POLITICAL LID AGAIN. IN PLACE
In Bulgaria April 7-8 some fifty to a hundred arrests were reported to have been made, including General Tsvetko Anev. In addition, Ivan Todorov-Gorunya, a member of the central committee of the Communist party and assistant minister of agriculture, was said to have committed suicide. According to the rumors, other top figures had also taken their own lives. or been executed.
_ No official news about all this was issued until April 22 when a government "clarification" denied the rumors of an attempted coup d'état which were circulating abroad. The statement admitted only that certain people had "violated the law" and that. they were under prosecution,
The embarrassed clarification sought to counteract the report that there had been an attempt to change the government and that the target had been Todor Zhikov, first secretary of the Com= munist party.
The first rumors -=- some of which may have been "planted" -indicated that what was involved was a “pro-Chinese" plot. Nothing _has come to light to confirm this, and the most likely hypothesis is that the operation aimed at bringing Bulgaria into a position like that of Rumania within the COMECON ‘and system of European workers states instead of that of a mere satellite of the Soviet Union, no .matter what the changes in regime there,
Whatever the truth may be, one thing is certain: in Bulgaria, as in the other workers states where Stalinism has held sway, no political democracy exists. Those who are in disagreement with policies have no means of expression or of appealing to public opinion. The masses are not. consulted except to approve the winner in corridor moves or palace overturns. While economic progress has been registered in Bulgaria as in the other countries of the Balkan peninsula, on the political plane no great changes have occurred.