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Georgi Dimitrov[geOr´gE dimE´trof] Pronunciation Key, 1882–1949, Bulgarian Communist leader. A revolutionary from boyhood, he was a leader in the 1923 Communist uprising against Alexander Tsankov. When it failed, he fled Bulgaria and continued to work for the Communist cause. In 1933 he was arrested in Berlin for alleged complicity in setting the Reichstag on fire. Dimitrov's cool conduct of his defense and the accusations he directed at his prosecutors won him world renown. He was acquitted and went to the USSR, which conferred citizenship upon him. Dimitrov was secretary-general of the Comintern from 1934 until its dissolution in 1943. In 1944 he returned to Bulgaria to head the Communist party there, and in 1946 he succeeded Kimon Georgiev as premier. Dimitrov died in Moscow, where he was undergoing medical treatment.
See his The United Front (1938) and Selected Works (3 vol., 1972); J. D. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party from Blagoev to Zhivkov (1985).
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