ed States had ratified the
Bulgarian Peace Treaty--a moment for which the Communists waited
anxiously in order to rid themselves of all Western control over
Bulgarian affairs of state--Petkov was summarily arrested and executed.
His party, the Peasant Union, had been dissolved one month before his
death.

On December 4, 1947, a new constitution was adopted. It was called,
after the premier, the Dimitrov Constitution and was modeled on the
Soviet Constitution of 1936 (see ch. 8). One historian claims that, at
its first drafting, it closely resembled the Turnovo Constitution of the
late 1800s but was later amended to parallel more closely the
constitution of the Soviet Union. The Dimitrov Constitution created the
National Assembly as a legislative body. In fact, however, laws were
proposed by the Council of Ministers and passed pro forma by the
National Assembly. The constitution was approved by the National
Assembly in 1947. It defined collective ownership of production, stated
that the regime held the power to nationalize any and all enterprises,
and declared that private property was subject to restrictions and
expropriation by the state.

By 1948 the small forces that continued to oppose the Communists were
finally eliminated. Many opposition Socialists and their leader,
Lulchev, were arrested, and the Socialist Party was abolished. The only
remaining Socialist party--the Fatherland Front Socialists--was forced
to merge with the Communists in August 1948. Thus, absolute communist
control was achieved within four years of the seizure of power.

Bulgaria underwent a series of rapid changes in the early years as a
communist state. Agricultural collectivization--initiated in 1946--was
begun in the form of cooperative farming. By the end of 1947
nationalization of banks, industry, and mines was well under way.
Nationalization was not a new phenomenon for the country, as railroads,
ports, and mines had been under state control since 1878, but it was
greatly extended by the Communists (see ch. 13; ch. 14).

Religion was viewed by the Communists as a means for manipulating and
indoctrinating the people, much as it had been during the periods of
Byzantine and Turkish rule. Since its founding in the ninth century, the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church had claimed most of the population as members.
The Communists perceived a dual purpose in their cooptation of this
institution. On the one hand, by patronizing the Bulgarian church, t