Within the current borders the Bulgaria has a population of 7,629,000 residents (1956), with an average density of 70 residents / km 2. In the twelve-year period 1946-1958 the population of the Bulgaria increased by about 800,000 residents, that is by over 11%, despite the exodus of 160,000 Turks forced to emigrate in the years 1950-52. Between 1946 and 1958 the birth rate decreased from 25.6 ‰ to 19.5 ‰, mortality from 13.7 ‰ to 9.4 ‰ and the natural surplus from 11.9 ‰ to 10.1 ‰. In 1947 the new industrial center of Dimitrovgrad was founded, whose population today exceeds 40,000 residents.
Like other communist states, Bulgaria is governed in a unitary form; above the 1947 municipalities there are 117 districts (okolii) and 25 autonomous cities. There are also 12 provinces (okrăgi) to which the city of Sofia must be added.
The economy of Bulgaria, while still remaining mainly based on agriculture and livestock, has undergone a considerable process of industrialization in the last decade: between 1948 and 1958 the percentage of the active population dedicated to industries has risen from 10 % to 17% and that of agriculture and livestock workers decreased from 82% to 70%.
Under the Land Reform and Collectivization Laws of 1945-46, land ownership was limited to a maximum of 20 hectares (30 in Dobruja) for each farming family and large cooperative farms were set up, united in 1959 in 640 large units, each with an average extension of 7000 hectares. The mechanization of agriculture has had a great impetus, which currently has over 16,000 tractors and 5,000 combine harvesters, distributed in 200 agricultural machinery stations. Of the 11.1 million hectares of the land area, 4.8 million (46.4%) are dedicated to crops, 3.1 million (29.8%) are covered by forests and the rest consists of meadows, pastures and unproductive ground. With the construction of large dams, including the Vasil Kolarov Dam and the Stalin Dam, the
The main agricultural productions, continuously increasing, are the following (in millions of quintals): wheat 24, corn 15, barley 4, oats 2, rice 0.6, potatoes 3, sugar beet 15, tomato 3-4, sunflower 2, tobacco 0.8, cotton (fiber) or, 5, hemp 0.5, grapes 6, strawberries 0.4. The cultivation of roses, typical of Bulgaria, yields about 3000 kg of oil, equal to three quarters of the pre-war production. The farm has 7.6 million sheep, 0.6 million goats, 1.5 pigs, 1.6 million cattle and 0.5 million horses.
The industries, nationalized in 1947, have developed rapidly, according to the two five-year plans already implemented, while the third (1958-62) is in the process of being implemented.
Between 1946 and 1958 the production of coal increased from 100,000 to 400,000 tons for litantrax and from 3.4 to 12 million for lignite, and that of electricity from 440 to 3,000 million kWh, through the construction of large water and thermal power plants. The production of oil, discovered in 1954 in Tulenovo, Dobruja, has already reached 300,000 tons per year. In 1957, 270,000 t of iron ore, 80,000 t of manganese ore, 560,000 t of copper ore, 1,950,000 t of lead and zinc ore, 100,000 t of pyrite were extracted, partly from recently discovered mines. and 173 kg of gold, as well as uranium from the Bulkovada mines. For Bulgaria economics and business, please check businesscarriers.com.
The steel industry, with the new Dimitrovo plants, already supplies 50,000 tons of iron and 160,000 of steel, and metallurgy 6000 tons of copper, 26,000 of lead and 9000 of zinc.
The mechanical industries (locomotives, railway equipment, Diesel engines, agricultural machinery), the chemical industries (fertilizers, sulfuric acid, soda), which have their main center in the new industrial city of Dimitrovgrad, and that of cement (i million tonnes per year). The textile industries, significantly strengthened with new plants, produce an annual production of 35,000 t of cotton yarn and 12,000 t of wool yarn, and they also process the silk produced in southern Bulgaria (2.5 million kg of cocoons). The food industries, those of tobacco, leather, carpets and the recently developed rubber, cellulose and pharmaceutical products are still significant.
In parallel with the industries, roads and means of communication have developed: the railways, whose network measures 4170 km (including a new Sofia-Burgas line inaugurated in 1952), transported 67 million passengers and 30 million tonnes in 1958. of goods. On the road network, 25,450 km long, 30,000 vehicles circulate, equal to one for every 260 residents. The traffic of the ports of Varna and Burgas on the Black Sea and of the Danubian ones (Ruse, Vidin, Lom) has increased considerably. Air transport, created after the war and managed by Tabso, connects Sofia with the main centers of the Bulgaria and with Budapest, Belgrade and Prague, and transported, in 1958, 120,000 passengers and 1200 tons of goods.
The foreign trade of Bulgaria recorded in 1956 a value of 248 million dollars (61 million in 1946) for imports and 339 million dollars (53 million in 1946) for exports.
Among imported goods, fuels and raw materials prevail (45% in value) and machinery and plants (33%), followed by manufactured articles (17%) and food and drink products (5%); exports consist of 44% of agricultural and livestock products, 37% of fuels and raw materials, 15% of manufactured items and 4% of machines. In 1956, 81% of imports came from Eastern Europe – above all from the USSR (42%), Czechoslovakia (14%) and Eastern Germany (13%) – and 16% from other European countries; exports were 87% directed to Eastern Europe (USSR 50%, Eastern Germany 14%, Czechoslovakia 10%) and 10% to the rest of Europe.
Finances. – The financial plan is framed in the economic plan, tending to direct the economic activity of the state and cooperatives towards the maximum development of the national economy and the achievement of general well-being. The government oversees the execution of the plan and the compilation of the state budget which, since 1949, has been unified with those of the local administrations.
The state has a credit monopoly which it exercises through the National Bank of Bulgaria and, in the field of long-term credit, through the Investment Bank. Currency is the lev, which, with the monetary reform of May 1952, was linked to the ruble (the ruble – 1.70 leva). The official exchange rate is 6.9 leva per 1 US dollar, but since July 29, 1957 the value of the currency has been lowered by 40% for non-commercial transactions (i dollar = 9.52 leva).
History. – With the Sovietization process that characterizes Bulgarian life after 1947-48, Bulgaria saw all political, religious and cultural ties with the West disappear or be completely interrupted – in the climate of the cold war. Shortly after the death of G. Dimitrov (2 July 1949) the great Stalinist purge of 1949 struck one of the most eminent communist personalities, Traiĕo Kostov, deputy prime minister since March 1946: accused of leading a “Trotskyist” fraction, of “Titoism” and other “crimes”, he was expelled from the party, tried and executed on December 16, 1949. Together with Kostov other communist exponents were sentenced, while 92,500 communists out of a total of 460,000 were expelled from the party.
Dimitrov was succeeded by Vasil Kolarov (m. In January 1950), but the real inheritance as president of the Council and of the Patriotic Front was assumed by Vǎlko Červenkov brother-in-law of Dimitrov exponent of the communist current of very strict Stalinist observance and then became in November 1950 secretary of the central committee of the communist party. Červenkov’s rise coincided in economic policy, with the implementation of the first five-year plan (1949-1953) arranged, without preparation and with excessive haste, according to the Soviet model. Considered concluded a year earlier (with the result of having increased – according to official Bulgarian figures – production in heavy industry by 350% and in
The death of Stalin (1953) also brought a new course to Bulgaria, which in addition to influencing the fulfillment of the II five-year plan and the implementation of the III (1958-1962), manifested itself above all from 1956 following the anti-Stalinist stance of N. Chruščëv before the XX Congress of the party. The “Stalinist” V. Červenkov, criticized for encouraging the “cult of personality”, in April 1956 left the office of prime minister and (while T. Kostov and his friends were “rehabilitated”), Anton Yugov came to power.. If police control was relaxed since 1953, the “new course” manifested itself through the improvement of relations with Yugoslavia, the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Greece (May 1953) which were broken following the Bulgarian intervention in the Hellenic civil war; Bulgaria in December 1955 joined the UN and in April 1960 it reactivated relations with the USA. In the climate of “détente”, economic and cultural relations with the West intensified, while political coordination continued., ideological, economic and military between the Bulgaria and the Soviet Union and the other communist countries.
