Violeta D. Baluyut

“ When the Communists came to power in 1944 they were determined to change the system of education in Bulgaria. Not only did they seek to eradicate certain elements—such as religion and social elitism—from the educational system, but they also were determined to make education universal and, insofar as possible, to create an entirely literate society. ”

“ The family was the focal unit in society; it was the chief training ground for the young and played the leading part in molding the individual into the accepted pattern. The family was the center of economic life also, particularly for the peasants, who lived relatively self-sufficient lives. Relations with other social units and institutions were carried out through the family rather than by the individual. An individual had no standing in society apart from that of his family, and individual behavior and prestige reflected on the family as a whole. ”

“ A quotation from the party program developed for the Tenth Party Congress in 1971 indicates that, as far as Bulgaria's leaders are concerned, the Soviet Union leads and Bulgaria follows. "For the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Bulgarian people, Bulgarian-Soviet friendship is like the sun and the air for every living creature, it is a friendship of centuries and for centuries, one of the main driving forces of our development, a condition and guarantee for the future progress of our socialist fatherland and its tomorrow." ”

“ It was in this period that Bulgaria reached the peak of its territorial expansion, penetrating deep into the Byzantine Empire. Macedonia and Albania became Bulgaria's new frontiers; in 924 Serbia fell under Bulgarian rule. With these victories Simeon claimed the title tsar of all the Bulgarians and the Greeks.
With the territorial expansion came a domestic flourishing in the arts and an increase in trade. The arts and architecture of the period were significant for their beauty and vitality. Preslav, then the capital city, became the center of culture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Because the government determines the fields of specialization to be pursued by students of higher education, over a ten-year period—from 1960 to 1970—the pendulum has swung away from the arts and toward the pure sciences. The fields most preferred by the students themselves, however, and those that earn the highest wages, are still medicine, architecture, journalism, and foreign languages. ”

“ Bulgaria seethed with irredentism and fought wars over the so-called lost territories until World War II, from which it emerged with a communist-dominated coalition government but confined to almost the same boundaries. After the Communists took complete control, irredentism was overshadowed by Marxist ideas of internationalism; but the dream of a greater Bulgaria did not die, and irredentist opinions were commonly expressed until 1972, when they were muted, probably on the insistence of the Soviet Union. ”

“ Secondary education was to be made compulsory in order, in Zhivkov's words, "to give every young man and girl the opportunity not only of acquiring scientific knowledge of nature and society and the necessary general culture and polytechnical education, but also of acquiring certain production and technical habits and skills, of preparing themselves for socially useful work." ”

“ The lack of time for genuine leisure is the result not only of long working hours but also of an inadequate trade and service network, a shortage of time-saving household equipment, and an excessive bureaucracy. All the daily chores, such as housekeeping, shopping, and attending to other personal or family matters, are time consuming and cumbersome. Studies have shown that all persons over the age of six devote an average of four hours out of every twenty-four to housework alone. The national leadership feels this is excessive and has proposed measures to develop the service sector. ”

“ Trade unions are workers' and professionals' organizations—the function, role, and responsibility of which echo the economic directives and decrees of the BKP. With the abolition of capitalist ownership declared by the Fifth Party Congress in December 1948, the structure and activities of trade unions changed to conform to the party's management of the economy as the vanguard of the state in its socialist development. ”

“ The elite group was the village intelligentsia—the teacher, doctor, priest, mayor, and other officials who had more than an elementary education. Their prestige derived from their education, and their power derived from their positions. Through their ties to the wider world, the village intelligentsia bridged the gap between rural and urban societies.
The social structure of towns distinguished between artisans, merchants, and intelligentsia. In the preindustrial Bulgaria of the 1930s, [Pg 73] the artisans and peasants together formed the backbone of the economy. ”

“ For the leadership the importance of education lies in the fact that it is the best means for orienting the people in the official ideology as well as for training the professionals, technicians, and skilled workers needed to run the country. The ideological indoctrination is pervasive throughout the entire school system, but the concurrent goal of meeting the needs of the economy has suffered because the system of higher education has not expanded rapidly enough to absorb most secondary school graduates who are desirous and capable of pursuing higher studies. ”

“ The principal aim of cultural policy since 1944 has been to popularize the arts and sciences by making them accessible to all segments of the population and to utilize those mediums for the promotion of communist values. Popularization of the arts has been accomplished by greatly expanding the facilities that present the arts to the public and by supporting these facilities with state funds. Many new orchestras, theater companies, publishers, and art galleries have come into existence since World War II. Touring exhibits and road companies take the arts into small towns and villages. ”

“ Another guiding principle of the educational system in Bulgaria, which was initiated at the time of the takeover and still obtained to some degree in 1973, is the concept that sons and daughters of the worker and peasant classes should be favored in terms of their preference of access to education, particularly at the higher levels. This policy was clearly motivated by a desire to compensate for the exclusion of this class from such institutions in the past. In the early communist years institutions of higher education charged tuition, but children of the worker-peasant classes were exempted. ”

“ People's councils are empowered to adapt decisions and orders of higher authorities to their own individual needs. Local councils prepare plans and budgets in consonance with the national plans and, after decisions have been made at the national level, the local councils conform to the national policy. People's councils are involved in the day-to-day affairs of their constituencies in government services and administration, the maintenance of public order, the protection of state and communal property, and the protection of the rights of its citizens. ”

“ The leadership in Bulgaria, as did those in other Eastern European countries, learned that repression was counterproductive. Instead, it adopted a subtler method of control through the publishers, art galleries, theater companies, and other outlets for creative expression, all of which are run by the state in conformity with the guidelines on cultural policy. Because a creative artist must communicate his ideas to an audience in order to achieve fulfillment, he tends to adapt his ideas and principles to what is acceptable to the available outlets for his work. ”

“ The main faults of the wage system that prevailed in early 1973 after repeated revisions, however, were outlined by the BKP leader, Zhivkov, and these faults were also discussed by labor ministry officials from the point of view of their effect on labor productivity. The basic wage constitutes the main incentive for work; bonuses, premiums, and honors play a minor role. Because of the large investment needs for industrial development and the corollary need to restrict consumption, wages have been kept low, and the rise in wages has been slower than the growth of productivity. ”

“ Contemporary art has been guided by the strictures of Socialist Realism as interpreted at different times. Because national or peasant art is always acceptable under these restrictions, artists have used it as an avenue for greater freedom of expression. The influence of peasant icons, for instance, can be seen in the work of many contemporary artists. Peasant motifs, such as the fruits of the earth, are also evident in much of the work. The art most acceptable to the leadership, however, has been the kind of realism that Westerners associate with communist art. ”

“ As in other communist countries, the consumer industry has been neglected in favor of other branches of the economy. Even after the government began to place greater emphasis on the production of consumer goods in the 1960s, rising demand outstripped production capabilities. Even the basic needs of the population often could not be met because of poor planning or the inflexibility of the central planning system, which does not react effectively to changing market conditions. ”

“ Planning in agriculture is to be based on the balancing of inputs and outputs and the use of government-determined long-range norms, limits, and indexes. Wide use is to be made of econometric models in the search for optimal solutions. The norms, limits, and indexes are to be elaborated in direct relation to the natural and economic conditions of individual agroindustrial complexes, crop varieties, kinds and breeds of livestock, farm technology, and the availability of physical resources and manpower. ”

“ In many cases the cohesiveness is perpetuated or even strengthened by modern phenomena, such as the chronic housing shortage and the need for grandparents or other relatives to care for the children of working mothers. The housing shortage has revived the traditional system of several generations of a family sharing the same roof. The pressures of change and the burdens of daily life hold families together, and the traditional sense of family loyalty also seems to survive. ”

“ The leaders of the writers' revolt, with one exception, were all loyal Communists who had become disillusioned with what they saw as the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the leadership, which they felt was leading the people into moral bankruptcy. ”

“ Initially, the existing system is to be improved by introducing unified taxation for all blue- and white-collar workers and collective farmers and by establishing a tax exemption equal to the official minimum rate of pay. Gradual elimination of all income taxes for these population groups in the 1976-80 period is to be synchronized with the contemplated reform of wage scales. At the same time a system of progressive taxation is to be introduced on incomes derived from activities in the private sector that are not in conformity with the amount of labor invested. ”

“ Under the many and varied educational reforms legislated under the Communists, the pendulum has swung between relative emphasis on science and technology on the one hand and the humanities on the other. Although overall emphasis has always been on the sciences, that emphasis has increased and decreased at various times since the communist takeover. Between 1944 and 1948, for example, there was little overall emphasis on technology in the curriculum. ”

“ Those who have had military service and who have not reached the age of fifty are considered reserves. Officers remain in the reserve until the age of sixty. Various factors—primarily occupational situations, physical condition, and lack of reserve training—operate to erode this force, and those considered useful, or trained, reserves constitute one-half or less of the group. Most of the some 250,000 men released in the latest five-year period, however, are available, physically fit, and familiar with the weapons and equipment in use by the armed forces. ”

“ The next level is made up of blue-collar industrial workers, who constitute the largest group in the society. At the bottom of the structure are the peasants. There are, of course, gradations of power, privilege, and prestige within all of the social groupings. The society has been very mobile since World War II with rapid upward mobility based mainly on the expanding economy, industrialization, and modernization. Toward the end of the 1960s, as the economic growth rate slowed, so also did the social mobility, and there was evidence that social groups were stabilizing. ”

“ The attention given to economic reform at the time—late 1965—was motivated not only by Zhivkov's need to shore up his own political position after the attempted coup but probably more so by the examples of new economic programs that were sweeping the Eastern European communist countries and the Soviet Union. More important than the liberal reforms for decentralized management of the economy was the decision to allow planning from the bottom to the top. ”

“ Also, illiteracy in Bulgaria was much more common among the older generation than among the young. In 1965, of the population over 60 years of age, approximately one-third was illiterate, whereas only a very small percentage of the working-age group was illiterate. The government seemed relatively unconcerned about the problem of illiteracy among the older people, as an official stated: "The high illiteracy rate among the older population does not present a problem since this is the population above the working age and this group is not crucial to our economic life." ”

“ In addition to serving as the central bank of issue, the Bulgarian National Bank, an independent agency under the Council of Ministers, is directly responsible for financing all sectors and phases of the economy other than foreign trade and consumer credit, in which fields it supervises the activities of the Bulgarian Foreign Trade Bank and the State Savings Bank. The bank is also responsible for exercising close control over the economic units that it finances, with a view to ensuring the fulfillment of all national economic plans and the scrupulous adherence to existing laws and regulations. ”