ther high-ranking officials.

As is customary, Zhivkov opened the congress with his usual
state-of-the-nation address, extolling Bulgarian-Soviet ties and
stressing friendship between the two countries. Included in the agenda
were the adoption of a new five-year economic plan; discussion and
adoption of the new party program; discussion and approval of the new
constitution; the election of party members to the Central Committee,
Politburo, and Secretariat; and a change in party statutes calling for a
congress every five years instead of four.

The central theme of the party congress revolved around the concern or
"care for man." To this end resolutions were passed during the
deliberations purportedly giving "everything for the sake of man;
everything for the good of man." A separate report on the subject also
emphasized the need for improving the economic plight of the people. By
the time the resolutions and directives were being implemented, however,
noticeable variations in interpretation and emphasis had taken place.
For example, the draft directives for the Sixth Five-Year Plan showed
projection of industrial production that went up by 60 percent, whereas
production of consumer goods was projected to increase by only 50
percent.

Special attention was given to the areas of education and culture by the
Tenth Party Congress. Zhivkov underscored the need to close the
educational gap between workers and peasants, who often had no more than
an elementary education, and the intelligentsia and white-collar
professionals, who had attained the secondary level and more often had
gone on to higher education.

Far more significant changes in party statutes took place in the area of
governmental operations. With the adoption of a new constitution,
modified structural arrangements were worked out, the most important of
which was the creation of the powerful State Council of the National
Assembly; the council's functions are not entirely dissimilar to, but
greater than, the presidium that it replaced (see ch. 8).

The composition of the new Politburo and Secretariat remained
essentially the same. The congress seemed anxious to demonstrate unity
by stressing continuity of tenure for its senior members. All of the
eleven Politburo full members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1971;
four were over age seventy, and the youngest was fifty years old. All
Politburo members except one had been with the party since before
September