Word: bulgaria
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...floodlights in the Sofia courtroom came up full force, concentrating on the miserable defendant in the dock. The court asked Traicho Kostov, once Bulgaria's No. 2 Communist, if he wished to make a final statement. Earlier in the trial Kostov had refused to play his assigned role, had denied being guilty of espionage and treason against Bulgaria (TIME, Dec. 19). This was his last chance to redeem himself-and he rejected it. "I must say once again," he began, "that I was never a police agent, never an imperialist...
...Traicho Kostov, who was in no position to deny the tale, was quoted as explaining that his defiant attitude in court had been due to "nervous agitation and the unhealthy ambition of an intellectual . . . The sentence is absolutely just and . . . necessary in the struggle against the Anglo-American imperialists." Bulgaria's people were not told of Kostov's execution, nor did they hear of his alleged message from the gallows, until just before the start of their national elections last Sunday. The news apparently put the voters into the proper frame of mind. For the Red Fatherland Front...
Died. Traicho Kostov, 52, ousted Communist Vice Premier of Bulgaria; in execution by hanging; after a Communist purge in Sofia...
...these glowing terms, the Central Committee of Bulgaria's Communist Party saluted its leader on his soth birthday, two years ago. Last week Comrade Rostov, for a decade Bulgaria's No. 2 Communist, was on trial for his life...
Kostov had been ousted from power last spring for being "anti-Soviet," which meant in plain Bulgarian that like Tito he opposed his country's economic exploitation by Moscow. "Kostovism," explained Bulgaria's new boss, Vulko Chervenkov, "is nothing but Titoism on Bulgarian soil." Through the summer and fall, Kostov and ten alleged accomplices were prepared for another big Communist show trial. It was reported that Kostov was flown to Moscow for "rehearsals." His jailers persuaded Kostov to write a 32,000 word "confession" of his anti-Russian activities, including the customary self-accusations that he had been...