Vasil Levsky

The idea of preparing a popular revolution inside Bulgaria was conceived by Levsky in 1868, following the failure of the detachment of Hadji Dimiter and Stefan Karadja and the disbanding of the Second Bulgarian Legion in Belgrade. Levsky realized that the people were not prepared for such a struggle and now he was convinced that in their struggle for liberation the Bulgarians had to rely exclusively on their own strength and resources. He toured the country and met with people of different social strata. He returned for a second and longer tour in 1869 in Bulgaria and founded the first local revolutionary committees which were to prepare the people for the future armed struggle. But Levsky went further on. He drew up a new programme for the preparation of the popular revolution and in the course of several years managed to set up a revolutionary organization stood a Central Revolutionary Committee based in the town of Lovech.

During Levsky`s lifetime the number of the local revolutionary committees reached several hundred, including many auxiliary groups. In creating this network, Levsky displayed his exceptional qualities as a revolutionary because neither in the Bulgarian nor in the world revolutionary movement had anyone before him managed to put the struggle for national liberation on such broad organizational foundations.