EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
One of the important questions about the social order is whether ideas determine the actions of the authorities or do the representatives of the authorities order the ideas they need? The question posed in this way is so general that any answer can be both right and wrong. There are enough world authorities who take opposing positions, i.e. relying on them is not productive. Therefore, in the search for an answer, it is good to make some specifics.
In this case, we will pay attention to the ideas and understandings of the market among academic economists in Bulgaria during a relatively short historical period – the first years after the September 9th coup in 1944. Based on such a reconstruction, some more general conclusions can be drawn.
A little background
The economic and social reality of Bulgarian capitalism from the end of the 19th century to the 1940s was subject to many tensions and distortions. Its roots were shallow, it was disliked by the egalitarian Bulgarian society and it failed to prove its advantages as benefiting all groups and strata. The emergence and development of capitalism in the country were not associated with large-scale economic initiatives, with the establishment of modern, mass machine production. They took place under the shadow of state orders, protectionism, weak financial intermediation, foreign loans, etc. This context gave rise to corruption, dissatisfaction on the part of the rural masses, excessive politicization and clientelism, and an increase in the tax burden.
There is no unity in Bulgarian economic thought after the end of the First World War (1914-1919). There are different concepts, the then modern economic ideas are relatively well known. The first modest attempts to make some theoretical contributions appear, which go beyond description and imitation. From the point of view of the overall content of economic research, it can be argued that even before 1944, skepticism and criticism of the "shortcomings" attributed to the market economy were extremely popular. The state is seen as a major player in the economy. Its regulatory role is strengthened and a large part of economists believe that it does not simply support, but in individual cases completely or partially displaces private initiative. It is considered to be above-class, and the political elite is neutral. For this reason, the prevailing opinion is that individual interests and actions should be subordinated to its interests.
Imposing the Marxist-Leninist monopoly
From this perspective, the coup of September 9, 1944, and the economic and political changes associated with it, are not surprising. Long before that date, economists, and society as a whole, did not accept capitalism and were highly critical of the market. Nevertheless, the changes that occurred in the circles of economists were profound.
Few of those active in the period after World War II (1939-1945) had any connection with their colleagues who had participated in pre-war academic life. The traditions of pre-war economic thought were erased by the new communist government and its intellectual runners-up. Many of the significant non-Marxist economists were removed from the scene. The far-right Alexander Tsankov emigrated to Argentina, the statistician Slavcho Zagorov emigrated to the USA, and Simeon Demostenov, close to the Austrian School of Economics, settled in England. Before the end of the war, the statistician Oscar Anderson left the country. From the group in question, Zagorov and Anderson continued their academic activity abroad, but it was no longer connected with Bulgarian economic thought. The remaining more prominent pre-war economists in Bulgaria, such as Naum Dolinski, Konstantin Bobchev, Assen Hristoforov, and Ivan Rankov, were deprived of the opportunity to publish and teach. Some went through camps (Khristoforov and Rankov), others were subjected to severe social isolation for the rest of their lives (Naum Dolinski). Among the handful of non-Marxists who adapted to the new regime were Asen Chakalov, Iliya Yanulov, and Georgi Svrakov.
Individual representatives of the pre-war Marxists, familiar with the then modern economic ideas, also have a broken biography or silently adapt to the practices of the regime. The fate of two of them is indicative. The statistician Iv. Stefanov immediately after the communists took power held the posts of Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank and Minister of Finance, but in 1949 he was affected by the fabricated trial against Traycho Kostov. The latter was Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and was accused of anti-Soviet activity, for which he was sentenced to death in 1949. Ivan Stefanov received a life sentence with a similar charge. Later he was rehabilitated, and from the beginning of the 1960s he worked in academic positions with research on economic growth. The political economist Todor Vladigerov was not persecuted, held diplomatic posts, taught at the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics (today the UNWE) and published entirely in the spirit of the socialist mainstream. According to later recollections, Vladigerov was well aware of the repressive nature of the socialist system, but formally remained loyal to it and imposed self-censorship.
The main conductors of Marxist political economy in Bulgaria in the second half of the 1940s were active pre-war Marxists such as Jacques Nathan, Evgeni Kamenov, Kiril Grigorov or ambitious young economists such as Evgeni Mateev. Details from the beginning of Evgeni Mateev's scientific career are indicative of their understandings. In 1947, he published a book in which he subjected the so-called "subjective school" (Austrian) in economic thought and its most prominent representative in Bulgaria, Simeon Demosthenes, to aggressive criticism. There is nothing wrong with criticism, but Mateev is aware that his opponent has no opportunity to answer him and allows himself to be frankly arrogant. In 1949, Evgeni Mateev was one of the initiators of the closure of the oldest and most authoritative organization of Bulgarian economists - the Bulgarian Economic Society. It was replaced by the newly formed Institute of Economics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The goal with which the institute was formed was clearly formulated – “to create Marxist-Leninist scientific personnel in the field of economic science” and a quarter of a century later it is reported that “Marxists-Leninists, devoted to the cause of the party in building a developed socialist society” work there. During the years of Stalinism and afterwards, E. Mateev held important state positions, including chairman of the State Planning Commission, and since 1950 he has been a professor and has taught at the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics.
Stalin's political economy
Its imposition began in the mid-1940s and was completed in the early 1950s. The publications of these years are extremely poor in terms of analysis, problems considered and theoretical concepts applied. On the other hand, they are highly politicized, loaded with heavy ideological and class clichés. The works of Stalin and Lenin are accepted as the main source of economic truths and laws, theses of party leaders and documents are repeated. Soviet scientific and practical experience is unconditionally imposed as a model for imitation. The famous brochure of J. Stalin "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" was translated and published in Bulgarian in a huge circulation of 100,000 copies as early as 1952, and the canonical textbook on political economy by the author team, headed by K. Ostrovityanov, was published in Bulgarian in 1954, after which it was reprinted many times. The basic ideas embedded in these and other similar publications permanently imposed themselves on Bulgarian economic thought. Typical for the new economic discourse was the style of citing only Lenin, Stalin, Georgi Dimitrov and Vulko Chervenkov. The manner of economic “theorizing”, which was a retelling of Marxist classics and/or party documents, became an academic niche that provided ample opportunities for publications and careers. It did not disappear until the end of communist rule in Bulgaria. Even in the mid-1980s, one could find publications by “authoritative” professors in which the only cited source were the works and speeches of the then party and state leader Todor Zhivkov.
According to the “new” Stalinist and Marxist-Leninist concepts, the market is a greedy exploiter who has taken a “huge bloody tax” from agriculture, which was the main economic sector in the country at least until the middle of the 20th century. Stalin’s statement is unconditionally accepted that even under socialism, even if only for a “certain period”, commodity production for the market is preserved. The formulation “for a certain period” is highly flexible and allows the political authorities, for their own conjunctural reasons, to announce when it is over and to make a turn towards destroying the market.
According to the dogma of the time, commodity production is subject to strict control and systematic restriction by the state. This particular commodity production is without capitalists, and its sphere of action mainly covers items for personal use. The existence of commodity relations in agriculture is recognized and it is argued that collective farms that produce more have the opportunity to pay the labor of cooperative peasants better. Opportunities for creating personal material interest among the peasants who have entered the TKZS are taken into account...
Closing remarks
In the Stalinist version of Bulgarian economic science, only distant and caricatured remnants of scientificity and understanding of the role of the market remain. It shows the ultimate point reached by the rejection of market mechanisms. The gravitational field of this dogma proved to be extremely strong in the following years and it was difficult to break with the model imposed by it.
The ideas with which the communists came to power were imposed as a model for all economists. In Bulgaria, by the middle of the 20th century, the political power ordered and received convenient economic sciences. Diversity was replaced by silencing those who thought and tried to act outside the straight Marxist faith.
It is unclear how permanent the injuries are, but the spinal curvatures in academic circles are still visible today.
