Vladaia Revolt of 1918

an uprising of soldiers of the Bulgarian army from Sept. 22 to Oct. 3, 1918.

The Vladaia revolt arose out of the revolutionary conditions that developed in Bulgaria by the summer of 1918 with regard to the prolonged war and under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia. The breakthrough of the front line by the troops of the Entente at Dobro-Pole on September 14-18 and the attempt of the Bulgarian command to restore the situation at the front with brutal repression speeded up the beginning of the Vladaia uprising. On September 22-24 a spontaneous soldiers’ movement broke out under the slogans: “On to Sofia!” and “Death to the Warmongers!” The rebels smashed the headquarters in Kiustendil on September 24 and occupied the city Radomir on September 26. Upon the initiative of R. Daskalov, the leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, the rebels proclaimed a re-public headed by President A. Stamboliiski in Radomir on September 27; the rebels set out in the direction of Sofia and on September 29 occupied the village of Vladaia 15 km southwest of Sofia (hence the name of the uprising). The Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (Narrow Socialists)—BWSDP(NS)—did not take the lead in the spontaneous Vladaia uprising. The reason for the party’s position was that the BWSDP(NS) had not yet completely adopted Leninism: the “narrowists” did not concretely pose the question of power and did not see the peasantry as the ally of the proletariat. Finding themselves at the head of the Vladaia uprising, the leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union procrastinated with their entry into Sofia. The Bulgarian government, after concluding an armistice with the Entente in Salonika on September 29, routed the rebels with the help of German troops.

The Vladaia uprising dealt a blow to the monarchy and speeded up the abdication of Tsar Ferdinand and his flight from the country. The Vladaia uprising was a spontaneous attempt to turn the imperialist war into a civil war.