The Wilmington morning star., 1947-02-16
BALKAN C0MMlES
HAIL TOP WOMEN
Major Roles In Bulgaria
And Romania Played By
Militant Feminists
BY FRANK O'BRIEN'

ROM, FeD. To- w -Llhc 10
PASSIONATE of t h e Spanish civil
war. two women r among the
top communist leaders in the Bal
kans today-Tsola Dragoicheva in
Bulgaria, and Anna Pauker in Ro-
mania. Both have been commu-
nists from early womanhood. Both
lived and worked underground and
in prison while their countries
we're under anti : communist re-
gimes. Both emerged suddenly as
messengers of the new communist
era in the wake of the Red army
after their countries surrendered
to Russia in the late summer OF
1914.
Both are reported to have spent
long periods in Russia, working
and training in the Communist In
ternationale. but the exact times
Of their stays are difficult to de-
termine.
Tsola Dragoicheva twice was
sentenced to death in Bulgaria and
once escaped by becoming preg-
naat as she awaited execution.
How this occurred in h e close
confinement of the death cell is
still a mystery in Sofia. Her sec
ond sentence, levied in absentia,
called for no such measures. She
already was in hiding.
Anna Pauker does not have a
death sentence to bedizen her
record as a militant communist.
but the quality of her faith is per
sistently rumored to have been
tested by the execution of her
husband, a Romanian engineer
who fled to Russia with her dur
ing the Soviet purge of the mid
thirties. Engineer Pauker is said
to have harbored Trotzkyist senti-
ments, and to have been shot.
Whether that is the true story
of his disappearance cannot be
learned.
Of the two women, Anna Pauker
| appears to be the most carefully
framed and the more firmly fixed
in international communist hier-
archy. Tsola Dragoicheva's life
has been more spectacular, but
left less time FOR the long grind
in the liturgy of communism and
the careful study of personalities
and issues without which a COM
munist leader cannot fully gradu-
ate.
Born in 1900 at Byala Slatina,
Tsola Dragoicheva became inter
ested in communism as a student
| at the University of Sofia. She be-
came a party member at 10 and
served her first Jail sentence at %.
In 1925 she was again behind
bars, this time charged with COM
plicity in the bombing of Sofas
Saint Nedelia church where a
number of prominent people were
killed. 1t was for this crime that
1.-THE beautiful Sonya," as she was
known, vas convicted and SEN
fenced to death, but escaped ex-
ecution because of approaching
motherhood. 1t is said that her
beauty then was impressive.
It was while she was in almost
u%ndisputed charge in Bulgaria that
the entire Filoff government,
which had passed a second SEN
tence on her in 1912, was put to
death as war criminals.
Dragoicheva insists t h a she
never left Bulgaria during the
war, despite legends that tell of a
perilous flight from h e country
and a spectacular return to lead
the formation of the 'fatherland
'front.' communist led coalition).
| She became secretary general of
the front in 1914. AS such she was
the ruler of Bulgaria in the pres
cree of the Red army.
The tremendous power she had
in the earlier days of Bulgaria's
bloody liberation has lessened con
siderably since Georgi Dimitrov
returned to the country.
Anna Pauker, in her late forties.
is a large, forceful, highly intelli-
gent and energetic woman. A Jew.
ess, she has an olive complexion
plentiful iron-grey hair combed
straight back in a long bob, and
small, intense blue eyes.
She appears TO have receded
somewhat from the all : powerful
position she first occupied in Re-.
mania after that country's s,rren-
l der to apparent equality with two