The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when the country ceased to be a communist state. The Bulgarian Communist Party had dominated the Fatherland Front coalition that took power in 1944, late in World War II, after it led a coup against Bulgaria's tsarist government in conjunction with the Red Army's crossing the border. The party's origins lay in the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party, known as the Tesnyatsi, which was founded in 1903 after a split in the 10th Congress of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party. The party's founding leader was Dimitar Blagoev and its subsequent leaders included Georgi Dimitrov. The party opposed World War I, was sympathetic to the October Revolution in Russia and applied to join the Communist International upon its founding in 1919. Upon joining the Comintern the party was reorganised as the Communist Party of Bulgaria. Dimitrov was a member of the party's Central Committee from its inception until his death in 1949 also serving as Bulgaria's leader from 1946. In 1938 the party merged with the Workers' Party to become the Bulgarian Workers' Party. In 1948 the BWP merged with the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party to become the Bulgarian Communist Party once again. Wikipedia [ - ]

The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the... [ + ]