The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; bg, Българска Комунистическа Партия (БКП), Balgarska komunisticheska partiya (BKP)) was the founding and

ruling party The ruling party or governing party in a democratic parliamentary or presidential system is the political party or coalition holding a majority of elected positions in a parliament, in the case of parliamentary systems, or holding the executive ...

of the

People's Republic of Bulgaria The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...

from 1946 until 1989, when the country ceased to be a

socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term '' communist state'' is ...

. The party had dominated the Fatherland Front, a coalition that took power in 1944, late in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, after it led a coup against Bulgaria's tsarist regime in conjunction with the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

's crossing the border. It controlled its armed forces, the Bulgarian People's Army. The BCP was organized on the basis of

democratic centralism Democratic centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of professional revo ...

, a principle introduced by the Russian Marxist scholar and leader

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

, which entails democratic and open discussion on policy on the condition of unity in upholding the agreed upon policies. The highest body of the BCP was the Party Congress, convened every fifth year. When the Party Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body, but since the body normally met only once a year, most duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo and its Standing Committee. The party's leader held the offices of General Secretary. The BCP was committed to Marxism-Leninism, an ideology consisted of the writings of the German philosopher

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and of Lenin (from 1922 to 1956 as formulated by Soviet leader

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

). In the 1960s, the BCP announced some economic reforms, which allowed the free sale of production that exceeded planned amounts. After Soviet Premier

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...

took power in 1985, the BCP underwent political and economic liberalization, which promptly liquidated the party and dissolved the People's Republic of Bulgaria completely. After the end of the BCP, the party was renamed to the

Bulgarian Socialist Party The Bulgarian Socialist Party ( bg, Българска социалистическа партия, translit=Balgarska sotsialisticheska partiya, BSP), also known as The Centenarian ( bg, Столетницата, links=no, translit=Stoletnitsat ...

in 1990.

History

The party's origins lay in the

Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists) Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists) ( bg, Българска работническа социалдемократическа партия (тесни социалисти), translit=Balgarska rabotnicheska sotsialdemok ...

(''Tesni Sotsialisti'', "Narrow Socialists"), which was founded in 1903 after a split in the 10th Congress of the

Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party The Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party ( bg, Българска работническа социалдемократическа партия, translit=Bŭlgarska rabotnicheska sotsialdemokraticheska partiya; BRSDP) was a Bulgarian leftis ...

. The party's founding leader was

Dimitar Blagoev Dimitar Blagoev Nikolov (, mk, Димитар Благоев Николов; 14 June 1856 – 7 May 1924) was a Bulgarian political leader and philosopher. He was the founder of the Bulgarian left-wing political movement and of the first social- ...

, who was the driving force behind the formation of the BSDWP in 1894. It comprised most of the hardline Marxists in the Social Democratic Workers' Party. The party opposed

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and was sympathetic to the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. Under Blagoev's leadership, the party applied to join the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

upon its founding in 1919. Upon joining the Comintern the party was reorganised as the Communist Party of Bulgaria.

Georgi Dimitrov Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...

was a member of the party's

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...

from its inception in 1919 until his death in 1949, also serving as Bulgaria's leader from 1946. In 1938 the party merged with the Bulgarian Workers' Party and took the former party's name. Following Dimitrov's sudden death, the party was led by Valko Chervenkov, a

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...

who oversaw a number of party purges that met with

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

's approval. The party joined the

Cominform The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...

at its inception in 1948 and conducted purges against suspected " Titoites" following the expulsion of the

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

from the alliance. Suspected counter-revolutionaries were imprisoned. In 1948 the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party (Broad Socialists) was forced to merged into the BKP, thus liquidating any left-wing alternative to the communists. In March 1954, one year after

's death, Chervenkov was deposed. From 1954 until 1989 the party was led by

Todor Zhivkov Todor Hristov Zhivkov ( bg, Тодор Христов Живков ; 7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was a Bulgarian communist statesman who served as the ''de facto'' leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from 1954 until 1989 ...

, who was very supportive of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and remained close to its leadership after

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

was deposed by

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and 1 ...

. His rule led to relative political stability and an increase in living standards.http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+bg0062%29 The demands for democratic reform which swept

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

in 1989 led Zhivkov to resign. He was succeeded by a considerably more liberal Communist, Petar Mladenov. On December 11 Mladenov announced the party was giving up its guaranteed right to rule. For all intents and purposes, this was the end of Communist rule in Bulgaria, though it would be another month before the provision in the constitution enshrining the party's "leading role" was deleted. БКП

The party moved in a more moderate direction, and by the spring of 1990 was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. That April, the party changed its name to the

(BSP). A number of hardline Communists established several splinter parties with a small number of members. One of these parties, named Communist Party of Bulgaria (''Komunisticeska Partija na Balgarija''), is led by

Aleksandar Paunov Aleksandar Dimitrov Paunov ( bg, Александър Димитров Паунов) (born June 19, 1949), is a Bulgarian politician and the leader of the current Communist Party of Bulgaria. He was born in Pazardzhik and became an economist. A ...

Leaders

The leaders of the Bulgarian Communist Party were: * Dimitar Blagoev (1903–1924) * Vasil Kolarov (1924–1933) * Georgi Dimitrov (1933–1949) * Valko Chervenkov (1949–1954) * Todor Zhivkov (1954–1989) * Petar Mladenov (1989–1990) * Alexander Lilov (1990) Chairman

General Secretaries of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1948–1990)

Chairmen of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1990)

References

External links