As important as the overthrow of Stambolyiski was for Bulgaria, the refusal of the Communist Party of Bulgaria to unite with the Stamboliyski's Agrarians had important ideological consequences for the young Soviet Russia next door. The passivity of the Bulgarian Communists during the June 9th, coup in 1923 was bitterly disappointing to nearly all factions within the Russian government and the Bolshevik Party. Stalin, who, by 1923, was gathering power in the absence of Lenin in the leadership of the new Soviet Russian government, had sought close relations with the Stamboliyski government. The Soviet government sought a means to break the ring of isolation that the western powers had erected around the new Soviet nation. Accordingly, following the Russian example, Russian Communists were strongly of the opinion that the Communists in Bulgaria should aid and support what they viewed as "the liberal petty bourgeoisie" —in the form of Stamboliyski's Agrarian Party as a means to advance the interests of the workers in Bulgaria. Indeed, this was the thinking of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International which was held in Moscow in November, 1922. At the Fourth Congress, delegates instructed the Bulgarians to support the Stamboliyski government. Yet in the 1923 coup of Alexander Tsankov in June, 1923, the Bulgarian Communist Party refused to come to the aid of Stamboliyski and following the coup the Communist Party was forced "underground" by the Tsankovist Terror that followed the coup. The Communist International then "ordered" the Bulgarian Communist Party to redress this error of passivity in the face of the successful coup. Accordingly, the Bulgarian Communist Party denied that they had suffered a defeat in the June coup and rose in a hastily arranged uprising in September 1923. This uprising however was quickly defeated by the Tsankov government.