Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 4

The results of the war for Bulgaria were mixed. In terms of financial burdens Bulgaria's position was relatively favorable compared with that of other countries on the losing side. In terms of territorial losses, which resulted in a legacy of bitterness and continued irredentism, its position was poor. As Bulgaria had suffered over 30,000 casualties in the war, the Allies imposed relatively light peace terms. The Soviet Union extracted no reparations from Bulgaria, despite the fact that reparations were demanded from Germany, Hungary, and Romania. Yugoslavia also canceled Bulgaria's debts. Overall war damages to the country itself were generally moderate.

In terms of losses, however, Bulgaria not only lost most of the territories it had regained at the beginning of the war but also ultimately lost its const.i.tutional monarchy and became a Soviet satellite. Although it was allowed to retain southern Dobrudzha, all the territories that were of significance to Bulgaria's sense of nationhood were gone. Macedonia reverted to Yugoslavia, and Thrace to Greece. The Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1947, confirmed Bulgaria's pre-1941 boundaries. Not only had Bulgaria lost these prized territories, but her sovereignty as a nation was severely curtailed by the Soviet military occupation. Both the armistice agreement of September 1944 and the British-Soviet agreement of October of that year recognized Soviet dominance in the country. Although this power over the country was not expected by the Western powers to endure indefinitely, this illusion was dispelled as Bulgaria soon succ.u.mbed completely to Soviet influence.

THE COMMUNIST STATE

Growth of the Communist Party

In 1891 the Social Democratic Party was founded; the Communist party was eventually an offshoot of this movement. By 1903 the Social Democrats had begun to split into what were known as the "broad" and "narrow"

factions. The broad faction retained the ideology of social democracy, but the narrow faction became the Bulgarian counterpart of the Russian Bolsheviks; its leader was Dimiter Blagoev, the so-called father of Bulgarian communism. In 1919 the narrow faction split off from the Second Socialist International and a.s.sumed the name Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP). Although the party had great prestige abroad, it failed to enjoy domestic popularity. The most popular party at the time--and that favored by the peasant cla.s.s, which was predominant in this still-agrarian society--was the Bulgarian Agrarian Union. The BKP, on the other hand, was composed almost exclusively of intellectuals and students and held little appeal for the working and peasant cla.s.ses.

In 1923 there was an unsuccessful attempt by the Communists to bring the country to revolution. When this uprising was quelled, the Communists turned to terrorism in order to gain their goals, and in 1925 a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate King Boris was formulated. Once again the Communists met with failure, as the king not only lived but grew more powerful. In the last half of the 1920s the party faded from the scene, but by the early 1930s it was again revived and grew in popularity.

During the late 1930s the party went underground as the king increased his power. In 1939 the Communists reappeared and merged with the left-wing Workers Party; in the 1939 elections the party doubled its representation and took on an air of greater respectability. In 1941, while the war was under way, the Communists realized that Bulgaria was falling into the German camp. Although they were powerless to stop this alliance, their activity in evoking pro-Soviet sentiment was successful to the extent that--coupled with the basically favorable sentiments of the Bulgarian people toward the Russians--it prevented the monarchy from declaring war against the Soviet Union.

Once the Germans began to invade the Soviet Union itself, the Bulgarian Communists committed themselves to a policy of armed resistance, known as the partisan movement. Historians dispute the extent of partisan activity; some state that it did not become active until the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in 1943, and others claim that the movement was active from the onset of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

In 1942, on the initiative of Dimitrov, the Fatherland Front was established. The organization was essentially a coalition, composed of members of the Workers Party, the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, the Social Democratic Party and the BKP. Its purpose was to overthrow Boris and rid the country of the Germans, simultaneously forming a new government that could more adequately meet the needs of the workers and the peasants.

In 1943 the National Committee of the Fatherland Front was formed, and this committee became the vehicle for the communist takeover in 1944. In the same year the so-called National Liberation Army, composed of partisans and certain units of the Bulgarian army who had joined forces with them, was established. In the fall of 1944 there were approximately 18,000 people in the National Liberation Army, augmented by some 200,000 people who sheltered and a.s.sisted them.

Before 1944, however, the Communists were still not widely popular. The apathy of a large portion of the population was due primarily to the fact that the country had remained relatively untouched by the war; but, as the country was not actually at war with the Soviet Union, little rationale was provided to the Soviet-backed Communists in their attempts to enlist the support of the partisans. The Bulgarian army and police were active in hunting down the known Communists. All of these factors precluded the possibility of the country becoming totally committed to either the communist cause or armed resistance. By 1944, however, when Soviet troops entered Romania, activity became widespread within Bulgaria. In August 1944 Romania completely capitulated. By early September the Soviet Union declared war on the Bulgarian government, an act more symbolic than real, as Soviet armies met no Bulgarian resistance. On September 9, 1944, the Fatherland Front was installed, and the Communists were firmly entrenched in the country.

Development Since World War II

At the time of the Fatherland Front takeover in Bulgaria the Soviets, with the a.s.sistance of the partisans and units of the National Liberation Army, occupied many Bulgarian towns and cities. It is said that they were received by the people with gifts of bread and salt, a traditional Bulgarian gift of welcome (see ch. 7). At the same time, on the political front, the Soviets and their Bulgarian collaborators took over the key ministries in the capital city and arrested members of the government.

The Fatherland Front--a coalition composed at that time of Communists, members of the left wing of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, members of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party, and the Zveno group--was led by Georgiev as the new premier. Dimitrov and Kalarov returned from Moscow, where they had been in exile since 1925, to a.s.sist the new government in its takeover. The Communists proceeded to rid the coalition of certain opposing elements within its ranks. Nikolai Petkov of the Peasant Union and Kosta Lulchev of the Social Democratic Party were temporarily retired from the coalition. Large-scale purges were initiated against German collaborators and sympathizers; many thousands were either executed or imprisoned by the Communists.

When plans for elections were made in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States made a strong bid for the holding of popular elections.

Their hopes were temporarily defeated when, on November 18, 1945, communist-controlled elections were held. The Fatherland Front won a decided victory, eventually resulting in Georgiev's formal installation as premier. His tenure in office was brief, and he was quickly succeeded by Dimitrov. At this point Great Britain and the United States protested, insisting that the Communists broaden their governmental base. Thus, although the two leading figures of the BKP, Dimitrov and Kalarov, were installed eventually as premier and president, respectively, Petkov and Lulchev were allowed to take over control of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, two vital organs of the government.

By 1946, however, the Communists had whittled down all opposition. In July 1946 control over the army had been transferred from noncommunist members of the ostensible coalition government to exclusively communist control. At this time 2,000 so-called reactionary army officers were dismissed. A plebiscite held in September abolished the monarchy, declared Bulgaria a republic, and gave all power to Dimitrov as premier.

He officially took the t.i.tle on November 4, 1946, and held it until his death in 1949. When Dimitrov took power, any opposition that remained was quickly eliminated. Once the United States had ratified the Bulgarian Peace Treaty--a moment for which the Communists waited anxiously in order to rid themselves of all Western control over Bulgarian affairs of state--Petkov was summarily arrested and executed.

His party, the Peasant Union, had been dissolved one month before his death.

On December 4, 1947, a new const.i.tution was adopted. It was called, after the premier, the Dimitrov Const.i.tution and was modeled on the Soviet Const.i.tution of 1936 (see ch. 8). One historian claims that, at its first drafting, it closely resembled the Turnovo Const.i.tution of the late 1800s but was later amended to parallel more closely the const.i.tution of the Soviet Union. The Dimitrov Const.i.tution created the National a.s.sembly as a legislative body. In fact, however, laws were proposed by the Council of Ministers and pa.s.sed pro forma by the National a.s.sembly. The const.i.tution was approved by the National a.s.sembly in 1947. It defined collective ownership of production, stated that the regime held the power to nationalize any and all enterprises, and declared that private property was subject to restrictions and expropriation by the state.

By 1948 the small forces that continued to oppose the Communists were finally eliminated. Many opposition Socialists and their leader, Lulchev, were arrested, and the Socialist Party was abolished. The only remaining Socialist party--the Fatherland Front Socialists--was forced to merge with the Communists in August 1948. Thus, absolute communist control was achieved within four years of the seizure of power.

Bulgaria underwent a series of rapid changes in the early years as a communist state. Agricultural collectivization--initiated in 1946--was begun in the form of cooperative farming. By the end of 1947 nationalization of banks, industry, and mines was well under way.

Nationalization was not a new phenomenon for the country, as railroads, ports, and mines had been under state control since 1878, but it was greatly extended by the Communists (see ch. 13; ch. 14).

Religion was viewed by the Communists as a means for manipulating and indoctrinating the people, much as it had been during the periods of Byzantine and Turkish rule. Since its founding in the ninth century, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had claimed most of the population as members.

The Communists perceived a dual purpose in their cooptation of this inst.i.tution. On the one hand, by patronizing the Bulgarian church, they believed that they would receive support from its members. On the other hand, they sought to unify the churches by placing the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under close control of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Therefore, the regime reestablished the Bulgarian patriarchate; the patriarch, in turn, required all church members to support governmental policies.

Minority religions were treated as separate ent.i.ties, although all of them had to register with the Committee for Religious Affairs, a body attached to the Council of Ministers. The leadership of all churches was considered responsible ultimately to the state. The churches became financially dependent upon the government as all church funds were in the hands of the bureaucracy. A certain percentage of Muslims--who const.i.tuted the largest minority religion--were expelled from the country. Those Muslims who remained were organized into small communities, and their religious leader, the grand mufti, was allowed to retain his position as long as he remained subservient to the state.

As far as other minority religions were concerned, their churches were, for the most part, closed, and their leaders were either hara.s.sed or executed. Roman Catholic churches were closed, the church hierarchy was abolished, and in 1952 forty leading Catholics were tried and sentenced to death. The Protestants were allowed slightly more lat.i.tude. Although all Protestant schools were immediately closed, five Protestant denominations were allowed to merge into the United Evangelical Church.

In 1949, however, fifteen Protestant pastors were executed. Some Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel in the early period of communist rule, but in Bulgaria the grand rabbi, like the Moslem grand mufti, was rendered completely subordinate to the state.

In 1949 Dimitrov died and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Vulko Chervenkov, known as the Stalin of Bulgaria, who controlled the government from 1950 until 1956. His was a one-man rule, patterned completely on the rule of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. He was both the premier and the First Secretary for the six years of his rule. There was an increase in industrial production under Chervenkov. Production plans, however, appeared to be conceived more in the light of Soviet five-year plans than with regard to Bulgaria's economic needs.

Agriculture was almost completely collectivized, although production goals were not achieved, and the standard of living declined appreciably under Chervenkov's rule.

In foreign policy Bulgaria under Chervenkov continued to follow the Soviet example. International communism dominated all Bulgaria's foreign policies. In the early 1950s Bulgaria supported the abortive communist uprising in Greece. Chervenkov attempted to rid the country of all Western influence and severed diplomatic relations with the United States in 1950. After Chervenkov's term relations were reestablished in 1960 and promoted from legation to emba.s.sy status in 1966. Again, following the example of the Soviet Union, which was then on strained terms with the nationalistic Yugoslavs, Chervenkov purged 100,000 nationalists from the party and executed Traicho Kostov, the deputy premier, on the grounds that he was a t.i.toist. Because of Bulgaria's antisocial behavior in the world community, the country was excluded from the United Nations until 1955.

Although Stalin died in 1953, Chervenkov retained his office as premier until 1956 but held only nominal powers. He was ultimately purged in 1962. Chervenkov, in the post-Stalin period, was openly charged with supporting the personality cult policies of Stalin. After Stalin's death there was a degree of political relaxation under a policy known as the New Course. Police terrorism abated, and there was greater freedom of movement in the society as a whole. Travel abroad was tolerated to a greater degree, and an increased interest in the welfare of the people was manifested. The government actively courted the peasants in order to win them over to its policy of collectivization. The working cla.s.ses, office workers, and even artisans were given more lat.i.tude by the government. On the foreign front, following the example of Nikita Khrushchev, who sought reconciliation with t.i.to, and despite Bulgaria's reluctance over the still-fiery Macedonian issue, Bulgaria made some efforts at reconciliation with Yugoslavia. In order to establish better relations both with the Yugoslavs and with the Bulgarian nationalists, Kostov was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.

In 1954 Chervenkov gave up his t.i.tle as first secretary of the party, thus setting a new precedent for separation of party and state posts and dispelling the concept of one-man rule. Although Chervenkov retained his t.i.tle as premier temporarily, Todor Zhivkov became the first secretary.

Shortly thereafter, Chervenkov was replaced as premier by Anton Yugov.

As Zhivkov, despite his backing by Khrushchev, was not firmly in control of the party, his takeover was followed by widespread purges.

Zhivkov's rule, like that of his predecessor, emulated the Soviet model.

Unlike Chervenkov, however, Zhivkov based his government on the principle of collective leadership. In the early years of his rule he based his foreign policy on allegiance to the Soviet Union. He strongly supported the Soviets in their border conflicts with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Bulgaria, despite basic sentiments concerning Macedonia, still attempted to renew its friendship with Yugoslavia, again following the Khrushchev example.

In 1962 Zhivkov purged the party of both Chervenkov and Yugov and made himself premier as well as first secretary, thus reestablishing the principle of unity of rule (see ch. 9). At the same time, this move increased Zhivkov's control over the party. Internal problems continued to plague the Zhivkov government. There were, in the 1960s, severe shortages of food, housing, and consumer goods.

Bulgaria's foreign policy under Zhivkov, however, continued on an even, strongly Soviet, keel. Bulgaria's foreign policy has been a.s.sessed by some observers as "a carbon copy of Moscow's." Bulgaria was, and is, considered to be the most reliable partner of the Soviet Union in the Balkans. In contrast, Albania has supported the PRC, Romania has pressed its case for independence, and Yugoslavia has essentially followed a nationalistic policy.

Bulgaria's relations with Greece, which had been basically negative for twenty years, became more positive in 1964 when trade, air traffic, communications, and tourist agreements were signed. Because of the issue of Macedonia, relations with Yugoslavia were, for the most part, cool, although Zhivkov attempted to improve them from time to time. Relations with the United States remained cool but correct.

In 1965, shortly after Khrushchev's ouster in the Soviet Union, there was an attempted coup against Zhivkov. The government tried in vain to silence the story but, when pressed, stated that the conspirators in the plot were Maoists, alienated by Bulgaria's anti-PRC policies. As the coup was attempted only five months after Khrushchev's removal from office, Zhivkov--whose power had been based to a large extent on Khrushchev's support--was in a highly vulnerable position. For this reason many attributed the conspiracy to those opposed to Zhivkov's government itself and particularly those opposed to its subservience to the Soviet Union. The conspirators included Bulgarian Communists, army officers, and World War II partisans. The discovery of this plot resulted in purges, the suicide of one of the leading conspirators, and the reorganization of the Ministry of the Interior and the transfer of its security functions to the new Committee of State Security, which fell directly under Zhivkov's personal control.

CHAPTER 3

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT AND POPULATION

Bulgaria occupies 42,800 square miles of the Balkan Peninsula, and its 1973 population was estimated at 8.7 million (see fig. 1). It is a member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), together with five other Eastern European countries to its north and northwest and the Soviet Union. Bulgaria's location is such that its natural features are combinations of those found in the western Soviet Union and in southern Europe. Its climate is transitional between that of the Mediterranean countries and that of north-central Europe. The blend of the various geographic influences is unique, however, and gives the country a degree of individuality that is not antic.i.p.ated until it is explored in some detail.

It is a land of unusual scenic beauty, having picturesque mountains, wooded hills, beautiful valleys, grain-producing plains, and a seacoast that has both rocky cliffs and long sandy beaches. Soil and climate are adequate to permit production of a variety of crops. Although only a few mineral resources are present in quant.i.ty or in good quality ores, the country has a number of them. Large quant.i.ties of brown coal and lignite are available, but resources of the better fuels are limited.

The people of the country have been influenced by its location, which is close to the point of contact between Europe and the Orient. The area had been overrun by so many conquerors and occupied for so long that only since liberation in 1878 have a majority of the peasants dared come out of the hills to farm the better land of the plains and valleys.

The country fared poorly in the distribution of the spoils after the First Balkan War in 1912. It was then on the losing side of the Second Balkan War in 1913 and of the two great wars since. In spite of this, its boundaries contain most of the Bulgarian people in the area, and only some 10 to 15 percent of the population within its borders is not ethnically Bulgarian. It has until recently been predominantly agricultural. Industrialization was undertaken late, and it was not until 1969 that the urban population equaled that of the rural areas (see ch. 2).

NATURAL FEATURES

Topography

Alternating bands of high and low terrain extend generally east to west across the country. The four most prominent of these from north to south are the Danubian plateau, the Stara Planina (Old Mountain), or Balkan Mountains, the central Thracian Plain, and the Rodopi (or Rhodope Mountains). The western part of the country, however, consists almost entirely of higher land, and the individual mountain ranges in the east tend to taper into hills and gentle uplands as they approach the Black Sea (see fig. 2).

The Danubian plateau, also called a plain or a tableland, extends from the Yugoslav border to the Black Sea. It encompa.s.ses the area between the Danube River, which forms most of the country's northern border, and the Stara Planina to the south. The plateau rises from cliffs along the river, which are typically 300 to 600 feet high, and abuts against the mountains at elevations on the order of 1,200 to 1,500 feet. The region slopes gently but perceptibly from the river southward to the mountains.