BULGARIA: Poke from Moscow

Bulgaria’s shaky government got no rest from proddings by Germany’s enemies to quit Germany’s war. Latest poke came last week from Moscow’s Pravda and the pen of Bulgar Georgi Dimitroff, onetime defendant at Naziism’s Reichstag fire trial and secretary of the late unlamented Communist International (see p. 20). Warned Bulgar Dimitroff: “The national policy of Bulgaria, from the viewpoint of her future, demands loyal cooperation with her neighbors. . . . Only by breaking with Germany at once and assisting in the defeat of Germany will Bulgaria save herself from catastrophe.”

Bulgars could see the point, even when it was made by an unreconstructed Communist. Russia was their traditional protector, their only one if Germany should lose the war. Bulgaria could give her material aid: in Rumanian-held Bessarabia, now in the path of the Red Army, was a potential fifth column of over 150,000 Bulgars; in Yugoslavian Macedonia, Bulgarian troops were doing German guard duty against pro-Russian Marshal Tito’s Partisans (some Bulgars had already joined his ranks).

This week newsmen in Istanbul reported that all telephone and telegraph connections with Bulgaria had been severed—but not soon enough to stop reports that the Bulgarian government had fallen. Still in power was the pro-German regency; but it was evident that pokes from Germany’s enemies were telling.