Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 33

Their mission is described as safeguarding the country's frontiers against penetration or illegal crossing. Because they are a part of the regular armed forces, it is presumed that in time of war they would work in coordination with those forces. If the enemy were to penetrate into Bulgaria, the Border Troops would be expected to control the area immediately behind the ground forces. If Bulgarian armies were driving the enemy beyond the borders, they would probably remain at the old border or establish a new one if the leadership expected to retain any newly occupied territory.

The most strictly defended borders are those shared with Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, but the border with Romania is also defended. The Border Troops operate a number of patrol boats, both on the Danube River, where it forms the border with Romania, and along the Black Sea coast. The troops also control the movement of people into and within a border zone, which is a strip approximately eight miles wide in from the border. Smuggling, however, even large-scale smuggling, is the concern of the Ministry of Internal Affairs customs police and not of the Border Troops.

Construction Troops

A Bulgarian inst.i.tution that is unique among the Eastern European communist countries is the organization known as the Construction Troops. Thousands of young men who are not called for service in the regular armed forces are drafted into the Construction Troops, from which the government derives productive labor at the same time that it instills military discipline and political indoctrination into a large segment of the young male population. Similar organizations have been maintained since the establishment of the original Labor Service in the early 1920s, which was a means of circ.u.mventing the World War I peace terms that prohibited large conscript military forces. Obligatory military service was restored during the 1930s and, as part of the change, the Labor Service was militarized. It was made a part of the army and remained so during World War II, when it became known as the Labor Army.

Two types of compulsory labor forces emerged after the communist seizure of power in 1944. The Labor Army continued in existence and, following the example of the Soviet Union under Stalin and of the other states in the Soviet post-World War II orbit, Bulgaria also placed those of its citizens considered politically dangerous in forced labor camps. These were the prison colonies populated by victims of the secret police, persons who might or might not have had proper trials but who were considered to be enemies of the party or the government. Some camps were temporarily located at sites where large numbers of manual laborers were needed, but more often camps were at permanent locations. Buildings at all camps were flimsy, and facilities were minimal. In the early period, while the Communists were establishing their control over the country, about 1 percent of the population was imprisoned at hard labor in such camps at any given time.

In the early 1970s the Construction Troops organization that had evolved from the Labor Army was military in form and character. Its men were provided from the annual draft and were subject to military regulations and discipline. Its officers, who had regular military ranks, were provided from the armed forces or had been prepared for that specific a.s.signment in the Construction Troops own school. The headquarters of the organization, however, was a main administration responsible directly to the Council of Ministers; it was not within either the Ministry of National Defense or the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Furthermore, the work of the organization was heavy construction and, at least in peacetime, the greatest portion of it was unrelated to any requirement of the armed forces. The Construction Troops worked on various construction projects on a five-day-week basis but a.s.sumed a military routine on Sat.u.r.days, which were devoted to platoon and company drill and to political education cla.s.ses.

Until the mid-1960s the troops were used mainly in roadbuilding and land reclamation. By the early 1970s more than one-half of their work was in factory, housing, water supply, and other such construction. Its 1972 projects included building a tire manufacturing plant and a resort hotel complex and harnessing a river for hydroelectric power, recreation, and supplies of irrigation water and city water. One of the organization's spokesmen claimed that there was not a large-scale project underway anywhere in the country where its troops were not at work.

The men acquired in the annual draft serve two years, which satisfies their military service obligation. Almost all of the conscripts in the Construction Troops work as unskilled laborers. During or at the end of their two-year tours, those who enjoy or show a special apt.i.tude for construction work may volunteer for extended duty tours and serve as noncommissioned officers. Some of those who are accepted are sent to technical schools for further education.

Career officers who are educated in the Construction Troops service academy are expected to serve for ten years after graduation. This school, the full t.i.tle of which is the General Blagony Ivanov People's Military School for Officers in the Construction Troops, offers a so-called semihigher course of instruction. Applicants to it must have completed their secondary education, and its three-year course can be used for undergraduate transfer credit toward a university-level degree elsewhere. Many graduates continue their education at the Higher Inst.i.tute of Construction and Engineering in Sofia, from which they may receive a further career specialization and bachelor's or advanced degrees.

CIVIL DEFENSE

Authorities responsible for the civil defense program justify their efforts by arguing that modern warfare has virtually eliminated the difference in importance between the armed forces at the front and their support in the rear areas. They stress that it is essential to provide for continued production and delivery of supplies, primarily foodstuffs, that are needed for survival. Such arguments have been effective in Bulgaria, and civil defense training is compulsory for all citizens from twelve to sixty years of age.

The civil defense organization is staffed at all administrative levels in the country. It is within the Ministry of National Defense in the national government and has committees under the people's councils in each _okrug_ and _rayon_ or _obshtina_. Committees or working teams are also set up in manufacturing plants, enterprises, schools, and collectives. Indicative of the importance placed upon civil defense activities, its national chief in the early 1970s was one of the deputy ministers of national defense, a level shared with only the topmost officers of the military establishment.

Civil defense tasks are divided into three categories. The first includes provision of shelters and defense for the population, providing warning of attack, and training of the people for implementation of dispersal and evacuation plans and for defense and salvage work. The second includes implementation of measures intended to maintain production and to keep transportation, communications media, and power supplies in operation. The third includes industrial salvage, restoration of production, fire fighting, decontamination, and provision of medical a.s.sistance.

Specific work a.s.signments vary widely in differing locations and enterprises. For example, industrial teams train to maintain or restore production. Agricultural teams work to save crops, farm animals, or to protect feed and watering spots. People's councils at all levels, party and youth groups, and the ma.s.s organizations are instructed to a.s.sist in specific ways and to volunteer in other ways as opportunities arise.

Enthusiasm for civil defense activities varies widely. One town with a population of just over 1,000, for example, built or modified areas to shelter 6,000 people. In more typical situations tasks such as those of civil defense that have little to contribute to the needs of the moment receive much lower priority.

PUBLIC ORDER

The Communist Party and Social Organizations

The most important element in establishing control of the country at the inception of the post-World War II communist government was the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP--see Glossary), with the iron discipline it held over its carefully chosen members and its single-minded planning and direction. After gaining control, the party attempted to retain its exclusive character, insofar as possible recruiting as members only those whose loyalty was unquestioned and who could organize and lead.

To maintain control based on a broader segment of the population, the party then encouraged the development of a number of social and special-interest organizations, designed to appeal to the interests of as many of the people as possible and to enlist them in activities that shape public opinion, regulate the conduct of the people, and support the party and its policies. These organizations ranged in size from the extremely large Fatherland Front and the trade unions to the painters, writers, and composers unions, whose memberships numbered between 100 and 800 (see ch. 9).

With the exceptions of the party, the Fatherland Front, and the small artists unions, these groups are called ma.s.s organizations. The small unions do not qualify because they are far from ma.s.sive in size; the party and the front have the requisite membership, but they are set apart from the others. The Fatherland Front attempts to gather members from all other socially or politically active organizations in the country, combining as many as possible of them within it. Its membership includes nearly one-half of the country's population. The party, although ostensibly a member organization of the Fatherland Front, is set above all other organizations. It controls and directs the others and requires them to support it in general and specific ways (see ch.

9).

The largest of the ma.s.s organizations are, in descending order, the trade unions, the Bulgarian Red Cross, the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union (Dimitrovski Komunisticheski Mladezhki Suyuz--commonly referred to as the Komsomol), the Bulgarian Union for Physical Culture and Sports, and the Bulgarian Union of Tourists. Their memberships range from about 1 million to approximately 2.5 million. The Bulgarian Agrarian Union, the Bulgarian Hunting and Fishing Union, the Teachers Union, and the Scientific and Technical Union are much smaller, having memberships between 100,000 and 200,000. The Fatherland Front attracts nearly 4 million people; the party has 700,000 members.

Youth Programs

The first sizable leftist youth organization in the country, then called the Union of Working Youth, was formed in 1926, and by 1940 it had a membership of approximately 15,000. It and the party furnished most of the partisan fighters that hara.s.sed the Germans and the pro-German government of the country during World War II. Both the party and the youth group grew stronger during the war, largely because the partisan cause was more popular than that of the government.

The youth organization became the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union after the war. The new name did not come about from a major reorganization or reorientation of the group; transition to its postwar status was smooth, but it saw fit to honor Georgi Dimitrov, who had by then become the most powerful and famous of the party's leaders. Even after its renaming in Dimitrov's honor, the organization has usually been referred to, in official government communications as well as in conversation, as the Komsomol, which is the name of the Soviet Union's youth organization.

The Komsomol became the organization through which the party reached the nation's youth. Its responsibilities were expanded, and its membership grew rapidly. In the ideal situation the entire youth segment of the population of eligible age, both male and female, would be members of the organization. In 1970 its 1.16 million members did include about 77 percent of those between fourteen and twenty-four years of age. Some of the organization's leaders, instructors, and exceptionally active members stay in the group beyond the upper age limit of twenty-four, but their number is too small to alter the membership statistics significantly. Male members outnumbered female members by a large margin; 88 percent of the eligible males were members, only 66 percent of the females. The disparity in membership by s.e.x reflects the fact that more of the organization's activities--sports and premilitary training, for example--appeal to or are oriented toward the future needs of the males. Membership is either a prerequisite for admission to higher educational inst.i.tutions or makes admission much easier.

Statistics notwithstanding, party and other national leaders complain that Komsomol membership is lower than it should be, but they have greater concern about the number who are members merely for expediency and who are apathetic toward the organization's activities. A low point in the Komsomol's appeal was reached during the 1960s and, sensing an urgent need to reattract the cooperation of the nation's youth, its programs were given a major reevaluation and overhaul beginning in about 1968.

The youth problem in 1968 was probably less serious in Bulgaria than it was in many Western countries and other communist countries, but it had reached proportions that warranted action. Among symptoms cited by the authorities was apathy toward education, work, and party ideology. Young people in rural areas seemed anxious to move to the cities, where idleness, crime, and so-called parasitic living were increasing.

Consumption of alcohol by young people was up markedly.

Many young people were described as silent nihilists, persons who were characterized by unresponsiveness and vast indifference. No expression of group youth protest, for example, was recorded between the inception of the communist government and the late 1960s. When individual complaints were solicited, however, they appeared to come out freely.

Some said that they would have cooperated but spoke of the anemic and empty lives of the youth organizations where the dull, boring meetings consisted largely of upbraiding sermons full of pious admonitions and reprimands. Others a.s.sumed an offensive posture, indulging in self-praise, pointing out shortcomings in party work, complaining about the lack of individual freedom and the lack of opportunity for showing initiative, and criticizing the older generation.

Consumption of alcoholic beverages is common enough in typical families so that early exposure to it is considered natural, but its use by young people became excessive enough to be considered a national problem in the mid-1960s. According to a survey published in 1971, more than 50 percent of the students in Sofia secondary schools consumed alcohol regularly. Percentages were considerably higher in provincial secondary schools. Few of the youthful users had consumed it over a long enough period to have become addicted, but more than one-half of the inebriated persons brought to sobering-up facilities in Sofia hospitals and clinics were young people.

Authorities blame advertising of alcoholic beverages, imitation of Western fashions, disillusionment, and monotony in daily living for most of the increase in youthful drinking. They also blame lax parental control, but the surveys concluded that the influence of contemporary social habits and the pressures of peer groups were forces more powerful than those exerted by the family.

Measures have been undertaken to reduce the so-called parasitic element that according to party and governmental spokesmen, is composed of those who neither study nor work. As early as 1968 the minister of national education was given six months to organize a nationwide program to cope with the problem, and the Center for Amateur Scientific and Technical Activities among Youth and Children was created to coordinate planning.

The Committee for Youth and Sports, the State Committee on Scientific and Technical Progress (renamed the State Committee for Science, Technical Progress, and Higher Education), the Komsomol, and the trade unions were charged with contributing ideas and a.s.sistance. As a result of the center's activities, the next year each _okrug_ was directed to organize schools with three-month-long vocational training courses and to canva.s.s its area for young people who required the instruction.

Enterprises in the _okrug_ were directed to cooperate by indicating the skills they most needed, by furnishing facilities and, finally, by hiring those who completed the training.

As of 1972 the program had achieved spotty or inconclusive results. Most spokesmen considered it as satisfactory as could have been expected.

They did not consider that it reflected badly on the effort when a few groups reported that about 30 percent of the students who completed their cla.s.ses never reported to the jobs for which they had been prepared and that others stayed at work for only a short time. Other observers consider that the authorities are concerned over a problem much of which does not exist or that is blown out of proportion to its seriousness. For example, 85 percent of the offending group were girls or young women. A few of them were undoubtedly ideological malcontents, members of youth gangs, prost.i.tutes, or criminals, but a large majority considered themselves living inoffensively at home or, at the worst, were working at small family enterprises. In rural areas they might have been attending the family's private agricultural plot or the privately owned livestock.

CRIME AND JUSTICE

Crime

The country's most widely quoted authorities on crime view it as a social phenomenon, that is, actions by people within society against the interests of the society as a whole or against the principles directing it. Combating crime, therefore, becomes a matter both of law enforcement and of social edification and persuasion. Although they adhere to the argument that in a developing communist society most of the crime is related to holdover att.i.tudes from the old society and to unavoidable contacts with such societies still existing, they do not expect to eradicate crime according to any existing timetable.

Petty crime is an irritant to the leadership, not so much for the damage or lasting effects of the individual criminal acts, but because such acts reflect an att.i.tude on the part of the perpetrators indicating that they hold the society, if not in ridicule or contempt, at least in less than proper respect. Such att.i.tudes prompted an official in the Ministry of Internal Affairs to state, "Social democracy does not take a conciliatory att.i.tude toward petty criminals, or tolerate individuals who disturb the public order or who are engaged in a parasitical life."

The actual amount of petty crime is less worrisome to the authorities than the fact that it is increasing. Also disturbing are statistics showing that most of those apprehended for it are in the eighteen-to-thirty-year age-group.

Authorities have found themselves facing a problem in relation to petty crime that is in no way unique to Bulgaria. Misuse of government property, including theft and pilfering, has become rampant and is considered forgivable by those who are guilty because "everybody does it." The courts have become reluctant to hand down harsh sentences upon people who consider that they have done no wrong and, at least in the opinion of some government spokesmen, lenient court sentences have helped foster a view that theft of public property is wrong only because it is so described in certain of the laws.

The authorities also point out that statistics acc.u.mulated on such thefts reported in 1970 are revealing in other respects. Almost 90 percent of those recorded fell into the category of petty crime, but about one-half of them were carried out by overcoming locks or other barriers protecting the property. Over one-half of the persons apprehended for such thefts were repeaters. a.n.a.lysis of other records also indicated that in all but a very few cases the most serious crimes were committed by individuals who had begun their criminal careers by stealing.

At the same time the courts were handing down sentences of the minimum punishment for theft or even less than the prescribed minimum. More often than not, the culprits were given suspended sentences. Of those convicted of serious theft, less than one-half were sentenced to a period of deprivation of freedom considered appropriate--that is, the six months or more prescribed in the criminal code.

More serious are the crimes of violence, political crimes, and economic crimes involving abuse of management positions or large amounts of property. In the period since the mid-1950s crimes of violence have increased; political and serious economic crimes have decreased.

Citizens convicted of political crimes no longer const.i.tute the bulk of the prison population, as they did during the early post-World War II period. Active or aggressively vocal opposition to the regime is usually called ideological subversion, diversion, or revisionism, and it is described as activity or expression of thoughts related to the old society and not in accord with the policies of the new. It is still listed among the more serious crimes. Officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs blame both external influences and dissident internal factions for having caused the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and the Czechoslovak troubles in 1968. They say, however, that such events are unlikely in Bulgaria because the ministry's state security agencies are busy combating foreign intelligence efforts and the native elements that would bore from within. The success of their efforts is credited with having reduced political trials to only a few each year.

Economic crimes include those of dishonest or illegal operation of an enterprise, the misuse of socialist property by its management or workers, currency manipulations, and improper sale or transfer of property. If inefficient management practices are serious enough to result in less than optimum production, they are considered criminal, but sufficient guilt has been difficult to prove, and those accused are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. They are occasionally reprimanded, transferred, or dismissed for bureaucratic practices. Management personnel who are brought before the courts are usually tried for corruption, using their positions for personal enrichment, or violation of administrative or financial regulations.

Workers can be prosecuted for theft, waste, willful damage, or illegal use of materials. Poor labor discipline, shirking on the job, or nonmalicious negligence may result in individuals or entire work shifts being brought before party groups or trade union committees. Action in such cases usually involves counseling, social pressure, or the like.