Dimo Hadzhidimov

Dimo Hadzhidimov or Dimo Hadži Dimov (, ; 19 February 1875 – 13 September 1924) was a Macedonian Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and politician who was among the leaders and main ideologist of the left wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). He was also member of the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party, and later the Bulgarian Communist Party, from which he became a deputy in the Bulgarian Parliament.

Life Dimo Hadzhidimov was born on 19 February 1875 in Gorno Brodi, Ottoman Empire (now Ano Vrontou, Serres regional unit, Greece). His father had led the national movement for the religious rights of Bulgarians there for 25 years. After the failure of the Kresna-Razlog Uprising in 1879, The family had a good economic status until the move to Bulgaria, where they experienced a downward economic spiral like other refugee families during that period. Due to this, Hadzhidimov came under the influence of socialist ideas early on. He studied law at Sofia University in 1898, but was expelled due to his political views.

In May 1903 Hadzhidimov arrived in the village of Banitsa for a meeting with Gotse Delchev, after which the skirmish with Ottoman troops happened in which Delchev got killed, while Hadzhidimov managed to escape with other komitadjis. In a article from 1904 in the newspaper Revolutionary Sheet, After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, he returned to Ottoman Macedonia and became a member of the People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section). The same year he published his brochure called Back To Autonomy, Furthermore, he was assured that Macedonian Bulgarians should exist politically outside Bulgaria, jointly with the other Macedonian "nationalities", a view which stimulated an increasingly "Macedonian" identity. He also criticized the Macedonians in Bulgaria and their leaders who sabotaged the idea of a Balkan Federation with Macedonia as its focal point.

From 1900, Hadzhidimov opposed the partition of the Macedonian region between the countries of the Balkans due to the region's mixed population, suggesting the establishment of an independent and autonomous state instead. He maintained that the slogan Macedonia for the Macedonians should be a strong principle. In 1904, he imagined Macedonia as an independent entity to be incorporated into a future Balkan Federation, including all communities in the region. He proposed a federative-republican government. Hadzhidimov came up with the principles of revolution and people's self-governance, which became pillars of IMRO's left-wing political program. He associated the former principle with the idea of fighting the "national chauvinism, religious fanaticism and the nationalist propagandas". The principle of self-governance was seen as guaranteeing equality before the law as well as the religious, national, political and economic freedom of the people. Hadzhidimov believed that revolutionary organizations, not individuals, shape social movements and include all Balkan representatives. In his writings, he often described Macedonia as his homeland, IMRO as a "Macedonian organization" and the followers as "Macedonians". However, in 1906, he stated that the Bulgarians are dominant numerically in the Macedonian region and thought that they could lose their national consciousness only through extinction. After the Young Turk Revolution, he identified himself as one of the "Bulgarians in the Empire", repeatedly insisting on the term "Macedonian Bulgarians" for self-identification.