-Stanko Todorov and Mitko Grigorov--to full
membership in the Politburo gave him added support. Khrushchev's visit
as the head of a large Soviet government delegation did not hurt Zhivkov
but rather gave convincing proof of Khrushchev's support of the
Bulgarian first secretary. Anton Yugov was premier at this time, but it
was not long before he too was purged, the final blow coming only hours
before the start of the Eighth Party Congress.

The Eighth Party Congress in 1962 marked the end of the open opposition
to Zhivkov's leadership. With Chervenkov and Yugov out, Zhivkov was in
full control. A month earlier, in October 1962, a special plenum of the
Central Committee announced Zhivkov's assumption of government power as
premier while retaining the first secretaryship of the party. In the
economic sector, the Twenty-Year Plan of Economic Development--patterned
on that of the Soviet Union--had been passed. It featured more realistic
goals in contradistinction to its predecessor. As usual, heavy
industrial priorities ranked high in the development plan.

In November 1966 the Ninth Party Congress was held in Sofia. During the
deliberations changes were made within the Politburo whereby Zhivkov's
former protege, Grigorov, was dropped from membership without an
explanation and Todor Pavlov, a theoretician of Marxism, and Tsola
Dragoycheva, head of the National Council of the Fatherland Front, were
added as full members. Boyan Bulgaranov and Ivan Mihailov, both older
party members, were retained--a move that indicated the influence of
older functionaries over young potential leaders. Economically, the
congress supported principles of new management, tying political
progress with economic advancement.

Collectively the aforementioned congresses accomplished little. On the
contrary the 1971 congress introduced considerable changes in the
sociopolitical and socioeconomic patterns of growth--among them the
drafting and adoption of a new constitution (see ch. 8).

Tenth Party Congress

Whatever political changes are visible in Bulgaria are the result of the
Tenth Party Congress held in Sofia from April 20 to April 24, 1971. It
was attended by 1,553 delegates representing roughly 700,000 party
members, a ratio of about one delegate for every 450 members.
Additionally, foreign representatives from eighty-nine countries were on
hand. Leading the Soviet delegation were Brezhnev, general secretary of
the Soviet party, and four o