Социалистическото благоденствие и консенсусът на лицемерието
Socialist Welfare State and the „Consensus of Hypocrisy“

Summary/Abstract: Following the death of Stalin (1953) and the 20th congress of the communist party of the USSR (1956) a timid process of normalization started in Bulgaria as well as in the other eastern-bloc countries. The ruling communist party attempted at building a consensus with Bulgarians. Softening the regime and putting an end to mass repressions was expected to appease the country and bring conformity with prescribed rules. This tacit contract was affixed with the promise to improve standard of living. Centrally planned economy, however, turned out to be incapable of satisfying the uncorked consumption. This made the consensus sterile as it was impotent to deliver a communist version of the western welfare state. Instead, it only created a wide-spread cult towards the western consumption models eroding the ideological foundations of the regime. Deprived of its consumption centre the regime failed at sustaining the consensus and produced only mass hypocrisy. Only two decades after the introduction of the tacit consensus it completely lost its content. For most of Bulgarians the „material superiority of capitalism“ was out of any doubt and they were prepared for the Great Change of 1989.

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