You have downloaded a document from

The Central and Eastern European Online Library

The joined archive of hundreds of Central-, East- and South-East-European publishers,

research institutes, and various content providers

Source: Bulgarian Historical Review / Revue Bulgare d'Histoire

Bulgarian Historical Review

Location: Bulgaria
Author(s): Daniel Vatchkov
Title: Илияна Марчева. Политиката за стопанска модернизация в България по време на
Студената война. Пловдив, изд. Летера, 2016, 640 с.
Iliana Marcheva. The Policy of Economic Modernization in Bulgaria During the Cold War.
Plovdiv, Letera, 2016, 640 p.
Issue: 3-4/2016
Citation Daniel Vatchkov. "Илияна Марчева. Политиката за стопанска модернизация в България
style: по време на Студената война. Пловдив, изд. Летера, 2016, 640 с.". Bulgarian Historical
Review / Revue Bulgare d'Histoire 3-4:256-260.
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=646947
CEEOL copyright 2024

Илияна Марчева. Политиката за стопанска модернизация в България

по време на Студената война. Пловдив, изд. Летера, 2016, 640 с.
(Iliana Marcheva. The Policy of Economic Modernization in Bulgaria
During the Cold War. Plovdiv, Letera, 2016, 640 p.)
From the second half of the 1940s,
radical changes started to take place
in the Bulgarian economy, first in the
ownership of the production capaci-
ties and later in the structure of the na-
tional economy. For a relatively short
historical period, due to the purpose-
fully pursued policy by the communist
regime, the essence of the Bulgarian
economy was changed – according to
official statistics, if in the 1930s 60%
of the GDP in the country was formed
by agriculture, twenty years later the
ratio was just the opposite – over two-
thirds of the GDP belonged to industry.
Undoubtedly these transformations can
be defined as processes of intensive
modernization. They took place under
extraordinary economic and political
conditions, both within the country and
in the sphere of international relations,
and left their mark on the characteris-
tics and results of the communist mod-
ernization of Bulgaria.
How was the policy of economic
modernization formulated and imple-
mented? What was the role of the ex-
ternal factor in setting this policy and
how did the global opposition between
the two political ideological blocs affect
its implementation? Who and how took
part in the modernization processes?
What stages and obstacles did it pass
through? What were the public conflicts
and changes that have arisen from it?
What successes and deformations did it
cause in the Bulgarian economy? What
were the reasons for its failure? These
are just a few of the many questions to
which Iliana Marcheva’s research has
managed to give a convincing answer.
It should be noted at the outset that
the monograph is a fundamental study
on the economic history of Bulgaria in
the period of socialism. In the introduc-
tion, the author makes a precise theo-
retical and historiographical analysis of
the term modernization, thus clearly de-
fining the main subject of her research.
The excellent knowledge and correct
interpretation of the main theses on the
topic, both in the world, and in the Bul-
garian scientific literature is revealed
from the very beginning of the text.
The author accurately outlines the main
features of the era that have entered the
history of international relations in the
twentieth century with the name Cold

256 Bulgarian Historical Review, 2016, 3–4

CEEOL copyright 2024

CEEOL copyright 2024
War. Thus Assoc. Prof. Marcheva con-
vincingly justifies the timeframe of her
research and at the same time singles out
the factors that have influenced most the
development of the economic processes
in Bulgaria during that period. The ob-
jectives and tasks of the monograph are
clearly stated. The research approach is
very well chosen – to examine the mod-
ernization processes in Bulgaria in the
light of the development of the interna-
tional situation and its direct impact on
Bulgarian-Soviet relations. Particularly
this approach can explain the peculi-
arities and the results of the economic
modernization carried out by the com-
munist government.
The structure of the book chosen
by the author follows precisely the main
stages in the development of the East-
West opposition, each of them leaving
its own imprint on the pursued policy
and the resulting consequences.
The first chapter is devoted to the
economic transformations in Bulgaria in
the height of the Cold War period, from
the second half of the 1940s to the end of
the 1950s. It starts with a review of the
policy of protectionism conducted by
the Bulgarian governments until 1944.
The author makes the well-grounded
conclusion that it was not effective and
points to the main problem facing the
Bulgarian industry, namely that it could
not develop only within the internal
market, which was extremely limited,
but had to seek for an outside realiza-
tion of its output. The main text of the
first chapter is devoted to the profound
changes that have taken place in the
CEEOL copyright 2024
Bulgarian economy since 1944. With
good reason Assoc. Prof. Marcheva as-
sociates the ongoing transformations
with the political events taking place
in the country, which in their turn were
strongly influenced by the development
of the relations between the great victo-
rious powers. Quite convincing are her
assessments of the agrarian reform car-
ried out by the Fatherland Front, the role
of free labor, the nationalization of the
economy, which had started even before
the adoption of a special law in Decem-
ber 1947. The role of the Cominform
in laying down the economic policy in
Bulgaria after 1947 is well presented.
It becomes clear that in the conditions
of full control of the government by the
Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP), it
is no surprise that despite the complete
lack of economic logic the Soviet Sta-
linist model of autocratic development
of the economy was introduced in Bul-
garia without any discussion.
In this chapter, Assoc. Prof. Mar­
cheva starts exploring a very important
element of the development of the eco-
nomic processes in the country, namely
the training of the business cadres, who
were called upon to ensure and carry
out the modernization in purely techni-
cal terms. The reasons and consequenc-
es of the profound changes in the status
of the economic elite and its subsequent
replacement also well presented. The
author examines and explains the ideo-
logical and political motives in the re-
moval of the old and the construction
of the new scientific and engineering
staff.
257
CEEOL copyright 2024
This part of the book presents in
detail the problems of the total nation-
alization, the forced industrialization,
the forced co-operation of the land
and the basic defects of the economic
modernization carried out following the
Soviet model. As a significant charac-
teristic of the state of the economy in
these years two very important facts are
singled out: first, that the investments
were too ineffective – 1 BGN invested
yielded a national income of 1.33 BGN,
and second, the fact that the realiza-
tion of the export goods was far below
their production cost. This is the ma-
jor part of the economic problems that
have become the cause the population
to continue living in the conditions of
a serious shortage years after the end
of the war, even though it was declared
that the pre-war level of production was
exceeded. Naturally, all these profound
changes in the economy are presented
in the relatively broad context of the
emerging conflicts in the midst of the
Cold War and their impact on the Bul-
garian-Soviet political and economic
relations.
Precisely and exhaustively the
author describes the sharp twists in
the economic concepts of the develop-
ment of Bulgaria after Stalin’s death.
They continued to copy the change of
the policy line coming from Moscow,
and mostly reflected the political strug-
gles for supremacy in the party and
state leadership. With regard to the idea
adopted from the outside, mainly from
China, of the big leap in the industrial
development, it can be seen again how
258
CEEOL copyright 2024
far from the real potential of the coun-
try was the economic policy conducted
by the Communist Party and its leader.
The second chapter is devoted to
the problems of modernization in the
1960s. This period is characterized by
important changes in international re-
lations in terms of mitigating the con-
frontation between the two superpow-
ers and, at the same time, by enhancing
the economic integration both in the
West and in the East. This was also a
time when the ruling Communist Par-
ty undertook a number of actions to
increase the efficiency of the Bulgar-
ian economy. With good reason in this
part of the book Assoc. Prof. Marcheva
puts the main emphasis on the elabo-
ration and implementation of a large
scale (in view of the socialist ideologi-
cal framework) reform policy, trying to
bring some market correctives to the
administrative-planning economy. The
reasons for the start of the economic
reforms – subsidizing exports, increas-
ing the external indebtedness of the
state, trying to improve the standard
of living of the population in order to
strengthen the regime’s public support
are well presented and analyzed. The
author accurately presents the debate
among the party and business leaders
regarding the issue for/against the re-
forms, as well as the decisive role of T.
Zhivkov, who had the final say in mak-
ing the decision. Extremely important
is Assoc. Prof. Marcheva’s research on
the problems related to the development
of the personal economy in agriculture
and livestock breeding, the activity of
CEEOL copyright 2024
the foreign trade organizations and in
particular of the “Texim” overseas com-
pany. The author rightly shows that it
was the political, and not the economic
expediency that was decisive for the
outcome of the reform policy of the sec-
ond half of the 1960s. The surfacing of
some social problems, such as the emer-
gence of unemployment and the break-
down of important ideological concepts
of socialism, such as the levelling and
the seeming social equality, have led to
the gradual abandonment of the reform
projects.
In this chapter is well presented
the process of building a personality
cult of T. Zhivkov and the related to it
way of defining and implementing the
economic policy in Bulgaria. Here, too,
the economic changes are very well
examined in close connection with the
relations with the Soviet Union, which
throughout the whole period under
scrutiny remained the main factor in
the planning and realization of all major
economic initiatives. A major scientific
contribution of the author is the text de-
voted to the ideas of expanding the eco-
nomic integration between the USSR,
Bulgaria and Romania, to which the
regime in Bucharest was quite strongly
opposed.
The third chapter explores the pro­
cesses of building a „developed“ so-
cialist society in the 1970s, as it was
defined in the new communist phra-
seology. Before going into a detailed
presentation of the topic, Assoc. Prof.
Marcheva makes an accurate charac-
terization of the international relations
CEEOL copyright 2024
that were developing under the sign of
détente, which found its most striking
expres­ sion in the so-called Helsinki
process. It is well illustrated how the
improvement of the political contacts
between the East and the West was re-
flected in their economic relationship.
The author proves convincingly that de-
spite the greater opening of the social-
ist community to the world markets, for
Bulgaria the relations with the Soviet
Union continued to be entirely domi-
nant. The expanding Bulgarian industry
was becoming ever more dependent on
the import of Soviet raw materials and
it relied almost entirely on realization of
its production in the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance (CMEA) coun-
tries and especially in the USSR
In this part of the book Assoc.
Prof. Marcheva traces well the expan-
sion of the country’s industrial base, the
modernization and the organizational
consolidation in agriculture, the wider
application of the achievements of the
scientific and technological progress,
the formation of a significant number
of scientific and engineering staff. She
also shows that behind the impressively
sounding figures, there were actually
serious problems and defects in the sys-
tem of the planned economy. The argu-
ments about the growing energy inten-
sity of the Bulgarian industry, which
prevented it from increasing its effi-
ciency and its competitiveness on the
markets outside the CMEA sound con-
vincing. It is noted that industrialization
was increasingly starting to become an
259
CEEOL copyright 2024
end in itself, which is inevitable in the
conditions of a non-market economy.
The major figures that set the
guidelines for the economic policy of
the state and the struggles among them
for supremacy and gaining positions
before the Secretary General othe Bul-
garian Communist Party T. Zhiv­kov are
well presented.
In this chapter attention is paid also
to two other very important topics – the
consequences of the accelerated urbani-
zation and the development of a seri-
ous debt crisis in the second half of the
1970s. Here too, Assoc. Prof. Marcheva
expresses precise opinions and makes
convincing and well-grounded conclu-
sions.
The last, fourth, chapter of the
book is devoted to the collapse of the
socialist model of economic moderni-
zation. From a foreign policy point of
view, the 1980s are characterized by
worsening of the opposition between
the two blocs. This found expression
in the acceleration of armaments and
industrial technology – a race in which
the socialist community was show-
ing an ever-increasing lag. Against the
background of these major changes in
international relations, there were also
profound changes in the existing ap-
proaches and methods in conducting the
socialist integration. The desire of more
and more community members to intro-
duce payment in convertible currency
affected the fundamental basis not only
* Daniel Vachkov is Assoc. Professor, Ph.D. at the Institute for Historical Studies, Bul-
garian Academy of Sciences. E-mail: daniel.vatchkov@gmail.com
260
CEEOL copyright 2024
of the CMEA system but also of the ad-
ministrative-planning economy, which
needed a serious market corrective. The
new political situation in Moscow after
Mikhail Gorbachev’s coming to power
turned to be crucial for the survival of
T. Zhivkov’s regime in Bulgaria. In the
second half of the 1980s serious com-
plications emerged in the internal po-
litical situation in Bulgaria. They were
marked mostly by the so-called revival
process and the deepening debt crisis.
All these important political and eco-
nomic events of external and internal
nature are analyzed in detail by As-
soc. Prof. Marcheva, while singling out
those which give a well-grounded ex-
planation for the failure of the overall
policy conducted until then.
The conclusion presents in a syn-
thesized way the main cha­rac­teristics of
the different sta­ges in the realization of
the eco­nomic modernization with their
achieve­ments and problems and draws
out the major conclusions of the author
about the results of the policy of social-
ist industrialization and modernization,
which has been carried out for more
than 40 years. One cannot but accept
the conclusion made at the end of the
book that the Soviet style moderniza-
tion conducted in Bulgaria was not able
to answer neither the external, nor the
internal challenges of the contemporary
high technological model.
Daniel Vachkov*