Orange Guard

The Orange Guard (Bulgarian: Оранжева гвардия) was a Bulgarian paramilitary organization, belonging to the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU). It existed during the time that the agrarian leader Aleksandar Stamboliyski served as Prime Minister (1919-1923), both serving as his bodyguards and enacting the government's radical land reform policies. The militia was unofficially named the Orange Guard by the opposition, in reference to BANU's official color.

The radical left-wing politician and one-time leader of the Radomir Rebellion of 1918, Rayko Daskalov (who held several ministerial posts in the BANU government), personally commanded the Orange Guard, having suggested its creation.

The militia was involved in a number of violent confrontations with the political opposition, such as quelling the large transport strike of 1919-1920 (organized by Communists, Anarchists and Socialists) and attacking the founding convention of the right-wing Constitutional Bloc in 1922. It also clashed with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. After Benito Mussolini held his March on Rome in October 1922, the National Alliance (a military-academic opposition group) considered launching a "March on Sofia", but abandoned the idea out of fear for Orange Guard retaliation.

When the Agrarian government was ousted in a coup d'etat led by the military and a coalition of right-wing parties, in cooperation with the IMRO and agents from Fascist Italy, most of the Orange Guard was concentrated in the capital of Sofia. The attack came as a surprise to the peasant militiamen, who were quickly disarmed. The organization was later dissolved by the new government of Aleksandar Tsankov. Its commander, Rayko Daskalov, was later assassinated on August 23 in Prague (where he had formed a BANU government in exile) on orders of the IMRO leader Todor Aleksandrov.

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