The Republic of Bulgaria is a liberal, capitalist state located in Southeast Europe, near Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece.
History
Socialist Bulgaria (1946 - 1991)
Main Article: People's Republic of Bulgaria
In 1944, the USSR launched an invasion of Bulgaria due to their support for Nazi Germany, and Bulgarian communists launched a three day coup and managed to establish a short-lived democratic republic composed of an alliance with communists, social democrats and farmers parties. Communist paramilitaries intimidated their political opponents and a referendum declared a republic with 95% of the population voting for a republic that the communists took over, arresting political opponents and restricting religious expression. It soon cut all diplomatic ties to the US and firmly supported the USSR throughout the Cold War and became a fairly average socialist state.
In the 1960s some market economic reforms were adopted, which allowed the free sale of production that exceeded planned amounts. The country became the most popular tourist destination for people in the Eastern Bloc. Bulgaria produced commodities such as cigarettes and chocolate, which were hard to obtain in other socialist countries. The government also signed deals to with Coca-Cola, Renault and Fiat to help produce commodities for them. The country also took loans from western banks which led to a debt crisis.
In the 1980s, the government began to carry out ethnic cleansing of Turks, leading to 300,000 people fleeing to Turkey and causing a massive labor shortage. The government also began to allow for more criticism of the government leading to angry protesters over the violent breakup of environmentalist protesters in Sofia in 1989. Estimates of people killed by the government over its 45 year reign range from 31,000 to 100,000 people (in a country of 9 million, or about 0.3 - 2% of the population).
Current Bulgaria (1991 - Present)
The collapse of the Marxist-Leninist government was a disaster in several ways, notably:
- The death rate increased from 110,400 deaths a year in 1991 to 121,800 deaths a year in 1997, before recovering to 1991 levels in 2009.[1] Meaning life expectancy fell 1.5 years.
- The birth rate decreased to 95,900 a year in 1991 to 64,100 in 1997, it has not recovered.[1]
- These two effects and emigration led to a depopulation of the country from 8,986,000 in 1988 to 6,951,000 in 2019, or a decrease of 22.5%
- GDP fell by 60% from 1987 to 1994.
Notably Social Struggles
- Unknown: Autonomous Workers' Union
- 1903: Strandzha Commune