# Todor Panitsa

Todor Nikolov Panitsa (Bulgarian: Тодор Николов Паница; July 2, 1879 – May 8, 1925) was a Bulgarian revolutionary figure, active in the region of Macedonia. He was one of the leaders of the left wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

## Biography

Panitsa was born in Oryahovo, northwestern Bulgaria, a town located on the right bank of the Danube. He grew up in the family of Nikola Panitsa from Tarnovo and Mitanka Peltekova from Svishtov. Panitsa studied in Lom, where he was attracted to the Macedonian liberation movement. Later he became an orphan and was raised by his uncle in Varna. Three years Panitsa served as a cavalryman in the Bulgarian army. At the end of 1902 he became an activist of IMRO. Panitsa then joined the band of Nikola Pushkarov and participated in the Ilinden uprising in the Skopje region. After the uprising he arrived in Varna, Bulgaria. In 1904, Panitza went back to Ottoman Macedonia and joined the band of Mihail Daev.
The failure of the Ilinden Uprising reignited the old rivalries between the varying factions of the Macedonian revolutionary movement. After the split of IMRO in 1906 Panitsa revealed to Sandanski the plot to kill him, prepared by Michael Daev, Ivan Garvanov and Boris Sarafov. So the leadership of the left wing of IMRO decided to get rid of the leadership of the right faction. After the assassination of Daev, Panitsa organized and carried out the assassinations of Boris Sarafov and Ivan Garvanov in 1907, both on orders from Yane Sandanski.
During the Young Turks Revolution, together with Yane Sandanski, he cooperated with the Ottoman authorities and became a member of one of the one left political parties in the Ottoman Empire - People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section). This party hoped to creatе a Balkan Socialist Federation, and a Macedonian state as a part of that Federation. Federalist paramilitaries led by Sandanski and Todor Panitsa contributed to the Salonica expedition corps in 1909 organized by the Young Turks.
During the Balkan Wars, he supported the Bulgarian Army operations in Macedonia, initially with the idea to fight for an autonomous Macedonia, but later fighting for Bulgaria. During the First World War, he was badly injured in the battles of the Bulgarian army against the French in Krivolak. Later he became a mayor of Drama, then occupied by Bulgaria. After the war the restored IMRO split again. In December 1921, left-leaning deserters formed the Macedonian Federative Organization, in which Panitsa was active. The Bulgarian premier Aleksandar Stamboliyski started a campaign against the IMRO after his visit to Belgrade in May 1921. At this point, Stamboliyski decided upon an anti-IMRO guerrilla movement, entrusting the job to Panitsa and other federalists. In the bloody battles that followed, Panitsa's federalists set out to destroy the IMRO, but the federalists were scattered, after which Panitsa fled to Greece in 1922. In 1923, Stamboliyski himself was assassinated by the IMRO.
After the defeat of the Communist uprising of September 1923 in Bulgaria, the new government repressed leftist Macedonian organizations aided by the IMRO. The fleeing federalists placed themselves in Yugoslav service, joining the Association against Bulgarian Bandits. Panitsa, who had moved meanwhile from Greece to Belgrade, served as advisor of this Association. Later he went to Vienna, where the rest of the federalist leadership was reassembled. Here they esatblished contact with the Comintern and the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) and Panitsa became a Soviet spy and an associate of the Military Department of the BCP.
In 1924, the Macedonian Federative Organisation, then headed by him, reached an agreement with the IMRO, the so-called May Manifesto. The revelation that IMRO, a Bulgarian nationalist organization, officially sanctioned such a separatist and communist-influenced document, caused uproar in its ranks. After the IMRO revoked the agreement, Panitsa and the federalists participated in the foundation of the pro-communist IMRO (United), that was accepted as a partner in the Balkan Communist Federation and was sponsored directly by the Comintern. IMRO then labeled Panitsa a servant of foreign interests and sentenced him to death. On May 8, 1925, while he was at the Burg Theatre in Vienna, he was shot and killed by Mencha Karnicheva, an activist of the IMRO's right wing in Vienna, who told police that she committed the murder in revenge for Panitsa's role in the executions of dissidents.