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Contents LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION: HOW SHOULD WE WRITE THE HISTORY OF COMMUNIST BULGARIA? The Problem of Distance: From Close Up and Far Away Why the Silence about Communism? Macrohistory or History from the “Bottom Up” The Trajectory of the Regime: Three Provisionally Differentiated Periods The Regime and Society in an Interdisciplinary Perspective The People’s Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Bulgaria – Continuity or a Break? HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: THE COMMUNIST PARTY’S PATH TO POWER The Building of the Modern Bulgarian State The Upturn of the End of the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Centuries Bulgaria’s Participation in Wars from 1912-1918 and the Subsequent Catastrophe Intense Struggles during the Interwar Period The Initial Phase of the War and Bulgarian Neutrality (1939–1941) Bulgaria in the Orbit of the Third Reich (1941–1944) PART ONE: THE TIMES OF HIGH STALINISM 1. BULGARIA IN THE SHADOW OF STALIN Establishment of the Fatherland Front Government in Bulgaria The Moscow Truce and Bulgaria’s Participation in the Final Stage of World War Two Conflicts within the Fatherland Front and the Formation of a Legal Opposition to the Regime The Intensification of Social-Political Struggles within the Country Signing the Peace Treaty with Bulgaria Convening a Grand National Assembly and the Liquidation of the Opposition 2. GEORGI DIMITROV AND “THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY” Georgi Dimitrov and His Diary Dimitrov and Stalin On the Nature of “The People’s Democracy” 3. BULGARIA IN THE YEARS OF CLASSICAL STALINISM The Second Major Wave of Repression Vâlko Chervenkov – The New Charismatic Leader 4. BUILDING THE COMMUNIST ECONOMY IN BULGARIA The Post-War Economic Crisis and the Beginning of Deep Transformations within the Bulgarian Economy (1944–1947) The Sovietization of the Bulgarian Economy (1948–1953) Ideas for Bulgaria’s Economic Development as a Weapon in Power Struggles (1953–1956) 5. THE BULGARIAN VILLAGE UNDER COMMUNISM: COLLECTIVIZATION, SOCIAL CHANGE AND ADAPTATION At the Crossroads Between Private and Collective Agriculture Tools for Imposing the Soviet Kolkhoz Model The First Stage of Mass Collectivization The TKZS and Social Change in the Bulgarian Village The Villagers’ Resistance The Temporary Lull The Final Push Towards Mass Collectivization The Villagers’ Strategies for Adaptation 6. THE GORYANI – ARMED RESISTANCE AGAINST COMMUNIST REPRESSION 7. THE SOVIETIZATION OF BULGARIA – A BASIC RESOURCE FOR THE NEW COMMUNIST AUTHORITIES Objective Factors in the Sovietization of Bulgaria Subjective Factors in Sovietization Entanglement in the Totalitarian Web 8. STATE SECURITY WITHIN THE STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNIST STATE – RULING THROUGH VIOLENCE Building State Security Political Repression Organizational Principles Intelligence Departments Domestic Security and Political Police 9. EDUCATION AND CULTURE WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF THE COMMUNIST STATE The New Government’s Educational Policy The Seizure and Centralization of Cultural Institutes and Independent Organizations of Intellectuals Censorship Institutions The Imposition of Socialist Realism in the Literature and Culture of Communist Bulgaria 10. COMMUNIST BULGARIA’S FOREIGN POLICY AND THE COLD WAR The Idea of a South Slavic Federation and Its Failure The Signing of the Peace Treaty and the Official Establishment of Bulgaria’s Status as a Soviet Satellite Bulgaria and International Relations within the Borders of the Eastern Bulgaria’s Relations with the United States and Other Western Countries during the Cold War Bulgaria and Bloc-Internal Crises Bulgaria and the Third World PART TWO: FROM SHEEPISH DESTALINIZATION TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE REGIME AND ITS PENETRATION INTO EVERYDAY LIFE 11. AFTER STALIN – POLITICAL PROCESSES WITHIN "REAL SOCIALISM" A Timid Thaw in Bulgarian Society The 1956 April Plenum of the CC of the BKP and Its Consequences Todor Zhivkov’s Seizure of Absolute Power Factional Struggles and Conspiracies within in the BKP during the 1960s and the early 1970s The Zhivkov Constitution of 1971 and the Leader’s New Cult of Personality Old Foreign Policy with a New Voice Bulgaria and the End of the Cold War 12. THE COURSE TOWARDS ACCELERATED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM OF THE ECONOMIC MODEL In Search of New Economic Priorities Communist Bulgaria’s First Debt Crisis (1960–1964) The First Timid Attempts at Reforming the Economic Model (1963–1968) Substitutes for Reform (1968–1976) The Second Foreign Debt Crisis (1973–1978) "The New Economic Mechanism" (1979–1980) Economic or Political Restructuring – Zhivko with/versus Gorbachev 13. SOVIETIZATION IN THE SHADOW OF KHRUSHCHEV AND THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE 14. IN SEARCH OF A COMMUNIST MODEL OF CONSUMER SOCIETY Reasons for Consensus instead of Violence The Paths to Constructing a Feigned Consensus Disintegration of the Feigned Consensus 15. PROCESSES WITHIN SOCIETY – THE DIVISION OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERES 16. THE GHOSTS OF NATIONAL COMMUNISM AND PRESSURE ON MUSLIM COMMUNITIES Pressure and Survival during the 1960s and Early 1970s "The Revival Process" from the Mid-1970s through the 1980s 17. THE CHURCH ON THE PERIPHERY OF SOCIETY Christian Churches – A Struggle To Survive under Stalinism Elevation of the International Status of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church The Isolation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kiril (1953-1971) and Patriarch Maxim The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s International and Ecumenical Activities 18. PROCESSES WITHIN THE CULTURE OF "REAL SOCIALISM" Lyudmila Zhivkova and the New Cultural Policy: Unified Long-Term Cultural Programs The Historicization of Culture and the Transformation of Classical Ideological Postulates Crisis and Mimicry in Socialist Realism: Discursive Tension The Alternatives: Vacillation and Acknowledgement From the Invisible Turn during the 1970s and 80s to the Slow Advance of Alternatives PART THREE THE COLLAPSE AND PEACEFUL WITHDRAWAL OF COMMUNISM IN BULGARIA 19. THE DEEPENING CRISES AND THE PARALYZATION OF THE REGIME Reform-Fever to the Bitter End: From the July Conception to Decree 56 The Foreign Debt Trap The Collapse of the "Revival Process" and the Intensification of Bulgaria’s International Isolation Perestroika-Related Processes in Late Communist Culture Socialist Realism as an Abandoned Fortress 20. THE LIMITS OF THE COMMUNIST MODEL AND AN EVALUATION OF THE REGIME’S SOCIAL POLICY A Social Policy "In Service of the People" Sources and Use of Nostalgia Justice and Solidarity in the Communist "Etat-providence" Social Benefits and the Social Corruption of the Masses Social Rights and Their Internal Erosion – An Element of Communist Bulgaria’s Final Crisis 21. GORBACHEV’S PERESTROIKA AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PROCESSES IN BULGARIA Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Zhivkov’s Perestruvka The "Grand Era of the Intelligentsia" and the Late Bulgarian Dissident Movement The November 10 Coup and Todor Zhivkov’s Removal from Power 22. THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT TRANSITION HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA: TIMELINE LEADING HISTORICAL FIGURES FROM THE PERIOD BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX