g in Bulgaria and the German Democratic Republic are in effect two distinct revolutions pursuing different courses, these nation will be discussed separately. First, it is important to note the outcome of the most recent elections in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria has gone through five painful and confusing years since officially declaring an end to the old communist regime. Bulgaria has just gone through an election that has re-entrenched many elements of the nation's communist past back into positions of governmental authority. This Balkan country of approximately 8.5 million people today has followed a trend that is no longer uncommon throughout Eastern Europe, despite the early euphoria of a continent-wide anti-communist movement. In recent elections in Poland and Hungary, for example, the political astuteness and party discipline of former communists have been able to muster the electoral strength to defeat the inexperienced "reformers" who a few years ago took over the vacuum of governmental authority and struggling economies left by the fall of Soviet hegemony in the region (Pomfret, 1994, p. 1).
Bulgaria has actually been in the forefront of preserving some semblance of communist control over the country. The anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) which helped oust the communist regime of Todor Zhivkov, who had run the Bulgarian Communist Party since 1954 and had been the unchallenged leader of Bulgaria since 1962. The UDF effectively collapsed as a political party capable of governing 11 months after losing a no-confidence vote in the Bulgarian Parliament. This was quite a loss for the UDF given their initial prowess in gaining political control with the nation's first free elections since October 1946.
In the wake of the "revolution of 1989,' roundtable talks were initiated between the Bulgarian Communist Party and leaders of the opposition parties for a transition to democracy. The major opposition parties we...