The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) always considered the Macedonian Question secondary in comparison to advancing the Socialist revolution in Bulgaria, the Balkans and the World. It allowed its infatuation with Internationalism to reach such extremes that in the end the national interests of the Bulgarian people were sacrificed. This is no more apparent than in the three censuses held in Bulgaria in 1946, 1956 and 1965 which recorded the numbers of "Macedonian" nationals as 180000, 187789 and 8750 respectively. These "statistics" have been exploited by Macedonists to claim that even Bulgaria (more accurately Georgi Dimitrov and the BCP) had admitted the existence of a Macedonian nationality

Archival records from the BCP have become available recently, which further highlight the fabrication associated with both the 1946 and 1956 censuses.

1946 Census
Unlike the normal Census which was supervised by the Office of Statistics, the one in 1946 was controlled directly by the BCP. A resume‚ of some official documents clearly exposes the deception involved. On 21/12/46 the BCP Regional Committee in Gorna Jumaya received the following report from the secretary Krsto Stoychev:

As regards the forthcoming census the Central Committee has decreed that the population in our district be registered as Macedonians
Also recorded in the official minutes, we read

the question was raised how to complete the census with respect to the spoken language; and it was decided to let the people write Bulgarian mainly in the cities, and Macedonian mainly in the villages
The following day, 22/12/46, key personnel of the District Committee were summoned and one of them comments on the advice received:
in the District Committee we were told that if we did not achieve a greater than 70% Macedonian proportion then we should take our hats and go
On 24/12/46 the Regional Directorate of the MVR (Internal Security Organization) received from Sofia a circular (No. 3628) which was distributed to all district authorities and mayors. In this circular was the strong implication that the local population was mainly of Macedonian descent. A new and even more unreserved instruction is received on 25/12/46 (circular No. 32B) which demanded that district authorities ensured that city and village mayors fulfil all necessary requirements of the census and that the non-compliant will be severely dealt with. On 27/12/46 the District Governor of Razlog sent the following urgent telegram to all mayors in the district
By order of the Head Director of Statistics, advise all counters and controllers that for the question of nationality, it should be entered Macedonian except for those who have most recently come from Bulgaria
During the same day another telegram (No. 10269) was received by the District Governor of Nevrokrop, George Lakov, in which the mayors are ordered
Don't delay in calling counters and controllers and inform them that when filling in Clause 13 of the Household Card and Clause 5 of the Household List B, nationality is to be entered Macedonian except for the Jews, Gypsies, Turks and recently arrived Bulgarians
In the proceedings of the Plenum of the Petrich BCP District Committee, held 4th-5th August 1948, it is unequivocally stated
Under pressure by the Regional Committee we intimidated the counters, and taking advantage of the geographic concept in our explanation, we managed to record 98% of the population as Macedonian. The true situation is that within our district the people see no distinction between the terms Bulgarian and Macedonian. After a thorough education program which accompanied and preceded the census on 31/12/46, we succeeded in convincing the majority of the BCP members in the directive of the Party, to write ourselves as Macedonian, and that any discussion on this subject was closed ...... even during the census we forcibly wrote down Macedonian for many of these people
People opposed to the BCP "denationalization" policy were persecuted. Mr S Boyadjief, former President of IMRO-UMD in Bulgaria, recounts how in 1946 he and thousands of other Bulgarians received long prison sentences (SB 5yr) in the Belene concentration camp for refusing to declare themselves Macedonian.
1956 Census
Although the Tito-Stalin split ended all territorial aspirations for the YCP to annex the Pirin region, BCP support for Macedonism continued. In the aftermath of Stalin's death, and during the new Krushchev era, the devout Stalinist Chervenkov and his followers were gradually removed from power. The April Plenum of 1956 was the turning point for a new direction in the BCP under the leadership of Todor Zhivkov. While a decision was taken to renounce the former BCP policy of Macedonism, the resolutions of the Plenum kept confidential. The public was only informed that the leadership had changed.

Subsequent implementation of BCP policy change was very slow and quite subject to Soviet-Yugoslav relations. Only after 1963 did the BCP openly renounce its former contention that a "Macedonian" nationality existed, and then five years later in 1968 the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was permitted to publish a position paper on the Macedonian Question.

In support of this sequence Mr S Boyadjief states that in 1959 he was imprisoned for one year for affirming his Bulgarian rather than Macedonian nationality.

The evidence establishes that the figures for both the 1946 and 1956 censuses, in regard to the numbers of self-declared "Macedonians", were falsified by the BCP to support continuing Stalinist policies.