The party's leader was
Dimitar Blagoev, the driving force behind the formation of the BSDWP in 1894. It comprised most of the hardline Marxists in the Workers' Social Democratic Party, which followed the doctrine of
class struggle. This entailed concentrating on building the party amongst the
industrial working class rather than creating a broader political framework which would also appeal to the
peasantry. One feature of this was their proposal to confiscate all
private property, which inhibited their electoral success. In 1909 the
Social Democratic Union 'Proletarian', which had been expelled from the Narrow Socialists, merged into the Broad Socialist party. At the
Zimmerwald Conference, where the unraveling of the coalition between
revolutionary socialists and
reformist socialists in the
Second International began, the party supported the so-called
Zimmerwald Left. It opposed
World War I and was sympathetic to the
October Revolution in Russia. Under the influence of the
Bolsheviks the
narrow socialists accepted the ideas of
Leninism. Under Blagoev's leadership, the party applied to join the
Communist International in 1919. Upon joining the Comintern the party was reorganised as the
Bulgarian Communist Party. == Electoral history ==