Georgi
Dimitrov (June 18, 1882 – July 2, 1949) was a Bulgarian politician and
a leader of the international communist movement. He began his career
as a union organizer in Sofia; after 1917 he became a steadfast
Leninist and was instrumental of transforming the Bulgarian Communist
Party (BCP) into a Bolshevik organization. In September 1923 Dimitrov
was one of the organizers of a communist armed rebellion in Bulgaria;
after its defeat he fled to Western Europe. In 1933, while in Berlin,
Dimitrov was arrested by the Nazis and charged with complicity in the
Reichstag fire. During the trial that ensued, Dimitrov defended himself
with courage and eloquence and was eventually acquitted.
Granted
Soviet citizenship by Stalin, he moved to Moscow and was appointed a
General Secretary of the Comintern (a post he occupied until the
disbandment of this organization in 1943). In that capacity Dimitrov
coordinated the purges that targeted foreign-born communists in the
Soviet Union and resulted in the deaths of thousands. After the
communist coup in Bulgaria (September 9, 1944), while still in Moscow,
he directed the BCP’s efforts to physically eliminate its political
rivals and ensure its hegemonic position. In 1945 Dimitrov returned to
Bulgaria, and a year later, after rigged elections, became Prime
Minister. He presided over the destruction of the democratic opposition
and the consolidation of a one-party Stalinist dictatorship. His
government also designed and carried out a series of measures that led
to the establishment of a Soviet-type economic system. Dimitrov died in
July 1949 in Moscow.
Source - The Global Museum on Communism