Todorov-Gorunya, Ivan

Born into a peasant family. He worked as a bricklayer. In 1932 he joined the Workers' Youth Union . Since 1939 member of the BKP . For underground activities he was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, in 1941 he fled.

Ivan Todorov was one of the leaders of the partisan movement in the Vratsa region . He held the post of political commissar of a large partisan unit "Gavril Genov" ^[1] . In 1943, sentenced in absentia to death. He adopted the pseudonym Gorun, meaning colloquially “Resistant”.

After the BKP came to power, Todorov-Gorunya headed the party organization of the Communist Party in the Vratsa region. He was co-opted to the Central Committee of the BKP. He served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the NRB , oversaw the water industry.

Ivan Todorov-Gorunya adhered to orthodox- communist , Stalinist views. He was an opponent of even the limited liberalization that emerged after the removal of Vylko Chervenkov under Todor Zhivkov . He even believed that Zhivkov was subordinate to a certain Masonic club and carried out his instructions on the restoration of capitalism.

Todorov-Gorun also reacted negatively to the post-Stalinist USSR , since, in his opinion, the CPSU departed from the principles of Lenin and Stalin . Todorov-Goruni saw his ideological and political landmark in the Mao Zedong Communist Party of China .

The removal from power of Nikita Khrushchev in October 1964 inspired the Bulgarian Stalinists. Around Todorov-Goruni there was a group of like-minded people from the party-state apparatus and the army command. There was a conspiracy to overthrow Todor Zhivkov. Some of the conspirators were staunch Stalinists (there were far fewer Maoists , few represented the real situation in China ), others, following the example of Titan Yugoslavia , sought independence from the USSR, but most of all were opponents personally of Zhivkov and his political style ^[2] .

The coup was scheduled for April 14, 1965, on the day of the plenum of the Central Committee of the BKP ^[3] . However, the plot was quickly revealed by the State Security Committee . March 28, 1965 investigators Mircho Spasov began arrests. On April 8, Ivan Todorov-Gorunya committed suicide in the temple, leaving a suicide note:

Alive in the hands of the enemies of the party, I am not used to giving up. I am surrounded. I will die, but I will not give up ^[4] .

Todorov-Gorun was the only one to whom participation in the conspiracy was worth his life. A brief report was given about his death, in which suicide was explained by the “state of depression” ^[5] . (Some participants in the conspiracy, for example, the lecturer of the Military Academy G.S. Rakovsky, Iliya Karagonov ^[6] , claimed that Gorun was killed by state security agents, but evidence of this version was never presented.)

About two hundred people were arrested, nine (including diplomat Tsolo Krastev , commander of the Sofia garrison Tsvyatko Anev , head of the office of the Minister of Defense Ivan Velchev , deputy head of the army political department Micho Ermenov ) appeared before the court and received various terms of imprisonment.

In November 1989 , immediately after the resignation of Todor Zhivkov, a meeting was held in Vratsa , whose participants demanded the rehabilitation of their fellow countryman Goruni.

It is curious that the supporters of Goruni, who survived the collapse of communism, perceive him almost as a fighter for democracy. This is not true. Gorunya was a Stalinist, he strove to restore “Orthodox” communism in Bulgaria and opposed Zhivkov from an extremely leftist standpoint ^[7] .

On June 15, 1990 , after the fall of the communist regime in Bulgaria, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court rehabilitated all those convicted in the case of the anti-Zhivkov conspiracy of 1965. Paradoxically, the conspiracy to establish a totalitarian regime more severe than Zhivkovsky was described as “speaking out against dictatorship”.

A monument to Ivan Todorov-Gorun was erected in his native village ^[8] .

• Kazimierz Miyal