Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 32

The average annual wage of all industrial workers in 1971 was 1,526 leva, compared to an average of 962 leva in 1960. On the whole, wages of production workers were somewhat higher than wages of auxiliary personnel, and the pay of white-collar production workers was higher than that of blue-collar workers. The average wage of workers in capital goods industries was 21 percent higher than the wage of workers in consumer goods industries. The wage was highest in mining and lowest in manufacturing. Within the state industrial branches, average annual wages ranged from 2,009 leva in the production of coal and petroleum to 1,196 leva in the manufacture of clothing. Wages in collective industry were generally lower than in state industry; the difference between the average annual wages in these sectors was 12 percent.

Industrial productivity and growth have suffered from a shortage of trained workers and technical personnel. The supply of skilled workers in the fall of 1972 was reported to be only half the number needed to fill available positions. Responsibility for this situation has been placed, in part, on the lack of coordination between the industrial ministries and the Ministry of National Education concerning technical and vocational training programs. There has been a p.r.o.nounced disproportion in the numbers of trainees in the various technical specialities, and technical training generally has not been up to the level demanded by modern technology. Enterprises themselves have been slow in undertaking to train their own workers. The scarcity of skilled personnel has been accentuated by the export of trained workers to the Soviet Union to help develop the exportation of mineral and timber resources in return for raw material imports.

Poor labor discipline and excessive labor turnover have aggravated the shortage of skilled workers. The turnover has been particularly high among younger workers. Dissatisfaction with the job, or with living and transportation conditions, and the search for better pay have been cited as the main reasons for the turnover. Progressively severe measures have been introduced to enforce stricter labor discipline, but their effectiveness has been weakened by lax application. One of these measures concerning movement of labor gave workers the right to quit their jobs freely but stipulated that any worker seeking reemployment had to do so through district labor bureaus set up for that purpose. The bureaus would direct the job applicants to industries and positions where labor was most urgently needed. Because of the shortage of skilled labor, however, enterprise managers continued to hire new labor without regard to the requirements of the law.

The shortage of adequately trained personnel adversely affects the utilization of available capacity; it entails frequent breakdowns of machinery and inhibits multishift operation of plants. More than 20 percent of worktime is usually lost through idling, and equipment is used at no more than 50 to 60 percent of capacity. New plants completed in 1967 had not reached full production in 1972. Productivity has also been kept low by the lack of mechanization of auxiliary activities, such as loading and unloading, inter- and intrashop transport, and warehousing. In 1972 the minister of labor and social welfare stated that labor productivity in Bulgarian metallurgy was only half as high as in some of the advanced industrial states.

The presence of unemployment has never been officially admitted, but a certain degree of unemployment and underemployment, nevertheless, exists in several rural areas of the country. Recognition of this fact was evident in the decision of the BKP Central Committee plenum, published in March 1970, on the territorial redistribution of production forces (relocation of industry) and in subsequent economic studies concerning this subject.

PRODUCTION

Gross industrial output amounted to about 13.9 billion leva in 1970 and reached 15 billion leva in 1971. According to official data, industrial output more than tripled in the 1960-71 period. The high average annual growth rate of 11.1 percent was accounted for, in part, by the low initial level of industrial development, as a result of which relatively small absolute increases in output were equivalent to high percentage rates of growth. The contribution of industry to national income (net material product) rose from 46 percent in 1960 to 50 percent in 1969 but declined to 49 percent in 1970.

The most rapid growth occurred in basic industries that were given priority in the allocation of investment and labor. Production of the iron and steel industry rose almost ninefold, and the output of fuels, chemicals, and rubber increased more than sixfold. The output of machine building and metalworking industries increased 5- times, and the production of electric power, building materials, and cellulose and paper rose about fourfold. Preferential development of basic industries continued through 1972.

The lowest growth rates among basic industries were attained by the timber and woodworking industry and nonferrous metallurgy. Some foreign observers have wondered when the available nonferrous ore reserves have not been exploited more intensively. As for timber production, its volume has been restricted by the limitation of forest resources.

Production by consumer goods industries generally increased by from 2.1 to 2.7 times, except for gla.s.s and porcelain wares, the output of which rose almost fivefold.

By far the most important industries in terms of output value in 1970 were food processing, and machine building and metalworking; these industries accounted for 25.4 and 20.2 percent of total output, respectively. Next in importance, with 9.1 percent and 7.5 percent of the total were the textile and the chemical and rubber industries. The output of the clothing industry--4.9 percent of total output--surpa.s.sed the production of fuels. The contributions of other industries to the total industrial output ranged from 0.9 to 3.7 percent. The structure of industrial output in value terms reflects, in part, the system of prices used in valuing the output.

Although the country's industrial development has had a history of only two decades, industry produces a wide variety of industrial and consumer products, including machine tools, ships, computers, automatic telephone exchanges, and television sets (see table 20). Bulgaria was also reported to possess the largest plant in Europe, and second largest in the world, for the production of electric forklifts and similar industrial vehicles. The quality of many products, however, though improving, has not measured up to average world standards. In 1972 the chairman of the Administration for Quality Standardization, and Metrology stated that his organization was confronted with a difficult long-term task of developing an effective quality control system and of catching up and keeping pace with the constantly rising world quality standards. In his view, attainment of these goals required a fundamental improvement of domestic quality standards, effective organizational and technical measures, well-conceived incentives, and an enormous amount of indoctrination of the personnel involved in production. The chairman was confident, nevertheless, that the country's industry would eventually outstrip the qualitative standards of developed industrial nations in the same way that it had succeeded in outstripping these nations'

industries with regard to quant.i.tative growth.

_Table 20. Output of Selected Industrial Products in Bulgaria, Selected Years, 1960-71_

-------------------+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- Product Unit 1960 1965 1968 1970 1971 -------------------+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- Electric energy million kilowatt hours 4,657 10,244 15,451 19,513 21,016 Coal (cleaned)[1] thousand metric tons 10,630 10,116 9,930 7,280 6,450 Lignite do 5,356 14,926 20,967 21,971 20,558 c.o.ke do 20 733 817 837 1,091 Crude oil do 200 229 475 334 305 Natural gas million cubic yards ... 94 662 619 428 Iron ore[2] thousand metric tons 188 585 870 792 993 Manganese ore[2] do 7 13 12 10 12 Pig iron do 136 547 1,064 1,195 1,329 Crude steel do 253 588 1,461 1,800 1,947 Rolled steel do 193 431 1,028 1,420 1,752 Steel tubes do 11 10 19 114 136 Copper ore[2] do 11 30 37 42 n.a.

Lead-zinc ore[2] do 173 180 168 173 n.a.

Electrolytic copper do 14 24 37 38 n.a.

Lead do 40 93 93 97 n.a.

Zinc do 17 66 75 76 n.a.

Cement do 1,568 2,681 3,512 3,668 3,880 Timber thousand cubic yards 5,046 5,680 5,140 5,166 4,923 Paper thousand metric tons 54 85 187 200 215 Nitrogen fertilizers[3] do 84 246 276 287 306 Urea[3] do 2 15 228 315 256 Superphosphate[4] do 41 94 136 148 146 Pesticides[5] do 2 6 12 15 16 Automobile tires do 172 327 333 546 730 Internal combustion thousand engines horsepower 155 179 280 229 250 Metalcutting thousand units machine tools 3,145 8,063 11,160 13,945 14,636 Presses do 203 609 944 977 763 Textile looms do 505 555 1,088 676 437 Tractors do ... 2,800 2,961 3,493 4,668 Freight cars do 2,007 1,583 1,550 1,991 2,016 Electric forklift do 3,104 16,562 22,673 29,641 30,202 Telephones do 80 57 245 349 416 Ships do 12 11 26 27 n.a.

Radio sets do 157 130 139 145 148 Television sets do [6]... 74 158 193 158 Refrigerators (domestic) do 3 41 91 134 140 Electric washing machines (domestic) do 38 89 184 56 57 Cotton textiles million yards 239 355 349 349 355 Woolen textiles do 20 31 25 29 31 Footwear[7] million pairs 7,534 10,062 15,671 13,627 16,095 Leather shoes do (4,251) (5,154) (5,781) (4,105) (4,694) Rubber footwear do 11,239 12,683 13,485 12,805 13,683 -------------------+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- n.a.--not available.

1: Anthracite, bituminous, and brown coal.

2: Metal content.

3: Nitrogen content.

4: P_{2}O_{5} content 5: Active ingredients.

6: Fewer than 400 units.

7: Excluding house slippers and rubber footwear.

SECTION IV. NATIONAL SECURITY

CHAPTER 15

PUBLIC ORDER AND SECURITY

To maintain order and to retain control of the population, party and governmental authorities rely on a number of police and security organizations that are able to exert physical force and, also, upon a group of large social organizations that are able to apply social pressures. When individuals, in spite of the efforts of the law enforcement agencies and the social organizations, engage in antisocial or criminal behavior, the courts are charged with handing down appropriate sentences, and the penal inst.i.tutions are concerned with rehabilitating the individuals for eventual return to society as cooperative and productive members.

People's Militia units throughout the country are the local police forces that enforce the laws, combat crime, and monitor the population.

They are a.s.sisted in local law enforcement by part-time voluntary paramilitary auxiliaries and, in serious situations, by a small, centrally organized, full-time internal security force that can act as a light infantry unit and move quickly to any part of the country. State security police, evolved from the secret police of the 1940s and 1950s but much reduced in size, deal with crimes that are national in scope or that pose a threat to the society or its inst.i.tutions. Authorities credit the security police with having almost eliminated the possibility of large-scale subversive activities. The militia, its volunteer auxiliaries, and the security units are organized within the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Border and construction troop organizations are administered separately.

The Border Troops, charged with defense of the country's boundaries and with control of a border zone around the country's periphery, are a part of the Bulgarian People's Army and are under the Ministry of National Defense. The Construction Troops are labor forces, but the bulk of their personnel comes from the annual military draft, and they are organized into regular military units and are subject to military regulations and discipline.

The rights of the individual citizen are defended in the 1971 Const.i.tution and in the Criminal Code of 1968, which was not altered by the const.i.tution. The latter states that a crime can only be an act so identified in the code and for which a punishment is prescribed. These principles can and have been abused--the state is set above the individual, and the judicial machinery is within an agency of the executive branch of the government--but those who exercise the machinery have become increasingly responsive to its guiding statutes. The limits on punishments that are set down in the code allow somewhat greater sentences to be handed down upon those committing crimes against the state or state property than upon individuals or private property.

INTERNAL SECURITY

State and Internal Security Forces

During the time of readjustment after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, Bulgaria's police state period gradually came to a close. In the postwar period until then, the country had had police machinery modeled on that of Stalinist Soviet Union, with state security troops (secret police) and garrisoned interior troops equipped like mobile army infantry units.

The state security troops, the garrisoned interior troops, and the regular police forces are estimated to have totaled about 200,000 men.

Although state and internal security organs have been shifted among ministries and renamed, and there has been an occasional move to abolish them, they continue to exist in Bulgaria. Although the organizational form is probably much the same as before, that is, an internal security force and a state security police, the security apparatus has only a fraction of its former personnel and has been shorn of its more arbitrary powers. According to some observers, Bulgaria has emerged from a police state, wherein security forces held arbitrary powers of arrest that instilled fear in the people, to a police bureaucracy in which the militia meddles in peoples' lives to the point of public frustration.

People no longer have reason to fear the tyranny of a secret police, but they have developed a strong resentment of the petty militia regulations that affect their daily lives.

State security functions--those that deal with espionage, treason, and the group of so-called political crimes aimed at undermining or upsetting the system--have been performed by a separate secret police organization that was typical in communist systems, particularly during the Stalinist period. An overriding preoccupation with state security has not been as prevalent in Bulgaria as in many communist countries, because the communist government had established itself firmly in control of the country in a relatively short time. Nonetheless, a sizable secret police force existed for many years and, after a reign of terror lasting until 1948, the secret police contributed to a general atmosphere of repression that lasted until the mid-1950s. After that time most police functions were a.s.sumed by the People's Militia, and the secret police faded into the background, greatly reduced in size and importance but still functioning within one of the government ministries.

After the unsuccessful coup d'etat of April 1965, there was a resurgence of secret police activity with the creation of the new Committee of State Security. As the political situation stabilized in the late 1960s, the Committee of State Security was reabsorbed into the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where the remaining units of state security police continue to operate. They are evidently considered necessary in order to take care of relations with foreigners, to collect some military intelligence at the governmental level, and to monitor any potential espionage or criminal activities that might pose a threat to the state.

The day-to-day role of the small remnant of the internal security force is unknown. This elite, militarized unit, however, is probably held as a bulwark against any large-scale, organized dissension.

The People's Militia

The People's Militia (local police) deals with crime and maintains routine day-to-day contacts with the people. The militia operates under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and has intermediate administrative offices at the level of the _okrug_ (district) and local police stations at the _rayon_ (munic.i.p.al) or _obshtina_ (urban borough or village commune) level. Although the primary control descends from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, all militia organizations have a degree of responsibility to the people's councils at their levels.

Local militia forces ordinarily work only in the areas under the jurisdiction of their people's councils. In urgent circ.u.mstances they may be called upon the Ministry of Internal Affairs to a.s.sist the militia in neighboring areas, and they may even cross _okrug_ lines. To operate outside their own areas on their own volition they must have the permission of an agency in the ministry.

The police are charged with maintaining order, enforcing the laws, protecting personal and public property, and regulating traffic. They a.s.sist governmental and party agencies in the execution of their various resolutions, orders, and instructions. They monitor the rules of residence and the collection of taxes. In the event of natural disasters or major accidents they are equipped to rescue, to give first aid, and to transport victims to medical facilities. They supervise observance of quarantine measures imposed by health authorities. They monitor drinking establishments to ascertain that alcoholic beverages are not served to alcoholics, obviously drunken persons, juveniles, and drivers of motor vehicles. They are instructed to combat rowdy and irresponsible behavior--hooliganism, begging, and vagrancy--and other antisocial manifestations. They see that unsupervised and stray children are provided for.

Many militia functions are peripheral to the primary police duties of law enforcement and criminal investigation. Such functions include social controls having diverse objectives ranging from gun control to keeping undesirables off Sofia streets during visits of foreign dignitaries. The police have unusual powers in dealing with beggars, vagabonds, and others in the category that they cla.s.sify as socially dangerous. Some of the controls are directed at preventing crime; others appear intended to reduce the possibility of incidents on occasions when the presence of such persons could be embarra.s.sing. The regulation allows the police to prohibit individuals from visiting specified towns or areas or even from leaving their residences for a twenty-four-hour period. Some may be prohibited from meeting certain other specified persons or from frequenting certain parts of towns. Such restrictions can be for definite or for indefinite periods of time. Persons may be denied the use of common carriers or the privilege of attending sports events or of visiting certain public inst.i.tutions. Some, prost.i.tutes for example, may be denied the right to become telephone subscribers. If they think it advisable, the police may require some persons whom they are monitoring to report to them on a daily or other regular basis.

Individually held weapons, ammunition, and explosives are accounted for and are registered with the militia. Certain forestry and farm personnel, hunters, sportsmen, and youth organizations are authorized to retain controlled weapons. Explosives are permitted when they are required in, for example, construction projects. By law there is no production of cold weapons--bra.s.s knuckles, daggers, scimitars, and the like--in the country.

The police collect or maintain a major share of local records for the _obshtina_ people's councils. These records deal with vital statistics, citizenship, identification, travel visas, registration of residences, licenses and permits, and employment data. A person acquires Bulgarian citizenship in the circ.u.mstances that are accepted in most other countries--by ancestry, place of birth, or naturalization--but there may be somewhat more than the usual number of situations in which he may lose it. Persons are deprived of citizenship if they leave the country unlawfully, leave lawfully but fail to return within a reasonable time after their visas expire, go abroad to avoid military service, acquire foreign citizenship in a manner not specified in Bulgarian law, or if they conduct themselves abroad in ways that are contrary to Bulgaria's interests or that are unworthy of a Bulgarian citizen. Persons not ethnically Bulgarian are released from their citizenship upon emigration, although they are not released unless all of their obligations in the country are settled.

Laws governing the stay of foreigners in the country also are administered and enforced by the militia. According to the revised law that took effect in 1972, the whereabouts of a foreigner is subject to the same rules that apply to Bulgarian citizens. His hotel or other local address, therefore, must be reported to the militia within twenty-four hours of his arrival at each stop. Tourists are usually unaware that such detailed records of their stays are being maintained, because hotel personnel ordinarily take care of the reporting. If the visitor stays at the home of a Bulgarian, that citizen must report his presence on the same twenty-four-hour basis.

A foreign visitor may travel freely otherwise, except that he may not go to certain restricted areas or to the border zone at any place other than at one of the designated crossing points. He must leave the country when the time specified in his visa has expired unless he has a criminal charge against him and is awaiting trial, has been sentenced and is serving a term in prison or at a correctional labor camp, or has the obligation to provide support for a person in the country.

Border Troops

The Border Troops are part of the Bulgarian People's Army and are organized within the Ministry of National Defense. Border units resemble regular military forces more than they do the police. They are considered militarized security units, and some 15,000 men serve in them.