Vasil Petrov Kolarov (; 16 July 1877 – 23 January 1950) was a Bulgarian communist political leader and leading functionary in the Communist International (Comintern). Biography Early years Kolarov was born in Şumnu, Ottoman Empire (now Shumen, Bulgaria) on 16 July 1877, the son of a shoemaker. After graduating from high school in Varna, he worked as a teacher in Nikopol from 1895 to 1897. In 1897, Kolarov joined the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party (BWSDP). Kolarov studied law in Aix-en-Provence, France, and at the University of Geneva. Following his graduation in 1900, Kolarov worked as a lawyer in his hometown and, from 1904, in Plovdiv. Political career After the ideological split of the BWSDP, Kolarov cast his lot with Dimitar Blagoev's Tesniak (Narrow) wing of the party, which espoused revolutionary socialism. From 1904 to 1912, Kolarov headed the local Tesniak organization in Plovdiv. He was named a member of the organization's governing Central Committee in 1905. On behalf of the Tesniak organization, Kolarov was a delegate to the congresses of the Second International at Stuttgart (1907) and Copenhagen (1910). During the Balkan wars Kolarov served as a second lieutenant in the 13th Rila Regiment of 7th Rila Division of the Bulgarian army. 1913 Kolarov was elected to the Bulgarian National Assembly. Kolarov participated in the September 1915 Zimmerwald Conference but at the time he remained aloof from the revolutionary Zimmerwald Left. Kolarov was also the delegate of the Tesniak organization to the 1917 Socialist conference held in Stockholm. In April 1919 the Bulgarian Communist Party was established, with Kolarov elected the first Secretary of its Central Committee. In 1920, Kolarov was arrested in Romania and was thus unable to attend the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, although he was able to attend the 3rd World Congress held in Moscow the following year as the representative of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Kolarov was elected to the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) and became a key functionary in the Comintern. Early in 1923, he travelled to Central and Western Europe on behalf of the Comintern, attending Communist gatherings in Paris, Frankfurt, Oslo, and Prague. In June 1923, Kolarov spoke at the 3rd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI in Moscow before returning secretly to Bulgaria at the end of the month. There he was promptly arrested but released on 5 August. Upon his release, Kolarov played a critical role