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UNIVERSITY “ST. CIRIL AND ST. METHODIUS” VELIKO TARNOVO, BULAGARIA

THE BULGARIAN SOCIETY IN THE SHADOW OF THE COMMUNISM (1944 – 1962). UNIVERSITY “ST. CIRIL AND ST. METHODIUS” VELIKO TARNOVO, BULAGARIA. CHRONOLOGICAL TIME LINE.

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UNIVERSITY “ST. CIRIL AND ST. METHODIUS” VELIKO TARNOVO, BULAGARIA

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  1. THE BULGARIAN SOCIETY IN THE SHADOW OF THE COMMUNISM (1944 – 1962) UNIVERSITY “ST. CIRIL AND ST. METHODIUS” VELIKO TARNOVO, BULAGARIA

  2. CHRONOLOGICAL TIME LINE • The chronological time line of the chosen theme includes three relative individualized periods in the state-political, economic and spiritual life of the Bulgarian society after the Second world war. • first period (1944 – 1947) – known as “people’s democracy”; • secondperiod (1948 – 1953) – essentiallythisperiodisconnectedtotheenforcement of Stalin’s socialism in Bulgaria; • thirdperiod (1954 – 1962) - thisperiodischaracterizedwiththeattemptsforde-Stalinization and a certain liberalization of the political system of the society The historical explorations show that in the centre of each one of the above mentioned phases remain concrete tasks to complete and goals to achieve, that determine their specific particularities.

  3. THE AIMS OF THE INVETSTIGATION The aims of this investigation are: - to frame the dimensions of the repression in Bulgaria in the end of the 40s and the beginning of the 60s of the 20th century on the basis of scholarly literature, published documents, and researched archive materials, and - to show the continuity of means and methods, applied by the repressive bodies in the period of the so called “people’s democracy” and after the imposing of the Soviet state-political model.

  4. THE „PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY” IN BULGARIA (1944 – 1947) • The publicly declared by the government ofFatherland Frontidea about the building of a “people’s democracy” is tied to the preservation of the existing administrative-legal system, the functioning of the multi-party system, the presence of an economic pluralism, secured by the acknowledgement if the three forms of property – public, cooperative and private. • The skillful use of the coalition formula of government, the unsettled international status of Bulgaria, the Soviet leadership of the Allied Control Commission and the Soviet troops’ presence in Bulgaria were among the factors that provided the opportunity for the Bulgarian Workers’ Party /communists/ (BWP/c/)to impose its dominant influence in the state government and social life.

  5. REPRESSIVE LEGISLATION The circumstance that after the 9th Sept. 1944 the BWP/c/ took control of one of the force ministries – the Ministry of the Interior /MI/, provided an opportunity for the Communist party to deal with its political opponents and strengthen its positions in the political power and the society. The legislative base of the repressive politics of the people’s democratic authority after 9th September 1944 includes: • Regulation-law for the People’s Court(30. 09. 1944); • Regulation-lawfortheinternmentofpoliticallydangerousindividuals in LEC-s /Labour Education Camps/ (11. 01. 1945); • Regulation-lawforprotection of the people’s power (January 1945); • Lawforchangeandadditiontotheregulation-lawforprotection of the people’s power (April 1946); • Lawforchange of the law for the press (April 1946).

  6. THE PEOPLE’S COURT(12.1944 - 04.1945) Between December 1944 and April 1945 the People’s Court , which activity is fulfilled by 4 supreme and 64 district courts, carries out 135 trials with a combined number of defendants estimated at 11 122 people. - Fromthesentences 2703 aredeathpenalties, 1305 are forlife, 808 aresuspendedandtherestconsistofdifferentterms in prison. - Amongthesentencedtodeatharethreeregents, 22 ministers (thetwoofficesofBogdanFilov, Dobri Bojilov’sgovernment and 4 ministers from Ivan Bagrianov’s government), 8 royal councilors, 67 deputies, 47 high-ranking officers and others. The events tied to the organization and the implementation of the People’s Court pass in the atmosphere of political tension and they leave a lasting trace in the memory of the society.

  7. REPRESSIVE MEASURES – purge in the army • The doing away with the enemies of the Communist regime included radical measures, exercised upon the Bulgarian officers’ corps. • The main blow against the supreme staff of the army was struck in 1944–1946. By the 8th Oct. 1944 336 men had been dismissed from the army commanders of whom 39 generals and 124 colonels, and by the beginning of May 1946 their number had reached 956 men (46 generals and 171 colonels). • The People’s Court 1944–1945 convicted 273 officers and 19 generals. • After the passing of the Law on the Commander-ship and Control of the Army in the summer of 1946, a new mass purge was undertaken in the army as a result of which 1 967 officers were fired for fascist, restoration and antidemocratic activities. • The organized trials against some military formations – “Tsar Krum”, the “Military Alliance”, and “Neutral Officer”, in 1946–1947 were an important stage of the organized campaign of the Communist party against the opposition in the country.

  8. REPRESSIVE MEASURES – intern and deport With the creation of the camps /based on the decree for creating a LECs(Labour Education Camps) it was found convenient way to prosecute political enemies, and to eliminate inconvenient for the authority citizens. • Based on the public records for 1945, the number of the political individuals in LECsis 3 298, from which 2 959 were released by the end of 1945. • Other repressive measure which was took an active part after 9.09.1944 is the intern/moving to a new residence/. • The first mass intern lined by Home security is held in the fall of 1945. It affected 184 families with 326 members sentenced by the People’s Court, ministers and ect. During July and September 1946 and October 1947 more intern actions were held in Sofia.

  9. REPRESSIVE MEASURES – loyalty purge and processes • The repressive politics were materialized with a purge in the different ministries and administration during the first years from the control of OF/Fatherland Front/, which means that a big part of the employees, judges, officers, teachers and ect., were deprived of the right to practice their profession. • In 1946-1947 based on the accepted repressive laws were held different political processes: • - against the opposition figures – d-r. G. M. Dimitrov /May 1946/, N. Petkov /summer of 1947/; • - against journalists – Kr. Pastyhov /June 1946/, Tsveti Ivanov /August 1946/; • - against the military organizations “Tsar Krum”, /August 1946/, “Neutral Officer” /January 1947/, “Military Alliance” /October 1947/.

  10. CONCLUSIONS • During the first years after the Second World War BWP/c/, who leads the force ministries, uses the political repressions to build its position, to destroy the followers of the authoritarian regime before 9.09. 1944, to liquidate his political enemies from the opposition and to neutralize the people who disagreed with thier politics in the frames of the controlling coalition. • The exhibited facts prove that the new authority stabilizes its positions, using violence and violating the political and personal rights of the citizens. BWP/c/ successfully realizes it goals and in 1947 the positions of dominating power in the country and the society are undeniable. • The proclaimed idea for democracy becomes worthless because of the wide use of repressive measures towards any manifestation of free-thinking and independence.

  11. THE PERIOD OF BUILDING OF THE TOTALITARIAN STATE (1948-1953) In the modern Bulgarian historiography the essence of the 1948-1953 period is related to the building of the totalitarian state in Bulgaria, which was based on massive repressive policy against recent opponents and all the people who dared to show their free will. In July 1948 the 15th Plenum of the Central Committee /CC/ of BWP /c/ was held. At the plenum the Communist party, even though it had successfully solved the problems with the elimination of the legal opposition in Bulgaria in 1947-1948 and the converting of the Fatherland Front into United Social-Political Organization, raised the thesis about ”intensifying the class struggle in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism”, and the necessity of a “revolutionary vigilance” inside the very party as well as towards the members of the former political parties and the opposition figures.

  12. THE PERIOD OF BUILDING OF THE TOTALITARIAN STATE- 2 The general direction of the repressive activity of the authorities was the purge in the BCP and the organized trial against leading party and state figures. • The beginning was put by the arrest and the following trial against Traycho Kostov – a vice-president of the Council of Ministers and a chairman of the Financial and Economic Issues Commission, a member of the Politburo of CC of BCP. The trial was held in Dec. 1949. • In Aug. 1950 the trial against the larger part of the arrested assistant-ministers and chiefs of business and foreign-trade offices was held. • The orders to reveal completely the “conspiring group” of Traycho Kostov within the party and the state led to the arrest and investigation of popular generals – P. Vranchev, Slavcho Transki, Dencho Znepolski, Blagoy Penev etc. In 1953 a trial was launched against the border officers, and three death sentences were passed. • The repressions expanded in the technical intelligentsia circles as well. The purge among the engineers started in 1951. According to the investigators the number of the trials, connected to “the plot” of Traycho Kostov was over 250, and the total number of the investigated party members was over 1500 men.

  13. THE LIQUIDATIONOF THETSARIST OFFICERS • After 1948 the purging of the army from the officers who had served by the 9th Sept. 1944 continued. Most of the so called tsarist officers were sent into labour camps. • In 1949 a Decree of the Council of Ministers was passed, that nullified the rewards and took the medals back, and together with them the privileges they had brought to the individuals, fired for “gross fascist activity”. This decision affected 498 individuals, 29 of whom were generals in the reserve • The ruling Communist party put under repression officers, who had actively participated in the reinforcement of the Fatherland Front power on the 9th Sept. 1944 and had become part of it: - general Dimitar Tomov, who had led the main blow in the night of the 8th Sept. 1944; general Peter Vranchev - the chief of the military intelligence service; the generals Krum Lekarski, Todor Toshev, and Stoyan Trendafilov, who by the 9th Sept. 1944 had been active members of the “Military Alliance”, and after that they had swung politically towards the BCP.

  14. CHASING THE RELIGION • In1949 under the common sign of “spy mania” was implement the process against the evangelical pastors (15people) and in 1952 were organized couple of trials against members of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria. • From 29 September till the 3 October 1952 was carried out the so called “big catholic trial, defendants were 40 people – 28 of them were man of God ( 27 priests and 1 nun) The charges were about spying and conspiratorial activities. The process ended with 4 dead sentences for Evgeni Bosilkov, father Josafat Shishkov, father Pavel Djidjov and father Kamen Vitchev. • In the end of 1952 similar trial was hold against 10 people, from which 7 were catholic priests.

  15. OUT OF COURT REPRESSIONS The repression activity against political opponents were realized outside the court as well – by intern and migration • The official data for the 1946-1953 period shows that the largest-scale in the migration/expatriation/ in during the period between 1948-1951 - 1948 г. – 1666 families - 1949 г. – 1595 families - 1950 г. – 1476 families - 1951 г. – 1299 families • The police report from September 1949 shows that the total amount of intern in TBO /Labour Educational Organizations/ is 4500 people. After 1950 in Bulgaria, practically there is functioning only one camp- Belene Data about the destiny of the prisoners for the period 1951-1953

  16. UNDERGROUND ANTICOMUNIST RESISTANCE The underground anticommunist resistance began right after 9.09.1944 and continued till the middle of 50’s • Forms: - The rise of the illegal organizations; - Form of armed groups/forest bands/ toward the illegal organizations; - Armed groups from political emigrants, who crossed the Bulgarian territory from neighbor countries; - Forming of armed groups from Bulgarian-Muslims. • Propagation: Blagoevgradarea, Slivenarea, Plovdivarea, Haskovoarea, DimitrovgradareaandElena’s Balkan. Underground armed anti-communist groups in Bulgaria (1952-1955)

  17. THE SOVIET "HELP" • The USSR strongly influenced the mission of the repressive system in Bulgaria. The Soviet specialists in the State Security, who arrived in the summer of 1945, led and guided the actions of the investigation authorities, participated in the working out of the most significant political trials. • According to Valko Chervenkov, the Soviet advisors “at some time (1949–1951), played the role of the actual leaders of the State Security”. In his memoirs he admits that with their active participation “serious distortions, outrages, monstrous injustice, regarding the ones under investigation” were allowed. • The Soviet influence could be seen in the building of the State Security under the Soviet model, as well as in the new methods of inquiry, that included sleeplessness, which strongly affected the psyche of those who were under investigation.

  18. FORCIBLE COLLECTIVIZATION The confirmation of the Soviet state-political model was connected with the use of force during the process of cooperation in the Bulgarian villages. • In the end of 1950 and the beginning of 1951 a larger-scale violence was exercised in 10-12 districts (Assenovgrad, Kula, Pleven, Nikopol etc.). • The repression was manifested in confiscating the entire amount of wheat, imposing heavy fines, interning in the LECs. The “kulaks” (rich farmers), charged with “sabotage and hostility” were prosecuted. On the basis of these charges the courts passed harsh sentences: from 3 to 5, and even 10 years in prison and confiscation of part of the property. • The reinforced pressure led to the eruption of peasants’ unrest in the spring of 1951 in the districts of Assenovgrad, Plovdiv, and Kula as well as in some regions of Pleven county. According to the data in the historical literature, in 1948 1 590 men were convicted, and in 1951 their number was 8 295. They were convicted of violation of the state, public and cooperative property.

  19. CONTROL OVER THE CULTURE Bulgarian Communist Party's control covered Bulgarian culture as well. Steps were taken to impose the Socialist Realism as the only style and creative method in Bulgarian literature and art. All that was hand in hand with some extreme measures of restraining the freedom of expression and creative work of Bulgarian cultural figures. • A striking example of the uncompromising attitude of the Communist Party towards the artists who dared to question its dogmas, is the political repression against the famous Bulgarian artist Alexander Jendov in 1950 – 1951. • Not less dramatic were the events related to the publishing of Bulgarian writer DimitarDimov'snovel “Tobacco” in 1951 – 1952.

  20. CONCLUSIONS • In the conditions of the policy of “Cold War” enforced after the end of World War II, the contradictions between the Western European countries and the USA from one side and the USSR and its satellite Eastern European countries from the other, increased. The speeding process of building the socialist community was connected with the idea of unification of the Eastern European societies through including them into the confirmed socialist model in the USSR. • The wide range and intensity, used for the accomplishment of the repressive policy in the researched period, give reasons to the historians for characterizing it as a definitely force stage in the process of sovietisation. • The common feature of all the trials were the charges with espionage, work for foreign intelligence services, betrayal of the Motherland, no matter if the defendants were former bourgeois party figures, persons, who had taken key posts in the Communist party and the state, or clergymen.

  21. CONCLUSIONS -2 • In an ideological aspect the mass repression was motivated by the raising of the theses about the intensifying of the class struggle in the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, by the publicly announced intention to increase the “revolutionary vigilance”, to find and eliminate the “enemy with a Party membership card”. • The manipulation of the public consciousness with such ideologies and the usage of force means for crushing any presence of free will were needed to strike fear and obedience not only within the Party but within the whole society. • On this basis the BCP mobilized its efforts and used the state resources for disclosing and eliminating its enemies.

  22. BULGARIA IN THE DESTALINIZATION PERIOD • After Stalin’s death in March 1953 the so called “new course” was proclaimed in the USSR. In political aspect its core was connected with the criticism of the cult of Stalin’s personality and with the demonstrated intentions of moderating the political repression. • The consultations conducted by the Soviet leadership with the supreme leaders of the socialist countries, including Bulgaria, led to respective changes in the political line of the communist parties in the countries of the socialist community. • The plenum (plenary session) of the Central Committee of BCP that took place in April 1956 had as its main theme the need of criticism of the errors from the period of the “cult of personality”, allegedly cultivated by Valko Chervenkov – the “Bulgarian Stalin”.

  23. BULGARIA IN THE DESTALINIZATION PERIOD - 2 The April Plenum of the Central Committee of BCP in 1956 decided that a special commission should be established in order to determine the truth about the trials against Traicho Kostov and his adherents. The commission sat from mid-May to mid-July 1956. 85 people were questioned. Among them were Ministry of Internal Affairs leading figures, investigators, and also some of the ones repressed at the time of trials. • The commission proposed that those sentenced unjustly in the trials to be legally rehabilitated and their Party membership to be restored. However, the accusations against Tr. Kostov for allowed “gross errors of nationalistic character” were not lifted. • A decision was taken to lift the internment regime for all the families that had been forcefully settled around the country.

  24. BULGARIA IN THE DESTALINIZATION PERIOD- 3 The attempt for liberalization of the political regime did not lead to repudiation of the different forms of repression and to elimination of communist control over the society. • The self-generated wave of criticism in Bulgarian society after the April plenum of 1956, as well as the events in Hungary in the autumn of 1956, gave the impetus for the decision taken by BCP leadership on 17 November 1956 – the Belene forced labour camp to be reopened. Even as early as the first days of November the MIA “organs” “took in” 564 individuals – 374 of them were politically incorrect (activists of Agrarian Union opposition, as well as people that had been connected to the pre- 9th of September regime) and 190 were felons. • Along with the decision to reopen the Belene camp, the necessity to establish “at this time voluntary worker's groups and detachments” was discussed. Those units “had in case of necessity to help the Interior Ministry units to crash all attempted severe, open, contra-revolutionary and hostile acts”. Special measures were laid down for purging the Bulgarian capital from “hostile and criminal elements”. As a result in May 1957 384 families were deported from Sofia.

  25. BULGARIA IN THE DESTALINIZATION PERIOD - 4 • Forced labour camp in Belene existed till the summer of 1959. • In the autumn of 1959 a forced labour camp was set up near Lovech. That particular camp was infamous for the most severe conditions for the inmates and for the most numerous cases of murder. In 1962, after an investigation by a Politburo appointed commission (it was formed after information about the camp leaked to Western media and under the pressure of the public opinion in Bulgaria), Lovech camp was closed. • The practice of deportations continued in this period, even though it was mostly applied to individuals who committed felonies. • In 1962 a new draft decree was discussed to wage a reinforced struggle against the individuals, who turn aside from the socially beneficial labour and have parasitic way of life. From that point on the execution of that measure was Court's prerogative and not Militia's one. It did not concern (affect) the members of families who were liable to (subject to) deportation, either.

  26. CONCLUSIONS • In the years after Stalin's death there was a clash between the proclaimed course of softening the established political regime and the preservation of political monopoly of the ruling communist party. • The criticism was aimed not at the established political model but at the subjective factor in the personality of Valko Chervenkov. • Given the presence in society of the hope that a process of correcting political system's faults had been initiated, the stability of communist regime in Bulgaria required the ruling party to get back to the repressive policy. The latter had proved its efficacy in the previous periods.

  27. CONCLUSIONS-2 • The historical facts testify to a certain continuity in the methods used by the BCP in accomplishing its repressive policy. • The practice of the assembled trials, the applying of new methods of investigation under the influence of the Soviet advisors, the creation of the system of camps, in which people were interned without having committed crimes, the regularly conducted interning of families from the big cities and border regions, started before 1948 and continued even later. • The circumstance that repression was a peculiar feature of the state- political system in 1944–1948, as well as of the socialist model after the Soviet pattern after 1948, leads us to the important and controversial issue about the essence and character of the so called “people’s democracy” in Bulgaria. (i. e., was the “people's democracy” a democratic transition to socialism or the imposing of communist regime started immediately after 9 September 1944 change.)

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