ey paid respect to university professors for
their intellect and to higher government officials for the status and
power connected with their offices.

When the Communists took power in 1944 they set out to destroy the old
social system and replace it with one based on Marxist-Leninist
ideology. The period of so-called socialist reconstruction that followed
resulted in a general leveling of social strata through the demotion of
formerly privileged groups and the promotion of formerly underprivileged
groups. Persons of peasant or worker origin received preferential
treatment in the allocation of housing and of other necessities of life
that were in short supply, in the appointment to jobs, and in access to
higher education. At the same time persons of middle-class or upper
class background were deprived of their housing, removed from key jobs,
and denied educational opportunities for their children through a
discriminatory quota system at secondary and higher schools. A policy of
equalization of incomes made little distinction between different levels
of education or skill, thus eliminating material rewards as a basis for
social stratification. The small political and economic elite that had
developed from the peasant society before 1944 was decimated and
replaced by a group of party stalwarts, most of them from lower class or
middle-class background, who rose rapidly to the top positions of
administrative and political power and became the new ruling elite.
Membership in the Bulgarian Communist Party and complete loyalty to the
leadership were the main criteria for occupying any position of
responsibility.

The peasants appreciated some of the material benefits granted by the
new government, such as educational opportunities for their children and
expanded industrial employment that offered new outlets for
underemployed rural youth. As a whole, however, the peasantry bitterly
resented being grouped with workers in the ideological frame of
reference of the new leaders. To the peasant, landless workers who
lacked tradition and security occupied a lower social position than he,
and he saw this grouping together as a debasement of his own status. The
blow to his pride and to his traditional position in society was
complete when collectivization deprived him of his precious land. Were
it not for the private farm plot, which allows the peasant to continue
on a very small scale his cherished way of life and thereby perpetuate