CLAMOR IN THE EAST: SHAKE-UP IN BULGARIA; Bulgarian Chief Quits After 35 Years of Rigid Rule

Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) published this article on the occasion of the 20th year since the overthrow of communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, which opened the way for democratic reforms.

From The New York Times Archives

By CLYDE HABERMAN, Special to The New York Times

Published: Saturday, November 11, 1989

Todor I. Zhivkov, Eastern Europe's longest-serving leader, resigned today as Bulgaria's President and Communist Party leader, after 35 years of guiding the country with old-line orthodoxy.

Mr. Zhivkov, 78 years old, was immediately replaced as the party's General Secretary by his longtime Foreign Minister, Petar T. Mladenov, who is viewed here as likely to take a somewhat more flexible approach toward economic and political restructuring. It will be up to the politically weak National Assembly to choose his successor as President.

Since Mr. Zhivkov and other top officials recently began to talk about the need to separate state and party roles, it seemed possible that someone other than Mr. Mladenov could be selected. A Move to Save Face

Mr. Zhivkov's resignation came as a surprise but not as a total shock to Western diplomats, who said that the Bulgarian leader had apparently fallen victim to the fast-paced changes elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Bulgarian officials reportedly said in confidence that Mr. Zhivkov did not want to stay too long and risk being forced from power in disgrace, as were Janos Kadar of Hungary or Erich Honecker of East Germany.

There were strong rumors of more shifts to come in top party echelons, but the state press agency and television network made no announcements. The prospects for genuine change here, several diplomats said, are likely to be determined by the extent of any future shake-up. Doubts on Rapid Change

Mr. Mladenov, who is 53 and was Foreign Minister for 18 years, wasted no time as the new leader in warning that ''there is no alternative to restructuring'' Bulgaria's struggling economy and tightly controlled political apparatus. The present system has ''handicapped progress in our society in all spheres,'' he told the party Central Committee, adding: ''We have to turn Bulgaria into a modern, democratic and lawful country.''

Despite his words, however, many Bulgarians and diplomats were not convinced that rapid changes were on the way.

Mr. Zhivkov, they said, had filled the Central Committee with people who basically followed his version of orthodox Communism, and they did not regard Mr. Mladenov as a conspicuous exception. ''He's generally perceived to be more liberal than Zhivkov but not markedly so,'' a Western diplomat said. ''I would suspect that it means policies will continue.''

Another reason for the cautious assessment is that Mr. Mladenov's remarks today echoed what Mr. Zhivkov had been saying for more than two years, if with meager results. Matching words with deeds eluded him. Official tolerance for dissent remains slight, and the economy has limped along with shoddy consumer goods, poor farm production and shortages of basic food items like butter and sugar. A New Breed of Dissidents

Mr. Zhivkov acknowledged the failure in a report today to the Central Committee, in which he calls for broad political and economic adjustments, including more power for the National Assembly and clearer divisions between the party and the Government.

''In the final account, we were unable to make a significant breakthrough in any sector of our work,'' he said.

Thus far, Bulgaria has been in the rear guard of the Communist world, plodding along amid the rush of events sweeping the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland and now even East Germany, which had also been a hard-line state. But it is not immune to events elsewhere, and in recent weeks a new breed of Bulgarian dissidents has begun to speak out to a degree rarely seen in this Slavic nation.

The first known demonstration in four decades took place last week in the center of Sofia, the capital, when about 5,000 Bulgarians marched on the National Assembly building to express their grievances on environmental pollution. For many, environmental concerns were merely an excuse to give vent to broader anti-Government frustrations. Power Gathered by Purge

It is not clear, however, that Bulgaria has turned the corner on dissent, for the Government permitted the demonstration primarily because an international environmental conference was under way in Sofia. Now that the foreigners have gone home, dissidents say they cannot be sure that another such protest would be tolerated.

Mr. Zhivkov became Communist Party leader in 1954, a year after Stalin's death, and in recent years he has been the Soviet Union's most faithful ally. Soviet flags often fly beside Bulgarian flags in the capital, and the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917, observed last Tuesday, is a Bulgarian national holiday.

Over the decades, Mr. Zhivkov consolidated his power by purging opponents. The process continued as recently as last year, when he forced out a Politburo member, Chudomir A. Aleksandrov, who had been widely considered a possible successor.

In addition to his party post, Mr. Zhivkov became chairman of the Council of Ministers, the equivalent of Prime Minister, in 1962, a position that yielded in 1971 to the Presidency. Except for a failed coup attempt in 1965, there had been no serious challenges to his leadership. His health has suffered in the last few years, but before today there was no indication that he was in immediate danger of losing power.

Bulgaria's relations with the Soviet Union have weakened in recent years, partly because of Moscow's preoccupation with its own problems and partly because Soviet restructuring under Mikhail S. Gorbachev has outstripped the pace here.

Two years ago, a new economic program was announced by Mr. Zhivkov, laying the basis, it was hoped, for a thoroughly revamped economy. But the promise of more self-management for private businesses proved greater than the reality, and the economy has only bumped along since.

It suffered a further blow, as did Bulgaria's image, when 310,000 ethnic Turkish residents of the country fled across the border into Turkey last summer to escape a campaign of forced assimilation. Since then, 60,000 of them have returned, according to estimates, but their abrupt departure from a country of nine million people had already disrupted crop harvests and factory production in predominantly Muslim provinces in eastern Bulgaria.

Todor I. Zhivkov (Agence France-Presse) (pg. 1); Petar T. Mladenov, who replaced Todor I. Zhivkov as leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party (Associated Press) (pg. 9)