workers' patience wears thin world events have made the situation worse still. The break-up of Comecon and the reduc- FEATURES By Kathy Lowe Bulgaria seemed to have managed the transition to a multi-party system without
the Podkrepa union confederation) have little in common politically except their hatred of the parties are well aware that if they leave our coalition they can't count on any success dismantle the massive nomenklatura - "red capitalists are now putting money they have the BSP. Says UDF leader Petar Beron: "All against the Communists on their own - they Petar Beron accuses the BSP of failing to grabbed into private enterprise and private have to stay together." tion of Soviet oil supplies were tremendous set-backs. The Gulf crisis has pushed up ener- gy costs even further and left Bulgaria with Earlier this year, Bulgaria took the initia- tive, unique in Eastern Europe, of declaring a moratorium on the interest payments on its $12.5 billion foreign debt. However, industrial production has slumped as enterprises remain of the $1.3 billion in unpaid trade bills from Iraq. moratorium and the high budget deficit. of investment because starved the chaos engulfing Romania and Yugos- lia. Then on August 26 the Sofia head- quarters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party was set ablaze by angry demonstrators. After the country's veteran Stalinist ruler of 35 years, Todor Zhivkov, was overthrown last November in a central committee coup, the new democracy movement and workers' Suddenly the world glimpsed the real tur- moil beneath the surface.
put forward the then-leader of the UDF, the opposition rejected his proposal that it should join a govemment of The UDF accepted the olive branch of- fered by the BSP that the two should jointly Zhelyu Zhelev, for election as President to succeed Petar Mladenov. But after Zhelev national consensus to tackle the deepening Its 36 per cent of the vote in the June elec- elected, property". crisis. was tween the two giant power blocs of the Bul- and the opposition coalition, the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), has paralysed parliament and the al- marketeers, bureaucrats from the 216,000 strong nomenklatura (apparatus). The party's leaders are trying to fend off internal splits whole Meanwhile, the political tug of war be- reformers in the Gorbachev mould, and hard- ready sluggish process of reform. BSP includes free Socialist Party The garian line organisations flourished. The Communists, now relaunched as the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), began to test the waters of the tion, they were also able to hold their own in Yet only a year after democracy dawned in Bulgaria, raising people's expectations, the free market. Against an inexperienced opposi- country faces economic and social collapse. Hopes have been dashed by rocketing infla- rationing. and the June general elections. unemployment tion,
which, under the Bulgarian system, require a two-thirds majority. It has therefore opted for this course of action in the hope that the BSP- placed for victory in the November municipal tions gave the UDF enough seats in the Na- tional Assembly to block all major decisions will be blamed for the and leave the UF well Page 21 keeping the UDF at bay. They are still recovering from a disaster in July when the BSP's Petar Mladenov (who led the coup against Zhivkov) was publicly discredited and The opposition coalition, which includes the highest concentration of pro-capitalist for- ces, is scarcely more stable than the BSP. Its forced to resign as the country's President. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 28, November 1990 Demoralised queues of shoppers clutching streets of Sofia. Few believe the government's promises that things will get better now that food coupons are now a common sight on the The legacy of corruption and mismanage- ment bequeathed by the Zhivkov regime presented enough problems in itself. Now Bulgaria has joined the IMF.
clude right-wingers who would be happy with a piece of the free market action, and who are hostile to the self-organisation of workers. The leaders of both, for fear of risking their political support from the nationalists, have failed to press publicly for the full restoration The UDF believes the BSP is on borrowed ber dealt a blow to the hopes of reformers when it re-elected as leader Alexander Lilov, and attitudes to social safeguards. Both in- who had failed to break with the right wing. policies to offer in this crisis either from in- outside an emergency coalition government. Its decision to rely on wrecking It is very significant that moves are afoot, new, social democratic 'Labour' party. It is an In some ways, the situation is wide open for socialists to organise and argue the case for a centrally planned economy under the But although small groups of socialists exist in both the BSP and UDF there is no sign of astrous austerity and unemployment whoever is in government. In the longer term, even time. Certainly the BSP Congress in Septem- However the UDF has no clear overall tactics is now simply demoralising and involving CITUB president Krustyo Petkov, to fill the political vacuum with some kind of initiative which at such a time could have All this leaves Bulgaria facing the ravages military intervention to put an end to 'chaos cannot be ruled out. Then the strength of the most militant workers and dissidents and of their organisations will really be put to the democratic control of workers themselves. of the free market and the prospect of dis The party is now more divided than ever. demobilising the mass of the workers. of the rights of the Turkish minority. this happening so far. wide appeal. test. ship level to jointly negotiate index-linked pay, pensions and unemployment benefits. it remains to be seen whether the agreements won will be honoured, given the tottering of whom joined the Bulgarian trade unions, have proved a particularly militant force. The country's one million Bulgarian Turks lost all Podkrepa have set aside differences at leader- Workers from the Turkish minority, many their cultural and religious rights after a brutal "assimilation' campaign waged by Zhivkov. The nationalist hysteria and persecution came to a head in 1985 forcing 300,000 Turkish Following Zhivkov's demise the Turkish workers who stayed behind intensified their protests. Although in March this year a new law allowed them to re-adopt their original Turkish names, they have yet to regain the most important rights they lost such as their schools and university faculty. They have now formed a political party, the Movement for Rights and Freedom, and won 23 seats in members of the popular Ecoglasnost With their demonstrations, lobbies and human put the government on the spot. They have and internationally, environmental false line of divide by the BSP-UDF power environmental movement also won seats. chains, Ecoglasnost supporters have regularly destruction and its consequences for com- Workers and opposition movements look- ing for a political lead are presented with a Both the BSP and the opposition coalition enterprise as the only remedy for the ailing Bulgarian economy, al- beit with different emphases, modifications the National Assembly in the June elections FEATURES munities across the country. (see box) Bulgarians to flee to Turkey. highlighted, nationally see full-blown free struggle. All this has not prevented the most dynamic sections of the democracy movement Struggles in factories - often spontaneous, elections. Petar Beron makes the strategy clear: "If we win the local elections, maybe the next parliamentary elections will not be - the trade unions, the Turkish workers and the Ecoglasnost environmentalists from con- pushing for better pay, safety measures and the sacking of corrupt mangers - have kept the leaders of the two union federations on their toes. At the Radomir steel plant near Sofia, for example, the women who drive the ing on a long list of safety improvements and the removal of the director responsible for tween December 1989 and March 1990 alone. On the strength of its support for a number of these disputes and of its opposition credentials as part of the UDF, the new independent recruited rapidly. Podkrepa currently has cranes went on strike earlier this year, insist- Some 300 strikes swept the country be- labour confederation, Podkrepa (Support) some 150,000 members - remarkable growth for an organisation founded less than two In a bold attempt by reformers to trans form the decaying, official trade unions, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) was launched in February this year. Led by Krustyo Petkov, the Confederation has broken all links with tures (see interview) It represents 3 million members - over 80 percent of waged workers Collective bargaining agreements and in- creases in minimum wages and pensions have been won for the first time. And CITUB and the BSP and dismantled the old union struc- their dangerous working conditions. tinuing to press their demands. very far off." in Bulgaria.
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