BULGARIA’S COMMUNIST LEGACY

Bulgaria was a communist country for the 45 years from September 1944, when the Soviet army invaded the country, until November 1989, when the long-time dictator Todor Zhivkov was deposed in a party coup the day after the Berlin Wall collapsed. And Bulgaria was one of the most faithful of the Soviet Union’s “client” states during the Cold War. On two occasions, Zhivkov actually proposed that Bulgaria become an additional member of the USSR – which Moscow politely declined.

The early years of communist rule saw wholesale orientation of Bulgaria towards orthodox Soviet-style political, economic and cultural precepts. As in the USSR itself, the country was rapidly industrialized and agriculture was dragged into the collective system. The supremacy of the Communist Party was enshrined in the country’s constitution, with only an ineffectual agrarian party being tolerated as a notionally separate political voice.

Over time Bulgaria became, to western eyes, a hard-line communist country having little contact with the world beyond the Iron Curtain. Yet for the first two decades of communism, the country prospered economically, with the Bulgarian people enjoying a standard of living superior to that in western countries such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal. But as elsewhere in communist Europe the rot started to set in during the 1970s, as the inefficiencies inherent in socialist economic theory and practice, the limited opportunities for trade outside the communist bloc, the gradual weakening of communist bloc currencies and the relentless cost of competing in the Cold War all took their toll.

By the mid-1980s, when Gorbachev was introducing glasnost and perestroika to an already-failing Soviet Union, Bulgaria was facing the prospect of economic collapse, fended off only by heavy borrowing in hard currencies which the country was increasingly unable to service. When communism finally ended in Bulgaria, the country was virtually bankrupt and ill-equipped to take on the so-called “transition” to a market economy. Almost overnight the major planks of socialism in industry, agriculture and public welfare were either dismantled or succumbed to the loss of party control and communist markets.

A small clique of well-placed people –nomenklatura from the communist era - seized the opportunity afforded by the chaotic conditions of the early 90s to grab and exploit state assets for their own gain but for the vast majority of Bulgarians the collapse of communism meant, and continues to mean, a massive slide in living standards. Contrary to the optimistic expectations at the start of the “transition”, it will only be the children and grandchildren of many adult Bulgarians who will enjoy the fruits of democracy and the market economy.

Below are a few of BalkanKiwi’s impressions of the communist legacy in Bulgaria. Click on the photos for an expanded version and commentary.





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