The coercion of votes is, of course, an old - established custom
in the Balkans. But M. Stambulisky, the Bulgarian Premier, has carried this policy to its illogical conclusion. Many rich people in Bulgaria who feared the possibility of a social -upheaval have apparently turned Communists in order to safeguard their property. In order, therefore, to drive these strayed sheep back into the fold and to destroy the Communist opposition, M. Stambulisky decided to use what he thought were the Communists' own weapons against them. He( promised that the first task of the new Sobranje would. be to pass a Communist law whereby in all villages with more than ten Communists a commune must be founded and the Communists' property would become the general property of all the inhabitants. Fantastic, if ingenious, as this proposal may seem—for such an arrangement would actually be the antithesis of Communism—it was an effective piece of strategy. In the General Election M. Stambulisky's followers, the Agrarians, carried 205 out of 276 seats.
