12 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Internationally, after the dissolution of the Comintern and the ending of the anti-fascist war, Dimitrov had the satisfaction of witnessing the success of the Chinese revolution, the setting up of People's Democracies in Eastern Europe and the emergence of a powerful socialist camp in one-third of the world. As a 13-year old, born in a humble craftsman's family, he had joined the ranks of the working class as a printer's apprentice. After plunging into the workers' movement in his teens, he joined the party as a printer. As Todor Zhivkov has aptly summed up his revolutionary work for Bulgaria: "As a twenty-year old printer, Georgi Dimitrov became a member of that party and linked his entire life with it. To this party he owed many of his revolutionary virtues, while our party owes to him its rearming with the ideas of Leninism, its turning into a party of a Leninist type, capable of organising the working class and the working people to victory and after taking power, of successfully directing the construction of a socialist society."15 Such are the creative energies unleashed within the working class when imbued with the scientific Marxist-Leninist ideology that it throws up leaders of a new type from amongst them —one of the best among them being Dimitrov who combined in himself all the virtues of the class he belonged to and exemplified them. Undaunted courage, sobriety and patience; practical and erudite, and finally and above all humane and civilised. There are occasions in history when communists acclaim the role of individuals in the historical process; the phenomenon of Georgi Dimitrov is one such which must be joyfully proclaimed. 1 F I Firsov, "G Dimitrov and the West European Bureau of the Communist International", in Georgi Dimitrov — an Outstanding Militant of the Comintern, Sofia Press, 1972. 2 Ibid, p 62. 3 Ibid, p 72. 4 Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works, Volume III, Sofia Press, p 269. 5 Ibid, p275. 6 Firsov, op cif. 1 Firsov, op cit, pp 61-62. 8 P Boev, "Georgi Dimitrov on the United and Popular Front" in Georgi Dimitrov—an Outstanding Militant of the Comintern, Sofia Press, 1972. 9 Ibid. 10 Jane Degras (cd). The Communit International, 1919-1943, Documents, Volume III, 0 U P. 1965, Preface, p 7. 11 V. Timoyefev, "Unity of Action of the Working Class Parties", International Affair'.y. No. 1, 1957. 12 Monty John stone, "Trotsky and the Popular Front", Marxism Today, October and December 1975. 13 "G Dimitrov and Unification of the Revolutionary and Democratic Forces for