Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It was founded in 1893 in Salonica and Initially aimed to gain autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions in the Ottoman Empire, however, it later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics. IMRO modeled itself after the earlier Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization of Vasil Levski and accepted its motto "Freedom or Death". According to the memoirs of some founding and ordinary members, in the Organization's earliest statute from 1894, the membership was reserved exclusively for Bulgarians. This was later changed on the initiative of Gotse Delchev, who wanted IMRO to depart from its exclusively Bulgarian nature, so he opened the membership for all inhabitants of European Turkey and the organization begun to acquire a more separatist stance. Delchev sought sovereignty for Macedonia under the slogan Macedonia for the Macedonians. However, these new formulas as a whole failed to attract other ethnic groups, from whom it was seen as a pro-Bulgarian society, thus IMRO remained with base only among Bulgarian Exarchist affiliated Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia. It used the Bulgarian language in all its documents and in its correspondence. The Organisation founded in 1896 its Foreign Representation in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Starting in the same year, it fought the Ottomans using guerrilla tactics, and in this, they were successful, even establishing a state within a state in some regions, including their tax collectors. This struggle escalated in 1903 with the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. The fighting involved about 15,000 IMRO irregulars and 40,000 Ottoman soldiers, lasting for over seven weeks. After the uprising failed, and the Ottomans destroyed some 100 villages, the IMRO resorted to more systematic forms of terrorism targeting civilians. More important, the Ilinden disaster splintered IMRO and signalled the beginning of a fratricidal conflict between the left-wing faction who continued to favor autonomy as step towards independent Macedonia and its inclusion into a future Balkan Federation, and the right-wing faction which favored unification with Bulgaria. In fact, the division was a culmination of a conflict which existed within IMRO since its formation. It was based partially on ideology, and partly in terms of personality and locality, and it would plague the Macedonian revolutionary movement over the next decades.
During the Balkan Wars and the First World War, the organization supported the Bulgarian army and joined Bulgarian war-time authorities when they temporarily took control over parts of Thrace and Macedonia. The division of the area among the Balkan states in the Balkan Wars, was seen by the IMRO's adherents not as "liberation", but as entailing the partition of Macedonia. Retaining the unity of Macedonia seemed crucial in this period for IMRO, autonomism as a political tactic was abandoned, and annexationist positions were supported, aiming eventual incorporation of occupied areas into Bulgaria. The desire to size most of Macedonia and Thrace within a Bulgarian state lay behind the Bulgarian decision to enter each of these three wars. The Bulgarian government first attached the IMRO chetas as auxiliaries of its army in the Balkan wars and then drafted the former paramilitaries directly into it, as Bulgarian military personnel during the First World War. Under the right-wing leadership, IMRO arose then from a clandestine organization into an important factor of the Greater Bulgarian policy, supporting the Bulgarisation of the area. Additionally, some guerrilla companies formed by IMRO-irregulars, participated in several massacres of accused Serbomans in the areas of Azot, Skopska Crna Gora and Poreče. Regular Bulgarian troops took control of the region while komitadjis were appointed mayors or prefects and served as gendarmerie corps. IMRO detachments participated in the suppression of the Serbian Toplica uprising. Nevertheless, the division within IMRO during this period continued to exist, and the wars reinforced the rival federalist and unionist tendencies in the IMRO factions. These two tendencies were consequently adopted in the interwar period, the first one by the "federalist" wing and the latter by the "centralist" wing.
After the First World War the combined Macedonian-Thracian revolutionary movement separated into two detached organizations, IMRO and ITRO. Simultaneously, the "federalists" split up and formed the Macedonian Federative Organization and later IMRO. After this the IMRO earned a reputation as an ultimate terror network, seeking to change state frontiers in the Macedonian regions of Greece and Serbia. They contested the partitioning of Macedonia and launched raids from their Petrich stronghold into Greek and Yugoslav territory. Their base of operation in Bulgaria was jeopardized by the Treaty of Niš, and the IMRO reacted by assassinating Bulgarian prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski in 1923, with the cooperation of other Bulgarian elements opposed to him. In 1925 the Greek army launched a cross-border operation to reduce the IMRO base area, but it was ultimately stopped by the League of Nations, and IMRO attacks resumed. A conflict over the leadership arose and Ivan Mihailov ordered the assassination of Aleksandar Protogerov, which sparked a fratricidal war between the so called "Mihailovists" and "Protogerovists". In the interwar period the IMRO also cooperated with the Croatian Ustaše, and their ultimate victim was Alexander I of Yugoslavia, assassinated in France in 1934. After the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1934, their Petrich stronghold was subjected to a military crackdown by the Bulgarian army, and the IMRO was reduced to a marginal phenomenon.
The organization changed its name on several occasions, but the name VMRO remained most noted. After the fall of communism in the region, numerous parties claimed the IMRO name and lineage to legitimize themselves. Among them, the right-wing parties established in the 1990s, "VMRO-BND" in Bulgaria and "VMRO-DPMNE" in then Republic of Macedonia.
Ottoman era
Origins and goals
The organization was a secret revolutionary society operating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the goal of autonomous Macedonia and Adrianople regions. It was founded in 1893 in Ottoman Thessaloniki by a small band of anti-Ottoman Macedono-Bulgarian revolutionaries, who considered Macedonia an indivisible territory and all of its inhabitants "Macedonians", no matter their religion or ethnicity, thus signaling the emergence of a new, firmly Macedonian national movement. In practice, IMRO was established by Bulgarians in Macedonia and the vast majority of their followers were Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia, of whom primarily Bulgarian Exarchists. At that time IMRO was often called "the Bulgarian Committee", while its members were designated as Comitadjis, i.e. "committee men". Initially, it was against the irredentist aspirations of neighboring states in the area. From its foundation, IMRO was evidently torn apart by political and ideological factionalism, members shared significantly conflicting views concerning Macedonia, Macedonians, and their relation with Bulgaria. Some of them saw the autonomy evolving into independent Macedonia, that would become a member of a future Balkans federal state. Others saw the outcome of the autonomy as unification of Macedonia and Adrianople with Bulgaria. The idea of autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity. Even those, who advocated for independent Macedonia and opposed Greater Bulgaria, never doubted the predominantly Bulgarian character of the Macedonian Slavs. The organization was founded by Hristo Tatarchev, Dame Gruev, Petar Pop-Arsov, Andon Dimitrov, Hristo Batandzhiev and Ivan Hadzhinikolov. All of them were closely connected with the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki.According to Hristo Tatarchev's "Memoirs", IMRO was first called simply the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and the word "Bulgarian" was later dropped from its statue. However neither statutes nor regulations, or other basic documents with such names have not yet been found. Thus, according to the Macedonian historian Ivan Katardžiev, the organization never bore as an official name the designation "Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation". It is believed by the historians that in 1894 or 1896, this probably unofficial name, was changed to Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees ; and the organisation existed under this name until 1896 or 1902, when it was changed to Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. Some Macedonian historians also acknowledge the existence of the name "ВMARC" in the very early period of the Organisation, while others dispute it. Thus, in North Macedonia it is generally assumed that in the period 1896–1902, the name of the organization was "SMARO". It is not disputed that the organization changed its name to Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in 1905 and it is under this name referred to in Bulgarian historiography. After disbanding itself during the first Bulgarian annexation of Macedonia, the organization was revived in 1919 under the name Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, under which it is generally known today.
The Adrianople Region was the general name given by the Organization to those areas of Thrace which, like Macedonia, had been left under Turkish rule i.e. most of it, where the Bulgarian element predominated in the mixed population, too. The organized revolutionary movement in Thrace dates from 1895, when Dame Gruev recruited Hristo Kotsev, born in Shtip, who was then a teacher in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Adrianople. Acting in the name of the Central Committee, Kotsev set up a regional committee in Adrianople, and gradually committees were established in a large area.
The stated goal of the origanization was to unite all elements dissatisfied with the Ottoman oppression in Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet, eventually obtaining full political autonomy for the two regions. In this task, it hoped to enlist the support of the local Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians, Greeks and even Turks. Efforts were concentrated on moral propaganda and the prospect of rebellion and terrorist actions seemed distant. The organization developed quickly, only in a matter of a few years it managed to well-establish itself with a wide network of local committees across Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet. This was achieved through the exploitation of the extensive school network of the Bulgarian Exarchate since teachers constituted the basis of IMRO. Although within IMRO there were Bulgarian sympathies, they coexisted with the desire for multi-ethnic autonomous Macedonia. Thus, IMRO preferred to disassociate itself from the official Bulgarian policy and not to be under Bulgarian governmental control, despite that it was receiving arms and financial support from them. The leadership thought that it was using Bulgaria as a source of funds and the Exarchate for its own gain while "working under a Bulgarian mask" and establishing its own non-Bulgarian agenda.
Some of the leaders espoused radical socialist and anarchist ideas and saw as their goal the establishment of an independent Macedonian state rather than unification with Bulgaria. Moreover, they started encouraging a separate "Macedonian" political loyalty and became hostile towards the Exarchate, which was a proponent of Bulgarian nationalism. The leader of this leftist faction was Goce Delchev. Under the motto Macedonia for the Macedonians, Delchev headed the struggle for an independent Macedonia which he imagined as a multi-ethnic region. Delchev's views were emphasized in the statute of SMARO from 1896 or 1902, which he co-wrote with Gjorche Petrov. Accordingly, the organization changed the exclusively Bulgarian character and began to accept all Macedonians and Adrianopolitans regardless of ethnicity or creed, and also called for elimination of chauvinist propaganda and nationalistic disputes in attempt to unite the divided population. However, besides some Aromanian members, its membership remained overwhelmingly Slavic, based among Bulgarian Exarchists.