sions, half of which had overlapping functions with
various ministries. The constitution does not specify how many permanent
or interim commissions the assembly should appoint but leaves such
matters of organization to the assembly itself.

Local Government

Territorially, Bulgaria is divided into twenty-eight districts
(_okruzi_; sing., _okrug_), about 200 municipalities, and about 5,500
villages. The municipalities, if size warrants, are divided into urban
constituencies (_rayoni_; sing., _rayon_), whereas villages are usually
grouped together to form rural constituencies known as _obshtini_
(sing., _obshtina_). Since 1959 the number of districts has remained
constant at twenty-eight, which includes one for the city of Sofia. The
number of urban and rural constituencies, on the other hand, changes
frequently as the population increases and as people move from the
countryside to the cities or move from cities to suburban areas.
Districts and urban and rural constituencies are governed on the local
level by people's councils, and in the 1971 elections there were almost
1,200 such councils with a total of more than 53,000 elected officials.

Each people's council has an elected executive committee, which is
constantly in session and which acts for the council during the long
periods when the full body is not meeting. On the local level the
executive committee is to the people's council what the State Council is
to the National Assembly on the national level. An executive committee
usually consists of a chairman, a first deputy chairman, several deputy
chairmen (depending on size), and a secretary. The interlocking of party
and governmental positions that is the hallmark of the central
government is repeated at the district and rural and urban constituency
levels, and often the members of a people's council executive committee
are also the most prominent members of the local party organization. An
executive committee usually serves for the entire term of its people's
council.

In the implementation of national policy, people's councils are under
the supervision and control of higher councils all the way up to the
central government. The hierarchical and pyramidal structure of the
people's councils, wherein the lowest bodies are subject to the
direction of the next higher and of the highest bodies, is an example of
the application of Lenin's principle of democratic centralism.
Coincident with this structure of govern