13. PAST LESSONS
 

Many times, and quite correctly, we have criticized policies of the Ruling-class for promoting social stratification and nationalism. But within the ranks of the BCP we are just as guilty of restricting our goals towards the proletariat and disregarding the national aspiration. This is inconsistent with true Leninist teachings. To neglect the struggle for national unification and to tacitly support foreign influence towards our national consciousness is narrow minded, sectarian, national nihilism. There is not, nor has there ever been any Marxist-Leninist teaching which endorses foreign nationalism and renunciation against ones own people. The BCP has to realize that protection of the national cause is a class-struggle within itself and an irrevocable mandate of its very existence.

At the present time we have failed to produce appropriate chronicles which detail the nature and development of the autonomy concept and the continuing struggle and resistance to Macedonism by the Bulgarian-Macedonians, a battle which rages this very day. The good news is that we have taken the first steps towards achieving these goals. To reiterate, the correction of our historiography and historic science are exceptionally complex tasks, which will not be accomplished if we retain the old thinking, old approach, and mistaken notions, and if we do not recognize the manifestations of sectarian-dogmatism and national nihilism. We have to be certain of the following critical aims:

• to unambiguously detail the Bulgarian nature of the MLM and of Macedonia from its inception to the present day.

• to explain the concept of autonomy as a Bulgarian tactical slogan of the MLM for national self-protection, liberation and unification.

• to state clearly that Macedonism as a concept represents both a foreign state and class ideology, directly supported by the YCP.

• to investigate objectively the patriotic role and tactics of Georgi Dimitrov when the distortions on the Macedonian Question were initiated (time of personality cult towards Stalin), despite the obvious contradictions of his speeches on this matter.

I have also commented on the need to explicitly state the Bulgarian character of Macedonia. For if the Bulgarians were actually a minority of only 10-30% then there would have been no need to declare them firstly as Serbians, then after direct Serbianization failed, to rename them Macedonians. This fact alone establishes that Bulgarians were the absolute majority, greater than 50% (67% at the time of Liberation in 1878), and that is why the Greater-Serbians had to declare them non-

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Bulgarian. In this way, the Bulgarian nature of Macedonia and the ethnic rights of the Bulgarians within her could be challenged.

That is also why it is so important that all these issues be placed in their true factual historic perspective. For example some inconsistencies and mistakes of Dimitrov cannot be explained superficially and arrogantly on the basis that he lacked historic education. Even now many historians and social activists in Bulgaria are ignorant of these issues. We cannot seek absolution by assigning all blame to the BCP and its teachings then still continue to practise sectarian dogmatism and national nihilism while simultaneously embracing the foreign ideology of concealed Macedonism. There is a need for factual, not false knowledge. Neither should we console ourselves by criticizing foreign falsifiers while simultaneously distorting our own history, thereby indirectly supporting Macedonism.

The historic truth both sustains and advances our cause. We have no need or reason to pervert or denigrate it as they do in Yugoslavia. There, they do not oppose the Greater-Serbian Ruling-class ideology and its assimilatory objectives, but they dispute the historic facts related to Macedonia simply because they represent an antipathy to their current political aims. That is why in Yugoslavia whoever speaks of Bulgarians in Macedonia is a Vrhovist, Mihailovist, reactionary, assimilator, fascist, while whoever speaks of Macedonians is a patriot, democrat, liberator, antifascist, a true communist! The "falsifiers" conveniently forget that the notion of fascism is less than 60 years old, whereas our struggle for national unification was initiated more than 110 years ago. Just as there were no Ukrainians or Byelorussians a millennium ago, but only the Russian nation, there was no Macedonian Nation in the past, only the Middle-Ages Bulgarian nationality and later the middle-class (rebirthist) Bulgarian Nation in Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia. The difference in these examples is that while the Ukrainians and Byelorussians evolved as contemporary nations by a natural historic pathway, our neighbours went to extreme lengths and employed all forms of falsehoods, interference and pressure to create a nation from the Bulgarian-Macedonians. There are very few nations in Europe whose national and State boundaries coincide. This applies especially to Bulgaria. If there is even a small manifestation of Bulgarian consciousness in the people who embrace the new Macedonian ideology then they must ultimately come to see the nexus that exists between us all.
 

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