page_title: Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
section_title: Interwar period
hierarchical_section_title: Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization / Interwar period
caption_attribution_description: English: bulgarian general Protogerov Български: Българският генерал Протогеров
context_page_description: The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was a revolutionary national liberation movement in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  Founded in 1893 in Salonica, initially, it aimed to gain autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions in the Ottoman Empire, however, later it became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics. IMRO group modeled itself after the Internal Revolutionary Organization of Vasil Levski and accepted its motto "Freedom or Death". Starting in 1896 it fought the Ottomans using guerrilla tactics, and in this they were successful, even establishing a state within a state in some regions, including their tax collectors. This effort escalated in 1903 into the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. The fighting involved about 15,000 IMRO irregulars and 40,000 Ottoman soldiers. After the uprising failed, and the Ottomans destroyed some 100 villages, the IMRO resorted to more systematic forms of terrorism targeting civilians.
context_section_description: The post-war Treaty of Neuilly again denied Bulgaria what it felt was its share of Macedonia and Thrace. After this moment the combined Macedonian-Adrianopolitan revolutionary movement separated into two detached organizations: Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation (bulg. Вътрешна тракийска революционна организация) and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation. ITRO was a revolutionary organisation active in the Greek regions of Thrace and Macedonia to the river Strymon and Rhodope Mountains between 1922 and 1934. The reason for the establishment of ITRO was the transfer of the region from Bulgaria to Greece in May 1920. ITRO proclaimed its goal as the "unification of all the disgruntled elements in Thrace regardless of their nationality", and to win full political independence for the region. Later IMRO created as a satellite organisation the Internal Western Outland Revolutionary Organisation (bulg. Вътрешна западнопокрайненска революционна организация), which operated in the areas of Tsaribrod and Bosilegrad, ceded to Yugoslavia. IMRO began sending armed bands called cheti into Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia and Thrace to assassinate officials and stir up the spirit of the oppressed population. On 23 March 1923 Aleksandar Stamboliyski, who favoured a détente with Greece and Yugoslavia, so that Bulgaria could concentrate on its internal problems, signed the Treaty of Niš with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and undertook the obligation to suppress the operations of the IMRO carried out from Bulgarian territory. However, in the same year IMRO agents assassinated him. IMRO had de facto full control of Pirin Macedonia (the Petrich District of the time) and acted as a "state within a state", which it used as a base for hit and run attacks against Yugoslavia with the unofficial support of the right-wing Bulgarian government and later Fascist Italy. Because of this, contemporary observers described the Yugoslav-Bulgarian frontier as the most fortified in Europe. 
  In 1923 and 1924 during the apogee of interwar military activity according to IMRO statistics in the region of Yugoslav (Vardar) Macedonia operated 53 chetas (armed bands), 36 of which penetrated from Bulgaria, 12 were local and 5 entered from Albania. The aggregate membership of the bands was 3245 komitas (guerilla rebels) led by 79 voivodas (commanders), 54 subcommanders, 41 secretaries and 193 couriers. 119 fights and 73 terroristic acts were documented. Serbian casualties were 304 army and gendarmery officers, soldiers and paramilitary fighters, more than 1300 were wounded. IMRO lost 68 voivodas and komitas, hundreds were wounded. In the region of Greek (Aegean) Macedonia 24 chetas and 10 local reconnaissance detachments were active. The aggregate membership of the bands was 380 komitas led by 18 voivodas, 22 subcommanders, 11 secretaries and 25 couriers. 42 battles and 27 terrorist acts were performed. Greek casualties were 83 army officers, soldiers and paramilitary fighters, over 230 were wounded. IMRO lost 22 voivodas and komitas, 48 were wounded. Thousands of locals were repressed by the Yugoslav and Greek authorities on suspicions of contacts with the revolutionary movement. The population in Pirin Macedonia was organized in a mass people's home guard. This militia was the only force, which resisted the Greek army when the Greek dictator, General Pangalos launched a military campaign against Petrich District in 1925. In 1934 the Bulgarian army confiscated 10,938 rifles, 637 pistols, 47 machine-guns, 7 mortars and 701,388 cartridges only in the Petrich and Kyustendil Districts. At the same time, a youth's extension of IMRO, the Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization was created. The statute of MYSRO was approved personally from IMRO's leader Todor Alexandrov. The aim of MYSRO was in concordance with the statute of IMRO – unification of all of Macedonia in an authonomous unit, within a future Balkan Federative Republic.
  The Sixth Congress of the Balkan Communist Federation under the leadership of the Bulgarian communist Vasil
caption: General Alexandar Protogerov.
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