'DECOMMUNIZATION' IN BULGARIA: GATEWAY TO DEMOCRACY OR WITCHHUNT?
In the last three years, the new political elite of Bulgaria seems haunted by two passions: join Europe and punish the guilty. In the view of the new elite, the two goals are closely interrelated. In order to be accepted by the Western European countries, they say, Bulgaria must bring evidence that it has finished with totalitarian communist rule. But arbitrary, inquisition-like procedures against all those accused of having been to close to the former regime now threaten to sap the nucleus of transition to democratic constitutional rule.
Civil rights activists in Bulgaria fear a resurgence of totalitarism with completely reversed premises.
Most Bulgarians agree that the totalitarian regime of the past must be overcome. But the big question is, how to achieve this goal. In the beginning of summer the parliament discussed two draft bills on "decommunization". One proposal boils down to a German style "Berufsverbot" (occupation ban) à la bulgare, the other one strongly reminds one of the "denazification" in the forties. The two bills differ from each other when defining the "threshold of guilt" for former power holders, but both are based on the concept of "collective guilt".
Quite significantly, the most outspoken criticism against the draft bills came from precisely those Bulgarian dissidents of the 80ies who played the leading role in initiating the popular movement that lead to the downfall of the former regime. In their opinion the bills on "decommunization" are nothing else than an attempt at collective repression, in other words, a method widely used by precisely the former communist regime. They further point out that the bills leave it to the government to determine the list of "leading positions" in the public sector which should not be accessible to representatives of the former regime. Thus, the government would be free to raise or lower the threshold of professional access at will. At present, 95% of all employments in Bulgaria are offered by state institutions and state owned enterprises. Against this background the arbitrary and repressive character of the bills becomes even more obvious.
The acting president of the republic has strongly opposed the bill projects.
Indeed, the question remains, if the proposed sanctions will hit those they have been designed for, the members of the former nomenclatura. Many of its most poewerful representatives made skilful use of the big financial resources they had accumulated under the former regime in "recycling" themselves in private business. They are not likely to suffer from the professional ban measures.
This begs the question, whether the widely celebrated "decommunization" is really intended to remove the former ruling class or whether it is not rather the expression of old repressive behaviours, a disguised attempt to reintroduce the reactionary political habits of the 30's which had a lot to do with anti-communism, but nothing with "European" democratic tradition.
It is an intriguing fact that an astonishing number of former members of the Communist parties can be found among the supporters of the bills. All of them succeeded in accessing to high ranking positions in government and local levels, after having changed their political colour "just in time". Under the former regime they held second rank positions. With the help of the "decommunization" project they are attempting to definitively get rid of their former rivals in the party hierarchy.
However, the debate has not come to an end yet. Western European opinion is likely to play a crucial role for its outcome. As a matter of fact, for the new Bulgarian leadership the important issue behind all the talk about decommunization remains the desire to be "admitted" to Europe.
Paraphrased from "Décommunisation à la bulgare", article by Antony Todorov in Diagonales Est-Ouest, special issue summer 92.