Part 33 (1/2)
Their mission is described as safeguarding the country's frontiers against penetration or illegal crossing. Because they are a part of the regular armed forces, it is presumed that in time of war they would work in coordination with those forces. If the enemy were to penetrate into Bulgaria, the Border Troops would be expected to control the area immediately behind the ground forces. If Bulgarian armies were driving the enemy beyond the borders, they would probably remain at the old border or establish a new one if the leaders.h.i.+p expected to retain any newly occupied territory.
The most strictly defended borders are those shared with Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, but the border with Romania is also defended. The Border Troops operate a number of patrol boats, both on the Danube River, where it forms the border with Romania, and along the Black Sea coast. The troops also control the movement of people into and within a border zone, which is a strip approximately eight miles wide in from the border. Smuggling, however, even large-scale smuggling, is the concern of the Ministry of Internal Affairs customs police and not of the Border Troops.
Construction Troops
A Bulgarian inst.i.tution that is unique among the Eastern European communist countries is the organization known as the Construction Troops. Thousands of young men who are not called for service in the regular armed forces are drafted into the Construction Troops, from which the government derives productive labor at the same time that it instills military discipline and political indoctrination into a large segment of the young male population. Similar organizations have been maintained since the establishment of the original Labor Service in the early 1920s, which was a means of circ.u.mventing the World War I peace terms that prohibited large conscript military forces. Obligatory military service was restored during the 1930s and, as part of the change, the Labor Service was militarized. It was made a part of the army and remained so during World War II, when it became known as the Labor Army.
Two types of compulsory labor forces emerged after the communist seizure of power in 1944. The Labor Army continued in existence and, following the example of the Soviet Union under Stalin and of the other states in the Soviet post-World War II orbit, Bulgaria also placed those of its citizens considered politically dangerous in forced labor camps. These were the prison colonies populated by victims of the secret police, persons who might or might not have had proper trials but who were considered to be enemies of the party or the government. Some camps were temporarily located at sites where large numbers of manual laborers were needed, but more often camps were at permanent locations. Buildings at all camps were flimsy, and facilities were minimal. In the early period, while the Communists were establis.h.i.+ng their control over the country, about 1 percent of the population was imprisoned at hard labor in such camps at any given time.
In the early 1970s the Construction Troops organization that had evolved from the Labor Army was military in form and character. Its men were provided from the annual draft and were subject to military regulations and discipline. Its officers, who had regular military ranks, were provided from the armed forces or had been prepared for that specific a.s.signment in the Construction Troops own school. The headquarters of the organization, however, was a main administration responsible directly to the Council of Ministers; it was not within either the Ministry of National Defense or the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Furthermore, the work of the organization was heavy construction and, at least in peacetime, the greatest portion of it was unrelated to any requirement of the armed forces. The Construction Troops worked on various construction projects on a five-day-week basis but a.s.sumed a military routine on Sat.u.r.days, which were devoted to platoon and company drill and to political education cla.s.ses.
Until the mid-1960s the troops were used mainly in roadbuilding and land reclamation. By the early 1970s more than one-half of their work was in factory, housing, water supply, and other such construction. Its 1972 projects included building a tire manufacturing plant and a resort hotel complex and harnessing a river for hydroelectric power, recreation, and supplies of irrigation water and city water. One of the organization's spokesmen claimed that there was not a large-scale project underway anywhere in the country where its troops were not at work.
The men acquired in the annual draft serve two years, which satisfies their military service obligation. Almost all of the conscripts in the Construction Troops work as unskilled laborers. During or at the end of their two-year tours, those who enjoy or show a special apt.i.tude for construction work may volunteer for extended duty tours and serve as noncommissioned officers. Some of those who are accepted are sent to technical schools for further education.
Career officers who are educated in the Construction Troops service academy are expected to serve for ten years after graduation. This school, the full t.i.tle of which is the General Blagony Ivanov People's Military School for Officers in the Construction Troops, offers a so-called semihigher course of instruction. Applicants to it must have completed their secondary education, and its three-year course can be used for undergraduate transfer credit toward a university-level degree elsewhere. Many graduates continue their education at the Higher Inst.i.tute of Construction and Engineering in Sofia, from which they may receive a further career specialization and bachelor's or advanced degrees.
CIVIL DEFENSE
Authorities responsible for the civil defense program justify their efforts by arguing that modern warfare has virtually eliminated the difference in importance between the armed forces at the front and their support in the rear areas. They stress that it is essential to provide for continued production and delivery of supplies, primarily foodstuffs, that are needed for survival. Such arguments have been effective in Bulgaria, and civil defense training is compulsory for all citizens from twelve to sixty years of age.
The civil defense organization is staffed at all administrative levels in the country. It is within the Ministry of National Defense in the national government and has committees under the people's councils in each _okrug_ and _rayon_ or _obshtina_. Committees or working teams are also set up in manufacturing plants, enterprises, schools, and collectives. Indicative of the importance placed upon civil defense activities, its national chief in the early 1970s was one of the deputy ministers of national defense, a level shared with only the topmost officers of the military establishment.
Civil defense tasks are divided into three categories. The first includes provision of shelters and defense for the population, providing warning of attack, and training of the people for implementation of dispersal and evacuation plans and for defense and salvage work. The second includes implementation of measures intended to maintain production and to keep transportation, communications media, and power supplies in operation. The third includes industrial salvage, restoration of production, fire fighting, decontamination, and provision of medical a.s.sistance.
Specific work a.s.signments vary widely in differing locations and enterprises. For example, industrial teams train to maintain or restore production. Agricultural teams work to save crops, farm animals, or to protect feed and watering spots. People's councils at all levels, party and youth groups, and the ma.s.s organizations are instructed to a.s.sist in specific ways and to volunteer in other ways as opportunities arise.
Enthusiasm for civil defense activities varies widely. One town with a population of just over 1,000, for example, built or modified areas to shelter 6,000 people. In more typical situations tasks such as those of civil defense that have little to contribute to the needs of the moment receive much lower priority.
PUBLIC ORDER
The Communist Party and Social Organizations
The most important element in establis.h.i.+ng control of the country at the inception of the post-World War II communist government was the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP--see Glossary), with the iron discipline it held over its carefully chosen members and its single-minded planning and direction. After gaining control, the party attempted to retain its exclusive character, insofar as possible recruiting as members only those whose loyalty was unquestioned and who could organize and lead.
To maintain control based on a broader segment of the population, the party then encouraged the development of a number of social and special-interest organizations, designed to appeal to the interests of as many of the people as possible and to enlist them in activities that shape public opinion, regulate the conduct of the people, and support the party and its policies. These organizations ranged in size from the extremely large Fatherland Front and the trade unions to the painters, writers, and composers unions, whose members.h.i.+ps numbered between 100 and 800 (see ch. 9).
With the exceptions of the party, the Fatherland Front, and the small artists unions, these groups are called ma.s.s organizations. The small unions do not qualify because they are far from ma.s.sive in size; the party and the front have the requisite members.h.i.+p, but they are set apart from the others. The Fatherland Front attempts to gather members from all other socially or politically active organizations in the country, combining as many as possible of them within it. Its members.h.i.+p includes nearly one-half of the country's population. The party, although ostensibly a member organization of the Fatherland Front, is set above all other organizations. It controls and directs the others and requires them to support it in general and specific ways (see ch.
9).
The largest of the ma.s.s organizations are, in descending order, the trade unions, the Bulgarian Red Cross, the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union (Dimitrovski Komunisticheski Mladezhki Suyuz--commonly referred to as the Komsomol), the Bulgarian Union for Physical Culture and Sports, and the Bulgarian Union of Tourists. Their members.h.i.+ps range from about 1 million to approximately 2.5 million. The Bulgarian Agrarian Union, the Bulgarian Hunting and Fis.h.i.+ng Union, the Teachers Union, and the Scientific and Technical Union are much smaller, having members.h.i.+ps between 100,000 and 200,000. The Fatherland Front attracts nearly 4 million people; the party has 700,000 members.
Youth Programs
The first sizable leftist youth organization in the country, then called the Union of Working Youth, was formed in 1926, and by 1940 it had a members.h.i.+p of approximately 15,000. It and the party furnished most of the partisan fighters that hara.s.sed the Germans and the pro-German government of the country during World War II. Both the party and the youth group grew stronger during the war, largely because the partisan cause was more popular than that of the government.
The youth organization became the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union after the war. The new name did not come about from a major reorganization or reorientation of the group; transition to its postwar status was smooth, but it saw fit to honor Georgi Dimitrov, who had by then become the most powerful and famous of the party's leaders. Even after its renaming in Dimitrov's honor, the organization has usually been referred to, in official government communications as well as in conversation, as the Komsomol, which is the name of the Soviet Union's youth organization.