Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 19

Because the party congress meets so infrequently, it delegates its functions to the Central Committee that it elects. Election of Central Committee members is also a pro forma action wherein the congress unanimously approves the list of names provided by the party leadership.

The Central Committee is a large working party organ, which in 1973 included 147 members and 110 candidate (nonvoting) members. The committee is charged with the administration of party work between sessions of the congress and the implementation of party policies presented by the leadership. For the performance of its duties, the Central Committee has fourteen permanently operating departments and six schools and inst.i.tutes, the latter ostensibly to promote political educational goals. As set forth in party statutes, plenary sessions of the committee are to be held at least twice a year, and special sessions may be called from time to time.

Within the Central Committee sits the nine-man permanent Secretariat headed by the first secretary who, by party structure, is the most powerful man in the country. The Secretariat is elected by the Central Committee during the party congress, but the election, once again, is merely formal approval of the members already selected by the top party leadership. Since 1954 the position of first secretary has been continuously held by Zhivkov, who also heads the State Council and is therefore the head-of-state. In addition to the first secretary, six other secretaries and two members complete the composition of the Secretariat. The main function of the Secretariat is to supervise the implementation of party policy.

Sharing the center stage of political power with the Secretariat is the Politburo, elected by the Central Committee in the same manner as the Secretariat. In effect the Politburo is a self-perpetuating body, and any change in membership is dictated by the members themselves. Composed of eleven members and six candidate members, all Politburo members belong to the Central Committee. They provide collective political leadership in both party and government.

The Politburo is the policymaking and decisionmaking branch of the party. In theory the eleven members of the Politburo are equal, but in practice the party first secretary occupies the topmost position of power in the party and is therefore first among equals in the Politburo.

Such is the concentration of political authority in the top bodies that multiplicity of membership by party officials in any or all of the central party organs is more the rule than the exception.

Membership

After the successful coup d'etat in September 1944, communist party membership grew with unprecedented speed. From prisons and internment camps and from self-exile abroad, party leaders began to converge in Sofia to restructure the party and to form a new government. Party members a.s.sisted by sympathizers helped fill the necessary manpower requirements as functionaries and working groups in the new coalition government. A period of intensive recruitment and propaganda followed that swelled the number of members from 15,000 to 250,000 in just four months. By the time the Fifth Party Congress convened in December 1948, party membership reached 500,000. This was in part due to the merger of the Social Democrats with the BKP in August 1948. In large part, however, Bulgaria's egalitarian peasant society--coupled with indiscriminate recruitment using hardly any criteria for qualification--produced a predominantly peasant membership. Workers accounted for slightly over one-fourth of the total membership as compared to one-half made up of peasants.

Ironically, the intense campaign for new members was accompanied by wide-scale purges within the party during a power struggle between the Stalin faction and the home faction of the BKP. Led by Chervenkov, the Moscow-oriented leaders succeeded in getting rid of their political opponents and soon after established a Stalinist kind of government in the country. Observers noted that this was aimed not only at weeding out undesirable party elements but, more important, at increasing the number of workers and consequently achieving a numerical balance with the peasant members.

Once in full control of the party and government, the BKP hierarchy turned its attention to more systematic methods of recruitment. By the time the Eighth Party Congress convened in November 1962, the BKP had 528,674 members plus 22,413 candidates. It was also at about this time that the Zhivkov government relaxed the open police terror and pardoned 6,000 political prisoners, most of them Communists.

The Ninth Party Congress, held in November 1966, provided new regulations concerning party composition and acceptance of new members.

Qualifications of candidates had to be checked thoroughly, and only those qualified could be accepted. Education as the main criterion of selection was emphasized among target groups of workers, peasants, specialists, women, and young people. As a result of this improved recruitment procedure, the new members after the congress were 44.3 percent blue-collar workers and 32 percent women. Of this group, it was estimated that 60.4 percent had at least a secondary education.

It was reported by the Secretariat that district (_okrug_) party committees after the Ninth Party Congress showed improvement in "content, style and methods of their work," and that they understood better the political approach in guiding local economic tasks as well as leading primary party organs in the political and organization work of their const.i.tuencies. Furthermore, over 77 percent of full-time secretaries of local party committees and about 90 percent of chairmen of cooperative farms had higher or secondary education. Formal training as well as in-service education was given serious attention. Educational training for party members includes two-year university courses, short courses, seminars, informal meetings, and conferences of local party committees.

Statistics reported in 1971 showed that 25.2 percent of about 700,000 members of the BKP were women. Increasingly more important positions were a.s.signed to women in the party hierarchy. In the same period (1971) there was a woman member of the Politburo, several women members of the Central Committee, and two women ministers. Not only were women active in party activities, but they could also be found in boards of management of government enterprises.

Party Congresses

Party statutes formerly stipulated that congresses would be held every four years, but a decision was made to extend the interval to five years after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had made the same change.

Decisions of the congresses appear as party statutes that usually reflect the desires of the leadership and the circ.u.mstances that necessitated the additions, deletions, or amendments to already existing statutes. The most important innovations embodied in BKP statutes emerged from congresses beginning with the Sixth Party Congress, held in 1954, and continuing through the Tenth Party Congress, held in 1971.

The Sixth Party Congress abolished the position of general secretary and in its place created the post of first secretary, again following the lead of the Soviet party, which had done the same thing after Stalin's death a year earlier. Party leader Chervenkov, who was premier and a Politburo member, kept those posts and allowed the election of Zhivkov as first secretary. Zhivkov was then an unknown functionary who had risen from the ranks of the Sofia party structure. Aside from the usual exhortation for party unity and the changes in six Politburo positions as well as an increase in Central Committee membership, the Sixth Party Congress was uneventful. Zhivkov's rise to power did not take place immediately, and a period of intraparty struggle ensued as he gradually consolidated his authority as first secretary.

The Seventh Party Congress, held in June 1958, proved even more uneventful. It pa.s.sed the Third Five-Year Plan for the development of the economy, the fulfillment of which was drastically reduced to three years even before the ink was dry on the doc.u.ment. With Central Committee approval, new plans for economic targets were prepared; meanwhile, Zhivkov prepared an elaborate propaganda campaign to push this program through. Zhivkov's Theses, as the collection of instructions have come to be known, advocated increased cultivation and production in agriculture and industry to obtain yields that were double those of previous plans. An unprecedented flurry of activity followed on the heels of extensive media coverage. Aided by the press, the Agitation and Propaganda Department under the Central Committee's direct supervision launched a vast campaign that surpa.s.sed even those efforts in neighboring countries.

This period is characteristically known as Bulgaria's Great Leap Forward, patterned after the Chinese experience, and historians put forth political and economic motives for such an economic experiment.

Politically, after Nikita Khrushchev started his de-Stalinization policy in the Soviet Union, the Bulgarian repercussion was evident in Chervenkov's disenchantment with the Soviet trauma and his looking favorably instead toward the Chinese example. The Great Leap Forward was neither a spectacular success nor a dismal failure and achieved no more than the expected progress in three year's time. The ensuing period marked a return to earlier patterns and heralded the end of Chervenkov's political career and the concurrent elevation of Zhivkov. The election of Zhivkov's friends--Stanko Todorov and Mitko Grigorov--to full membership in the Politburo gave him added support. Khrushchev's visit as the head of a large Soviet government delegation did not hurt Zhivkov but rather gave convincing proof of Khrushchev's support of the Bulgarian first secretary. Anton Yugov was premier at this time, but it was not long before he too was purged, the final blow coming only hours before the start of the Eighth Party Congress.

The Eighth Party Congress in 1962 marked the end of the open opposition to Zhivkov's leadership. With Chervenkov and Yugov out, Zhivkov was in full control. A month earlier, in October 1962, a special plenum of the Central Committee announced Zhivkov's a.s.sumption of government power as premier while retaining the first secretaryship of the party. In the economic sector, the Twenty-Year Plan of Economic Development--patterned on that of the Soviet Union--had been pa.s.sed. It featured more realistic goals in contradistinction to its predecessor. As usual, heavy industrial priorities ranked high in the development plan.

In November 1966 the Ninth Party Congress was held in Sofia. During the deliberations changes were made within the Politburo whereby Zhivkov's former protege, Grigorov, was dropped from membership without an explanation and Todor Pavlov, a theoretician of Marxism, and Tsola Dragoycheva, head of the National Council of the Fatherland Front, were added as full members. Boyan Bulgaranov and Ivan Mihailov, both older party members, were retained--a move that indicated the influence of older functionaries over young potential leaders. Economically, the congress supported principles of new management, tying political progress with economic advancement.

Collectively the aforementioned congresses accomplished little. On the contrary the 1971 congress introduced considerable changes in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic patterns of growth--among them the drafting and adoption of a new const.i.tution (see ch. 8).

Tenth Party Congress

Whatever political changes are visible in Bulgaria are the result of the Tenth Party Congress held in Sofia from April 20 to April 24, 1971. It was attended by 1,553 delegates representing roughly 700,000 party members, a ratio of about one delegate for every 450 members.

Additionally, foreign representatives from eighty-nine countries were on hand. Leading the Soviet delegation were Brezhnev, general secretary of the Soviet party, and four other high-ranking officials.

As is customary, Zhivkov opened the congress with his usual state-of-the-nation address, extolling Bulgarian-Soviet ties and stressing friendship between the two countries. Included in the agenda were the adoption of a new five-year economic plan; discussion and adoption of the new party program; discussion and approval of the new const.i.tution; the election of party members to the Central Committee, Politburo, and Secretariat; and a change in party statutes calling for a congress every five years instead of four.

The central theme of the party congress revolved around the concern or "care for man." To this end resolutions were pa.s.sed during the deliberations purportedly giving "everything for the sake of man; everything for the good of man." A separate report on the subject also emphasized the need for improving the economic plight of the people. By the time the resolutions and directives were being implemented, however, noticeable variations in interpretation and emphasis had taken place.

For example, the draft directives for the Sixth Five-Year Plan showed projection of industrial production that went up by 60 percent, whereas production of consumer goods was projected to increase by only 50 percent.

Special attention was given to the areas of education and culture by the Tenth Party Congress. Zhivkov underscored the need to close the educational gap between workers and peasants, who often had no more than an elementary education, and the intelligentsia and white-collar professionals, who had attained the secondary level and more often had gone on to higher education.

Far more significant changes in party statutes took place in the area of governmental operations. With the adoption of a new const.i.tution, modified structural arrangements were worked out, the most important of which was the creation of the powerful State Council of the National a.s.sembly; the council's functions are not entirely dissimilar to, but greater than, the presidium that it replaced (see ch. 8).

The composition of the new Politburo and Secretariat remained essentially the same. The congress seemed anxious to demonstrate unity by stressing continuity of tenure for its senior members. All of the eleven Politburo full members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1971; four were over age seventy, and the youngest was fifty years old. All Politburo members except one had been with the party since before September 9, 1944. Some Western observers wondered whether the retention of the entire old guard signified stability or exemplified stagnation.

At a time when observers were expecting an infusion of new blood into the hierarchy, the leaders chose the status quo. Zhivkov, in his closing speech, seemingly aware that the political conservatism of the old ruling elite left something to be desired, maintained that "the communist is ... an official up to a certain age; but he never ceases to educate, to inspire, to unite, and to organize the ma.s.ses." In effect he apologized for retaining the same old membership in the hierarchy.

THE BULGARIAN AGRARIAN UNION

The egalitarian character of Bulgaria's society derives from its basically agricultural economy. Its peasant organization--the Bulgarian Agrarian Union (Bulgarski Zemedelski Suyuz--BZS) was formed as early as 1899, making it one of the oldest agrarian organizations in Europe.

Founded to promote the well-being and educational advancement of its members, it developed into a political party and a powerful machine that in the 1920s became the governing party under Alexander Stambolisky.

After Stambolisky's government was overthrown in 1923, it did not rise to power again. The party split in 1931, and in 1942 the radical half of the party, known as the Pladne (the name of their newspaper) faction, joined the BKP in the Fatherland Front coalition.

The BZS in the early 1970s was a secondary political party subservient to, and controlled by, the BKP. Its membership was reported to be 120,000, of which 80,000 were cooperative farmers and approximately 15,000 were active militants in government jobs. It has a more simplified party hierarchy, being governed by an executive council elected by delegates of its congress, which meets every four years. The Executive Council--corresponding to the BKP Central Committee--is composed of ninety-nine members and forty-seven alternate members. From among them are elected members of the Standing Committee, comparable to the Politburo of the BKP, which directs the entire activity of the BZS.

The Standing Committee derives its authority from the Executive Council and reports to it.

a.s.sisting the Executive Council is the Auditing Commission, which oversees the financial accounts of the BZS. Another leading central organ of long historical tradition is the Supreme Council. It is not as large as the congress, but it is important enough to make policy decisions affecting the great ma.s.s of agrarian rank and file. It consists of all members and alternates of the Executive Council, members of various commissions, and all the chairmen of district committees.

There are twenty-eight district committees; 1,027 village committees; and 3,848 local branches of the BZS below the national level.

Jurisdictionally, they all follow an orderly system of organization whereby lower organs fall under the supervision and control of higher organs, and all fall under the final jurisdiction of the BKP agencies above them.

The preamble of the 1971 Const.i.tution recognizes the existence of the BZS as united in "purpose and action" with the BKP in the establishment and development of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. In keeping with this pledge, the BZS leadership and prominent members are elected to, and in some cases appointed to, important bodies of state administration through all levels of the government. There was an increase in the number of BZS members elected to public office in the general elections that followed the BKP congress in 1971. It appeared that the Communists had decided during their congress to broaden the base of representation by including more BZS members in the government as well as more members from various ma.s.s organizations and the Turkish minority. Regardless of affiliation, all candidates for office are carefully screened by the BKP, and after election all officials are under the control of the BKP.

Of the national officials in January 1973, Georgi Traykov, leader of the BZS, was one of two first deputy chairmen of the Fatherland Front.

Earlier, he had been released as chairman of the National a.s.sembly, which approved his nomination to the State Council, a move that was politically expedient in the view of Zhivkov to establish a "closer relationship ... between the State Council and the National Council of the Fatherland Front."

During the Thirty-Second Congress of the BZS, held in Sofia in October 1971, the presence of high-ranking BKP Politburo members as well as foreign delegates was very much evident. Boris Velchev, Politburo member and secretary of the Central Committee, delivered a speech praising the work of the BZS in its partnership with BKP in all aspects of Bulgaria's socialist development. Domestically, BZS was lauded for its efforts in the technological progress in agriculture resulting in the production of large quant.i.ties of cheap produce. BZS members were also praised as good machine operators in factories and as "innovators and frontrankers in field brigades and livestock farms."

Internationally, the BZS maintains contacts with dozens of agrarian and related organizations in various countries. As diplomats, national officials among the BZS leaders had demonstrated exceptional ability in foreign relations, especially where the regular high-ranking BKP representatives had been found less acceptable.

Ma.s.s ORGANIZATIONS

Ma.s.s organizations are auxiliaries of the BKP through which the party hierarchy exerts control over the bulk of the population. Established to serve the immediate interests of a particular cla.s.s of workers or professionals, ma.s.s organizations work as transmission belts for the administration of party policies and the achievement of party goals.

Most, if not all, of their chairmen are trusted and loyal BKP members.

The right to form organizations for any purpose not contrary to public law and national security is guaranteed in the const.i.tution. These organizations may be political, professional, cultural, artistic, scientific, religious, or athletic. Furthermore, unions and other a.s.sociations may be formed within public organizations and cooperatives.

In all cases the guidelines set by the BKP for the development of a socialist state impose limitations on the operations of ma.s.s organizations. Recognition of the BKP as the leading political party and the subservience of all other organizations is clearly understood. The most important ma.s.s organizations are the Fatherland Front, the Central Council of Trade Unions, and the Komsomol and its affiliate Pioneer organization.

Fatherland Front

The Fatherland Front grew out of the internal dissension between the government and various political parties, in particular, the pro-Soviet elements who objected to the alliance with n.a.z.i Germany. In March 1942 the government launched repressive measures in an attempt to immobilize communist activities. Working with a group of exiled Bulgarian leaders in Moscow, Georgi Dimitrov, former secretary-general of the Communist International (Comintern), urged action against the country's rulers, "who have sold themselves to Hitler." As conceived by Dimitrov, the program of the Fatherland Front aimed not only to bring down the "Hitlerite" regime and consequently establish a "true Bulgarian national regime" but also to declare Bulgaria neutral and dissolve its alliance with Germany.