World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia started with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. Under the pressure of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, part of the Macedonian communists began in October 1941 a political and military campaign to resist the occupation of Vardar Macedonia. Officially, the area was called then Vardar Banovina, because the use of very name Macedonia was avoided in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide, OUP Oxford, 2009, , p. 65.Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, Peter Lang, 2010, , p. 76. Most of its territory was occupied by Bulgaria, while its westernmost part was ceded to Albania, both aided by German and Italian troops. Initially, there was no organised resistance in the region because the majority of the Macedonian Slavs nurtured strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments, although this was an effect from the previous repressive Kingdom of Yugoslavia rule which had negative impact on the majority of the population."The warm reception accorded the Bulgarian soldiers was in large part the result of Macedonian resentment at three decades of Serbian dominance. Administrative brutality, Serbian chauvinism, political corruption, and economic exploitation were more flagrant in Macedonia than in any other part of Yugoslavia. It was therefore not surprising that many Macedonians cheered the entering Bulgarians. One resident of Skopie later explained, "Of course we cheered; we had no way of knowing then that the Bulgarians would just repeat all the mistakes the Serbs had made." For more see: Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, , p. 123. Even the local Communists, separated from the Yugoslav and joined the Bulgarian Communist Party."The Bulgarian occupation forces in the Serbian part of Macedonia were received as liberators and pro-Bulgarian feeling ran high in the early stages of the occupation. Neither the Communist position regarding a separate Macedonian nation nor the idea of a Yugoslav federation met with much response from the Slav population, which nurtured pro-Bulgarian sentiments. The local Communists, led by M. Satorov, splintered off from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and joined the Bulgarian Labour Party (which was Communist), with the slogan "One state, one party". The subsequent dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities was due to social factors, rather than national ones. This was also why Tito's resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia failed to develop." For more see: Spyridon Sfetas, "Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944: The Attitude of the Communist Party of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border". Balkan Studies 1995; 36 (2): pp. 297–317. However, even those Macedonians who felt that they were Bulgarians soon discovered that the Bulgarians from Bulgaria were suspicious of them and considered them "backward Bulgarians" or second-class Bulgarians. In fact, Bulgarian authorities began a process of oppressive Bulgarianization as they realised that only part of the Macedonian population felt Bulgarian or was pro-Bulgarian. Some researchers describe this process as "re-Bulgarisation" and "de-Serbianisation". The occupation troops acted just as viciously and arrogantly toward the local population as did the officials. Thus, they soon became an object of disgust from the population, especially these who felt themselves Macedonians, developed strong resentment towards the Bulgarian regime as it acted the same way as the Serbian one before.Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War, Stanford University Press, 1975, , pp. 123-133.
The wartime national chauvinism and suffering backlash generated some support for the Communist Partisans, whose power started to grow only in 1943 with the capitulation of Italy and the Soviet victories over Nazi Germany, which turned the tide in the war and the partisans actions became more successful.Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, introduction Ixiii. The role of the Bulgarian communists, who avoided organizing mass armed resistance, was also a key factor, their influence over the Macedonian Committee remained dominant until 1943.Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise, Routledge, 2005, , p. 181. Another key factor was the main goal of the Yugoslav Partisans which could not inspire and attract Macedonians who saw it as a reestablishment of Yugoslavia and the Serbian rule. This changed, when in the beginning of 1943, Tito's special emissary Svetozar Vukmanović arrived in Macedonia.Dejan Djokić, Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea, 1918–1992, Hurst, 2003, , p. 120. Vukmanović had to activate the struggle and give a Macedonian "facade" to the form and content, as well as to the aims and aspirations of it in order to secure participation of Macedonians.Andrew Rossos (2008) Macedonia and the Macedonians, A History. Hoover Institution Press, , pp. 189-194. He was supposed to set up a Macedonian Communist Party within the framework of the Yugoslav one, which would include only activists loyal to the Yugoslav agenda. They formed in 1943 the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia and the Macedonian Communist Party in the western part of the area, where the Albanian Partisans also participated in the resistance movement. The Macedonian Communist Party would lead the effort, not for the restoration of the old Yugoslavia, but above all for the liberation and unification of Macedonia and a new federal union of Yugoslav peoples with an extension of its prewar territory. This appeal attracted more young people to the armed resistance. All of the previous led to the rise of an younger anti-Bulgarian oriented generation of partisan leaders, who were loyal to Yugoslavia.
After Bulgaria switched sides in the war in September 1944, the Bulgarian 5th. Army stationed in Macedonia, moved back to the old borders of Bulgaria. In the early October the newly formed Bulgarian People's Army together with the Red Army reentered occupied Yugoslavia to blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Yugoslav Macedonia was liberated in the end of November.
The communist resistance is called by the Macedonian historiography the National Liberation Struggle (). Some of the combatants also developed aspirations for independence of the region of Macedonia, but were suppressed at the end of the war by the communist authorities. It marked the defeat of Bulgarian nationalism and the victory of the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian nationalism in the area. As result the post-WWII Communist authorities persecuted the former collaborationists with the charges of "Great Bulgarian chauvinism" and cracked down on pro-Bulgarian organisations that supported ideas of Greater Bulgaria and those which opposed the Yugoslav idea and insisted on Macedonian independence.
Background
The Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, and the World War I (1914–1918) divided the region of Macedonia amongst the Kingdom of Greece, the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbia. The territory was up until that time part of the Ottoman Empire. In those days, most of the minority Ottoman Macedonias' Slavic intelligentsia who had developed some sense of national consciousness considered themselves to be a part of the Bulgarian community.During the 20th century, Slavo-Macedonian national feeling has shifted. At the beginning of the 20th century, Slavic patriots in Macedonia felt a strong attachment to Macedonia as a multi-ethnic homeland. They imagined a Macedonian community uniting themselves with non-Slavic Macedonians... Most of these Macedonian Slavs also saw themselves as Bulgarians. By the middle of the 20th. century, however Macedonian patriots began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive. Regional Macedonian nationalism had become ethnic Macedonian nationalism... This transformation shows that the content of collective loyalties can shift.Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Ethnologia Balkanica Series, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2008, pp. 127-129., "Until the late 19th century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-Macedonians who had an ethnic consciousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. Thus the reader should ignore references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle ages and into the 19th century, the term 'Macedonian' was used entirely in reference to a geographical region. Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality could be called a Macedonian...Nevertheless, the absence of a national consciousness in the past is no grounds to reject the Macedonians as a nationality today." "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century," John Van Antwerp Fine, University of Michigan Press, 1991, , pp. 36–37. Although the affiliation of most Macedonian Slavs to different national camps was purely superficial and not ethnic, but rather political and flexible option imposed by the nationalist educational and religious propaganda or by terrorism."At the end of the World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed... Of those Slavs who had developed some sense of national identity, the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria... The question as of whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when a Communist Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs from Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians." The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Loring M. Danforth, Princeton University Press, 1997, , pp. 56–66.
From 1912 until 1915 the territory of Vardar Macedonia remained within the territory of Serbia. In the parts administered by Serbia the new authorities forced out most of the Bulgarian Exarchist priests and teachers, and began implementing a forceful state-sponsored Serbianisation of Slavic-speaking Macedonians. It was occupied by Kingdom of Bulgaria during World War I between 1915 and 1918. Afterwards it was restored back to Serbia and consequently included as part of the Vardar Banovina in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During that period, there were two main autonomist agendas.
The right-wing Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) led by Ivan Mihailov, was in favor of the creation of a pro-Bulgarian Macedonian state under German and Italian protection. By 1928, Mihailov proposed a new plan calling for unification of Macedonia region into a single state, that would be independent from Bulgaria but with prevailing ethnic Bulgarian population.Todor Chepreganov et al., History of the Macedonian People, Institute of National History, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje,(2008) p. 254. However the new state would to be supranational and cantonized, something as "Switzerland on the Balkans".The last interview with the leader of IMRO, Ivan Michailov in 1989 – newspaper 'Democratsia', Sofia, 8 January 2001, pp. 10–11 Nevertheless, this IMRO continued to support Bulgarian irredentism until it was dissolved in the mid of 1930s.