The Agrarian Party government under Aleksandr Stambolisky, who became premier in 1919, attempted to improve the condition of the large peasant class and maintain friendly relations with the other Balkan countries. Stambolisky's dictatorial regime, unpopular with the army and the urban middle class, was overthrown by a coup d'état in 1923; he was captured and killed while seeking to escape. Internal dissension continued under the new government, which represented all political parties except the Agrarians, Communists, and Liberals. Bulgaria and Greece again came into conflict in 1925, and the Greek army invaded Bulgaria. The Council of the League of Nations brought the conflict to an end and penalized Greece. In 1934 Czar Boris staged a coup of his own and established a royal dictatorship.
In September 1940 Germany compelled Romania to cede southern Dobruja to Bulgaria. In March 1941, under German pressure, Bulgaria joined the Axis powers, agreeing to immediate occupation by German forces. Bulgaria declared war on Greece and Yugoslavia in April, shortly afterward occupying all of Yugoslav Macedonia, Grecian Thrace, eastern Greek Macedonia, and the Greek districts of Florina and Kastoría. Bulgaria signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in November and the following month declared war on the United States and Great Britain. Although allied with Nazi Germany, Czar Boris and his government resisted German demands for the persecution of Bulgarian Jews, most of whom survived the Holocaust.
When the tide of war turned against the Germans in 1943, German dictator Adolf Hitler attempted to force Bulgaria to declare war on the USSR. In August 1943, after returning from a meeting with Hitler, Czar Boris died under mysterious circumstances and was succeeded by his six-year-old son, Simeon II, and a pro-German government under Dobri Bozhilov. An anti-German resistance movement organized by the Communists and the Agrarians opposed the Bozhilov regime, which fell in May 1944. The succeeding government severed its ties with Germany, but it was too late.
The USSR formally declared war on Bulgaria on September 5. No fighting occurred, and the Bulgarian government subsequently asked the USSR for an armistice; Bulgaria, moreover, declared war on Germany on September 7. The armistice was agreed to by the USSR on September 9, and under the protection of Soviet forces a government subservient to the USSR was immediately established. The armistice, signed by the USSR, the United States, and Great Britain in October 1944, provided for the control of Bulgaria, until the signing of final peace treaties, by the Allied Control Commission under the chairmanship of the Soviet representative, who was also the commander of the Soviet occupation forces. The armistice provided also that the Bulgarians evacuate Yugoslav Macedonia and territories they had taken from Greece.
Soviet pressure in the Bulgarian election engaged the attention of Great Britain and the United States in the fall of 1945. National elections originally scheduled for August were postponed because of U.S. protests concerning the nature of Soviet political manoeuvres within Bulgaria. The opposition parties boycotted the elections held on November 18, and a single list of candidates of the Communist-dominated Fatherland Front won 85% of the vote.
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