professional unions that all artists, writers, and actors must join if their work is to be exhibited or published. The unions are run by the BKP and, in effect, become instruments through which the party promotes its cultural policies. For some artists conformity with ideological goals leads to upward social mobility, and some enjoy privileges and life-styles that are usually reserved for the ruling elite.

For control of the general population the government relies on the regular police, court, and penal systems, which are supplemented by state security police, paramilitary police auxiliaries, and militarized border guards. The regular police forces, the auxiliaries, and the state security police are all under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whereas the border guards are subordinated to the army and are regulated by the Ministry of National Defense. Courts and penal institutions are under the Ministry of Justice.

Also as means of control, the government sanctions and the party operates a number of mass organizations that affect or influence the lives of most people in the country. The Fatherland Front is a large umbrella organization that includes all other groups as well as individual members. The other mass organizations include trade unions, youth groups, athletic societies, and similar interest groups. Other than these officially sanctioned groups, there are no organizations permitted and, because the party retains control through the leadership positions, all organized activity in the country comes under BKP supervision. Such organizations also serve as upward channels of information through which the party hierarchy is able to keep in touch with popular opinion.

Militarily, Bulgaria in 1973 maintained about 160,000 men in its armed forces, which are committed to the Soviet-dominated alliance known as the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact). Ground forces constitute the great bulk of the so-called Bulgarian People's Army, but it also includes a small air and air defense force, a small naval force, and the border guards. All of the armed forces are under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defense, but top-level policymaking is a prerogative of the BKP. The party maintains great influence in the armed forces through the officer corps, 85 percent of which is made up of party members. Those officers who are not party members usually belong to the communist youth organization. Many career noncommissioned officers are also party members and, for the conscript in the ranks, political indoctrination is as regular as his military training.

CHAPTER 2

HISTORICAL SETTING

The history of Bulgaria is marked by four interrelated motifs or themes. The first motif is that of regional rivalry coupled with irredentism. The second is Bulgaria's strategic significance for the leading powers of Europe and the varying relationships with those powers. The third theme is Bulgaria's constant conflict between loyalty to, and alliances with, the East—particularly Russia and the Soviet Union—on the one hand and to the West—particularly Italy and Germany—on the other. The fourth major theme in Bulgarian history is the influence exerted by Russia (and the Soviet Union) on the internal and external affairs of Bulgaria. This influence was intermittent from the late nineteenth century until World War II but was constant after that war.

From its earliest history Bulgaria was in continual conflict with its Balkan neighbors. The area that eventually became Bulgaria was the object of regional disputes as early as the fourth century B.C. Later, when that area was taken over by the Slavs in the sixth century A.D. and the Bulgars in the seventh, a state evolved that proceeded to encroach on the territory of the mighty Byzantine Empire itself. Despite successful raids and conquests during the periods of the First Bulgarian Kingdom and the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, Bulgaria was eventually reduced to subject status by the Byzantines and later by the Ottoman Turks. During Turkish rule the country was not only under constant attack by neighbors but was also utilized by the Turks as a base for Turkish expansion. When Bulgaria was finally liberated from the Turks by the Russians, irredentism and regional rivalry became the prime focus of its foreign policy. Macedonia, a much-valued land throughout Bulgarian history, became the major object of Bulgaria's irredentist campaigns, although eventually most of the land reverted to Serbia and was later incorporated into Yugoslavia. Macedonia, in addition to Thrace, which was valued because it provided access to the sea, was the primary motive for Bulgaria's role not only in the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 but also in the two world wars.

Bulgaria was not only struggling for power throughout its history; it was also a pawn in the power struggles of the so-called great powers. Before the Christian era the area was conquered first by Greece and later by Rome and was influenced strongly by both of these early cultures. Later, when the Slavs and Bulgars succeeded in forming a united state, the country was still besieged by both Byzantium and Rome. Although the Romans eventually lost their hold over Bulgaria, the Byzantine Empire took both political and religious control of the country for two centuries. When Bulgaria managed to reassert its autonomy in the time of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, independence was short lived, and the country again fell under alien control, this time to the Ottoman Turks. The Turks dominated Bulgaria for five centuries, until liberation by the Russians temporarily gave the country full sovereignty. Before each of the two world wars of the twentieth century, Bulgaria was actively courted by both sides as a potentially strategic ally. Realizing Bulgaria's territorial aspirations, Germany played upon Bulgarian irredentism in order to gain its collaboration in the wars, and both times Bulgaria emerged on the losing side. When World War II ended for Bulgaria in 1944, it fell under Soviet influence, where it has remained ever since.

EARLY HISTORY

The history of the country that became modern Bulgaria can be traced back many hundreds of years before the time of Christ, predating by fifteen or more centuries the arrival of the people known as Bulgars, from whom the country ultimately took its name. The earliest people to have a viable political organization in the area were the Thracians, whose loosely organized tribes occupied and controlled much of the Balkan Peninsula. Later, when their society began to disintegrate, the Thracians fell under Greek influence and joined forces with Athens to overrun neighboring Macedonia. In the fourth century B.C., however, Philip of Macedon, competing with the Greeks in a power struggle over Thrace, conquered Thrace and made the Thracians a subject people.

This invasion was followed in the second century B.C. by a Roman invasion of Macedonia and a subsequent conquest of Thrace. By the first century A.D. the Romans totally dominated the area. Despite their strict and unpopular military control over the population, under their tutelage cities grew, roads were constructed, and mining and farming were developed.

In the third century A.D. a series of mass migrations into the Balkans began; these migrations lasted for several centuries (see ch. 3). The Goths came in four separate waves during the third century. In the fourth century the Huns swept across the country, razing cities and villages. They were followed in the fourth and fifth centuries by the Visigoths and Ostrogoths who, like the Huns, continued to ravage the country. These invasions culminated in the eventual conquest and settlement by the relatively civilized Slavs in the sixth century.

In A.D. 330