teri “ rorisation and intimidation ” —the phrase was used in Washington’s Note of September 3—against the ! Agrarian Union, made the trial of ! Mr Petkov both a symbol and an instrument of this campaign, and brought it to a head in the deathsentence on both party and leader. The Agrarian deputies (90 of them) were expelled from the Bulgarian Parliament, their union was dissolved, and Mr Petkov sentenced to death. The Paris spokesman says, for “ preparing to overthrow the Bulgarian Government”; in fact, for leading a Parliamentary Opposition which the exponents of a one-party State were determined to suppress. That is not the whole truth: the prior part of it is that they had set their faces against co-operation with it in—to quote the Paris spokesman —“ a real democratic popular gov- “ eminent They kept the Agrarian Union at arm’s length in opposition; then they smashed it because it was an Opposition, and reared Mr Petkov’s scaffold on the ruins. If the Bulgarian Government were solely responsible for all this, it would be abominably responsible; but it is not. The Russian Government agreed at Yalta to assist in establishing “ broadly representa“tive” democratic governments in the Axis-satellite countries. In Moscow, in 1945, the Russian Government specifically agreed to “ take upon itself the mission “of giving friendly advice to “ the Bulgarian Government ”, to the end that it should take in representatives of genuine democratic groups then outside the Government, the reference being certainly to the Agrarian Union first and foremost. Nothing was done—except the contrary. The campaign against the Agrarian Union and Mr Petkov was driven furiously ahead. These are the circumstances in which, when Washington urged Moscow to intervene, warn the Bulgarian Gov-, eminent, seek a stay of Mr Petkov’s execution, and renew Allied consultation on political events in Bulgaria, Moscow declined, on the ground that to intervene would be “ interfering in the internal affairs “of Bulgaria ”. This was before the Bulgarian peace treaty came into effect. In Mr Petkov’s execution the Bulgarian Government pressed on to advertise its untrammelled independence.