Ganev, Dimitr

Born Oct. 28, 1898, in the village of Gradets, Sliven District; died Apr. 20, 1964, in Sofia. Bulgarian government and political figure. Born into the family of a poor peasant. He was a teacher by profession.

Ganev joined the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) in 1921. He participated in the September Antifascist Uprising of 1923. From late 1924 to April 1925 he was a member of the regional committee of the Communist Party in Sofia and an editor of the legal organ of the Central Committee of the BCP (Narrow Socialist), or BCP(NS)—the newspaper Novini. From 1925 to 1929 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Independent Workers’ Trade Union and simultaneously, on the party’s assignment, conducted revolutionary work in the Dobrudzha. In 1929 he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the BCP(NS). He was secretary of the Central Committee of the Dobrudzha Revolutionary Organization from 1929 to 1935. Simultaneously he carried out assignments of the Foreign Bureau of the BCP(NS). In 1934 and 1935, Ganev was a member of the Central Committee and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Rumania. From 1935 to 1940 he was imprisoned in Jilava, Craiova, and Doftana. From 1940 to 1942 he was secretary of the Dobrich District Committee of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (BWP). He was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the BWP (Communist) from 1942 to 1948. In February 1944 he became the leader of the Varna Military Operational Zone. After the victory of the September Popular Armed Uprising of 1944, Ganev was editor in chief of the newspaper Rabot-nichesko delo, secretary of the Sofia District and City Committees of the party, and vice-president of the Great National Assembly. Ganev was ambassador of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) to Rumania in 1947 and 1948. From 1948 to 1952 he was candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the BCP and also minister of foreign trade. He was ambassador of the PRB to Czechoslovakia from 1952 to 1954. From 1954 to 1959 he was secretary of the Central Committee of the BCP (he became a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the BCP in 1957). In November 1958 he became chairman of the Presidium of the National Assembly of the PRB. He was a Hero of Socialist Labor of the PRB (1958) and was awarded three Orders of Georgii Dimitrov.