The establishment of communist dictatorship in Vardar Macedonia started at a fast pace as early as the beginning of 1945. The resistance to the new Yugoslav power was organized by the followers of the idea of an independent, democratic Macedonia under the aegis of the western countries. The members of the Bulgarian organization IMRO played a major role in the struggle for separation from Yugoslavia and were subjected to mass repressions. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the end of the 20th c., the issue of the political and historical rehabilitation of the victims of communism in FYROM still remains open.