| SEPT 9 1944 | 1968 | 1987 | NOV 4, 1989 | 1990 - 2000 |
| The Beginning of the End |
Todor Zhivkov in one of his last appearances as leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Image courtesy of cvci.eu
In July 1987 Todor Zhivkov, the Bulgarian Communist Party leader, had been in power for 32 years, far longer than any other head of state within the Soviet Bloc. Perhaps Zhivkov lasted so long because of his pragmatic nature: at that year’s Party Congress, or Plenum, he publicly admitted that Communism was at a turning point.
Change was in the air. Bulgaria has always been one of the most literate countries in the world (in the early 1930’s, literacy was above 90%, most unusual for a largely agrarian nation), but Zhivkov was not a particularly literary type, or even very intelligent at all… yet he chose to quote a line from one of Bulgaria’s greatest poets, the revolutionary Vasil Levski (1837-1873). The Party must “remember Levski’s words,” he said: "‘Either we shall live up to our times, or they will destroy us.’”
This kicked off a two-year period of careful and very limited reform, a process that Zhivkov thought he could control … but by November 1989, as East European regimes were collapsing one by one, "he was brought down with the blessing of the reform-minded Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow in a bloodless putsch organized by senior officials in the Sofia Government, who recognized that the Communist system in which they had all grown up was doomed and that Mr. Zhivkov would block transition."
Change was in the air. Bulgaria has always been one of the most literate countries in the world (in the early 1930’s, literacy was above 90%, most unusual for a largely agrarian nation), but Zhivkov was not a particularly literary type, or even very intelligent at all… yet he chose to quote a line from one of Bulgaria’s greatest poets, the revolutionary Vasil Levski (1837-1873). The Party must “remember Levski’s words,” he said: "‘Either we shall live up to our times, or they will destroy us.’”
This kicked off a two-year period of careful and very limited reform, a process that Zhivkov thought he could control … but by November 1989, as East European regimes were collapsing one by one, "he was brought down with the blessing of the reform-minded Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow in a bloodless putsch organized by senior officials in the Sofia Government, who recognized that the Communist system in which they had all grown up was doomed and that Mr. Zhivkov would block transition."