their actions which had saved the Czechoslovak people from a "counterrevolution" and had prevented an inevitable Western intervention. They firmly maintained this position in front of representatives of Western Communist Parties who had opposed the military action in Czechoslovakia as well. During the extremely controversial and long discussions with the head of the International Department of the Italian Communist Party, Carlo Galuzi, on 16 September 1968, the BCP leaders repeated many times: "We do not consider that our interference was a mistake. We believe that by our intervention undertaken in a timely manner, we terminated the dangerous process of counterrevolution which could have only ended with a victory of the counterrevolution and in no other way... That could have been a dreadful flaw in the defense of the Socialist camp in Europe...."15 Five years later Zhivkov maintained the same view in his talks with Italian CP leader Enrico Berlinguer.

The position of the Bulgarian Party and State leadership regarding the 1980-81 Polish Crisis

Until the beginning of August 1980 no particular concern with the Polish crisis was shown in Bulgaria, though reports of public discontent and incipient upheaval had begun circulating. On the eve of Bulgarian Prime Minister Stanko Todorov's visit to Poland in July 1980 the usual memos and references were prepared, one of which stated: "The dissidents are now in fact an insignificant group of people isolated from society, they have lost their public influence, are people disunited from inward struggles...The people are in a state of sound moral and political unity...Poland is a strong socialist unit...." After his official visit on July 14-15, Todorov, in a report to the BCP CC Politburo, declared: "I believe that the Party and State leadership in Poland, with regard to their current economic problems, are approaching the complicated problems with a sense of realism and are taking active steps to overcome them, taking into consideration the working people's feelings." One would hardly assume that in such confidential documents propaganda clichés would be deliberately used in place of a real evaluation. Obviously, at the time Bulgarian ruling circles did not realize the real social and political situation in Poland. In August-September 1980, however, the Embassy in Warsaw sent several informational reports on the changes in the situation and the formation of the political opposition to the Communist regime. No doubt, such news should have reached Sofia from Moscow as well.

On 15 September 1980, Todor Živkov received Politburo member Kazimierz Barcikowski who was sent to Sofia to inform the Bulgarian leaders of the situation in his country. During that conversation, Živkov said: "We do not dramatize the events in Poland but they require all the socialist countries to draw certain conclusions for themselves, too." He added that the Bulgarian leadership would "follow the development of the matters in Poland" and concluded: "We, the Socialist countries, work in a

hostile environment and we have to admit that our enemies won certain points. Your case, one could say, is a link in the chain of the total imperialistic offensive against us... Soon after the meeting, Živkov prepared a special memo on the matter, and the Polish situation was discussed at two Politburo sessions, on October 21 and 25. Živkov also maintained the hard line of an "offensive against the antisocialist forces" at the summit meeting of the Warsaw Pact leaders on 5 December 1980 in Moscow. Following instructions, the State Security structures became more active in their "preventive" measures and in their periodic analyses of the Polish crisis which laid particular stress on its influence in Bulgaria.

In the first half of 1981, nearly all information coming from the Bulgarian Embassy in Warsaw referred to the development of the political crisis. In a memo regarding bilateral Bulgarian-Polish relations in May 1981, Mariy Ivanov, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated to the BCP CC: "In the last ten months relations between the mass trade unions, youth, women's and other public organizations [in both countries] have practically been cut off..."18 In a report to the Foreign Ministry, the Bulgarian ambassador in Poland, Ivan Nedev, related the reaction of a high ranking Polish army officer: "[We will put up with] anything rather than Soviet-style socialism!"19

The review of the political and diplomatic documents on the Polish crisis, compared to other important archival sources as well, prompts the following conclusions:

Though publicly not as active as his Czechoslovak and East German colleagues Gustáv Husák and Erich Honecker, the Bulgarian leader Todor Živkov was another firm supporter of the hard line of "decisive struggle" against the "counterrevolution" and the "anti-socialist forces" in Poland. In the spirit of the times, the expert evaluation and the diplomatic analyses usually accorded with Živkov's and his entourage's attitudes. The position of Foreign Minister Peter Mladenov, who often backed Živkov's opinions, did not stray much. The Bulgarian leadership's reaction demonstrated the unwillingness and incapability of the administration to draw even most general conclusions from the Polish events and to undertake political reforms even to the slightest degree.

As in previous decades, the development of the latest internal political crisis in the East European countries failed to provoke Bulgarian leaders to reconsider prevailing conceptions and attitudes, a rethinking which might have contributed to a transformation and modernization of the existing political regime. On the contrary, those crises induced a "hardening" of the Kremlin and East European rulers' positions. Just as in the case of the 1956 and 1968 events, after those in Poland in 1980-1981 led to increased bitterness in Bulgarian party politics, resulting, e.g. in the dismissal of well-known figures in political and cultural circles, such as Dr. Zhelyu Zhelev. This line of behavior fit very well with the general pattern of confrontation between Moscow and Washington in the early 1980s. At the same time, however it exposed an important feature of the

Bulgarian regime: its lack of adaptive mechanisms for overcoming the contradictions and crisis in the political elite under existing circumstances of a dictatorial personal rule. That, together with the no less important outside factors, such as U.S. policy, predetermined the unavoidable collapse of the system at the end of the decade without any choice of alternative paths.

The author has also contributed newly declassified Bulgarian documents on the 1956 events in Hungary to the forthcoming National Security Archive reader on the crisis. I am grateful to Georgi Chernev, Chief of the Central State Archive; Avgustina Daskalova, Chief of the Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Serafim Stoykov, Chief of the Archive of the Ministry of the Interior; and Danail Danailov, Division Head at the same archive, for their assistance in getting access to some confidential records. I would like to stress in particular that for the first time diplomatic and State Security confidential documents of the period are declassified especially for the CWIHP Bulletin and CWIHP Electronic Bulletin.

2 Mark Kramer, "The Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: New Interpretations (part 2)," CWIHP Bulletin No. 3 (Fall 1993), pp. 4-6.

4

3 T. Zhivkov, Memoirs (Sofia 1997) [in Bulgarian]. Foreign Policy of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Documents, vol. II (Sofia, 1971), p. 422 (in Bulgarian).

5 R. Pichoya, "Czechoslovakia 1968: Vzgliad iz Moskvi. Po dokumentam CC CPSU," Novaja I noveishaja istorija No. 6 (1994), p. 11.

❝ Central State Archive [CDA], Sofia, Fond 1-B, Opis 35, A. E. [File] 127, List 6-13.

7 CDA, Fond 1-B, Opis 58, A. E. 4, 1. 2-57.

8 Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DA MVNR), Sofia, Opis 24-P, A. E. 2988.

9 CDA, Fond 1-B, Opis 35, A. E. 255, l. 1-2.

10 RFE Report, Open Society Archives, Budapest, Fond 300, Subfond 20, Folder 1, Box 89.

11 DA MVNR, Opis 24-P, A. E. 3020, 1. 202-203. Hájek delivered also a letter from Czechoslovak Prime Minister Cernik to Zhivkov regarding the additional measures taken with respect to the protection of the State border with West Germany.

12 Main Political Department of Bulgarian People's Army. Classified. For official use only. Major-General D. Naidenov, Internationalism in action: Socio-political and military-historic analysis on the struggle against the counterrevolution in CSSR1968 (Sofia 1979), pp. 102, 117 (In Bulgarian).

13 Homo Bohemicus No. 3, (1994). One of the mentioned students, Valentin Radev, was a friend of mine. He was in jail for 18 months and later worked at the National History Museum in Sofia. He died from a heart attack at age 48 in 1995.

14 DA MVNR. Opis 24-P, A. E. 2987, l. 58-64.

15 CDA, Fond 1-B, Opis 60, A. E. 11, l. 1-39.

16 DA MVNR, Opis 36, A. E. 2308, 1. 37-40.

17 CDA, Fond 1-B, Opis 60, A. E. 272, 1. 1-20.

18 DA MVNR, Opis 38, A. E. 2137, 1. 7.
19 DA MVNR, Opis 38, A. E. 2192, 1. 2-4.

Record of the Plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party Central Communist, Sofia, 29 March 1968 [excerpt]

TODOR ŽIVKOV: [...] The discussions have shown that no concluding speech is needed as it has turned out we are unanimous with regard to the evaluation of the situation in Czechoslovakia made by the fraternal [Communist] parties in Dresden [on 23 March 1968]. Let us hope that no extreme steps will be required but if the worst comes to worst we will use our armies.

MISHO MISHEV:2 In what state is the Czechoslovak

army?

ŽIVKO ŽIVKOV:3 It is in state of ineffectiveness.

TODOR ŽIVKOV: The situation is extremely difficult. What is the state of Politburo? The forces backing the Soviet Union and our policy are all now nearly driven out of the Politburo. You have the [Oldřich] Černík's statement. He is behind all this. Now, he is supposed to become the next prime minister. Other vacillating persons have been admitted to the leadership as well. [Alexander] Dubček himself has neither the experience nor the intellectual capacity and willpower to take the leadership of the party into his own hands. One can only hope that there will be forces in the Presidium and the Central Committee capable of moving things ahead firmly. The situation there is much more difficult than the one we had to face after the April Plenary Session here. Here, too, the situation could have turned very difficult but we immediately thought and found the support of our party members, our working class, of the sound forces within our intellectual circles. In our country the blow aimed at the army's leadership. It was repeated at the meeting of the Central Committee that those were [Stepan] Chervenkov's people, the DC [State Security] institutions were attacked. What did we do? We gave credit to the leaderships of the Army and the DC, we mobilized the Party's resources and the situation was saved. That is the thing they ought to do now in Czechoslovakia. Let us hope that inner strength can be found there to carry this out. If this is not done, the situation will get even more complicated. We should openly inform our party that there is a counterrevolutionary situation there. They are not yet out in the streets with arms but who can guarantee they will not do that tomorrow? It is quite possible that the counterrevolution could take a temporary hold and stabilize gradually. They have drawn their conclusions from the events in Hungary.

What does the present leadership have under its control? Nothing. It has no control over the army; it is demoralized, ineffective. They keep calling sessions, meetings, vote on resolutions to oust this or that person from his post in the army. The trade unions, the organized force of the working class, are crushed. Their official

newspaper has turned into hotbed of the counterrevolution. The editorial staff of Rude Pravo is not under the Party's control. What does that mean? You do understand that the Dresden meeting was not called for

nothing. Obviously, one could not be fully open in front of the Czechoslovak comrades, but the situation is extremely grave.

During the sessions of the Political [Consultative] Committee of the Warsaw Pact [in Sofia], we decided to share with our Soviet comrades our anxiety over the events in Czechoslovakia. I had a special meeting with Comrade [Leonid I.] Brezhnev and Comrade [Alexei] Kosygin at which I expressed our concern with the situation, pointing out that we must do all we can, including taking even the ultimate risk, but we cannot permit counterrevolution to go into full swing in Czechoslovakia and to loose that country as a consequence. What is Czechoslovakia's significance? Czechoslovakia is in the middle of the socialist bloc; it is a state of relatively great importance in the socialist system, both politically and economically. We categorically declared to Comrade Brezhnev and Comrade Kosygin that we were prepared to mobilize our armies. We should act even with our cause at stake. Events confirm our assessment [of the situation]. We are very happy that the Soviet comrades took the initiative of calling the Dresden meeting. Let us hope that it will help. The most recent facts, though, do not show any reversal [of the situation]. They have postponed the debate on the program to Monday. We have no information about this program, what its appeal will be what it will aim at, whether it might or might not be a signal to activate the counterrevolution. At the Dresden meeting we were informed that the

counterrevolutionaries had prepared a manifesto to the people and would make it public at the right time. Western intelligence services are operating there. As in Poland, Zionism plays an important role there. However, comrades, we should consider another aspect of this matter. The Yugoslav leadership has a part in these events too. They have been trying to use Romania, Poland and Czechoslovakia to create their own coalition within our family. There is no need for us to use the Stalinist methods of the past but we are obligated to take measures to introduce order in Czechoslovakia as well as in Romania. Afterwards we will introduce order in Yugoslavia, too.

VOICES: Right [applause].

TODOR ŽIVKOV: The West will make use of this. We will be criticized but we will strengthen our position in the international Communist movement, we shall turn the correlation of forces in our favor.

What is the line followed by the Yugoslav leadership? Counterrevolutionary, anti-Soviet! What is the line followed by the Romanian leadership? Counterrevolutionary, anti-Soviet! In whose favor is such a political line? Who permits the heads of the Romanian leadership to play with the fate of the Romanian working class, with the interests of our system, which has been struggling for so many years? Who has permitted them. that, who has given them such right?! If we allow all this we will bear great responsibility for our cause and fate before our generation. Indeed, we realize that nothing rash should be done but we must act. We are a revolutionary

On October 6th this year the Minister of the Foreign Affairs, P. Mladenov received at his request VI. Naperaj, Polish Ambassador to this country.

1. The Ambassador confirmed that the visit of Stanisław Kania in our country would be held on October 15 as had been agreed so long as no extraordinary events occurred in Poland on that date. Stanisław Kania's flight is to arrive in Sofia at 10:00 a.m. and to fly back to Warsaw between 8 and 9 p.m. Stanisław Kania will be accompanied by 1-2 assistants only and it is possible that the talks will be held téte a téte. [...]

2. [Information regarding the celebration of the 1300th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bulgarian state on October 29]

3. The Ambassador expressed his view of the situation in Poland. He believed it had become more complicated. Their expectations that the second stage of the Solidarity Congress would change the line of aggressive behavior, adopted during the first stage, after the declaration by the Politburo of the Central Committee and the government of the P[olish] P[eople's] R[epublic], were not justified. The draft program and the resolutions voted, and especially that for referendum on the laws passed by the Sejm regarding self-government and the state enterprises, with the purpose to change them, strained the situation again, as did the negative reaction of the Congress to the decision of the government to increase the prices of cigarettes and tobacco products.

According to Naperaj confrontation is unavoidable. The issue "who gets the better of whom" is now being

resolved. The extremists and the Western saboteurs are staging new provocations-prisons are broken open, strikes or preparations for strikes are declared, state orders are boycotted, anti-socialist and anti-Soviet literature, pamphlets and leaflets are distributed, the union of the PPR with the Soviet Union is under attack, they demonstrate openly their aspiration to take over power. Urgent actions are, therefore, required. The army, the militia and the Party activists have been put on the alert, ready for action. It is quite possible all this might bring about the introduction of martial law. If this point is reached, all public organizations with the exception of the PUWP, UAP and DP are to be banned, and about 20,000 people will be detained. Solidarity might respond with strikes but the situation is different now-Solidarity is no longer as popular as it used to be. A lot of people have realized what position the country has been driven to as a result of the strikes, and appeals to go on strike will not again evoke an unanimous

response.

Naperaj underlined that the Party held the key for solving the crisis. He expressed his admiration of the enormous achievements of our country after the April Plenum of the BCP CC in 1956, resulting from the right policy of our Party. These achievements can be seen in industry, agriculture and in the markets. In their country [Poland], the errors in Party policy brought about the events in 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976. The present critical situation is due to their Party's loss of prestige due to its inability to draw the right conclusions from those events. The enemy now lays all fault at the communists' door. Therefore, the main task now is to strengthen the party and its reputation. Discussions were carried out with Communists, members of the Solidarity, and with members of Solidarity elected to the leading bodies of the PUWP in an attempt to persuade them to differ from the resolutions of the Gdansk Congress.

Naperaj underlined the difficult market situation. This year they produced 2.5 million tons grain more [than last year] but the state was able to buy only 50% of the quantity it had bought at the same time last year. The peasants, under the influence of Solidarity, refuse to sell meat, grains and other food products to the government, selling them instead on the black market for profit.

According to Naperaj, they are no longer in a position to make any more concessions. If the reactionary forces come to power, they will deal cruelly with the communists. In his speech delivered in Krakow, Bogdan Lis declared that all communists had to be hanged. Naperaj expected that Stanisław Kania would tell Com. T. Zhivkov about the situation in their country in full.

Com. P. Mladenov said that we were very much concerned with the development of the events in PPR. Poland is heading for an extremely difficult time. The issue "who will win" is being contested, the fate of Poland is at stake. This requires urgent and resolute actions. Any

further compromise will result in yielding power and the annihilation of the Communists. The counterrevolution will not miss the chance for savage reprisals. Lists of those who are to be physically destroyed have probably already been made up. It is known from experience that counterrevolution is very much the same everywhere. In Poland it is not any better than it was in Hungary in 1956. If steps for its suppression are not taken now, it might be too late later, especially when the newly recruited conscripts enter the army. A delay in delivering a blow [against the counterrevolution] will result in loss of power and the restoration of capitalism. It should be clear that if new elections were to be held, anti-socialist forces would take power.

Com. Mladenov drew attention to the fact that the West's speculations on a Soviet intervention in Poland were discontinued. The Soviet Union, however, cannot be indifferent towards the future developments in Poland, and Poland cannot go ahead without Soviet deliveries of petrol, gas, ores and other raw materials, [in short] without the comprehensive Soviet aid. That is why the Polish comrades must undertake the necessary steps for defeating the counter-revolution themselves, and the sooner it is done, the less bloodshed there will be. They should not fear strikes. If strikes are declared they will last a week or two, and then will be given up. This is not the worst that could be.

Comrade Mladenov told Naperaj that Com. Zhivkov will openly express our position on the events in PPR to Stanisław Kania.

Georgi Georgiev, deputy-chief of the Second Department [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] was present on the meeting.

Introduction and translation by Mark Kramer

he strikes and unrest that engulfed Poland in July

Tand

and August 1980, culminating in the formation of a "free, self-governing trade union, Solidarity," sparked great concern among Soviet leaders. On 25 August 1980, the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) secretly established a special Commission on Poland under the supervision of Mikhail Suslov, a senior member of the CPSU Politburo and Secretariat.' One of the first actions taken by the Suslov Commission (as it was known informally) was the drafting of a one-page memorandum and a Politburo resolution that authorized the Soviet defense ministry to prepare for the mobilization of "up to 100,000 military reservists and 15,000 vehicles, [which] would have to be requisitioned from the national economy." The rationale for this step, according to the Commission, was to ensure that a large "group of [Soviet] forces" would be at "full combat readiness. . . in case military assistance is provided to the Polish People's Republic."

The Suslov Commission's memorandum and the draft Politburo resolution were given the classification of "Top Secret/Special Dossier," which meant that the documents later on were stored in a highly secure part of the Politburo Archive. (In 1991 the Politburo Archive was transferred to the newly-formed Presidential Archive.) A photocopy of the Commission's memorandum was obtained in 1993 by the late Russian military historian Dmitrii Volkogonov, whose family generously provided me with a copy. Unfortunately, the draft resolution was not included with the photocopy. If the draft resolution merely affirmed the content of the memorandum, the omission of it is not significant. But it is possible that the resolution, which evidently was two pages long, also provided a more specific timetable for the second stage of the mobilization. Although the memorandum is extremely interesting in itself, one can only hope that the Russian Presidential Archive (which has full jurisdiction over its own holdings) will agree to release the draft resolution.

A sizable number of words and phrases in the translation are underlined. The underlining corresponds to blank portions of the typewritten text that were filled in by hand in the original document. This manner of composition was a standard practice used by Soviet leaders when they were dealing with highly classified and delicate matters.3 In some cases, the leaders themselves wrote out the documents (often in nearly illegible handwriting), but in other cases they relied on senior policy advisers or clerical staff. The handwriting on this memorandum appears to have been done by a clerical aide, who wrote neatly and clearly.

The Commission's memorandum was signed by Suslov and four other senior members of the body: the Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko; the head of the KGB, Yurii Andropov; the Soviet defense minister, Marshal Dmitrii Ustinov; and the head of the General Department of the CPSU Central Committee, Konstantin Chernenko. All were full members of the CPSU Politburo. Although only Suslov and Chernenko belonged to both the Politburo and the Secretariat, the other three wielded nearly as great authority, especially on questions of foreign policy and national security. The five men together constituted a core decision-making group (a sub-group of the Politburo) throughout the Polish crisis. The appearance of their signatures on this memorandum, and the special classification it was given, reflect the extraordinary importance attached to the document.

Even before this operational directive was declassified, there was abundant evidence that the Soviet Union made extensive preparations and drafted elaborate plans for military intervention in Poland in 1980-81. U.S. intelligence sources, both technical and human, picked up an enormous amount at the time about these preparations. (Most of that intelligence, unfortunately, is still classified, but some fascinating items have been released through Freedom of Information Act requests and first-hand accounts by retired U.S. and Polish officials.) Some aspects of Soviet preparations were conveyed in 1980-81 by U.S. officials to Western journalists covering the Polish crisis. Among topics widely reported in the Western press were the establishment of an integrated Warsaw Pact communications network, joint exercises by Soviet and East European troops, and practice landings by Soviet military units on the Lithuanian and Polish coasts. All these measures would have been of great use if Soviet troops had been called into action.

Declassified East-bloc documents and new first-hand accounts by former Soviet and East European officials have confirmed that extensive planning for military operations in Poland took place and that these plans were thoroughly tested. Army-General Anatolii Gribkov, the first deputy commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact's Joint Armed Forces from 1976 to 1988, who was deeply involved in Soviet military planning vis-a-vis Poland, wrote in 1992:

Was there a viable plan to send allied troops into Poland? Yes, there was such a plan. What is more, reconnaissance of entry routes and of concentration points for allied forces was carried out with the active participation of Polish officials. ... Recently, the view has been put forth that if martial law had not