A VIEW OVER THE LATEST BULGARIAN DEVELOPMENT
The following picture emerges if we take an unbiased and devoid of traditional prejudices and partialities, i.e. objective view over the processes and phenomena that took place in Bulgaria from the mid 1940s until the first two decades of the twenty-first century:
Until September 9th, 1944, Bulgaria was economically underdeveloped, mainly an agrarian country with a low-productive, retail commodity production.
Serious qualitative and quantitative changes occurred for three decades. The country was transformed into a highly developed industrial one with field achievements in the area of the heavy industry- metallurgy, machine building, ship building, heavy chemistry etc., with developed light industry and profitable agriculture- all that with the decisive help of the Soviet Union, no matter how this admission sounds.
In the 1980s, as a result of the crisis processes that had gripped the world economy, Bulgaria also fell into recession, which determined the radical political changes, carried out through the late 80s and early 90s. In the course of the democratization of the country, a deliberate lack of authority and rule was established, the result of which was that all the industrial and agricultural potential available, was plundered by certain political circles and subsequently, due to inadequate governance, was totally destroyed by private structures and liquidators. Most of the economic structures ceased work. People were left without subsistence- a grave social crisis, which triggered mass emigration.
It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that an anaemic revival was started, mainly in the field of agriculture and separate branches of the processing industry.
The balance sheet: With the help of the former Soviet Union, the backward agrarian Bulgaria turned into an industrial force for a short period of time. In the new social-economic conditions, established as a result of the changes having occurred in the late1980s and early1990s, Bulgaria as a country aspiring after integration with the West and later gravitating in the West-European orbit, lost its industrial appearance and returned to the stage of its markedly agrarian development, but not in the complete option, only certain spheres.
It is very important not only from whom you receive help, but who opens their markets for your products.
Conditions were created for the obsolete manufactures to gradually improve, become more effective and competitive under the new integration conditions, in the presence of an open, free market. However, strategic thinking and planned long-term actions are needed for the purpose, which would ultimately lead to preservation and further development of the industrialization, achieved with sweat and blood. In fact, the Bulgarian ruling class chose the lightest, but most irresponsible way to establish the dominion of the frantic striving after quick, easy and secure, though minimal profit, without taking into account the tragic social aspects of this choice.
The loss of the Soviet-Russian co-operation, which led to the closure of these vast markets, the difficult passage through the narrow European markets and the inability of the Bulgarian class to manage capital, largely conditioned by the politicization of the economic processes- all these led Bulgaria to a state of complete and insurmountable dystrophy, reinforcing the country as a poorly developing one economically and a population living in misery.
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