This book makes a significant contribution to the general literature on the transition from communism and on the developments in Bulgaria during the fall of the Socialist government and the decisive victory of the Union of Democratic Forces in the April 1997 elections. .

Since the forced resignation of Todor Zhivkov in November of 1989, Bulgaria's transition to democracy has been marked by good beginnings ending in frustration or disappointment. It has avoided the violent ethnic confrontations that have characterized much of the "post-Communist" Balkans, but has also seen the development of an influential criminal

Agrarianism has received relatively little attention from scholars interested in the modern history of Eastern Europe. Contending that an understanding of the agrarian constribution is necessary for an appraisal of the full dynamic of Eastern European politics, John D. Bell explors the history of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, the strongest of the East European organizations. Tracing the union's career from its founding to its overthrow in 1923, the author discusses the reasons for its appearnce, its ideology and program, and its accomplishments and failure in both domestic and foreign policy. He concentrates in particular on the career of Alexander Stamboliski, who guided and inspired the BANU during its rise to power. This book is thus a comprehensive, objective biography of both a movement and a man. John D. Bell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Agrarianism has received relatively little attention from scholars interested in the modern history of Eastern Europe. Contending that an understanding of the agrarian constribution is necessary for an appraisal of the full dynamic of Eastern European politics, John D. Bell explors the history of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, the strongest of the East European organizations. Tracing the union's career from its founding to its overthrow in 1923, the author discusses the reasons for its appearnce, its ideology and program, and its accomplishments and failure in both domestic and foreign policy. He concentrates in particular on the career of Alexander Stamboliski, who guided and inspired the BANU during its rise to power. This book is thus a comprehensive, objective biography of both a movement and a man. John D. Bell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Since the days of Dimitur Blagoev, a member of the first Marxist group in Russia and a founder of Bulgarian communism, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) was closely identified with its Russian counterpart. In the waning days of the Soviet Bloc, the best-known fact about Bulgaria was that it modeled itself closely on the USSR and was allegedly linked to KGB terrorist activities. Those similarities were more than superficial. Nonetheless, their extent and effect were inevitably colored by Bulgaria's size, its role in the complicated politics of Eastern Europe, and, of course, the fact that the BCP did not come to power in Bulgaria until after World War II and occupation by the Red Army.Under Todor Zhivkov, the head of the BCP from 1954 until its near demise in 1989, Bulgaria continued its close collaboration with the USSR while reviving elements of Bulgarian national culture. Zhivkov proved an enduring leader whose anticorruption campaigns and attempts to professionalize the Bulgarian bureaucracy were relatively successful. But even at the time this history of the BCP was written, in 1986, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the path of Bulgaria's future was uncertain.