This is one of several sculptures depicting Georgi Dimitrov, the first leader of Bulgaria's communist party. In the propaganda films we watched Dimitrov is treated as the father of the country, assuming a role like that of George Washington.
If Dimitrov is known at all in the West it is because he was among the communists accused by the Germans of the 1933 burning of the Reichstag Building. He defended himself and was acquitted.
The Reichstag fire was used by Hitler to justify an emergency decree suspending civil liberties -- a key step to the Nazis gaing power.
