Word: bulgaria
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Meanwhile, demonstrations in Bulgaria showed both the importance of updating the Atlantic alliance and the difficulty of drafting plans in the face of swiftly moving events. Continuing its plunge into reform, the Bulgarian Communist Party last week expelled Todor Zhivkov, its leader for 35 years, and announced that free elections would be held in May. When the parliament postponed until January a vote on ending the Communist Party's monopoly of power, 50,000 jeering protesters encircled the parliament building. As Josef Joffe, foreign editor of the Suddeutsche Zeitung, observed, "If only there weren't all these people...
Romania virtually sealed its borders, blocking or restricting travel from neighboring Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and from other countries, in an apparent effort to curtail reports of the unrest at Timisoara, in western Romania...
...U.S.S.R., the dominant Orthodox Church has been subservient to the regimes in both Bulgaria and Rumania, remaining mute when the leaderships closed churches and repressed clergy. Rumania's huge Eastern Rite Catholic community has forcibly lived underground since...
...canniest of political manipulators. Officially sanctioned anti-Zhivkov demonstrations last week were soon overwhelmed by popularly organized protests. For the moment their prime target is the hated Zhivkov, who is widely accused of arrogance, corruption and a czarlike accumulation of personal wealth. Said Slavcho Trenski, a Central Committee member: "Bulgaria became a hunting reserve for the President." Communist leaders may buy time and cheer hearts with a modicum of reform, but it is all too possible that they also could be surprised by the chain reaction that arises from the very exhilaration of new freedoms...
WORLD: An irresistible tide is sweeping the East bloc as reformers in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia follow the East German lead in pressing for democracy...