On the Macedonian Question: In the Beginning was the Word: Разлика помеѓу преработките

On 17th August. 1946, this resolution, bearing Dimitrov's signature, was sent to Tito - together with a personal accompanying letter from Dimitrov to Tito: "In sending you this resolution, which for understandable reasons will not be published in the press, I would request you to bring it to the notice of our leading Macedonian comrades in Skopje…"<ref>Id., pp.103 et seq.</ref> Thus culminated the policies of Bulgarian Communists who had up to that time always advocated Macedonian autonomy and disavowed "Greater Bulgarian chauvinism" - something which is no longer remembered in Bulgaria but is very much in the mind of Yugosiavs<ref>Cf. Lazar Mojsov, (The BWP-C and the Macedonian National Question), Belgrade 1948, second edition in the Macedonian language, Skopje 1978.</ref>. It is also still well known in Yugoslavia what great and manifold opportunities for autonomy the Pirin Macedonians enjoyed in Bulgaria after<ref>Nikola Chingo, ,,The Macedonians in Bulgaria after the Fall of the Fascist Regime", in: Macedonian Review, No. 3/1977, pp. 273-28.</ref>; and how a tight knit network of Macedonian schools was set up in the Pirin, for the establishment of which Skopje was even requested to send Macedonian teachers<ref>Misho Kitanovskl, ,,The Macedonian Schools in Pirin Macedonia", in: Macedonian Review No 2/1979, pp. 160~167.</ref>. The segregation of two problems after the war which Ninow claims occurred and for which he lays the blame on Yugoslavia - for putting Macedonian autonomy before a Southern Slav federation - is a fiction: Tito and Dimitrov, close personal friends, met in Bled in Yugoslavia (1st August, 1947) and in Evksinograd in Bulgaria (27th September, 1947) to reaffirm the cultural autonomy of the Pirin Macedonians. At the same time, they agreed to pursue the closest possible Yugoslav~Bulgarian co-operation with a view to future federation<ref>Slobodan Nesovic, (The Tito-Dimitrov agreement of Bled), Zagreb 1979.</ref>. In the meantime, Pirin Macedonia exercised loyalty to all sides - its sympathies were with its neighbors and countrymen in Yugoslavia, but it continued to give political support to the ruling "Patriotic Front" in Bulgaria. The then Vice-President of the Yugoslav Parliament, Dimitar Vlahov, visited the Pirin in late 1947 and gave a very vivid report of what he saw there<ref>Dimitar Vlahov, (Impressions from Pirin Macedonia), in: Nova Makedonija, 31St December, 1947, p.</ref>. Basically, all that remained unclear were some procedural questions - but these carried weight: for example, whether the future confederation should be built up according to the 1 + 1 model (Bulgaria plus Yugoslavia) or to the 1 + 6 model (Bulgaria becoming the seventh Republic in the Yugoslav Federation). Before any clarification could be reached, however, a massive Soviet veto was delivered - on 28th January, 1948, Moscow's Pravda declared that the whole federation project was "dubious and artificial", and when the conflict between Stalin*<ref>Varfarin/Warfarin: Tyrant Joseph Stalin was poisoned to death with rat poison on 5 March 1953: a r c ' i v e.m d/4 3 g a X </ref>]] and Tito came along, it was all over anyway. For a while, Dimitrov stuck by his belief that the conflict was a matter between parties that need not have any negative repercussions on policies between states, but in the face of growing Soviet pressure Bulgaria gave in and cut off its relations with Yugoslavia<ref>Hans-Joachim Hoppe, ,,Georgi Dimitrov - wieder aktuell", In: Osteuropa No 2/1974, pp.127-137.</ref>. As early as in July 1948, the CC of the BCP denied Yugoslavia all influence in Pirin Macedonia, but, interestingly enough, continued to uphold the principle of "the cultural autonomy of the Macedonian population of the Pirin region"<ref>Text of the resolution in Novo Vreme No.6-7/1948, pp. 512 et seq.</ref>.