[pullquote]How we created C I T U B
A historical and sociological study
Prof. Krastyo Petkov
Founder and first president (1990-1997)[/pullquote]

First of all I want to clarify the idea and genre of my story.

I decided to describe the events, performers and partners (friends and opponents) in the first year of the Confederation’s life as its initiator and leader, and also as a sociologist. The first role privileged me to be the best informed person in the Confederation, the second one preserved for me the advantage of a distanced analyst of public situations and group interactions as demands the occupation of any social scientist.

That’s in theory! However, in a complex historical setting, full of dramatic clashes, violent changes and emotional outbursts, it is not always possible to keep a strict role balance. The task of a sociologist and chronicler is further compounded by the fact that today, twenty years later, almost all participants in the events are active individuals who continue their professional and trade union career and are involved in ambitious life related projects.

I realise that any attempt to put both views, of a leader and researcher, together can push me into personal bias, and damage thus the objective professional analysis. I hope that this danger will be minimised: most members of my first team were colleagues from institutes and universities who can still adjust misjudgements; the documentary archives of the Confederation are available, and any factual discrepancy can be eliminated.

1. THE BEGINNING: TWO COUP D’ETATS
Few people know that CITUB is one of two national organisations in Eastern Europe set up after 1989 by a nonstandard model: through successful radical reformation of the old unions. The other example refers to the unions in the Czech Republic, which turned their backs on the past, intelligently and without anguish, as befits the country of the so called velvet revolution. The Hungarian MSzOSz experiment was not very successful, while the Slovenian trade unions with their intelligent modernisation are a special case.

It was easier for the Czech trade union colleagues because of their preserved democratic traditions and vivid memories of the Prague Spring. At that, Czechs have always been, as a rule, a more pragmatic nation than us, Bulgarians, and have at the right time sensed when ideological beliefs should not stand in the way of realistic economic interests and benefits. .

Bulgarians find it difficult to shake off century layered prejudices and stereotypes, including considerably lowered national self-esteem or outbursts of national nihilism, which formed the habit of living uneventfully under the wing of a great power. This historical and psychological feature often puts us in humiliating, paradoxical and even absurd situations.

The historical paradox of trade unions is one example. Bulgaria is among the first countries in Europe and the world, which initiated an organised trade union and cooperative movement strongly influenced by social and democratic values, at that almost immediately after the liberation from Ottoman rule. It was as early as in 1890ies that teachers and post office clerks, printers and craftsmen associated to protect their professional interests. At that time, Russia, as a State, had no trade unions and other spontaneously formed social rights organisations independent of the government. Neither the level and structure of the economy, nor the political organisation of the empire allowed any development of a wide-spread social based labour movement.

Half a century later, trade union traditions in Bulgaria were interrupted. At the end of the 1940ies, the Soviet model of trade unions, structured in such a way as to serve as a “transmission belt” between the Communist Party and the working class, was imposed. That was the political model, which I found in the early 1980ies when I headed the Trade Union Institute at the Bulgarian Trade Unions Central Committee (a period described in more detail in a separate manuscript dedicated to the events in our country over the last decade before the fall of the Berlin wall).

1.1. Changing the top
To transform a structure, which was converted into a mechanical appendage of the totalitarian party, with 45 years of experience in exercising despotic power, as was the Communist Party before 1989, is a task of extreme difficulty. Any frontal impacts and direct interventions are doomed to failure.
The birth of the CITUB phenomenon and the success of the reformation model were possible through a series of gradual actions which blocked the course of the “transmission belt”, eliminated the internal resistance, changed the field of activity and the working methods of the old trade unions:

– Changing the senior management of the Bulgarian Trade Unions;
– Establishing a confederation;
– Developing the reformation model;

The initiators. In December 1989 I was invited to a meeting by a group of high-placed persons in the Bulgarian Trade Unions system: Kosta Andreev and Andon Traykov, secretaries of the Bulgarian Trade Unions Central Committee, Lazar Rosnev and Dimitar Kamenov, aides to then-chairman of the Bulgarian Trade Unions Peter Dyulgerov; senior research associate Maria Sotirova, director of the Trade Union Institute. Neither more, nore less, I was offered to replace the candidate member of Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party Peter Dyulgerov in the position of president of the Bulgarian Trade Unions, with his consent and at an extraordinary plenary session of the Central Committee.

At that time, I acted as director of the Institute of Sociology with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and professor at the Department of Sociology of the Sofia University Kliment Ohridski. I thought my research and leadership career with the Bulgarian trade unions was over. After almost six years as director of the Trade Union Institute and member of the Bureau of the Bulgarian Trade Unions Central Committee, in 1987 I was forced to vacate both chairs.

I took the decision in the view that I had become inconvenient to the system: on the one side due to my publications and public speeches on the necessity to reject Lenin’s model of trade unions imposed in Bulgaria (providing arguments in support of the necessity to replace the transmission belt concept with authentic protection of workers’ social rights); and on the other side, it was my professional commitments and expert partiality to the drafting of the new Labour Code (1982-86) that weighed; This law contained regulations for partial reformation of the employment relationships at a company level, by election of directors and team leaders, expanded rights of the workers’ groups’ general assemblies, etc.. My activity was in opposition with the developing concept of forcing economic changes without political restructuring, which led to the adoption of the notorious Decree 56.

It was exactly that party-governmental decree that opened the door for private corporate interests to enter into state economic organisations. Behind their own party, another new circle around Todor Zhivkov had undertaken preparations for transition to capitalism veiled as “embedding capitalist (market) forms into the socialist economic system. Put in a plain language, they selected the new economic nomenclature to be ready to take control of the power and resources after a potential change of the political system. None of the insider strategists at Zhivkov’s court at that time would think of trade unions; the latter were still viewed as a simple screw in the totalitarian power mechanism.

From today’s perspective, those collective actions and concept clashes would rather resemble a storm in a tea cup. It is not possible to eliminate or repair fundamentally a whole ideology and party based industrial system, starting from the transmission belt, if the control unit and the engine remain the same. Speaking in economic and sociological terms: there are no prospects for the industrial democracy if the system of state property is not changed and the supervisory role of the Communist Party in the economy and business is not eliminated.

My views and the views of some of my colleagues, although cautiously worded, in Aesopean language. provoked a sharp reaction among the old and conservative trade unions and party members. I left the Bulgarian Trade Unions and the Institute of my own free will not to cause unnecessary tension. I did not receive any noticeable support either, with the exception of that from the limited group of internal reformers mentioned above.

The immediate reason for my withdrawal, however, was the confiscation of union property on the initiative of the Zhivkov circle, the first in my experience. Few would remember today this shameful episode of the seizure of the Trade Union Institute’s building by a decision of the leadership of the Communist Party and its transformation into a social institution, which was performed in a purely populist style. Naturally, like any propaganda action, that one also ended with a fiasco. Still, the then golden property in the Gorna Banya road, built with money of the workers and the trade union, stands decrepit and abandoned, and is the subject of disputes now and then as ownership of various institutions.

In the mean time, Podkrepa had appeared. I remember the stress this fact caused at the top of the trade union and power pyramid. Is that the Bulgarian Solidarity? Why are they both a trade union, and a human rights organisation at the same time? Will workers follow them as they did in Poland?
These and other issues concealed the nomenclature’s fear of the changes taking place in Bulgaria.

A country without a perestroika and with a monocratic regime of rule imitating political and economic reforms; a country with such political leadership and which over a period of four decades was treated as a loyal satellite, and then appeared out of that context; a party, which usurped the right to speak on behalf of the people and the working class, without passing the mandate validation test; trade unions which abandoned their glorious past, and bent down to act as servants of power – the whole archaic structure was threatened by chain emergence of small informal and dissident communities from among the intelligentsia, yet with a serious political eroding potential.

The fear of the approaching loss of power and displacement of the persons in power was in the air!
Perhaps the invitation to me for a return was not prompted solely by intentions for reformation, but also by striving for survival, because the Polish model meant replacing the old trade unions with new structures, and old party appointed leaders with others from the base. The Solidarity Movement did not preach coexistence of old and new structures and competition in the field of labour relations, but cleansed the ground of the old trade unions’ disintegrating remains straight away. A time was coming for revolutionary destruction, whose ideologists are always ruthless with the past, especially if it made them be spiritual emigrants in their own country.

I refer to these events because they explain the unusual situation I came upon: I was neither a dissident, nor a revolutionary, I was rather a radical reformer; the cause I was dedicated to in 1980s, to change the system of industrial relations from the inside, had collapsed; I had good knowledge and direct practical observations of organisational structures and methods of Western trade unions; I explored the history of the Bulgarian trade union movement during the periods of capitalism and State socialism; I had extensive contacts with experts in industrial relationships in Europe and the International Labour Organisation; I knew personally leaders of trade unions in England.

In brief, theoretically I felt prepared for the reformist activity. But having knowledge is one thing, implementing it in practice is another, and making a change irreversible is completely different. What I was not sure of was exactly the ultimate success of an undertaking, which in retrospect looks like a real professional adventure …

I did not reply immediately to the proposal. The group of internal conspirators entrusted Dimitar Kamenov with the task to advise Peter Dyulgerov of the news. I requested three days for consultations and reflection. My decision was influenced most of all by my unforgettable friend, Professor John Turkle of the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, who was resident in Bulgaria at the time; Duhomir Minev, a famous sociologist today, and of course, my relatives. I remember John’s reaction: “The change that begins with you happens once every 100 years. You must take part! Later you will write about it! ”
I accepted – under conditions, as befits a hesitating intellectual and a sociologist who had been through much experience and suffering!

In fact, I set several conditions: to have my candidature discussed and voted at a plenary session of unconventional composition, supported by 400 directly elected representatives from the companies; to prepare an extraordinary congress of the Bulgarian Trade Unions in 45 days and to propose a new platform of action; and if elected, to take one mandate and have the right to come up with a team.

The interim leadership. The plenary session was held and after a stormy debate Peter Dyulgerov, who behaved courageously and resigned by declaring his personal support of my application, was released. Only then did the forum adopt and elect me, having heard the presentation of the concept of internal transformation which I suggested. We also changed the name of the trade unions by adding “independent”. It was yet to become clear whether the semantic change was formal or an expression of serious reformist intentions. In the place of the Secretariat we elected an Interim Executive Committee (IEC), which involved people from the base organisations. The IEC was to function until the extraordinary congress, which was scheduled for 17-18 February 1990.

I drew in a few new advisors from key areas of the trade union activity: Mincho Koralski and Nikolai Nikolov (social security); Yuri Aslanov (conflicts and negotiations), Krasimir Georgiev (organisations and regional structures). Later, Grigor Gradev and Boiko Atanasov from the Trade Union Institute joined the group as experts in international trade union movement and European industrial relationships.

1.2. First trade union battles
I never imagined that starting from the next day literally I would have to come into direct clashes with Podkrepa with its growing popularity and influence – both in the media and on the ground of industrial conflicts. The latter were abounding; Bulgaria was shaking with strikes and protests for all kinds of reasons – from the reinstated names of Bulgarian Turks, through demands for retirement category adjustments, to top management changes. The congress arrangements took place in between, in the brief pauses before yet another trip to the factories or organisations (mainly in the country), where strikes flared out one after another.

That was a period of continuous battles for supremacy between the new trade union Podkrepa, which had gained the name of a fearless fighter against communism, and the old trade union, proclaimed by the supporters of Podkrepa as crypto-communist. If we had yielded to the temptation to wage ideological battles, we would have lost; public opinion, the young generations, and the foreign advisors of the Bulgarian opposition to the old government had issued, shortly after 10 November, their verdict for the destruction of the totalitarian structures, whether through self-decomposition or by force.
Our partially renovated team had only one obvious advantage: its knowledge. No ideological clashes have ever added anything material on the table of people – any pragmatic Bulgarian would be aware of that through experience. The first public discussions between both teams – that of Dr. Trenchev and mine, at Sofia University Kliment Ohridski and the Bulgarian National Television on the eve of New Year’s Day, were based on professionalism.

Viewed with great interest, the TV debate was to show which of both organisations – the new or the old one – had better prospects. The hidden hopes of the initiators of such debates were, naturally, to push us against the wall and nip in the bud any competition to the mystery and legend wrapped Podkrepa. If we had lost the duels, the consequences would have been: mass outflow from the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions and a strengthened position for Podkrepa in the enterprises and industries.

I think the television contest about who was more knowledgeable and who was better skilled to protect the rights of wage labour in the conditions of transition to democracy and market economy was won by us. Surprisingly to the opponents, we were the ones to understand better not only the history but also the geography and mechanics of trade unionism; they were particularly stricken with respect with the fact that we easily handled concepts and tools of Western trade unions, such as collective negotiations, minimum wage, negotiation and strike procedures, etc.

The apparent superiority in the dispute did not mean that we barred the growing influence of Podkrepa in society. Its leaders then were in two minds between the revolutionary role of brave democrats, who had set up the second illegal trade union in Eastern Europe after Solidarity, and the expert preparedness how to defend in particular situations the workers’ interests gripped by massive social discontent.
In respect of any specific question by TV journalists associated with the practice of industrial relations, the team of Dr. Trenchev tried to place the debate on an ideological basis and suggested guilt for the totalitarian past – mine and that of the opposite seated nomenclature representatives, Dimiter Kamenov and Asen Rizov, who, according to the rules of TV disputes, acted as supporting experts, and who suffered most. This collision gave us important lessons: to avoid being involved into participation in staged engagements on a foreign ground and in a sport we were not trained in, i.e. competing in anti-communist speech making.

Therefore, were relied everywhere on the principles of professionalism, competent response to the challenges in the field of employment relationships, industries and enterprises where a real industrial war was being waged. Later, we estimated that in 1990 there were over 1,500 strikes, most of them uncontrolled, and over 500 of them organised in winter months. Hence, there were more than enough occasions to demonstrate a potential for mobilisation of striking workers, and to win support among members.

Two different turbulent events turned into a real test for our capability to show determination and take leadership over the angry masses when emotions outweighed reason, and the degree of discontent quickly reached the boiling point.

The civil blockade in Kurdzhali
The blockade began on New Year’s Day 1990 provoked by the reinstated names of the Muslim population. This act was proclaimed at a special plenary session of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and constituted a sharp reversal in the ethnic policy of the same party, which in the middle of the previous decade had mobilised the whole country and its repressive apparatus to carry out the so called revival process, forcing Bulgarians of Turkish origin to adopt ethnically Bulgarian names.

Today, the facts are known, the victims and organisers of the acts of violence, too! But then – days after the decision of the senior management of the Bulgarian Communist Party, there was no public information released about the reasons for it and the consequences from it. The decision was taken following the usual scheme of the totalitarian past, when the Party, that is the ruling top, did not need to consult the local organisations and or precondition the public opinion. The result was spontaneous civil protests, which divided the local communities in Kurdzhali, Razgrad and elsewhere and opposed Bulgarians to Turks.

I had an urgent call from the regional leadership of the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions in Kurdzhali with an insistent request to arrive in the town, which was stirred by organised civil disobedience: with a strike committee, strike pickets, a statement of protesters’ demands and other standard procedures. Only that the protest motivation lacked trade union content, putting aside the blockade organisers’ threat to close the factories in the town and to stop the factory furnaces. I told my colleagues that it was a civil and political protest, with no trade union relevance, but their argument was: if you do not come, we will lose our influence over the workers.

I went to Kurdzhali. The region was in a state of siege. By the road, there were groups of hostile Turks gathered around chain lined bonfires; on approaching the town we could see Bulgarians on patrol. My friends from the trade union, Georgi and Ivan, welcomed me with a warning: Be careful even in what you say; these people here are furious and do not trust anyone from the state leadership. You might be given a better welcome if you take account of the situation.

I agreed to speak at a meeting organised in the stadium, with almost 50 thousand people in it. It was the first time that I faced such a huge audience to deliver a speech on a social subject. Address them with “Brothers”- Georgi and Ivan whispered to me. “This will make your way to them!”

So I did. What to say and what commitment to make, however, was more important. Still, I was just elected a national trade union leader, not a state leader. I said that I was ready to convey their demands directly to Sofia and insist that the Chairman of the National Assembly Stanko Todorov should personally come to Kurdzhali, to hear their arguments. This was accepted with approval.

Meanwhile, Andrei Lukanov, the most powerful person within the Bulgarian Communist Party at that time, arrived in the town. He met with the so called party activists in one of the halls where he was not spared a lot of sharp words by his local comrades, incl. accusations of national betrayal. I met also with participants in the counter-protest of the Bulgarian Turks, which was organised in one of the town squares. We talked for a while; and I could feel how upset they were with any potential occurrence of direct violent collisions.

Then they took me in a rather conspiratorial manner to a meeting with the strike committee. There were security guards everywhere, young and strong boys, with armbands. The committee consisted of a dozen of people who formed the core of the newly set up an organisation, the Joint Committee for the Protection of National Interests. The discussion ran in a slightly nervous atmosphere, they told me in a threatening tone that they would stand up against Sofia, by cutting off, as a start, all communications and power supply. I asked them at least not to cause any damage to the industrial enterprises, but my words did not have much effect on them. Then they suddenly said to me: “We need a national leader. We will take over the power and the whole mob with Politburo at the head will be swept away. We want you to become Prime Minister!”

This is how I fell in the first serious trap in my life. Until then I was perceived as a non-standard workers’ leader – a newcomer from the intelligentsia; and now some rebellious citizens pushed me into anarchistic action. I replied that the country had its rules and asked them to let me go. They attached security guards to me, explaining that it was dangerous to travel in the region, to escort me to Haskovo. I still do not know whether I passed my first test as a participant in regional ethnic riots. Yet, I am sure that if I had succumbed to the temptation to act both as a political and trade union leader, I would have failed in both roles.

Later, it was Dr. Zhelyazko Hristov who also found himself in such a situation of civil blockade in Kurdzhali …

The drivers’ strike in the capital city
The story goes about the spontaneous January protest of transport workers in Sofia, who set an ultimatum to the government to be granted with a first retirement category due to severe working conditions. The protest was organised and manipulated by Podkrepa, which followed the maxim: The more strikes, the better. This way, the new union gained popularity and influence over the workers, while its political weight was also growing among the opposition. In fact, the Union of Democratic Forces, established on 7 December 1989, did not have a hit squad other than that of Dr. Trenchev’s union and part of the student federations.

The location and time of the drivers’ protest were not selected at random. The Bulgarian Communist Party was frantically seeking ways to keep power and was willing to grant concessions; Sofia’s transport is the most important artery in the state: if it is blocked, it affects everything. For the media, too (mostly supporters of Podkrepa) it was convenient to create, through live broadcasts, the impression of people’s heated battles against remnants of the totalitarian government.

Yuri Aslanov, a few experts from the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions and I went to the site of the event – Zemlyane Garage. Drivers from Sofia were crowding in, a total of over 500 people. The strike committee, dominated by supporters of Podkrepa and headed by Vihar Krastev, welcomed me with hostility. I asked to speak. “All right, as long as you climb up on the car platform – if you can and if you don’t dirty your trousers” said they ironically. Shouts and threats were hailing down against the government, the party nomenclature and the city administration.

By the evening, the national TV circulated pictures of the first workers’ meeting of the transition period in Bulgaria and my speech that brought national fame to me, and also a lot of criticism. First, I expressed support for the action and the demands for reformation of the pension system based on the so-called labour categories. I suggested that they should appoint a delegation to negotiate jointly with us with the government. I tried to explain to them, however, that any early retirement, at such low salary rates, and their inevitable devaluation in the near future, would not be good tactics. We’d better first win higher wages for the hard labour in the passenger transportation industry, and later have the privileges they wanted under the new conditions.

And then unimaginable noise set in. The rear rows called out for my stepping down off the platform, the front rows shouted “We do not agree! We want category one. Now”. I sat down and waited for the tension to subside, starting a conversation with a few workers clustered around the improvised stand. To my question what they would do if pensions were devalued several times, they responded that it was not important. They would go back to their villages and make their living there.

I realised it was hopeless to dissuade them, and there was danger of their turning their backs on our union. I said to the strike committee: “All right, let’s vote to see how many will support the demand and then we’ll go to a meeting at the Council of Ministers.” Thousands of hands rose up. The delegation was appointed, I spoke on the phone to the then Prime Minister Georgi Atanasov and we agreed on a meeting. The strikers’ mood changed visibly, they bantered, and approvingly gave me pats on the back; then we fell into discussing other things of life.

Following the meeting at the Council of Ministers, the government came up with a decree to transfer the metropolitan public transport drivers from the second into the first category of retirement. We won a victory, but it was rather a Pyrrhic victory. I was attacked months on end across the country that we had passed an unjust decision, as drivers’ work was equally severe everywhere. The truth showed up a few years later: whether in the village or the town, life was difficult on low pensions. Unemployment and poverty were creeping in all sectors and regions.

I had described that case when Ivan Neikov reminded me of the epilogue of the drivers’ rebellion. As the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, ten years later he accepted a delegation of protesting drivers from Sofia – this time … against their retirement. “How can we live on such low pensions?” they asked him. I wonder whether there were any of the instigators of the action in the Zemlyane Garage, when the emotional storm swept away the reasonable arguments …

The important thing in both cases described above was not so much the chronology of the events, but rather the situations I was involved in. The conflict in Kurdzhali had nationwide political significance; in Sofia workers pursued economic interests. The ethnic based clash would have been disastrous if it had crossed the limit of local disobedience to the central power and had grown into violence. The Sofia strike gave new confidence to workers and trade unions – confidence as an organised social force capable of raising economic demands and passing them through government decisions.

In both cases, however, I did not feel comfortable as a professional sociologist. I met the commitment I made in front of the thousands of people at the meeting in Kurdzhali: to inform the senior government leaders and convince them to undertake a dialogue on the spot with the citizens, who felt cheated and abandoned by the central government; yet, inside myself I knew that I was present at the kindling of a fire of tension that would not be quenched for many years. I won the support of the drivers from Sofia because of the achieved decategorisation, but I knew I was leading the workers along the slippery and precarious was of mass demands for immediate benefits in a situation of economic crisis, shortage of money in the state and permanent political instability.

If I had stood, however, aloof and alienated, as an experienced superior, or heaven forbid, as an arrogant critic of the angry citizens and workers, I would have lost, on the dot, their confidence. They wanted me on their side; they needed leaders against the other power holders who had isolated themselves from their social roots during the decades of one-party totalitarian rule.

That offensive was also charged with purely emotional intensity unseen before 1989, i.e. to make full use of the liberty to protest, to speak in a language other than that of the ruling class, to impose decisions from the bottom to the top, to stand up for your personal or group rights without anybody nagging at you that you do not care about the public interest. At that, it was of particular importance to prove ourselves as no worse than Podkrepa in our willingness to step into clashes without fear and build up a new and popular image of trade union leaders.

That model of public behaviour in Bulgaria was had been forgotten for generations. Models of democratic, militant and successful trade unionism were created in Poland by Solidarity. We had to draw experience from there and from the western trade union movement. But that required time and a new identity which the unreformed crypto-communist Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions did not have. Complete renovation was necessary – in terms of organisation, ideas, personnel; I felt an acute need of developing long-term guidelines and phase structured programmes of trade union action, particularly in the economic and social spheres.

At the time, there was no suitable atmosphere in Bulgaria to discuss long-term strategies. Nor were there counterparts structured to hold the traditional dialogue for each authentic trade union: i.e. the employers and the government. The first were not organised at a sectoral and national level and were afraid for their own positions; the government that had come into power after a palace coup against Todor Zhivkov, floated down the stream of events. The only figure, which took responsibility and put things in some order within the chaos, was Andrei Lukanov.

2. With Solidarity – Live!
It was a favourite way of behaviour for Podkrepa to point out its kinship with the Polish Solidarity. It was something that made an impression in our country due to the immense popularity at the time of such a unique workers’ movement initiated by intellectuals, and led in a war by the legendary Lech Walesa. Poland was also the country that generated models of changing the government, economy and public relations – it organised roundtable discussions, it was the first one to initiate economic reforms, to demonstrate how power passed into the hands of a movement challenging official power, etc.

We had to prove that our reformist intentions were serious. We wanted to draw experience from the source. That is why, without much ado, we prepared a delegation form the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions that set off for Warsaw. With the help of some Polish friends of mine and diplomatic support, we met with leaders of the metropolitan Solidarity and representatives of the old trade unions, who had lost their confidence as a result of the stifling competition from the recently illegal workers’ organisation. January 6, 1990 was the day of the landmark meeting with one of the most popular and beloved leaders of Solidarity, Jacek Kuron. I was with Mladen Mladenov, member of the Interim Executive Committee, Ivan Kostov, as an expert in micro-economics and finance, and Krasimir Georgiev, assistant to the chairman;

Jacek Kuron, as the Minister of Labour at that time, welcomed us in his office, dressed in a denim suit, free in his way of thinking and speaking, open to the questions that we raised. We were mainly interested in the then undertaken shock reform prepared by the team of Leszek Balcerowicz. I was concerned about how a trade union would take upon itself to carry out liberal / market reforms, when it was clear that a high price would be paid for them, mainly by the workers. . “We have no choice or organised force other than Solidarity to make the change”, explained Kuron. Ivan Kostov asked a number of specific questions, and then asked me to organise a few more days in Warsaw for him to become familiar in greater detail with the Balcerowicz programme.

We agreed with the hosts. On the next day, I flew back to Sofia urgently, while Kostov and my two colleagues had additional meetings and were given access to information about the first strategy in Eastern Europe to reform planned economy on a market basis. Understandably, that approach did not make us and Solidarity closest friends. It to0k another 2 or 3 years before they accepted us with reservations, while they made their liking obvious for Podkrepa. The genetic origin and ideological kinship had their say.

However, we already had first hand information about what was in store for us – Bulgarians. While the government hesitated which way to go, and the political parties scuffled, we were preparing for economic and social negotiations. Ivan Kostov, in turn, made the most of his trip to promote the Polish reformation project and his own position in respect of it. After his return, he published an article called “The slash of the Balcerowicz plan” in Trud daily and provoked a lively interest. Later, when he became Finance Minister, it was clear that he had also adopted the political philosophy, which underlay monetarism.

Until then, however, Ivan Kostov and his team, a consultancy agency, provided services under contracted payment to the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions, and later to CITUB. This collaboration lasted for five months, yet I never regretted the decision to draw him in, or the money paid for expert services.
It is interesting to know who was involved in his team: professor Lyuben Berov, associate professor Stoyan Alexandrov, Ventsislav Antonov, Svilen Parvulov, Emil Harsev and others – a total of 11 people. The use of the intellect of experts from Bulgaria and Europe in the development of strategies at a national level became a must for CITUB as early as in its first major presentations in the field of social partnership.
T

he second memorable meeting with a lead figure from the Polish Solidarity – Adam Michnik – took place a few months later in Greece. I was there for an international trade union workshop, and Michnik was a guest of honour and speaker. He heard my view on the role of trade unions in transition and asked me in a manner typical of him (with a slight stammer): “R-r-r-r-r you from Podkrepa?”

“No, I replied, I am from CITUB. “Leave them immediately and join Podkrepa” – said Michnik point blank. Then he added “Old communist structures cannot be reformed. There is no cure for their disease.”
I remained silent! These words of the eternal dissident and extremely perspicacious analyst Adam Michnik came back to my mind many times throughout my leadership career. Generally, he was right. But I had no right to retreat! There had to be a way, we had to succeed – that was the common will of the first CITUB team.

Only once were we on the verge of surrender, of a split.

It came after the attempted revolt of the internal hardliner communist core of the Confederation, organised after the strike against the government of Andrei Lukanov. But the conflict occurred at the beginning of the second year and goes beyond the time limits of my story.

1.4. Constitutive congress
On 17 February 1990, more than 3,500 delegates from the Independent Bulgarian Trade Unions held elections for the first time, democratically, and without party surveillance, gathered in the great hall of the National Palace of Culture. Although the atmosphere was lively, there was some tension which would normally accompany any risky enterprise. What I had planned and prepared with the help of loyal followers and experts had not happened in the newest history of the Bulgarian trade union movement.
The congress formally began as a regular high level forum of the old inherited organisation, which then decided to convert it into the first constitutive congress of a new organisation with radically revised statutes, a different name, different objectives and restructured collective members.

The name I suggested was Confederation of the Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB). The keywords here are ‘confederation’ and ‘independence’. Replacing the borrowed Russian term “profsuyuz” with the historic name “syndicats” borrowed from French had rather a symbolic importance for the revival of the interrupted traditions. It is amazing how rapidly that forgotten term dating back to the initial period of the organised labour movement in Bulgaria came back to everyday life! Later we established the symbols: the purple colour (not to be taken as plagiarism from the Democratic Party, but as a product of red and blue mixed together), the flag; the hedgehog (unfortunately this has disappeared from the official stock of symbols); the bands and hats for participants in protests, etc.

The tasks envisaged in the draft statutes of CITUB were:

– To set up, on a confederate principle, a classical trade union organisation, with main members being sectoral unions following a decision for a voluntary accession;
– To establish a new governing body – a coordinating board – that was to determine the policy of the confederation between congresses;
– To ensure a mandated election of the president of the confederation;
– The territorial organisations and their governing bodies to be converted into coordinating and supporting structures, etc.

The draft platform of CITUB proclaimed:

– Severance of the ties with the political sponsor – the Bulgarian Communist Party, and adoption of the social democratic / social reformist system of ideological values;
– Release of the trade union from its unnatural bureaucratic functions in respect of the management of social security, recreation activities, and control over the labour conditions, and particularly from intervention in the management of production;
– Orientation towards priority social protection of the trade union’s members;
– Adoption of tripartism as an underlying principle in negotiations settling collective employment relationships and disputes in this area, etc.

We explicitly stated that CITUB would inherit the assets and liabilities of the old trade unions and would not give up the history and traditions of the Bulgarian democratic trade union movement in the period before the Second World War. Was that a wise strategic act? I would rather say ‘yes’, despite all reproaches, which the new leadership of CITUB had to bear, such as ideological mimicry and dancing with the nostalgic feelings of the older generation. But that I will address later …

Voting, the delegates to the congress adopted a package of decisions: on the new name, statutes and platform. We changed the decorations behind the podium and the first constitutive congress of CITUB became a fact.

I was elected by an overwhelming majority as president of the confederation. My rival for the position, later my best friend, was the engineer from Varna Doncho Donchev, with about 300 votes. Then we proceeded to electing the confederative leadership – deputy presidents whose applications were proposed by me. That meant that the congress had full confidence in me.

1.5. The professorial team!
The names and persons I suggested were:

– Professor. Svetoslav Stavrev, an expert in economic management;
– Chief assistant Ognyan Krumov, a sociologist and economist;
– Diana Damianova, a former post-graduate student in history from the Trade Union Institute;
– Mladen Mladenov, a trade union leader from Plovdiv;
– Dr. Zhelyazko Hristov, a surgeon from Plovdiv;
– Yavor Drajev, a young and active social democrat, a beginner businessman;

With the exception of Yavor, all the rest passed successfully the test to be heard and supported by the delegates’ votes. One could hardly have imagined at the time any newer or non-traditional faces, or more direct challenges to the incumbent cadres of the union. To cap it all, I announced to the congress that I would resign my membership in the Bulgarian Communist Party – as a token of organisation / union loyalty and warning that the leadership of the communist party in the trade unions’ sector was ended.

Yet, the gesture did remain unappreciated by many: ill-wishers mocked it and qualified it as undecisive; straightforward communists perceived it as an ideological betrayal. Few people knew that such was the practice in many international trade union movements, where the leader was a party member before being elected as a trade union leader and as such was likely to be accused of ideological bias. Jokes, rather innocent though, ran in respect of the newly elected team, too. There were so many intellectuals in it.

We were labelled with the nickname “the professorial team.” Generally, there was nothing wrong with that. The advantage for CITUB of having competent people as leaders, not thugs, who had built their reputation on their heroism in street fighting, was to become clear soon.

I have to present in brief each of my deputies:

– Professor Svetoslav Stavrev – a recognised expert in theory of management and economics, with modern views, which gravitated around the liberal school. That caused him problems with the egalitarian trade union-minded personnel and some workers when we conducted training, discussed platforms, or prepared framework materials for negotiations. Until the end of his involvement with CITUB, Professor Stavrev remained the man who was least inclined to compromises when it came to economic logic. He had a sharp and sarcastic tongue, an expressive pen and no forgiveness for ignorance. The formation of a team of young macro-economists and financiers, who are still the expert support of CITUB, was his merit.
– Ognyan Krumov – a sociologist, specialised in economics. A voluble person and an attractive man, with qualities of a tribune, a loyal partner and a good interlocutor. He was also naturally intelligent and a charismatic leader who appealed to both his supporters and his opponents. He had wonderful potential to develop as a trade union or political leader on a national scale, but his career was interrupted too early.
– Diana Damianova – the only lady in the team. But she was worth a dozen of men if there were battles to fight. I invited her because I knew her from the Trade Union Institute, where she was to undertake a post-graduate course, but she had no ideological or scientific motivation to do it in totalitarian times. A rebel at heart, Diana had courage, a sharp mind and the ability to solve complex situations at lightning speed. Her favourite fields were those of strikes or competitive battles with Podkrepa. I often joked that if Diana was Defence Minister, Bulgaria would permanently be at war.
– Mladen Mladenov, a skilled worker from the factory in Plovdiv, who was promoted to one of the highest and most responsible positions in the confederation. He was in charge of the organisational work and that allowed him to develop his power potential, which he apparently had in abundance. Initially, he felt awkwardly among the brains, but in the course of time that feeling was overcome. In case of severe strike conflicts he was the duty messenger of the head office; the competitors from Podkrepa did not like him and feared him.
– Dr. Zhelyazko Hristov – perhaps he was the most unconventional member of the team who was originally involved on a voluntary basis. I met him in Plovdiv at a radio debate, where he participated as leader of a doctors’ strike. He impressed me with his brave talk at a time when many people still looked round before they would say anything against the power. I invited him also because we needed a representative of the ‘white’ guild, which at that time was one of the most active in the resurrecting trade union movement. A gifted orator and improviser, he was able to blow up emotionally both peacefully protesting workers and aggressive anarchistic trade unionists.
– We should not forget the oldest person: Miladin Shatorov, who was responsible for finances and statutes related issues. Uncle Miladin was our solid support with his experience of life and excellent knowledge of the structures, people, and relationships in the old trade unions.

Later, Ivan Neikov joined the team, and Asen Rizov also for a short while.

Life and events brought us together. We worked at incredibly high speed rates. We inspired respect with our knowledge and unity. We argued a lot. We were a mixed lot – of different biographies, mismatching characters and already formed beliefs. Some of the differences we overcame, others not. Then we set off in different directions. Most of us made careers in different professional fields. It was only Dr. Hristov of the original team that remained and took the reins as president of CITUB in 1997.

I realise that I was not always accurate and fair in my dealings with my partners in the team. Still, the most important thing is that we preserved the best feelings and the friendship among us. I often joked that we were rather a friendly community, than a hierarchy of superiors. It seemed that we had set solid foundations of the new trade union that endured a number of social and political cataclysms over the last twenty years.

1.7. Separation from the communist movement
The divorce from the Bulgarian Communist Party. As any divorce, that one also went through hidden phases and obvious actions.

Hidden for society remained our first meeting with members of Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which took place after the constitutive congress. It was attended by some of my deputies and the then editor-in-chief of the trade union newspaper Trud – Tosho Toshev.

The archives keep information of that conversation which was held not as demonstration of force, but because of the historical truth and striving for autonomous expression. For us, trade unionists, it was important to explain why we severed the umbilical cord with the party which was so pro-active within the trade unions while in opposition at the time of capitalism; the party that turned them into a political instrument, a “transmission belt”, when it had the power for 45 years; apparently devoid of a vision how to maintain partnerships with the organised labour movement in conditions of a democratic revolution. We did not request permission for the divorce, nor did we blame anyone personally. We just informed our recent guardian that we would begin a new and independent life.

So we did in the months that followed!

For a long time I did not show any interest in the reaction after the meeting behind closed doors. Later friends of mine from the headquarters of the renamed Bulgarian Socialist Party told me that even before the meeting some “comrades” suspected that I would be unmanageable, hence unfair to the party. The meeting, which I mentioned above, reinforced that suspicion. Later that lead to my being stigmatised as a traitor and renegade after the strike against the government of Andrei Lukanov at the end of that same year.

By the way, my relationship with Andrei Karlovich passed through intricate vicissitudes and deserves to be described separately, when the emotions associated with his execution in front of his own home settle down completely…

As befits a party that has long experience of underground activity, the Bulgarian Communist Party undertook well-tried conspiratorial methods to keep its influence in the newly formed trade union. Indeed, there were people to fulfil the party task – those were managers at different levels, mainly within the federations not being able to part with the inherited thinking that the party is the first priority. Working in a trade union, which had publicly announced its conceptual independence, they were regarded as messengers of a political party, not autonomous representatives of a professional group of workers and employees.

Initially, this phenomenon bothered me. Our opponents accused us of remaining a “red” union. I afforded myself a few times to initiate changes in respect of such party activists, sometimes with, sometimes without success. Then I calmed down and became more balanced in my attitude to party affiliations of my trade union friends, as long as they would not impose them on others.

In addition, events also subjected us to continuous tests, where it was not party loyalty that was of primary significance, but trade union solidarity. We came down to a situation where post-totalitarian leaders of the Bulgarian Communist Party came personally to our building at 1 Macedonia to consult us on their intentions. One of those visits by a delegation, with Alexander Lilov at the head, was discussed recently with benevolent humour by Diana Damianova and Mladen Mladenov, who, together with professor Stavrev were hosts and interlocutors of our recent party superiors.

Leaving the World Federation of Trade Unions
After the international trade union movement split in 1948 into two wings: communist and social democratic, the Bulgarian trade unions fell within the Soviet area of influence. Formally, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) established its headquarters in Prague, but the actual commander and “big brother” was in Moscow.

CITUB declared itself heir to the Bulgarian Trade Unions, assuming the assets and liabilities of the capitalist and communist history, however that did not mean that it would follow the Soviet Central Trade Union Council in its steps, which had self-proclaimed itself as our teacher in one of the most complex subjects: representation of the interests of the working class. Nobody would have believed us that we were convinced reformists and pro-European oriented trade unionists if we had continued our membership in the so-called. Profintern. We decided to go to Moscow and declare our decision to leave the organisation on the spot. That step proved to be important in view of our international standing and return to the ranks of the democratic trade union family in Europe and worldwide. That journey to the capital of the former Soviet Union was indispensable also because of the meetings with the thousands of Bulgarian workers sent to joint industrial sites in the country.

In the delegation of CITUB, I was together with Ognyan Krumov and Diana Damianova. I knew that the talks would be difficult, and consciously chose them to accompany me: Ognyan for his calm and balanced tone; and Diana for her rigour and proven character of a warrior.

There was a battle! Not with anyone though, but with Genadyi Yanayev, a hardliner communist and a staunch opponent of the perestroika. The same Yanayev, who several months later took the lead of the putsch against Boris Yeltsin!

In the beginning, the attitude to us was seemingly friendly, however as the talks were advancing, his tone changed to threatening. He warned us that there was nothing good in store for us down the road we had taken. Then he offered a drink together to clarify positions. That did not work out either. I left Ognyan and Diana to accomplish that unpleasant diplomatic mission and set off for Tyumen, and from there for Blagoevo, Komi.

Thousands of workers had gone on strike at both places, for the first time raising their demands freely for better working conditions, payment of delayed salaries, new managers. I still meet across Bulgaria people who had worked abroad for a living and who would remember those turbulent events. Most of them were cheated by the state with promises for higher wages and privileges that they never obtained.
Could we have lived without that visit? Yes, we could have escaped with a public declaration from Sofia. But then the divorce would not have been official. We wanted to show inside and outside of the country that the Bulgarian trade union movement did not ignore its roots and was returning with conviction to its native family after a long and involuntary absence.

II. MODERN TRADE UNIONISM
Theoretically, we were prepared in CITUB to partner with the other two parties of the classic triangle: the employers and the government. The problem was that the former were not organised and structured as an institution while the one-party government of the Bulgarian Communist Party / Bulgarian Socialist Party had neither traditions, nor political will or new professionals to take over the hard role of lead partner and arbitrator in the negotiations.

Thus, we came down to the paradoxical situation: with the help of its experts, CITUB prepared, step by step, and component by component, the structure of the national tripartite partnership – regulations, procedures, methodological materials, expert statements, etc. In fact, only Andrei Lukanov, who succeeded Georgi Atanasov in the post of Prime Minister, had an idea of the western social model of negotiation and coordination of interests. Feeling that CITUB was stronger at negotiating procedures and expert debates than organising strikes, we insisted that the tripartite mechanism of negotiations be established.

The federations also accelerated their activity suddenly. The strikes were followed by sectoral negotiations, the procedures for which were approved as early as in the first year of CITUB’s activity.

In addition to the old federation members, new active and determined leaders stepped up on the stage to become later nationally and internationally popular figures. The most famous names among them are Yanka Takeva, who began as a chair of a strike committee, and later as a leader she retained the membership and strength of the most powerful branch unions – that of teachers. She is now vice president of the women’s committee of the Pan-European Regional Council (PERC); Vasil Yanachkov, who established himself as an authoritative leader of the trade union federation Metalitsi; Georgi Bochev, chairman of the Trade Union Federation of Communications, one of the stongest industry organisations that waged a difficult fight against the criminal privatisation of the Bulgarian Telecommunications BTC; Pencho Tokmakchiev – a veteran of the miners’ federation who withstood the pressure of Podkrepa and rescued the jobs of thousands of people; Assen Assenov, president of Metal-Electro’ for many years, who had tangible influence within the trade union and among employers; Krasimir Pashtrapanski – an energetic leader of the trade union of brewers, etc.

2.1. The first tripartite formation
It commenced functioning in the spring of 1990. As soon as we approved the organisational documents, we proceeded to negotiations – clumsily at first, often improvising and in conditions of almost total passiveness of the so-called employers. What employers! – their organisation was an accidental grouping of directors of state business organisations, who showed respect to their ministers and the prime minister and wondered where that pest, referred to as “trade unions”, had come from.

In fact, there was only one trade union, CITUB, sitting at the table of negotiations. The Confederation of Labour Podkrepa (as our direct competitor renamed itself), demonstratively refused to negotiate with the communist government and assaulted squares and factories to gain new members and sympathisers. In the beginning, they were very successful and Podkrepa reached 60,000 people, at approximately 2,000 members in the autumn of 1989. However, CITUB managed to agree with the first government of Lukanov on a 25% indexation, which was a reasonable compensation of the rising prices of goods and services. We were noticed. Probably advised by their friends from the West, the leaders of Podkrepa changed the tactics and joined the tripartite negotiations.

It was interesting to watch how they behaved at the table of negotiations: with unbelievable self-confidence, ostentatious aggression often leading to demonstrative leaving from meetings and the committee. The political cause, which Podkrepa served, had priority to that of the trade union. It lasted until the end of 1992 and enabled CITUB to position itself in a new way on the ground of trade unions.
How?

– By combining negotiations with continuous visits to regions and meetings with trade union members, our members and those of Podkrepa. CITUB had the better facilities and could afford the luxury of organising massive conflicts every week.
– By entering into strike conflicts without worry, as long as we were convinced that the demands were correct and realistic. In this difficult “art”, Diana Damianova became increasingly popular, she had organised the first blockade of the highway to Plovdiv by agricultural aviation; Zhelyazko Hristov, a popular leader and mediator in miners’ and armament workers’ strikes; Mladen Mladenov, a direct participant in the hunger strike of port workers.
– By not dividing workers into supporters of CITUB and supporters of Podkrepa when common industry protests were organised – a tradition which is still alive.
– By dividing Bulgaria into 10 regions, each having a coordinator who was a member of the trade union and was authorised by the central office to act on location. I had a few available vehicles and a team of experts: Krasimir, Plamen, Krustyo, Zhoro, helping to carry out several day raids in factories and municipalities;
– By inviting to leadership positions in the regions young and educated
specialists; for 10 years we sent over 500 young people from all over the country to Moscow and Leningrad to study; the investment was worthwhile !

At the end of spring it became clear that the wave of leaving members, persuaded by Podkrepa, was subsiding. Kolyo Bosiya wrote then: “While Dr. Trenchev is raiding the capital city’s squares, Prof. Petkov is trampling in factories’ mud!” The warning was true, but late!

2.2. Strategic advantages
In the early period of CITUB, they were:

– The phenomenal support of the trade union’s newspaper Trud which became, under the leadership of Tosho Toshev, one of the most read dailies. Sonia Galabarova wandered with us around factories and mines, and this made her a popular and competent reporter, and a preferred interlocutor of two generations of trade union members;
– The competence of trade union’s experts, economists, lawyers, sociologists, grouped in separate central units and regional centres (they were available for any employment related dispute and provided their expert opinion free of charge, which gained members);
– The scientific potential, which was developed before 1989 at the Trade Union Institute (cf. the attachment at the end of this study);
– The orientation towards European proven models of trade unionism and specific expert assistance by our faithful friends.

A lot has been written about the newspaper Trud and its post-totalitarian history by Tosho Toshev, Damyan Obreshkov, Lyuben Genov, Kosta Andreev and other bright journalists, ex editors-in-chief with one of the most popular newspaper of the 1990ies. I will spare the details and refrain from any unnecessary talking about the fate of this unique medium and its creative team. I may revisit the topic after some time when passions and emotions will have finally subsided.

I will admit, however, that personally I felt the newspaper’s editorial office like my second home, and the journalists – unique interlocutors and benevolent critics. Not all came to believe immediately in the cause of CITUB, quite naturally. It was a time of reconsideration of existing values and choice of individual creative positions. Yet, there is something I cannot deny – the majority of the newspaper’s reporters stood steadily behind CITUB’s first management team, and despite the vicissitudes in the future fate of the medium, they maintained their loyalty while I was at the head of the confederation.
CITUB’s scientific back-up was solid and well echeloned. We took advantage of our academic contacts – in Bulgaria and abroad. We drew in newly emerging professionals who sought public appearance, some of them also opportunities for a trade union or political career. On research and policy making, we had a huge superiority over our partners and competitors.

To illustrate my words, I will mention a few facts:

The Bulgarian Trade Unions, later CITUB had recruited, either under full-time contracts in the central office, or as researchers at the institute, the best experts in labour law and labour code issues: they were both theorists, of the rank of professor Vasil Mruchkov, and practicioners: Ivan Neikov, Emil Miroslavov, etc.; lead experts in labour management and economics: Maria Sotirova, and Dimitar Kamenov, etc.; the most competent experts in social security matters: Georgi Georgiev, Mincho Koralski, Nikolai Nikolov, Duhomir Minev. It was not difficult for them to help devising the legal framework, the rules of tripartite negotiations, collective negotiations and settlement of collective labour disputes. That was what they did when the right time came for institutional structuring of the system of national and sectoral partnership. Note that in the interpretation of the Labour Code and the other labour related regulations our expert had no equals. Thus, we won strike law cases one by one, as well as individual employment disputes until the time of violent rule and overt anti-trade unionism of the power holders came.

In addition to the expert team of Ivan Kostov’s macro-economists and financial experrts, CITUB drew in temporarily for topical projects young researchers, such as Evgeni Dainov, Asen Michkovski, Ilian Shotlekov, etc. Mariana Mihailova, as their coordinator, invested a lot of intellectual effort in the formation of innovative projects for CITUB. In particular, I want to highlight the contribution of Kostov’s group. It provided us, on a regular basis, with brief analyses of the macro-economic situation and recommendations for shaping the economic demands to the government. For example, regardless of how incredible it might sound today, Ivan Kostov was the man who advised me to push the government in the spring of 1990 with a demand for a salary leap as a preventive measure against the rising inflation.

CITUB had readily available methods for calculating the consumer basket, which had been developed as early as in the late 1980ies in the Trade Union Institute by a team headed by professor Lyuben Berov. It may sound immodest, but at that time no one in Bulgaria would have thought of accomplishing such developments, and even less, of applying them in practice. In the State socialist ideology and governance, concepts such as means of livelihood, existence minimum, poverty line, deficit, and inflation were simply taken out of use. I remember that when as director of the Trade Union Institute I handed the methodology over to Peter Dyulgerov and he showed it to his “comrades of the Central Committee”, he was immediately advised to take the folder back. Dyulgerov followed their advice but that same instrument did an excellent job for us in the early 1990ies.

We also had successful tactical solutions. I already mentioned that one of them was the appointment of regional coordinators, direct representatives of the central office. Equipped with cars and means of communication, that young team broke, over a year or two, the trend of vigorous expansion of Podkrepa in the regions and enhanced the self-esteem of our local staff, who were quite stressed by the changes in the core.The coordinators were: Georgi Mihailov, everybody’s favourite, who died too young in tragic circumstances, Nedelcho Lambov, Yovcho Yakov, Dinko Slavov, Peter Georgiev, Teodor Yonov, and an intelligent woman, Kristina Stoicheva.

And that was not all!

2.3. International contacts
The tactics of Podkrepa in its race with CITUB was to isolate us in the international field in order to win competitive advantages inside the country and monopolise the participation in bilateral and multilateral projects. For three years our competitors, hindered in every possible way CITUB’s admission to the European Trade Union Confederation and the International Confederation of Free Trade unions. It was the competitor trade union that initiated the confiscation of the trade union’s property, carried out by the government of Filip Dimitrov aiming at paralysing CITUB.

We broke through this isolation in several months literally, but what we needed to that end were followers and benevolent partners abroad. CT Podkrepa blocked the official approaches to the international trade union central offices; therefore we had to look for side entrances. In this we were assisted by friends from academic and emigrant circles in Belgium, Israel, USA, and Britain.

The first break-throughs. They were my visits as president of CITUB in Belgium, Portugal and Spain.
– In Belgium, through professor Jacques Vilrokx, I met with the second person in the hierarchy of the socialist trade unions – Mia De Vits. We had a long conversation during a private party at the house of the head of the international department of the same trade union. I was used to being attended to with reservation and asked controlling questions based on misinformation obligingly supplied by opponents from Podkrepa. The only way to convince the interlocutor who would not trust you at once is by bein gpatien twaiting for your time t ocome. I invited Mia to visit us in Sofia, and she promised, but during the priority visit to Podkrepa. The ice was broken. The first bilateral meetings took place in mid-summer 1990, and at the end of the year we were already exchanging experts with the influential Belgian trade union center FGTB. Later, the Belgian friends helped us in preparing draft laws and training of experts in pension and health insurance, collective employment negotiations, integration of people with disabilities, etc. Today, the Belgian-Bulgarian connection is still as strong as it was at the beginning of the transition, with the barriers of mistrust pulled down.

– In Portugal and Spain, I met with the leaders of both trade union centers: the communist and the social-democratic. We were together with the energetic and erudite international expert Emiliyan Abadzhiev, who could freely speak half a dozen languages – a fact which provoked respect in our hosts. The discussions with the legendary workers’ leader and fighter against Franco’s dictatorship Marcelino Camacho, his charismatic deputy Antonio Gutierrez, and the old trade union lion Nicolas Redondo. We won new friends, we learned useful lessons, mainly about what position trade unions should take in conditions of transition from dictatorship to democracy, how to preserve our identity in an atmosphere of acute political conflicts, how to make compromises in the name of the national interest.

The visit to the United States. It took place in September 1990 and was the result of a special “operation”. I wanted to establish contacts with the American trade unions, but that mission was impossible because of the categorical choice the AFL-CIO had made in favour of the new and considered as the only democratic trade unions, and the struggle they waged in Eastern Europe against the old trade unions and their successors. That is why, with the help of my university colleagues and friends, I received invitations to deliver a cycle of lectures at universities in different cities. After some visa issuance difficulties, I departed and spent nearly a month in continuous travelling and lecturing at universities and before emigrants, and participating in informal discussions. I visited universities and colleges in North Carolina, Berkeley, San Francisco and Monterey, Detroit and Chicago.

Naturally, the main interest of the audience was focused on the changes in Eastern Europe. Little or hardly anything was known about Bulgaria. They were interested in Poland and Russia, the Czech Republic and Eastern Germany.

My only contact with the trade unions was at local and factory level. At the same time, I had extremely interesting meetings with prominent politologists and sociologists, with congressmen and businessmen. I lived in the houses of American families, I sensed the mentality and concerns of the first citizens of the world. A real discovery for me were farmers’ cooperatives, local ethnic communities and their organisations, liberal university circles, militant women’s organisations.

The Americans, whose friendship and influence my colleague Konstantin Trenchev said we should be frightened of, proved to be cordial and amiable people, appreciative of other people’s friendship and openness. By the end of my trade union and leader activity I visited that country and continent twice more: once together with Diana Damianova and a group of Bulgarians as a guest of Avgustin Peichinov, at the so-called Imperial Ball in New York, where I met in person with the former monarch Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and then as a guest of the Congress of the United States, which organised a two-week working visit for a group of Bulgarian politicians to several states and central institutions.

However, the trade union contact with the American trade unions was ultimately made at an official level. At the end of 1993, a highly-placed leader of the AFL-CIO visited me at the central office of CITUB. It was a private talk, not counting the permanent representative of the Solidarity Centre in Sofia. The guest asked me if we could work on joint projects, providing we would cooperate in good faith with CL.

Podkrepa, too. Before I answered, I allowed myself to ask an awkward counter-question: why they had to wait for three years and who advised them to work in Eastern Europe with new or marginal trade unions only. They replied that it was a mistake! We shook hands and commenced to exchange specialists after a time.

From the American trade unionists we learned a lot about labour legislation, negotiations at a corporate level, and especially about credit unions. Then it was time for Dr. Zhelyazko Hristov to be among the prominent guests at the congress of the AFL-CIO.

My advisor and friend Grigor Gradev recently reminded of yet another act of recognition and identification. An extremely competent expert in liberal theories, professor Stephen Schmitter, visited Sofia in 1996. He began our conversation with a surprising confession: he had a sinned against us and wanted to atone. The sin was that it was him who justified the theory not to rely on political reforms of the old trade unions in the former socialist block due to their conservatism and ideological repressiveness. “I turned out to be wrong,” admitted the professor and you from CITUB are the proof of my wrong assumption!

Another battle for CITUB’s international legitimacy was over!

2.3. From trade unionism to labourism
I will continue with some facts about the early biography of CITUB that are hardly known. They are related to the choice of a model which to underlie its position in society as a social protection organisation and a potential partner in politics.

As to social partnership, we did not have any particular hesitation. We knew Bulgarian traditions, we received support and advice from a number of European trade union centres in Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Germany. The Belgian model of a welfare state appealed to us most of all, therefore we borrowed quite a lot of procedural and organisational solutions, as well as social initiatives and projects of our friends from FGTB . I have often said that CITUB is its improved copy, enriched with elements from the practice of the Israeli trade unions – the early Histadrut.

However, once having severed the party dependence from the Bulgarian Communist Party, we could not remain in a political vacuum and rely on the benevolence of periodically changing governments. For 20 years of concern with trade unionism and politics, I have been a partner and / or interlocutor of 12 prime ministers, I know their strengths and weaknesses, I understand that they also analysed me in turn. We had short periods of demonstrated equal partnership, eg. with Dimitar Popov. Yet, real trust, as the most valuable social capital in neo-corporate public systems, was not possible to maintain for a long time.

Probably part of the reasons were with us, but the most serious collisions and destruction were caused by narrow-minded party members and primitive politicians.

We felt the need for a modern, civilised and politically reliable partner that would appreciate our independence as a trade union. It appeared that no correct or promising choice could have been made at the time.

If we had made friends with the Union of Democratic Forces, we would have immediately been set up with a competitor from the left.In addition, the place with the “blue” party was occupied by CL Podkrepa, although, as it appeared, for a limited time. We maintained contacts with the “blues” from time to time: we established good interaction in the beginning. It wold be interesting to know if the old members of the Union of Democratic Forces still remember that the first economic / liberal programme of the Union of Democratic Forces was written by CITUB!. Then the government of Filip Dimitrov declared outright war on us until they came down to attempting to drawing us in as their ally in their confrontation with Podkrepa.

From a historical perspective, the social-democrats should have been closest to us, but the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party of Moskov and Dr. Dertliev then fought another priority battle – against the communists, for political power. After several meetings with Dr. Dertliev, we decided to cooperate with each other, although the majority of social-democrats sympathised with CL Podkrepa or were its members. There was no way to become closer with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, although during my time with the trade union my relations with Ahmed Dogan and his people were friendly, and 75 of the Turkish workers were members of CITUB.

Then the idea to prepare a political project arose. The other people, apart from me, who were in the know of it were professor Svetoslav Stavrev, Diana Damyanova and part of the advisors. Indirectly, we were encouraged by supporters outside of CITUB. Ivan Kostov himself proposed to me to initiate a new, modern social-democratic party, with the trade union as its basis (this episode is described in my book Farewell to solidarity, 1998). A famous TV presenter did confront me with the question: “Power is rolling down the streets. What are you waiting for? Take it – just like Lech Walesa.”

It was the end of summer 1990. It was becoming clear that there would be a second round of the battle for the removal of the Communist Party from power and that CL Podkrepa was preparing to act as a frontal storm squad.

Our labourist project was conceived by the rules of applied science. Theory and history in themselves were not sufficient. We had to borrow a historically proven, yet a working model. To that end, I made two visits with a programme prepared in advance and a strictly defined objective.

The first one was in Britain and the second one in Israel. Two countries where the labour parties were set up in a classic manner – by trade unions.

In Britain – through the agency of my friends John Turkle and Len Dawson I had a meeting with members of the parliament from the Labour Party; I visited the parliament, and observed their meetings.
However, the fateful meeting was with Anthony Benn – the most popular of labourists at the time, a minister, an incredibly erudite person and speaker. He invited me to his house, we sat by the fireplace and the conversation flowed. Having heard our intentions, Tony Benn was direct and honest: “Do not do it! You do not need a party, stay as a trade union! This is labourism, too, authentic at that. Unfortunately, there are no real labourists in England today and our model cannot be of use to you.”

I admit that initially that firm position seemed to me strange and incomprehensible. But the man sitting in front of me and pondering in a loud voice was a man of vast experience in politics, friendly at that.

How can one not believe him?
In Israel, I started with summit meetings. Some friends – Bulgarian Jews, Nisim Almon, Maya Glasserman and Pinko Mezan, as well as their party comrades, arranged a direct meeting for me with Shimon Peres – a sage; a patriarch of the then powerful Labour Party, a man who had had all high positions in the state of a prime minister, foreign minister and president, We talked for about an hour, starting from the Bulgarian-Israeli relations. Peres expressed his admiration with the Bulgarian Jews and referred to them as the most loyal group in the Jewish state. He also stated his gratitude to Bulgarians for their historic action in defence of Jews during the Second World War II. He carefully listened to our plan, then he called one of his aides and said: “Help the Bulgarian friends the way we helped Spanish people some time ago – through our international institute and with the participation of Histadrut.”

That was the beginning of a long friendship with our partners in Israel. We borrowed a lot from them – the projects for the Pension Fund, the Health Company, methodologies for calculation of inflation; the mechanism of indexation, etc., while Diana Damyanova, Ivan Neikov, Zhelyazko Hristov and dozens of CITUB supporters found true personal and family friends in the promised land.

It was only the political labourist project that did not develop. As early as in the very beginning I hesitated of the extent to which we would have potential to operate on two fronts: the trade union and the political one. What is more important, whether the party structuring would not undermine the authority of the trade union and repell the workers, who believed in us. At that, they were a majority, which, over time, turned into a stratum of dissenting people who considered bread and butter more important than party ideologies.

For myself, I concluded that those who wanted to deal with pure politics should do it outside of the trade union.

The first to go along the path was me. It happened, however, seven years later.

III. INSTEAD OF AN EPILOGUE: THE COMMON STRIKE
That was a strike against the second government of Andrei Lukanov …

The legend goes that it was organised and successfully conducted by CL Podkrepa. That propaganda version was devised, with the help of some mass media, by the supporters of Podkrepa.
Yet, the truth is different. After heated discussions within CITUB, we were the first to take a decision to declare a national strike if the government did not abandon its intention for administrative price increase, without this being negotiated and adopted through a complete package of protective measures.

Thus far, the demands were economic and trade union related and no one could have suspected us of having hidden political aspirations. As a rule, CITUB watched out not to raise slogans such as For or Against someone; or make decisions based on wishes who would be the prime minister or titular of offices. This was a preferred role of Podkrepa.

Months later, the vice president of CL Podkrepa Dr. Krustyo Krastev shared with me that at Garibaldi (the headquarters of their trade union) they learned about the strike decision minutes after our meeting. Obviously, someone had betrayed the team!

“Only I know how I ran to collect the signatures of our leaders and be first with the information to the mass media about the decision for a national strike” admitted Dr. Krastev. And it did happen – by the evening the whole country knew that the militant Podkrepa will overthrow the government of Lukanov. We, from CITUB, often hesitated, dawdled until we reached agreement and were left at the rear of the queue.

The strike took place, with the student federations mobilised by the Union of Democratic Forces. We decided not to act offended and announce our demands. I was taken straight into the studio of the Bulgarian National Television during the news bulletin, which teemed with “blue” journalists. After my call for a common strike, 400 enterprises rose up on the following day. CITUB demonstrated power and ability to mobilise! The protest grew from trade union into political. After a brief hesitation, Andrei Lukanov resigned to avoid further exacerbation of the situation!

CL Podkrepa celebrated a victory. We licked our wounds, because the CITUB internal battle and against the central office had begun as soon as we had become involved in the strike action.

First, a counter-meeting was arranged by the SP leadership around our building at 1 Macedonia square. About 2,000 angry activists and supporters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party wanted to attack the premises and lynch the “traitors”. They called me a renegade, identified me with the priest Pop Krustyo, and called for revenge.

I decided to ring Andrei Lukanov and ask him to send police guards, otherwise we would have been forced to call for miners and drivers to break the blockade. In other words, we would have ended in a civil war.

Andrei Lukanov made a commitment and fulfilled it!

This was not the end of our partnership. The relationship between me and Andrei went through complex situations, interrupted and recovered relations and friendship.

– He was the first prime minister, who realised the need of partnership with trade unions, and who laid the foundations of trilateral cooperation; he was not afraid of challenging the negativism and attacks of some of his party comrades against trade unions, against CITUB in particular;
– Lukanov was the best prepared person from the Bulgarian Socialist Party to govern the state in the early 1990ies, but he did not receive support from his party in hard times, when the economic and political situation was charged in the extreme;
– Lukanov made a vital error by declaring a moratorium on Bulgaria’s foreign debt payments, which lead the country to international isolation; it was his initiative to invite the Rahn-Utt tandem that prepared, in cooperation with Bulgarian economists, the famous reform programme. yet, the suspicion until today has been that this conspiratorial scenario was used by the majority of governments in the 1990ies/;
– As a counterpoint to the Rahn-Utt initiative, Lukanov invited a French delegation headed by Minister Stoleru to advise us on how to start the reforms. His recommendations, however, were received with hostility – as too social, coming from the newly fledged neoliberals. The Stoleru plan was abandoned although a joint government, business and trade union delegation went all the way to Paris to study market social economy;
– Lukanov respected and knew the European social democracy and its leaders. Months before he was shot, we undertook a social democratic project as an alternative-to-be to the failed socialist left wing (1996).

After some time has passed, I will return to these subjects to describe in greater detail the events:

– After the strike in December 1990 and why we reached the edge of a confederation split;
– To and after the privatisation of the Bulgarian economy (1991-1999);
– To and after the second battle for power between the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Union of Democratic Forces (1996-97).

The occasion, which has driven me into writing this now, is different: 20 years from the in-vitro conception of the trade union idea and the successful delivery of the CITUB baby.

That fact is too glaring and the consequences of CITUB’s appearance in the world are multidirectional to completely focus my attention on it.

IV. CONCLUSIONS
I am tempted to end this with a few conclusions I reached after my reflections and consultation with colleagues and advisers of the first leadership team:

For us, the founders, today CITUB is:

– The trade union, which is given in Europe as an example of successfully reformed inherited totalitarian structures and a modern, democratic and representative organisation;
– A confederation of expert capacity capable of facing each and every government or organised employer;
– A movement of wage workers that has remained united and showed models of trade union solidarity throughout our interaction with our eternal rival CL Podkrepa.

The credit for all these achievements goes to all enthusiasts who built and created the CITUB phenomenon.