Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 43

GLOSSARY

BKP--Bulgarska Komunisticheska Partiya (Bulgarian Communist Party).

Party dates its origins from the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party in 1891. Through many years of factional splits, coalitions, changes of designation, underground operations, and front organizations, the BKP finally emerged from World War II (with Soviet backing) as the only viable political force in the country.

COMECON--Council for Mutual Economic a.s.sistance. Economic alliance founded in 1949 to further cooperation among member states. Members are Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Headquarters is in Moscow.

Fatherland Front--An umbrella organization for all other ma.s.s organizations; provides a structure for democratic electoral processes but, actually, is controlled by the BKP.

greenback--United States legal tender. Term used in international monetary transactions since convertibility of the United States dollar into gold was suspended on August 15, 1971.

lev (pl., leva)--Basic unit of currency; divided into 100 stotinki (_q.v._). Officially rated at the artificial level of 0.97 per US$1.

Lev is nonconvertible and is actually exchanged at several different rates depending on type of transaction.

stotinki (sing., stotinka)--100 stotinki equal one lev.

Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact)--A military alliance founded in 1955. The Soviet minister of defense is traditionally the supreme commander of the joint pact forces. Members are Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union.