China as a role model? The ‘Economic Leap’ campaign in Bulgaria (1958–1960)

Abstract

The article examines the transnational dimensions of the industrialisation drive in Bulgaria in the late 1950s and poses the question of how extensively this campaign was influenced by the contemporary ‘Great Leap Forward’ in China. Although there is no evidence of comprehensive adoption of a Chinese model, there was widespread enthusiasm for China, and technologies were transferred in connection with the Chinese acceleration policies. These transfers did not have a geopolitical implication, as Western Cold War historians had supposed, but rather happened in a context of widespread technological exchange and hint at multi-centrality in the socialist camp before the Sino-Soviet split.

Keywords:

• State socialism
• cold war
• transnational history
• industrialisation
• great leap forward
• bulgarian history

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sören Urbansky and Péter Vámos for very helpful commentaries on my manuscript and Rumen Avramov, Ge Jun, Ma Li, Stefan Troebst and the participants of the conference ‘Beyond the Kremlin's Reach? Transfers and Entanglements between Eastern Europe and China during the Cold War Era’, at the GWZO Leipzig for further recommendations on sources and arguments.

Notes

¹ Protocol of the Assembly of the BCP City Committee with Bureaus of Primary Party Organisations from Agricultural Cooperatives in Sofia District, 4 November 1958, SGDA, f. 1B, op. 25, a.e. 20, l. 228.

² Ibid., l. 234.

³ For media reports see, e.g. ‘“Der Wahn des Tyrannen”. Der Große Sprung nach vorn 1958–1961,’ GEO Epoche 51, (September 2011). For dedicated scholarly accounts see Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 (New York: Walker & Co., 2010); Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). Research has estimated fatalities at between 15 and 45 million, but as this wide range of numbers indicates, the statistical evidence for exact quantification is very fragile. Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 324–34; Felix Wemheuer and Manning Kimberley, introduction to Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 22. The causality of the famine is also debated, as is whether the Great Leap Forward, accompanied by local state violence, was the main cause of the mass starvation or just one among other factors such as foreign trade pressures and bad weather conditions during the 1959–1961 harvests.

⁴ Reports about the famine and the economic disaster were already circulating in the Soviet bloc in early 1961. Austin Jersild, Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 2012), 139; Internal Note of SED Department for Foreign Affairs, 9 January 1961, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv [SAPMO-BArch], DY 30 – IV 2 /20/123, doc. 23–5.

⁵ Lorenz M. Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 46–51, 80–104.

⁶ Jordan Baev, Drugata studena voĭna. Săvetsko-Kitaǐskiyat konflikt i Iztočna Evropa (Sofia: Voenno Izdatelstvo, 2012); Liliana Brisby, ‘Leaping Forward Without Communes,’ Chinese Quarterly 1, No. 3 (1960): 80–4; James F. Brown, Bulgaria Under Communist Rule (London: Pall Mall Press, 1970).

⁷ This article is based on an analysis of internal documents of Bulgarian party organs and state institutions ranging from the Politburo to selected local branches, with a special focus on ministries and party departments that participated in delegations to China at the time. I have also examined periodicals of the agriculture ministry and magazines that reflect the theoretical debate of economists and agronomists (e.g. Kooperativno Selo [Cooperative Village], Novo Vreme [New Time], Ikonomicheski Misăl [Economic Thought]). Most of the research has been undertaken in the framework of an employment at the Leipzig Centre for History and Culture of East Central Europe (GWZO) from 2014 to 2016 and during a fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Studies Sofia in spring 2016.

⁸ This is a conclusion of an examination of the main Bulgarian newspapers of the years 1957–1960 (Rabotnichesko Delo, Otechestven Front, Narodna Mladezh, Zemdedelsko Zname).

⁹ Research and scholarly debate on the Chinese influence on the Bulgarian Leap are rather fragmented. The economist Kiril Tochkov of Texas Christian University has conducted a research project on the Bulgarian and the Chinese leaps in comparison at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sofia, and a doctoral study by the historian Ma Li is under way at the Shanghai Cold War International History Studies Centre. For Bulgarian studies highlighting the Chinese influence, see Baev, Drugata studena voǐna, 81–9; Vladimir Migev, ‘Otrazhenieto v Bălgariya na politikata na Kitaǐskata komunisticheska partiya za “Golemiya skok”, 1958–1960 g.,’ Minalo 19, No. 1 (2012): 75–9. For a clear stance rejecting the idea of a significant Chinese influence, see Evgeni Kandilarov, Iztochna Aziya i Bălgariya (Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 2016), 153–62 and Iliyana Marcheva, Todor Živkov: Pătyat kăm vlastta. politika i ikonomika v Bălgariya, 1953–1964 g. (Sofia: Institut po istoriya – BAN, 2001), 189–216.

¹⁰ E.g. Péter Vámos, ‘Sino-Hungarian Relations and the 1956 Revolution,’ Cold War International History Project Working Paper, Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington D. C., November 2006, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WP54_Final2.pdf, 33–5.

¹¹ Lüthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 84.

¹² Lüthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 174–80; Sergey Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 14.

¹³ By 1950 China had become the Soviet Union’s most important trading partner, succeeding Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USA, which had held this position in the immediate after-war years. In 1960, against the backdrop of the quickly deteriorating Sino-Soviet trade, East Germany became the USSR’s most important trading partner. Vneshnaya Torgovlya SSSR. Statisticheski sbornik (1918–1966) (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1967), 70–1, 206–13. For the significance of Soviet assistance, see Jersild, Sino-Soviet Alliance, 15; Deborah Kaple, ‘Agents of Change: Soviet Advisers and High Stalinist Management in China, 1949–1960’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18, No. 1 (2016): 5–30; Shen Zhihua, Sovetskie spetsialisty v Kitae, 1948–1960 (Moscow: Nauka – Vostochnaya Literatura, 2015), 6–9, 21–2.

¹⁴ Lüthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 90.

¹⁵ Shen Zhihua and Xia Yafeng, ‘The Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune and the Sino-Soviet Split,’ Journal of Contemporary China 20, No. 72 (2011): 861–80.

¹⁶ Photographer Wolfgang G. Schröter in 1959 portrayed the new China (Deutsche Fotothek, www.deutschefotothek.de; search Schröter/China), documentary films depicted People’s Communes in China (DEFA-Film ‘Wir berichten aus Pan Yü,’ Berlin 1959), and a leading member of the GDR government and Politburo published a treatise on the Great Leap Forward (Horst Sindermann, Chinas grosser Sprung (Berlin: Dietz-Verlag, 1959).

¹⁷ Hemen Ray, ‘Die ideologische Achse Peking-Pankow,’ Außenpolitik 12 (1960): 819–25; Martin J. Esslin, ‘East Germany: Peking-Pankow Axis?’ China Quarterly 1 (1960): 85–8; Harald Möller, DDR und VR China. Unterstützung der VRCh auf politischem, ökonomischem und militärischem Gebiet (1949–1964): eine Dokumentation (Berlin: Köster, 2003).

¹⁸ Beda Erlinghagen, ‘Anfänge und Hintergründe des Konflikts zwischen der DDR und der Volksrepublik China. Kritische Anmerkungen zu einer ungeklärten Frage’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 49 (2007): 111–40; Letter of Foreign Ministry to the SED Central Committee (CC) Foreign Department, SAPMO-BArch, DY 30, IV-2/20/120; Doc. 116–7.

¹⁹ Martin Slobodnik, ‘Východný vietor prevláda? Činsky Vel’ký skok vpred v Československu’, in Martina Bucková and Gabriel Pirický, Podoby globalizácie v Oriente, (Bratislava: Slovenská orientalistická spoločnost’ pri Slovenskij akadémii vied, 2015), 9–30.

²⁰ Shen Zhihua and Xia Yafeng opine that Mao received full support for the leap in North Korea, Vietnam, the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Mongolia, Albania, and Bulgaria, albeit not for the communes in the latter three. Shen and Xia, ‘Great Leap Forward,’ 876. Lüthi sees Bulgaria and the GDR as having had a special role in endorsing the Leap. Lorenz Lüthi, ‘China and East Europe, 1956–1960,’ Modern China Studies 22, No. 1 (2015), 248, 252–6. Studies on Sino-Romanian relations do not mention any allusions the Romanian leadership may have made to the Great Leap. Mihai Croitor, Romӑnia şi conflictului Sovieto-Chinez, 1956–1971 (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega, 2009), 123–208; Liu Yong, Sino-Romanian Relations: 1950’s–1960’s (Bucharest: Institutul Național pentru Studiul Totalitarismului, 2006). Studies on the COMECON claim without further explanation that the Great Leap had an influence in Romania. Michael Kaser, COMECON. Integration Problems of the Planned Economies (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 77; Gospodinka Nikova, Săvetăt za Ikonomicheska Vzaimopomosht i Bălgariya, 1949–1960 (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na BAN, 1989), 237.

²¹ Baev, Drugata studena voǐna; Brisby, ‘Leaping Forward,’ 80–4; Brown, Bulgaria Under Communist Rule.

²² Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 85.

²³ Brisby, ‘Leaping Forward’, 81.

²⁴ Protocol of the enlarged meeting of the BCP Central Committee, 11 November 1958, Bulgarian Central State Archive (CDA), f. 1B, op. 5, a.e. 356, l. 4, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2773--------11--1958--].

²⁵ Ibid., l. 140.

²⁶ Brown, Bulgaria Under Communist Rule, 87.

²⁷ See, e.g. Zemedelsko Zname, 15 November 1958, 1; 9 December 1958, 1; January 1, 1959, 4; January 21, 1959, 1; also ‘Za golemiya skok v Burgaski okrӑg,’ Kooperativno Selo, January 30, 1959, 2.

²⁸ E.g. Rabotnichesko Delo, 17 October 1958, 1. (‘vsenarodnoto dvizhenie za izpălnenie na tretata petiletka v săkrateni srokove’).

²⁹ Protocol BCP CC, 11 November 1958, CDA, f. 1B, op. 5, a.e. 356, l. 4, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2773--------11--1958--], l. 13, 46, 47, 86, 118.

³⁰ Baev, Drugata studena voĭna, 82; Todor Zhivkov, Memoari (Sofia: IK Trud i pravo, 2006), 468–9.

³¹ Baev, Drugata studena voĭna, 82.

³² Khrushchev Remembers. The Last Testament, ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Little, Brown and Company: Boston, Toronto, 1974), 275–78.

³³ Baev, Drugata studena voǐna, 82.

³⁴ Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 88–9. There were pro-Chinese factions or splinter groups in other Soviet-bloc countries as well. See Margaret Gnoinska’s chapter in this issue about the ‘Mijal group’ in Poland.

³⁵ I. Nikolchovski, ‘V Botevgradska okoliya sega ima samo edin kooperativ-gigant,’ Rabotnichesko Delo, 7 December 1958, 1; Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 88; Brisby, ‘Leaping Forward’, 81. However, an investigation of local and national archives did not show any indications of a (geo-)political scandal, which the founding of this enterprise supposedly produced. See below section ‘People's Communes’.

³⁶ See below section ‘People’s Communes’.

³⁷ John R. Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (London: Croom Helm, 1986); Marcheva, Todor Zhivkov, 194–5.

³⁸ Lampe, Bulgarian Economy, 149; Ulf Brunnbauer, ‘Sozialistische Lebensweise’. Ideologie, Gesellschaft, Familie und Politik in Bulgarien, 1944–1989 (Vienna: Böhlau, 2007), 176.

³⁹ Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 234.

⁴⁰ ‘Prez zimnite dni,’ Zemedelsko Zname, 16 January 1959, 1.

⁴¹ Migev, ‘Otrazhenieto’, 77.

⁴² Protocol of the Assembly of the BCP City Committee BCP with Bureaus of Primary Party Organisations from Agricultural Cooperatives in Sofia District, 4 November 1958, Sofia Municipal and District Archive (SGODA), f. 1B, op. 25, a. e. 20, l. 238.

⁴³ Migev, ‘Otrazhenieto’, 77.

⁴⁴ ‘Decision of the Ministry for Heavy Industry and the Trade Union on the Introduction of the Methods of the Noted Soviet Miner Nikolaǐ Mamaǐ as a New Form of Competition between Workers,’ CDA, f. 414, op. 1, a.e. 38.

⁴⁵ ‘Taka Kitaǐskite kooperatori poluchavat rekordni dobivi,’ Kooperativno Zemedelie 1959, No. 5, 42–3; Report of the Agricultural Delegation to the PRC and North Korea to the BCP CC, 8 December 1958, CDA, f. 1B, op. 18, a.e. 217, l. 21–7.

⁴⁶ ‘Iz opita,’ Kooperativno Zemedelie 1959, No. 5, 42–3; Report of the Agricultural Delegation to the PRC and North Korea to the BCP CC, 8 December 1958, CDA, f. 1B, op. 18, a.e. 217, l. 21–7.

⁴⁷ For the significance of Lysenkoism, aka Michurinism, in China, see Lüthi, Sino-Soviet Split, 52–3, 88; Laurence Schneider, ‘Lysenkoism and the Suppression of Genetics in the PRC, 1949–1956,’ in China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949–Present, ed. Thomas P. Bernstein and Hua-yu Li (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 327–58.

⁴⁸ An agricultural journal quotes Todor Zhivkov: ‘Deep ploughing is our greatest water reservoir!’ [Dălbokata oran e naj-golemiyat naš yazovir!] ‘Na dӑlboka oran!’ Kooperativno Zemedelie 1959, No. 7, 1–2. For earlier campaigning for, and testing of, deep ploughing, see also ‘Na vsichki ploshti za proletnicite – dălboka oran,’ Kooperativno Zemedelie 1958, No. 6, 1.

⁴⁹ ‘Na vsichki ploshti za proletnicite – dălboka oran’, Kooperativno Zemedelie 1958, No. 6, 1 (author's translation).

⁵⁰ Report of the Agricultural Delegation to PRC and North Korea, 8 December 1958, CDA, f. 1, op. 18, a.e. 217, l. 27–37.

⁵¹ Zhivkov’s speech according to the protocol of the BCP CC plenum, 11 November 1958, CDA, f. 1B, op. 5, a. e. 356, l. 15, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2773--------11--1958-.

⁵² ‘Vsenaroden pochod za săkrashtavane srokovete na petiletkata,’ Zemedelsko Zname, 12 November 1958, 1.

⁵³ Protocol BCP CC, 11 November 1958, CDA, f. 1B, op. 5, a. e. 356, l. 118, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2773--------11--1958--.

⁵⁴ ‘Ukazaniya na Ministerstvoto na zemedelieto … za razsadno zasazhdane na pamuka,’ Zemedelsko Zname, 3 December 1958, 2; Dimitӑr Yurukov, ‘Zasazhdane na pamuka chrez razsad v Kitaǐskata Narodna Republika i v Korejskata N-d Republika,’ Kooperativno Selo, 3 December 1958, 2; Sava Kănev, ‘Meropriyatiya za izpălnenieto na tretiya petgodishen plan za pamuka,’ Kooperativno Zemedelie, No. 9 (1959): 20–1.

⁵⁵ Instructive Report on Preparations for Planting Cotton, Vegetables, and Tobacco, and Material Supply of TKZS, CDA, f. 89, op. 61, a. e. 138, l. 22.

⁵⁶ Julia Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams: Cotton Growing and Irrigation in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, 1860s–1991 (forthcoming); Julia Obertreis, ‘Infrastrukturen im Sozialismus. Das Beispiel der Bewässerungssysteme im sowjetischen Zentralasien’, Saeculum 58, No. 1 (2007): 157.

⁵⁷ Migev, ‘Otrazhenieto’, 77.

⁵⁸ Baev, Drugata Studena Voǐna, 81–3; Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 88; Newsletter on the Communist Parties in the World, Beijing, No. 211, 20 December 1958, 4.

⁵⁹ Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 2, Statesman (1953–1964), (ed.) Sergei Khrushchev, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), 449. In the USSR the number of kolkhoz enterprises dropped from 236,900 in 1940 to 93,300 in 1953 and 37,600 in 1964; see Manfred Hildermeier, Geschichte der Sowjetunion 1917–1991. Entstehung und Niedergang des ersten sozialistischen Staates (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 696, 796.

⁶⁰ Ivan Grigorov, ‘Golemiyat skok’, Narodna Mladezh, 5 July 1958, 1; ‘Narodnite komuni – delo na milionite kitaǐski selyani’, Kooperativno Selo, 1 October 1958, 1; Vӑlko Chervenkov, ‘Narodnite Komuni v Kitaǐ,’ Rabotnichesko Delo, January 15, 1959, 1; ‘Informaciya ot rӑkovoditelya na delegaciya v KNR Vӑlko Сhervenkov,’ Kooperativno Selo, 3 February 1959, 3.

⁶¹ Report of the Agricultural Delegation to PRC and North Korea, 8 December 1958, CDA, f. 1, op. 18, a.e. 217, l. 4–20, 84–5.

⁶² See examples among letters from local party officials to the BCP CC in CDA, Fond 1B, op. 18, a. e. 219; l. 6–15; 35–42.

⁶³ For example, the town’s newspaper and the agricultural cooperative of Samokov were called ‘Samokovska Komuna’. For the regime discourse on the Bulgarian Communes, see, e.g. Stoianka Pobornikova, ‘Slivenskata Komuna prez 1915–1923 godina’, Izvestija na Instituta po Istorija na BKP 12 (1964), 405–55.

⁶⁴ Protocols of the Sessions of the BCP Primary Organisation at the Botevgrad District Council (SGODA, f. 195, op. 10, a. e. 25; f. 457, op. 1, several files), at the Botevgrad Town Council (f. 185, op. 25, a. e. 5; f. 299, op. 2 and 3, several files), at the Sofia District Council (f. 698, op. 1, a. e. 3), and of the District Council’s Department for Agriculture (f. 614, op. 9; op. 6; several files). A town history volume treats the enlargement in a few technical sentences without even mentioning the renaming. Simeonka Vlaǐkova, Botevgrad prez godinite, vol. 2 (Sofia: Zvezdan, 2003), 39.

⁶⁵ Baev, Drugata Studena Voǐna, 82–4.

⁶⁶ Lampe, Bulgarian Economy, 152–3.

⁶⁷ Lee Kendall Metcalf, The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance. The Failure of Reform (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, 57–65; Kaser, COMECON, 83–84; André Steiner, ‘The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance – An Example of Failed Economic Integration?’ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 39 (2013), 240–58.

⁶⁸ Letter from Khrushchev to Praesidium of CC CPSU [which, after approval, was sent to the CC BCP], 27 October 1955, f. 1B, op. 5, a.e. 189, l. 3–9, see l. 6 [http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2876-------6-7—1955-].

⁶⁹ Ibid., l. 7.

⁷⁰ Daniel Vachkov and Martin Ivanov, Bălgarskiyat vănshen dălg 1944–1989. Bankrutăt na komunisticheskata ikonomika (Sofia: Institut za izuchavane na blizkoto minalo, 2008), 94–102; Protocol of CC BCP Plenary Session, 6–7 December 1955, CDA, f. 1B; op. 5; a.e. 187, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2877-------6-7--1955---.

⁷¹ Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 86–7; Brunnbauer, Sozialistische Lebensweise, 172–3; Vachkov and Ivanov, Bălgarskiyat vănshen dălg, 94–102; Nikova, Săvetăt za Ikonomicheska Vzaimopomosht, 209–10, 224. Letter from Khrushchev to CC CPSU/CC BCP, 27 October 1955, CDA f. 1B, op. 5, a.e. 189, http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1950-1959/2876-------6-7--1955-.

⁷² Michael Palairet, ‘“Lenin” and “Brezhnev”: Steel Making and the Bulgarian Economy, 1956–90,’ Europe Asia Studies 47, No. 3 (1995), 493–505; Brunnbauer, Sozialistische Lebensweise, 184–206. As the exploitation of natural mineral deposits near Kremikovci proved non-viable and inefficient, iron ore and coking coal had to be imported from the Danube and the Black Sea to the steel factory near Sofia. The weak Bulgarian industry was not able to absorb the steel mill’s produce and it had to be dumped on the world market at prices lower than production costs, going primarily to Japan.

⁷³ Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 85, 93.

⁷⁴ Lampe, Bulgarian Economy, 153; Brunnbauer, Sozialistische Lebensweise, 179.

⁷⁵ For the unfavourable terms of trade for Bulgaria see Vachkov and Ivanov, Bălgarskiyat vănshen dălg, 100–5.

⁷⁶ Rumen Avramov, Pari i de/stabilizaciya v Bălgariya, 1948–1989 (Sofia: Institut za izuchavane na blizkoto minalo, 2007), 123–4. Between 1958 and 1962 the foreign debt to capitalist countries grew eightfold. In 1959 alone it rose from slightly more than $20 million to $115 million.

⁷⁷ Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Soviet-Owned Banks in the West’, Intelligence Report, October 1969, available online in CIA Library, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000233857.pdf. These two banks had been Soviet-controlled since the 1920s and gained fame for their early involvement in Eurodollar business in the 1950s.

⁷⁸ Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizaciya, 135–40, 166.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 185 (author's translation).

⁸⁰ Vachkov and Ivanov, Bălgarskiyat vănshen dălg, 110. In March 1960 the Bulgarian debt in short-term credits in convertible currency was $129.4 million, of which $90 million was owed to socialist banks – including $76 million to the Soviet-owned banks in London and Paris – and $39.4 million to Western banks and enterprises, mainly in West Germany and Italy.

⁸¹ Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizaciya, 196–9; Vachkov and Ivanov, Bălgarskiyat vănšen dălg, 104–20. See also: Report of the Ministry for Foreign Trade and the Bulgarian National Bank to the Committee for Currency Questions and Trade Balance, 4 March 1966, CDA, f. 259, op. 28, a.e. 3, l. 1–3.

⁸² Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizaciya, 180.

⁸³ Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 143. The planned growth for industry was lowered from 27.8% for 1960 to 7.8% for 1961.

⁸⁴ Brown, Bulgaria under Communist Rule, 160–72; Lampe, Bulgarian Economy, 199–204; Martin Ivanov, Reformatorstvo bez reformi. Politicheskata ikonomiya na bălgarskiya komunizăm 1963–1989 (Sofia: Inst. za Izučavane na Blizkoto Minalo, 2008). Victor Petrov is researching the temporarily successful Bulgarian attempts to build up a computer and chip industry in a doctoral project at Columbia University (‘A Cyber-Socialism at Home and Abroad: Bulgarian Modernisation, Computers, and the World 1967–1989’).

⁸⁵ Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizaciya, 200–11.