Word: zhivkov
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Eastern Europe, stolid Bulgaria has always followed in Moscow's footsteps. The economic reform drive launched by Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev seemed no exception to that rule. In a startling turn away from its hard-line policies of the past, the regime headed by Communist Party Leader Todor Zhivkov, 76, swiftly followed Gorbachev's lead. From promised press freedoms to plans for a new commercial banking ! system, Zhivkov's program seemed intended, as a Western diplomat in Sofia put it, "to out-Gorbachev Gorbachev...
...hastily implemented reforms were creating economic havoc. Some factories closed after managers panicked when called on to make decisions and failed to issue essential orders. New banks did little business, in part because few Bulgarians understood commercial finance. The media remained mostly muzzled. At last month's party conference, Zhivkov delivered an underlying message of caution and restraint even as he insisted that "revolutionary changes" would continue in Bulgaria. Stressing that Bulgaria's development henceforth would be "stage by stage," Zhivkov indicated that some major reforms would be delayed until...
...abrupt slowdown seemed to reflect Soviet misgivings about Sofia's hurried embrace of change. Last October, Zhivkov was summoned to Moscow for a meeting with Gorbachev. Afterward, Gorbachev released a communique stating, "It is impossible to do everything in one go," and advising that "the party is the only guarantee of the restructuring." Western analysts read the message as a rebuke to Zhivkov for a reform drive that was long on rhetoric and short on action, and concluded that Gorbachev was issuing a warning to the East bloc as a whole: Do not allow reform to affect the dominant role...
...prosperous," says one Western analyst in Munich. "That's a position the Soviet Union can only envy." By contrast, Gorbachev has already chastised Bulgaria and its troubled economy. After visiting Sofia in late 1985, the Soviet leader said there were "sharp edges" to his meeting with Bulgarian Leader Todor Zhivkov. Zhivkov has since pressed, with minimal success, for economic reforms like the decentralization of economic power to factory managers...
...spot future leaders. Most of the aging party chiefs will almost certainly be replaced by technocrats in the Gorbachev mold. In Bulgaria, for example, Mining Engineer Chudomir Alexandrov, 49, has just been promoted to the powerful post of central committee secretary, and looms as a potential successor to Zhivkov. In Czechoslovakia a quiet changing of the guard is under way. Says a highly placed official in his 40s: "The older ones are going, and we're taking over." In Hungary the fading power and health of Janos Kadar, 73, are sparking a succession debate at the top level of leadership...