What is the historical and contemporary background of the Bulgarian rebellion reflected in the note “Bulgaria: crisis, mobilizations and government resignation”?

By Ruben Tzanoff and Oleg Vernyk

Tens of thousands of Bulgarians mobilized during December, with the youth leading the protests, and staged a popular rebellion. It is a new chapter in the future of a country that, having gone through restoration, went from being a satellite of the former USSR to being the second poorest country of the imperialist bloc of the EU.

Bulgaria in the Eastern Bloc

In 1944, at the end of World War II, the Red Army entered Bulgaria and in 1946 the constitutional monarchy of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty was abolished. Simeon II was the last monarch before the People’s Republic of Bulgaria was proclaimed under the Bulgarian Communist Party. The country became one of the most loyal and dependent allies of the former USSR within the military alliance of the Warsaw Pact and the economic alliance of COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance).

Block exit and transition

In Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov led one of the longest and most authoritarian mandates within the Stalinist bloc (1954 – 1989) until he was ousted after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a relatively peaceful political transition to capitalist restoration began.

In 1990, the country left the Warsaw Pact, distanced itself politically and economically from Russia, was renamed the Republic of Bulgaria, was admitted to NATO (2004) and to the European Union (2007) in conditions of poverty, as a peripheral nation of the main European powers, without being part of the Euro zone (it uses the Bulgarian lev) and with partial integration to the Schengen area.

In this way European imperialism and the remnants of the Stalinist bureaucracy consummated the process of capitalist restoration through which Bulgaria went from being a subjugated country and satellite of the USSR to being the second poorest country of the Bloc. In the 1990s, the economic crisis was profound, with hyperinflation, privatizations, increase in unemployment, poverty and foreign debt, with the “invaluable” intervention of the IMF and the World Bank imposing reactionary reforms and savage austerity against the workers and the people.

Capitalism has not solved the needs of the people.

With capitalist restoration, GDP per capita has risen, but Bulgaria remains the Member State with the lowest per capita income in the EU, standing about 34% below the EU average in GDP per capita (relative prices of 2024), and with levels of real consumption and welfare completely lagging behind, about 30% of the population is at risk of poverty, there is great social inequality and the young population emigrates in search of better conditions. In short, capitalist restoration has not and will not qualitatively change the standard of living of the workers and the people, on the contrary, it will keep deteriorating with the continuity of the systemic crisis that began in 2008.

In addition, social and territorial challenges persist: high poverty risk rates (around 30 % of the population according to AROPE), strong emigration of the active population, aging and marked regional disparities, all of which explain why, despite accumulated relative growth, Bulgaria remains among the most disadvantaged countries in the EU bloc.

With inequalities, they went the same way in: Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (2004), former USSR; Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia (2004), former Eastern bloc and, Romania and Bulgaria (2007). All of them feature a GDP per capita below the EU average, with Bulgaria standing out among the worst.

Closer background

Boyko Borisov was the leader of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party since its foundation in 2006/2007, he was prime minister for more than a decade in several cumulative terms between 2009 and 2021, the year when “his luck changed”.

Since July 2020, Bulgaria has been experiencing months of protests against the Borisov government. It last straw was the publishing of images taken in his official bedroom, leaked anonymously, which showed him sleeping with bundles of 500 euro bills on the bedside table, gold bars and a gun next to his bed. The scandal led to the calling of elections, which were won by the coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB), led by Kiril Petkov.

Since then, no government in the country has managed to be in power for more than one year. Since April 2021, Bulgarians have gone to the polls a total of seven times to elect their parliament (April 2021, July 2021, November 2021, October 2022, April 2023, June 2024 and October 2024). There have been eight transitional governments; three short-lived coalitions that have governed (the Petkov government 2021-2022, the Denkov-Gabriel grand coalition 2023-2024 and the Rosen Zhelyazkov coalition in 2025); and numerous motions of censure: in 2025 alone, six motions of censure have been submitted. The last to fall was the Zhelyazkov Executive, which took office in January of this year.

Explosive disgust

Decades of apathy and boredom – only 39% participate in the elections – of unlimited corruption and poverty, have led to demonstrations during December, again with the emergence of the youth, which in many uprisings has been called “gen Z”. This time, with tens of thousands of people on the streets since December 1, following the announcement of the 2026 budget, at a time when the country is preparing to adopt the euro, which will enter as its currency on January 1, 2026, and forced the resignation of the government on December 11. The draft sparked strong social protest due to cuts in social spending, the increased tax burden on the self-employed and small businesses, and the lack of measures against inflation and corruption. They were the largest mobilizations in the last decade, with more than 200,000 people across the country and 100,000 in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital.

Last thoughts

• It is confirmed for the umpteenth time that imperialist capitalism is a system of exploitation and oppression that will never solve any of the basic problems of the workers and peoples linked to democratic and social rights. The EU is not the savior of the countries of Eastern Europe but their oppressor since it incorporates some countries of the region only to extend the influence of Western imperialism in its dispute with Russian imperialism and to plunder them in conditions of semi-colonies. What is happening with Bulgaria and other countries of the East absorbed by European imperialism is a warning of the destiny they have projected for Ukraine, although for the moment, they do not even consider incorporating it fully.
• In June 2025 a massive Pride March with massive popular support defied the repression of Viktor Orbán’s far-right government. In August 2025 – since 2024 – there were violent and repeated youth protests in Serbia and there are other examples. In a context of state persecution, censorship, institutional hatred and strong polarization with the far-right, protests for social and democratic rights have been repeated in Eastern countries, both within and outside the EU. They are result of the situation of instability and crisis in Europe, inside and outside the bloc, aggravated by the war in Ukraine, the friction with the USA and the continuity of the capitalist crisis from which the central countries cannot escape and which raises the question of what will happen in the future.
• The workers and peoples continue to struggle without a revolutionary leadership at the forefront, with which even great deeds end up being channeled through the mechanisms of bourgeois democracy or in more or less categorical defeats. To break this vicious circle, it is necessary to build parties of the consistent left at the national level and regroup the revolutionaries at the international level, a central task that the International Socialist League develops daily and that received a strong impulse in its Third Congress. It is necessary that the workers govern, with workers’ democracy, without bosses or bureaucrats.