EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
...between those at the state table and everyone else.
The restoration of Bulgarian statehood in 1878 marked the beginning of a deep class division in the Bulgarian nation. From the very first days and months of the Third Bulgarian State, two classes quickly and spontaneously formed. One can be conditionally defined as taxpayers, and the other as tax-eaters. The dividing line between them is that some contribute to the state budget, while others consume it. They have different expectations from the freedom they receive.
In the following lines we will pay attention to who understands how, what they expect and what they get from the Liberation through the prism of specific class interests. The exposition is not a narrative in itself. It could help to establish the roots of some lasting trends in Bulgarian socio-economic and political development.
How do taxpayers understand freedom?
There are few authentic sources that can answer the question of what taxpayers expect from the Liberation.
In his memoirs, Nikola Lazarkov tells of a curious episode from the past of Dupnitsa. In 1879, the residents of the local village of Yakhinovo expelled the police guards sent to assist the authorities in collecting taxes. In response, a police bailiff and several additional horse guards were sent to the village from Dupnitsa. They were met by the local priest Tone Drenski and several nobles. As a motive for their action, the residents of Yakhinovo point out that they had decided not to pay taxes and not to provide soldiers. An example of a community with a similar status they took from the Don Cossack military unit quartered in Dupnitsa. The police bailiff was told: “And this is your demand ... all the villagers will firmly and energetically defend it to the end.” The residents of Yakhinovo believe that in this way their economic situation will improve. Prominent citizens of Dupnitsa make an attempt to dissuade the villagers, but without success. The stubbornness of the Yakhinovsk “Cossacks” lasted only three days. They were forced to give up their desires after the village was surrounded by troops and threatened with ruin. As a result, the priest and the leaders went bareheaded to the representatives of the authorities, falling “to a request for forgiveness for the act of their [fellow] villagers.” The leaders were arrested, but not long after they were released.
A similar case occurred in another village near Dupnitsa - Saparevo. The inhabitants there insisted on their demand to become Cossacks for a longer time. An army was also sent there, but the village was not destroyed. Under massive military pressure, the population resigned itself to the situation.
When he arrived in the Principality of Bulgaria in 1879, the famous Czech historian Konstantin Ireček noted that a significant part of the propaganda with which the representatives of the Liberal Party tried to gain popularity among the population concerned the abolition of taxes. Later, when the Liberals formed an independent government, taxes were collected by force. In 1881, Prince Alexander I carried out a coup and temporarily suspended the Tarnovo Constitution. In this action, he was supported by the Russian representatives in the country and by the representatives of the Conservative Party. In order to legalize the temporary suspension of the constitution, a Great National Assembly was convened in Svishtov. The activist of the Liberal Party Teniu Nachov tells how the conservatives' agitation for the Great National Assembly in Radomir was carried out. Their representative was a certain Kote Sirishtnicki. He addressed the gathered peasants before the election with the questions "Hey, peasants, brothers, do you want a runaway?" and "Do you want vergia?". Beglik and vergia are names of taxes left over from the Turkish era. The villagers enthusiastically answer "We don't want, we don't want". In the following elections, Kote Sirishtnicki wins all the votes. Both testimonies show the enormous demagogy with which he won the first elections after the Liberation. In this case, the important thing is something else. Both parties promise the voters what the latter expect and want: the abolition of taxes.
Obviously, for taxpayers, freedom means easing the tax burden or eliminating taxes altogether.
The story from the side of tax-eaters
The Liberation benefited everyone who had some literacy, thanks to which they occupied the newly created positions in the administration, judiciary, army, etc. The first tax-eaters were not well prepared. Alipiya Vlaykov tells of the justice of the peace in Zlatitsa after the Liberation, who “couldn’t transcribe a single letter correctly”. In the words of the future Minister of Finance Mihail Tenev, the village mayors were people “not only lacking primary education, but also unable to read and write their own names”. This had a negative impact on the administrative capacity of the state, but not on the appetite for budget funds.
After the Liberation, many former teachers took up positions for which they did not have sufficient knowledge. They often treated their work conscientiously and tried to save public money. From the very beginning of independent state life, it became clear that this practice was rather waning. Guided by Christian integrity, in the first years after 1878, officials did not allow themselves to misuse public funds, because this was theft, and theft was a sin. However, the values of the Christian faith were quickly replaced by the values of another religion – politics. In it, the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong were vague and conditional. An illustration of these processes is what happened in Pirdop in 1879. In July, a District and City Council were established there. Their members reduced their monthly salaries and did not appoint the planned number of clerks in order to save public resources. The saved amount was sent to the central government in Sofia. From there, the money was returned to the District Governor in Pirdop, who... divided it with his secretary and translator.
Access to budget resources began to be perceived as a reward for past merits by the tax-eaters. Two months after the first Bulgarian government resigned, former Foreign Minister Marko Balabanov complained that he had been without a job for a long time. According to him, special positions should have been created for people who “had worked for the people and the people knew them”. Some of the participants in the militia perceived the creation of the Bulgarian state as an opportunity to replace the Turks in profitable state services. There is information that the militiamen were promised by their superiors that “when Bulgaria is liberated, all services will be distributed to the militiamen – whoever wishes”. Those wishing to join the tax-eater class use all kinds of motives. Merits to the people and patriotism do a good job for this purpose.
The wasteful attitude towards the amounts collected from taxpayers is manifested at the macro level. In the expenditure part of the state budget for the first years after 1879, the share of military expenses is huge. They constitute about 1/3 of the total expenses. For other European countries (with the exception of Serbia), military expenses are between ¼ and 1/7 of the total state expenses. Many of the senior military officers are Russians who receive high salaries. Dissatisfaction and a desire to replace their Russian commanders are emerging among Bulgarian officers. Their motives are hardly only patriotic. The military are not the only ones who absorb funds from the budget. Even education and culture are not left behind. A few years after the Liberation, Ivan Evstratiev Geshov found that the educational system in Bulgaria is so set up that it produces a bureaucratic "proletariat", i.e. candidates for civil service who are clients of the increasing number of political parties. In 1896 In rural and poor Bulgaria, a State Drawing School was opened. It provoked ironic comments even among artists. Aleko Konstantinov expressed reasonable doubts about the role of the school in the rise of Bulgarian industry and trade…
How is peaceful coexistence between the two classes achieved?
The achievement of an approximately peaceful coexistence of taxpayers and tax-eaters is due to two facts. First of all: these are classes, not hermetically sealed castes. Moving from one class to the other is possible. It is not surprising that the aspiration is for taxpayers to become tax-eaters, and not vice versa. Second: a democratic political system is being established in Bulgaria. In order to guarantee their power, politicians, as representatives of tax-eaters, make concessions to taxpayers. Therefore, in the decades after the Liberation, civil service, state procurement, state credit, state subsidies, etc. increased. The redistribution of public resources under such conditions leads to the profit of some at the expense of others, but problems such as backwardness, poverty and corruption are not solved. Taxpayers come to terms with their situation because of the hope that they will someday be benefited. Such an equilibrium is unstable and is sometimes disturbed. In 1900 In Northeastern Bulgaria, spontaneous discontent broke out against the restoration of the tithe tax. It was suppressed with the help of the army. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ruling tax-eating communists with various "social benefits" tried to buy off various social groups from the taxpayers. However, the latter were increasingly convinced that they were not getting enough, and this contributed to the weakening of the regime.
It is entirely possible that the pre-election tension that we periodically experience is also related to the operation of the described mechanism of interaction between taxpayers and candidate tax-eaters. How productive this is is a completely different question.
