Zveno

Zveno ("Link") ( _bg. Звено) was a Bulgarian military and political organization, founded in 1930 by army officers. It was associated with a newspaper of that name.

The "Zveno" members were not Fascists, but they advocated an etatist and corporative economy, and were against political parties and the terror of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), the Macedonian liberation movement. "Zveno" was also closely linked to the so-called "Military League", the organization behind a coup in 1923, responsible for killing Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski.

In 1934 pro-"Zveno" officers like Colonel Damyan Velchev and Colonel Kimon Georgiev seized power and established an authoritarian regime. Georgiev became Prime Minister. They dissolved all parties and trade unions, and they openly attacked the IMRO. Their government introduced a corporatist economy, similar to that of in Benito Mussolini's Italy. King Boris III, an opponent of "Zveno", orchestrated a coup through a monarchist "Zveno" member, General Pencho Zlatev, who became Prime Minister (January 1935). In April 1935, he was replaced by a civilian, Andrei Toshev, also a monarchist.

In 1943 Zveno joined the Anti-Axis resistance movement, the Fatherland Front. In September 1944 the Fatherland Front engineered a coup d'état, accompanied by an uprising, led by the Communists. Georgiev became Prime Minister and Vechev Minister of Defense, and they managed to sign a ceasefire agreement with the Soviet Union.

In 1946, Velchev resigned in protest against the Bulgarian Communist Party's actions, and Georgiev was succeeded by the communist leader Georgi Dimitrov. Zveno continued to resist within the Fatherland Front, but it was by then a puppet organization. It disappeared altogether in 1949.