EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Bulgarian socialism is like any other socialism – a well-intentioned, but clumsy and often bloody socio-economic experiment. At the national level, the common characteristics manifest themselves in a specific way. This is how the lovely native picture of the Bulgarian socialist past is born. In several consecutive publications we will focus on the Bulgarian manifestations of phenomena and processes typical of socialism. They are not graded in importance and do not claim to be comprehensive.
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The practice of terror was not invented by socialists, but it is an almost universal characteristic of some of the radical types of socialism. It originates from the desire to create a new man who will build the society they dream of. He must not be selfish and bear the "negative" characteristics of the old times. And since the new man does not arise with the simple seizure of power and the liquidation of private property, it is resorted to the destruction of harmful social classes. Arbitrary violence guarantees the power of socialists against potential and imaginary competitors and allows for control over social structures.
In Bulgaria, not all socialists resorted to violence. Socialist terror was inherent in the Bulgarian Communist Party, which was Bolshevized after 1919. It evolved, but historically accompanied the activities of the communists both in opposition and in power. Early Bolshevik terror was most visible during the rule of the government of Alexander Tsankov (1923-1926). In separate parts of the country, various gangs of robbers robbed and committed murders, justifying their actions with leftist beliefs.
In 1924, with the assistance of the USSR and with the approval of the prominent Bulgarian communist activist Stanke Dimitrov, the representative of the government majority, Nikola Milev, was assassinated. An unsuccessful attempt was made to assassinate Tsar Boris III on April 14, 1925. A few days later, the bloodiest attack in Bulgarian history was carried out. The dome of the St. Nedelya Church in Sofia was blown up, killing over 160 people. Incidentally, the state authorities, headed by the former social democrat Alexander Tsankov, also responded to terror with terror. There were also terrorist elements in the so-called anti-fascist resistance in the period 1941-1944. The authorities responded again with officialized terror. However, this was only the beginning.
Consolidation of terror
The Communists came to power after the coup on September 9, 1944. They monopolized it until the end of 1947 and began building a socialist society. In the first two decades after the September 9 "revolution", terror was among the main means of controlling the population. The shock start of state terror was set with the supposedly spontaneous killing without trial and sentence of thousands of representatives of the former government in the days immediately after September 9. Along with them, independent intellectuals, priests and other people accidentally caught in the whirlwind of events were purged. Among those killed in the bloody bacchanalia was the talented feuilletonist and artist Rayko Alexiev. The other victims included deputies, ministers, police officers, military personnel, journalists, wealthy people, etc.
A small part of those killed were involved in Bulgaria's alliance with Hitler's Germany during World War II. Therefore, they are subject to prosecution and punishment. However, the victims have no chance to prove their innocence. There are those who were killed, and their death sentences were subsequently issued by the so-called People's Court, which at least formally had to convict those responsible for Bulgaria's entry into World War II. The exact number of victims of the first wave of authorized terror has not been established with certainty to this day.
The camps
An important embodiment of terror are the concentration camps of socialist Bulgaria, known as Labor and Educational Hostels (TVO). Among them, without being the only ones, the camps on the island of Persin near Belene, near Lovech and in the village of Skravena gained infamous fame. This camp near Belene existed intermittently in the period 1949-1987. The last people interned there were ethnic Turks who resisted their forced renaming. The camp near Lovech operated in the period 1959-1962. People were imprisoned and killed there, while Bulgaria officially declared that there were no Labor and Educational Hostels in the country. The total number of those who passed through the communist concentration camps is probably around 100,000 people, and the number of victims is again unspecified. Unlike similar camps in the Soviet Union, the Bulgarian ones failed to become a significant economic enterprise. The free labor of the camp inmates was used inefficiently and pointlessly, simply to crush the humanity of the camp inmates.
It is important to note that sending to the TVO is not based on a court order, but is usually an arbitrary decision of the local authorities. The term of stay there is unknown to the camp inmate, most often the relatives do not receive the bodies of the deceased camp inmates. Prominent political opponents of the communist regime end up in the camps - former ministers, supporters of the opposition agricultural union, anarchists, nationalists, democrats, communists who do not strictly follow party policy, religious leaders of various Christian denominations, etc. People also end up there for reasons that at first glance have nothing to do with politics. The writer Dimitar Talev was sent to the Bobovdol and Kutsiyan camps. After an injury received in Belene, in 1950 the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Free People" Tsveti Ivanov died. The popular jazz musician Alexander Nikolov (Sasho Sladura) ends up in the Lovech camp in 1961 for telling jokes against the government. There he was beaten to death. In 1958, hundreds of young Bulgarians were sent to the TVO as hooligans and idlers, and for wearing clothes (tight pants, for example) or listening to music that were not acceptable to socialist morality.
Ordinary socialism
From approximately the mid-1960s to 1989, the use of terror decreased, but the threat of its return remained. During these years, the apparatus of the secret services (State Security) of communist Bulgaria grew continuously, the number of unscrupulous collaborators increased. Some were forced to inform in order to avoid persecution, in order not to be deprived of the most ordinary life benefits, in order to get the opportunity to travel to countries from the so-called capitalist camp. However, the reports to the State Security were not driven only by coercion, they opened the way to career growth or prevented people who were perceived as competitors. Thus, the secret services developed some of the worst traits in the Bulgarian national character, such as envy and servility to the powerful of the day.
The authorities constantly monitor the moods among the various social strata and, if necessary, use threats against those who express some form of dissatisfaction. With the well-known history of arbitrary punishments, threats are taken completely seriously. Terror has become a self-sustaining mechanism in which those living in the socialist state formally observe the orders imposed on them, and the authorities do not bother them and provide them with a minimum level of material goods.
The terrorist practices of the communist regime, although limited, have not been forgotten or denied. They have taken on various forms. In 1968, units of the Bulgarian army were sent to Czechoslovakia. They participated in the crushing of the attempt there to build “socialism with a human face”. This act can be described as state terror.
Attempts were made against representatives of the Bulgarian emigration. The murder of the dissident writer Georgi Markov in London on September 7, 1978 is indicative. In the late 1960s, he left the country and did not return. At a time when free travel to the West was impossible, and staying there was treated as a crime, Markov's act was considered highly compromising. In addition, in the 1970s, a series of his texts were broadcast on Radio Free Europe, which painted a real picture of life in communist Bulgaria. It was very different from the official propaganda tales.
The texts were later published in the two-volume "In Absentee Reports for Bulgaria", which to this day can serve as an antidote to the sugary mass ideas about the past. The murder of the writer Georgi Markov was carried out by the secret services of Bulgaria with the decisive help of their colleagues in the USSR. It proves that threats of terror can, if necessary, become reality.
Why is knowledge about socialist terror important?
After the change of November 1989, the Bulgarian Communist Party, sincerely or not, became social-democratized. This means that terror against the population was denied and remained in the past. At least two reasons can be given for the need for knowledge about left-wing terror. First of all, the hidden restoration of values and policies from the time before 1989 is among the little-noticed features of our time. And the past of socialism in Bulgaria is connected with terror. Second, left-wing ideas are not a monopoly of the socialist party. The political radicalism that goes with them, although marginalized, always stands as an option for the future. It can and most likely will be dressed in new and unfamiliar clothes, but the warning that socialism and terror have often gone hand in hand is not superfluous. Therefore, looking at the past and the characteristics of Bulgarian socialism makes sense.
