Kiril Stanchev
After the end of the First World War Kiril Stanchev was variously an active officer, serving in the border troops and in the 22nd Regiment and the 2nd Infantry Division, as well as an instructor in the Bulgarian military academy.He was a member of the Military Union, an influential organization of Bulgarian officers which carried out the 1923 and 1934 coup d'états.He joined the Fatherland Front, an alliance between several anti-Fascist parties, of which the strongest was the Bulgarian Communist Party He participated in the preparation of the 1944 coup d'état and after the coup, he was part of the Bulgarian delegation that contacted the 3rd Ukrainian Front to arrange a ceasefire with the Soviets.In recognition of his successful command Kiril Stanchev was promoted to lieutenant general on 18 November 1944.Modern historians consider the "plot" to have been an invention of the Communist Bulgarian security service, with the intention of getting rid of officers who were not considered sufficiently loyal to the new regime, as well as fabricating a link between the Bulgarian army and the opposition Agrarian party.