Bulgarian Interior Ministry Note on Actions against Western Radio

[Excerpt]

Top Secret!

Note

Reference: Certain trends in the fight of the sixth directorate of state security against the enemy’s ideological sabotage.

The development of the political and operational situation in the world confirmed the findings and conclusions of the congresses of the CPSU, the BCP, and the other fraternal Parties, at the conference of our security agencies in May 1977 in Budapest.

This development sustains its dynamic, multi-plan and complicated character. in spite of the predominant tendency toward political and military relaxation, resulting from the growing strength of the socialist community headed by the USSR, the reactionary powers of the West, united with Maoism, are putting forth efforts to torpedo this process in order to continue the arms race and return to the cold war. The global character of the enemy’s ideological sabotage against our countries is increasing.

In the battle against real socialism, the enemy continues to focus a lot of attention on the PRB, recognizing its strategic location in the Balkans as a southern flank of the Warsaw Pact, and the opportunities to use it as a stepping-stone to penetrate USSR territory. During the last two – three years, ideological sabotage against the different social and ethnic groups in the country increased sharply, and took on an even more open anti-Soviet and anti-Bulgarian character. The attempts at reconnaissance and ideological penetration of our country are even more active, aiming to destabilize the foundations of socialist society and create an atmosphere in which internal opposition would appear, both on a legal and illegal basis. In order to achieve these goals, they actively use existing ideological and propaganda sabotage centers, hostile emigrant nationalist, religious and other organizations, and international academic, cultural, youth, and sports exchanges.

The main sabotage propaganda centers, Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, BBC and Voice of America, whose staff embody the most active and vicious traitors, by technical and organizational reshuffling and involving newly enlisted traitors to our country, produce a focused program to strengthen their ideological and psychological pressure against the PRB. From a concentrated anti-Soviet and anti-Communist standpoint, they significantly increased their speculations on the so-called problem of “protection of human rights.” Open attacks and slander against socialist reality and the leading role of the BCP have increased. They put forward, as an example to be followed, dissident activities in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Polish People’s Republic, and the East German Democratic Republic, and praise the Eurocommunist deviation of some Western European Communist Parties, the “independent” line of the league of Yugoslav Communists and the Romanian Communist Party, and the aggressive anti-Soviet course of Maoist China. They are doing their best to create political skepticism, social inertia and dissatisfaction amongst the different strata of the population, with the goal of provoking certain hostile actions and an organized opposition against the Party and the Power of the People. These aspirations force constant spreading of calumnious fabrications about the presence of a dissident movement, about the “political killing” of Georgi Markov, and intentional terror against hostile Bulgarian emigrants, spread by some of the Western nations’ mass information resources.

Radio Free Europe remains the most dangerous subversive center, employing all the leaders of the hostile emigration. The active group of traitor-intellectuals—P. Semerdzhiev, V. Kostov, A. Slavov, Dimiter Inkyov, and, until recently, G. Markov—was formed there.