economic reform at the time--late 1965--was
motivated not only by Zhivkov's need to shore up his own political
position after the attempted coup but probably more so by the examples
of new economic programs that were sweeping the Eastern European
communist countries and the Soviet Union. More important than the
liberal reforms for decentralized management of the economy was the
decision to allow planning from the bottom to the top. From the time of
the enactment in 1965 up to about 1968 there were definite signs of
change. The July plenum of the BKP Central Committee in 1968, however,
formalized a number of changes that called for considerable reduction in
the autonomy of the existing public and state organizations, thus
setting aside the entire economic reform program. After the July plenum
and another in November 1968, a reorganization of state enterprises took
place in line with the new centralization policy.

During the remainder of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Zhivkov's
position remained stable, and there were no overt threats to his regime
such as the 1965 plot to overthrow him. In 1969 and again in 1970
agreements were signed in Moscow that tied the Bulgarian economy even
closer to that of the Soviet Union. Bulgaria's position, or more
precisely the BKP's position, on relations with the Soviet Union was
summed up in a statement made by Zhivkov just before the Tenth Party
Congress in 1971: "The fraternal friendship and cooperation of the
Bulgarian Communist Party with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
and the ever broader and deeper alignment of Bulgaria with the Soviet
Union will remain the immovable cornerstone of the entire work and the
domestic and foreign policy of our party."

At the Tenth Party Congress, which was attended by General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, there were no startling changes
either in party policy or in high-ranking personnel assignments. The
same Politburo, with an average age of sixty-three, was returned to
office, and the party program promised no alteration in the heavily
centralized, pro-Soviet policies that had marked most of Zhivkov's
tenure. A new constitution was proposed by the party and later adopted
by the government and, although some institutional changes were
made--for example, creation of the State Council as a collective
executive branch of government--the absolute supremacy of the BKP over
every aspect of Bulgarian life was in no way dimi