/Pogled.info/ May Day – Day of Labor and International Workers’ Solidarity. For thirty years – and a holiday of the village of “Duma” and of the left seal. It was like that until recently, but certainly not today.
The left-wing press in Bulgaria has been crushed and marginalized in recent years. But not from his ideological and political opponent in today’s “democratic” Bulgaria, but from his publisher – the leadership of the BSP in the person of Cornelia Ninova and her closest entourage.
In the beginning was the showdown with “Duma”. Pillars of the newspaper and of Bulgarian journalism were fired or forced to leave. In their place, former cadres of the “Demokratia” party and current confidantes of the chairwoman were imposed. Today, the flagship of the left-wing press has been turned into a laughingstock, into a pitiful wall sheet that praises the so-called leadership and thunders the “enemies” in the face of the President of the Republic and the dissidents in the party and the left. More and more often it is heard that the intention is to turn Duma from a daily into a weekly, and probably in the not too distant future and stop it. With the simple, convenient explanation – for financial reasons.
Due to suspended funding, Novo vreme magazine has not been published in print for the second year, and its electronic website is entirely the result of the voluntary efforts of authors, editors and administrators. Since 2019, the publication of the magazine “Monday” has stopped. The Information Bulletin “Contemporary Indicator” also disappeared a long time ago. For more than five years there has not been a single new edition of the “Dimitar Blagoev” National Political Institute.
This year, on the eve of May 1 and “in honor” of the holiday of the “Word” and the left press, it was the turn of the newspapers “Zemya”, “Russia Today” and “China Today”. A few days ago, employees of the National Assembly of the BSP sealed the front door of the editorial office of “Zemya”, located in the state building of “Positano” No. 20 of 2015, under a contract for joint activities and mutual assistance between the National Assembly of the BSP and the publisher of the newspapers – “Koopmedia” Ltd. In broad daylight, the lock was broken, the lock was changed, the electricity was cut off, and access to the electrical panel was prohibited. The door of the editorial office was plastered with prohibitory tapes, on which are the seal of the National Assembly of the BSP and the signatures of the perpetrators of this shameful act.
We know that this criminal “action” was not undertaken arbitrarily, but was carried out by order of the president of the BSP, who studied law, was an investigator and should know that this is called self-government, breaking into someone else’s property , a punishable criminal offence.
It is clear to us that what has been happening in recent days is a manifestation of the political showdown and the personal battles of the chairwoman of the BSP with the publisher of the Zemya newspaper. With the ultimate goal – to stop the newspaper. But it comes with another huge problem. The “Social Ideas” Library, arranged, kept and supplemented in the editorial office of the village “Zemya” in fulfillment of the contract with the National Assembly of the BSP, is under threat. It stores a huge book and archival wealth of the party, inherited from the archives and libraries of the newspapers “Rabotnik”, “Rabotnichesko Delo” and “Cooperative Village” – over 25 thousand volumes of historical, political and fiction literature; over 900,000 archive items on the history of the BSP from 1891 to the present day; over a thousand bound volumes of left-wing newspapers and magazines from the beginning of their publication in the 19th century until today. Materials that today are difficult to find in public libraries after their “inventory” in the years after 1989. A fund that can absorb and be enriched by many more archival units and printed editions scattered in the rooms of “Positano” and beyond and to become a unique public information and cultural center. The removal of this treasure, which is priceless for the socialist movement in Bulgaria, from its current storehouse condemns it to waste, destruction and loss for generations. But this does not interest Ninova and the current leadership of the BSP. There are numerous examples that show their alienation from socialist ideas and irresponsible attitude towards the history and values of the party. The current unenviable state of the Dimitar Blagoev National Political Institute is a vivid proof of this.
The work of “Zemya” – a recognized and authoritative national cooperative daily newspaper – has been blocked. The voice of a left-wing newspaper has been silenced. Regardless of the current contract between the National Assembly of the BSP and the publisher “Koopmedia”, according to which “the two parties unite their efforts for the promotion and spread of socialist values”, and for this purpose they “do not bind each other financially”. Does this mean that the BSP of Ninova renounces the “popularization and dissemination of socialist values” and pulling the counter is essentially a rude and unforgiving “one-month written notice” to vacate the premises now occupied by the editorial office.
The “Zemya” scandal was staged to cover up another serious problem created by the leadership of the BSP. These days it became public knowledge that the Bulgarian Free Television is stopping broadcasting. It is explained that it was temporary until she moved from her current studio to the premises of “Positano” #20 and in no case for financial reasons, as the perpetrators claimed. An explanation that even laypeople in the field scoff at, due to its technological insolvency and financial doom. The truth is that this is the belated end of a failed project due to professional incompetence and political irresponsibility, which betrayed the hopes of hundreds of honest supporters of left-wing ideas for a different and more genuine television, which became completely unnecessary after becoming a tool to praise “successes” of the party leadership’ and for bashing the ‘enemies with a party ticket’, not the political opponents and the injustices in the society and the state. BSTV neither became television, nor was it free. But it absorbed millions, which were taken away from other party publications and especially from the funds vitally necessary for the normal activity of party organizations in the country. Who and when will give explanations and be responsible for all this?
The self-dealing with “Zemya” village is another episode of the pogrom against the leftist journalism and against the party itself. The balance sheet on the eve of the holiday of the “Duma” and the left-wing press is sad. The party is broken, the encroachment on its historical memory continues. The left stamp is humiliated. Free speech is trampled. Free thought is treason. Criticism is a crime. Anyone who thinks differently from the president and her entourage is an enemy. There is no freedom of speech. There is freedom of censorship and revelry of one-man dictation. This pogrom continues for the seventh year. The result is natural – it is enough to recall that from 2017 to today the BSP lost over 730,000 voters, and that today it has fallen as a political force to the humiliating fifth place in the 49th National Assembly, that the BSP is no longer even an authoritative political subject, nor an unavoidable social factor.
When will socialists and sympathizers realize this? When will those responsible for this sad situation be held accountable?
Let’s remind everyone again:
THERE IS NO LEFT PARTY WITHOUT IDEAL VALUES AND HISTORICAL MEMORY! THERE IS NO LEFT PARTY WITHOUT AUTHORITY JOURNALISTS AND A STRONG LEFT PRESS! LET’S PROTECT THEM!
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