BSP, political morality and the impossibility of socialism

June 14, 2015 marks the 2nd anniversary of the start of the protests against Plamen Oresharski’s government. Ironically, something else happened on the same day: “There is such a party!” [1] With this appeal, BSP leader Mihail Mikov addressed the “disheartened” Bulgarians in Kovachevtsi – the birthplace of Georgi Dimitrov. There is hardly a better expression to describe the total moral degradation of the centenarian party. The chairman’s words revealed the true nature of the BSP (which has never been a secret for vigilant Bulgarian citizens) – this party has never reformed and, it seems, has no intention of doing so.

Few people in 1990 believed in the symbolic renaming of the Bulgarian Communist Party. It is well known that “the wolf changes its fur, but its temper – never!”, but the Bulgarian Socialist Party kept trying to demonstrate a seeming desire for change. The culmination of this was perhaps the election of their former leader Segey Stanishev as chairman of the Party of European Socialists. At the same time, numerous attempts were made over the years to present the Bulgarian Socialist Party as a pro-European party, a party of “solidarity and justice” and many other loud but empty slogans.

Politics, morality and hindsight

But Mikov's latest statements demonstrate exactly the opposite - retrograde anachronistic communism, a total loss of touch with the real world, and unprecedented shamelessness. The BSP is returning to its roots, to barbaric Soviet Bolshevism.

Leaving aside the fact that the use of the Russian expression “Эсть такая партия” is a form of agitation in the mother tongue (because, as we well know, their “Grandfather” began his social democratic activities in St. Petersburg, but more importantly, the Party came to power only and only thanks to the Soviet occupation of 1944), the very meaning of the words in question is outrageous from a historical point of view. They were uttered in 1917 not by anyone, but by V. I. Lenin himself – the founder of the most sinister genocide in the history of mankind, the leader of the Bolshevik party, which drowned all of Russia in blood, and later half of the world. [2]

“For 25 years they have been trying to convince us that we should be ashamed. We are proud of the thousands of hospitals and schools that our party built, of the fact that we built thousands of kilometers of roads that do not fall apart, and the word poverty was only in textbooks.” These words of Mikov hardly need comment and the impudence of the Bulgarian socialists could hardly be described more eloquently. They are not ashamed of the thousands of victims of the communist regime in our country. They do not want to admit the total and unequivocal failure of communism – both in Bulgaria and on a global scale. They conveniently continue to deny that during their rule (1944–1996) the social and economic development of Bulgaria had practically come to a standstill. With Utopia in power, our country functioned in de facto financial bankruptcy for many years. But it seems that Orwellian expressions ("Freedom is slavery, War is peace, Ignorance is bliss") are the last "trump card" up their sleeve.

The return to the original cult of personality of Georgi Dimitrov is an expression of a desperate attempt by the left to rehabilitate itself before its voters. It is no secret that many of its old supporters are disappointed with the party's policy - on the one hand, the Euro-Atlantic orientation disappointed the Russophile wing, on the other - the lack of an effective fight against "bad capitalism" disappointed the far-left faction. Only the most loyal sympathizers remained, for whom it never really mattered what the party leader said and what the proclaimed policy was - the orthodox scoundrels. The quote from Lenin and the extraction of communist values from mothballs are aimed precisely at the first two groups.

The impossibility of socialism

On the eve of the local elections, the BSP is trying to awaken forgotten proletarian sentiments among the people in a desperate attempt to regain its lost positions. But it is already 2015, Bulgaria is a member of the EU and NATO. Few would fall for the bait thrown almost a hundred years ago in Russia. Even the “working class” (in quotes, because the abstract concept of “class” invented by Marx practically does not exist) already knows that the BSP is a party that, apart from poverty and misery, fails to produce anything else while in power.

It is worth noting that the BSP is not a special exception. The socialist idea in general can never work economically and has never managed to produce anything worthwhile and sustainable, because socialism is a stillborn idea, an economically impossible concept. [3]

And let us end with a productive proposal. Being a party of the poor and the disadvantaged, the socialists can set a personal example in the fight against poverty. They can sell their shiny Western cars and get into slightly more modest vehicles. They can donate their party subsidy, as well as their parliamentary salaries, to minorities, to orphaned children, to pensioners. Businessmen in the party can start to “distribute” their profits more fairly and “exploit” workers less. Strictly following Lenin’s precepts, they can also donate their companies to the state. After all, this is the essence of their favorite leftist idea.

But every self-respecting person who values their freedom knows that the above measures have nothing to do with justice and rational thought. The same applies to the BSP - their place has long been in the history textbooks.

[1] Brief historical background: Between March 8 and 12 (new style) 1917, the February Revolution took place in Russia - after mass demonstrations in St. Petersburg, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. The Provisional Government of G. Lvov came to power (with mainly left-center representation). At the same time, the Petrograd Soviet was created - the representative body of the communists (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries), which had a very strong influence over the workers. The Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet ruled through the so-called dual power, which lasted until the October Revolution. On June 14, 1917, during the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks (who had a small representation), led by V. I. Lenin, declared themselves against any cooperation with the Provisional Government and considered it tantamount to betrayal of the revolution (in which Lenin did not take part, as he was in Switzerland at the time). During the debates of the congress, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet I. Tsereteli asked "Is there such a party that would risk taking power into its own hands and bearing responsibility for everything that was happening in Russia?" To this question, Lenin replied: " Есть такая партия! " ("There is such a party").

[2] It is enough to see the black statistics presented in the “Black Book of Communism”: USSR – 20 million people killed; China – 65 million killed; Vietnam – 1 million killed; North Korea – 2 million killed; Cambodia – 2 million killed; Eastern Europe – 1 million killed; Latin America – 150 thousand killed; Africa – 1 million and 700 thousand killed; Afghanistan – 1 million and 500 thousand killed.

[3] Виж Mises, “Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth”.

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