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To make sure my students were familiar with the basics, over time I was able to narrow down the story of the 45 Socialist Years to about three minutes. This happens when you remove all the unnecessary details and get to the most important, without which there could be no meaningful story.
Lately, it’s like I’m about to sum up and tell about the next 30 years in a few minutes. And this is sad, because the things that are fundamental for other European nations, in our country, turn out to be in the column of “unnecessary details”.
Seizure
I will guide you through these two stories, beginning with that of communism. In late 1947, the Communists took over industrial and commercial enterprises, as well as financial institutions, including pension funds and the central bank. The resource thus seized is sufficient for ten years, after which it is exhausted. Looking the other way, the Communists noticed agriculture, in which about 80 percent of Bulgarians were engaged.
From the end of the 1950s they began to pump the town. This time the appropriation lasts for twenty years, but it also ends. Having nowhere else to obtain internal funds, the Communists were forced to turn to foreigners, taking more and more loans from Western banks. After another ten years, it turned out that the Communists could not repay these loans. The economy went bankrupt and communism collapsed.
Does this story explain observable reality? He explains it. Let us now try the period after 1990. After the collapse of the economy based on state ownership, the Bulgarians decided to create a new economy based, as in successful Western countries, on private property.
Three or four years later, around 1 million Bulgarians are already in the private economy, forming the future middle class. However, the law of the jungle appears, in which the strong take away from the weak what they need. The first “strong” are the so-called mutri – ex-combatants and weightlifters led by ex-policemen and secret police agents.
Ten years later, these have already disappeared from each other and a new generation of “strong” appears on the scene. They are not “white collar” yet, but at least they are dressed in some shirts with some collars. Meanwhile, the nascent middle class, which has found itself in a prey position, is losing momentum and energy.
After another ten years, the “strong” in question are already true “white collars”. They dress as statesmen because they are statesmen: the power of the state is in their hands. From this position, they repeat the actions of their communist predecessors, namely: they take the resources of the state and its citizens.
This story also corresponds to the observed reality. And among the superfluous and unnecessary details are the rule of law, the separation of powers, the rights and freedoms of citizens, institutions, politics itself, precisely those things that make advanced European nations advanced European nations.
hope
Both stories are sad, as it turns out that in both cases the driving force behind events in Bulgaria is the same: the greed of the powerful of the day, their willingness to seize the resources of society.
Of course, there is an optimistic element in what has been said. If we know that our problems are due to the greed for power, obviously the way out of these problems is to prevent the greed for power from becoming the motor of events from now on.
Knowledge is really sad, but getting to the truth always has a liberating effect.
Deutsche Welle; the title is on OFFNews.bg
