Krum Zarkov addressed the socialists with an open letter and proposed a draft for a “Manifesto of the Left Forces“, entitled “Socialism of Our Century“. He called for a large-scale discussion about the future of the organized socialist movement in Bulgaria and its ultimate goal - overcoming capitalism. According to him, the document is not a final program, but a framework for conversation and a common ideological basis for the BSP and the left forces in the coming years. Zarkov states that he is not simply looking for support, but co-authors among the members of the party and all who share socialist ideas. The draft defines capitalism as a system that deepens inequalities, devalues labor, destroys democracy and concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. As an alternative, a society based on freedom, equality, solidarity, peace and democratic control over the economy is proposed.
The manifesto defends decent work, affordable healthcare, education and housing, as well as limiting the power of capital. It rejects militarization, imperialism, market fundamentalism and the idea that “green capitalism“ can solve the climate crisis.
Zarkov proposes to include party organizations, left-wing movements, trade unionists, public figures and working people from all over the country in the discussion. The goal is for the BSP to adopt a clear ideological course and a new statute by the end of the year or at the beginning of the next one, which will turn the party into an effective instrument for the realization of these goals.
For the purposes of the manifesto
Socialism has a place in our country! And what is socialism?
Today, 135 years after the beginning of the organized socialist movement in Bulgaria, we, the Bulgarian socialists, are obliged to recall that socialism is based on the ideas of freedom, equality and solidarity. We are obliged to awaken public awareness of its relevance due to the urgent need to overcome the capitalist system.
We are entering ever deeper into the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Artificial intelligence and new technologies are fundamentally changing the way we produce, acquire and consume public goods. But instead of freeing people from insecurity and deprivation, they are becoming a new source of enormous wealth and power, concentrated in the hands of a handful of multi-billionaires.
At the same time, we are witnessing widespread social and humanitarian regression. The overall result is societies marked by injustice. The most striking sign of injustice is social inequalities. The most powerful? engine is the devaluation of labor as a factor for a dignified and fulfilling life. And the surest cure – radical change.
Bulgaria is the country of the deepest social inequalities in the European Union. While a few appropriate wealth and power, millions live from paycheck to paycheck. Entire regions are being depopulated, and poverty is passed down from generation to generation. We are told that success depends solely on personal efforts. The truth is that our destiny is predetermined by the place where we were born, the family's income and access to education. In our country, efforts are not valued, but connections.
Therefore, our appeal is to all who recognize as their own the causes of social justice, democracy and solidarity; to all left-wing people – to build a new socialist movement. To chart another path for our country, far from the disintegration, degradation and alienation that have beset the fate of our people and the peoples of the world.
It is possible!
To live with dignity from our work.
To be a society, not warring groups torn apart by inequalities and discrimination.
To build a democratic, legal and social state, according to the Constitution, by rejecting the oligarchic “democracy“, secretly but permanently imposed on us.
On the philosophy of socialism today
Capitalism destroys. It destroys the world legal order by provoking wars. It is destroying the planet by causing a climate crisis. It is undermining democracy by giving power to economic minorities over exploited masses. It is condemning Bulgaria to degradation by emptying it of its most valuable asset – its people. It is dividing and disuniting our people by purposefully replacing systems of solidarity with market dominance and various forms of violence.
Socialism builds. It is aimed at building a world system that guarantees peace. At the creation of economic and social prerequisites for the salvation of the planet, and hence of humanity. At the establishment of a true democracy that protects the rights and freedoms of all people. At the strengthening of human dignity and the creative powers of all who live as a diverse but united community in Bulgaria.
What we, the leftists who support this manifesto, have in common is the aspiration for a society based on solidarity democracy; for a peaceful world based on global justice.
To move towards this society, first of all we must realize that the mantras about the countless benefits of privatization, about the freedom guaranteed by the market and about happiness through consumption make only the few national and supranational elites rich, free and happy. We must realize that the lavish prosperity of the elites is the result of the subjugation of a large population suffering deprivation and oppressed in poverty.
The lie that such a system can be democratic must be exposed! This is our task. Let us begin to implement it purposefully and immediately - from every factory, from every office, from every store in the neighborhood, from every hamlet, from every village and from every city, from every corner of the world.
A different economic base is needed that will improve the lives of workers in industry, construction, agriculture and transport, of employees in trade, of those working in the fields of health care, education, services, IT the sector and administrative personnel. A new political structure is needed that recognizes domestic care as work. Whose ultimate verdict is not work to the grave, but a well-deserved and dignified rest for the elderly, which will not abandon people in disadvantaged situations and minority groups to the dump of misery and despair. A new public consciousness is needed that will transform our fragmented concerns into a common will for change. To place solidarity above competition, the common good above private profit, friendship above hatred and man above capital.
It is time to break through the fog of delusion that our personal existence exists beyond the public, that our personal happiness is possible when everyone fights against everyone. If we emerge from the decade-long eclipse about the “end of history“, we will inevitably arrive at the idea of the need for a socialist society. A society in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all, in which people are not rivals and enemies, but are united as human beings, compatriots, fellow citizens, like-minded people and friends. This is the philosophy of leftist movements, of socialism.
On the power of capital today
In 2026, for the first time, the wealth of an individual exceeded a trillion dollars. This marks a special stage in the development of the global capitalist system. Capitalism has encircled the entire world far and wide in intertwined production chains that suck value from the workforce and concentrate it in fewer and more massive corporations. Through speculative steps, stock markets multiply this value to unimaginable proportions. The philosophy of the new multibillionaires unites two main perspectives on the new spaces for capital accumulation: (1) the increase in labor productivity through artificial intelligence and (2) the commercialization of outer space. These two directions of competitive struggle express the two main forms of capitalist growth: intensive (with the mastery of new forms of production) and extensive (with the mastery of new physical spaces for production). However, the expansion into space does not mean that terrestrial nature ceases to be the main object of capitalist accumulation or that capital has achieved independence from labor in order to expand. After all, the labor force and natural resources that make this expansion possible are here on earth. Both nature and human bodies remain fundamental conditions for the reproduction of capital, which it continually subjugates, transforms, and incorporates into new regimes of exploitation and oppression, expanding the limits of its growth.
The possibilities for democratic distribution of resources for social development are extremely limited in a system that concentrates so much power in private individuals. The pursuit of new forms of capital accumulation further limits the possibility of workers participating in decisions that determine the fate of all humanity. At the same time, the capitalist continues to depend on the worker, despite his long-standing dream of getting rid of him.
Technocapitalism does not eliminate the material conditions of production, but restructures them. The development of artificial intelligence relies on enormous amounts of human labor in the extraction of raw materials, the production of chips, and the filtering and moderation of data. In addition, the maintenance of large language models requires colossal amounts of electricity and water, turning natural resources into an even more intensive object of appropriation. Behind the seemingly autonomous intelligence of machines stands a global infrastructure of exploited labor and appropriated natural resources.
The conflict between labor and capital in these new modes of accumulation is yet to escalate. And while practically all political forces have built themselves behind capital, we must protect wage labor!
The same process, but on a smaller scale, is also developing in Bulgaria. Having exhausted the possibilities for extensive growth through rentier control over the main financial flows (state budget, European funds and lending) and production capacities (mostly energy), the capitalist system in our country is squeezed between the need for intensive growth and the prospect of complete political and economic collapse. Intensive growth cannot occur if a new faction of the capitalist class does not replace the rentiers, established in the underground struggles of the 1990s and 2000s. The opposition between the factions of the capitalist class in Bulgaria is obvious, but it was not resolved in their direct political clash.
Until we dare to radically change the social organization of redistribution, of labor and of access to public goods, new and new “saviors“ will appear on the political scene, called upon to resolve contradictions that the system itself constantly reproduces. But no "savior" can eliminate the social discontent arising from the unfair distribution of wealth and power. As long as the social horizon is limited to the search for new models of capitalist accumulation, we will continue to live in a cycle of rise and fall of short-term political projects.
In this situation, workers face the danger of losing the few remaining opportunities to influence the decisions that determine the lives of all of us. To avoid this risk, we must build our own organizations, unions and forms of collective action, independent of the power of capital. This is another of our primary tasks! Only if we connect with each other in relations of equality, solidarity and democratic participation will we have the power to oppose the economic and political domination of the capitalist status quo.
For equality and solidarity, against inequalities and oppression
Even today, class origin continues to determine what education we receive, what access to health care we have and what housing environment we live in. The born poor are segregated geographically, excluded educationally and subsequently professionally. Impoverishment and downgrading are reproduced from generation to generation as if they were a law of nature. And they are not. They are the result of political decisions and economic relations.
For decades, policies of privatization, deregulation, budget austerity, flat taxes and market subordination of public spheres have transferred wealth and power to a few. The widely held budgetary principle states that public money should follow the student and the patient. In practice, however, both the student and the patient can be sure of receiving quality education and health care only if they have significant resources of their own. Thus, the right becomes a privilege and the public good becomes a commodity.
Under capitalism, the wealth of certain groups accumulates at the expense of extracting economic and social value from others. Inequalities are not a side effect of the system, but its main mechanism of reproduction. They are not inevitable, but made possible by brutal class, and often racial, violence. They are not maintained solely through the mechanisms of economic exploitation, but also by a fierce struggle against the unions of the oppressed.
Since the beginning of the Transition, the story has been the same. When society becomes impoverished, the blame is never on the rich and powerful, but on the poor, workers, civil servants, Roma, women, homosexuals, migrants, foreigners and any other easy target not represented in power. Public discontent is deliberately directed at them. This narrative not only distracts attention from impoverishment, it prevents its victims from opposing it. The poor fight another poor person, instead of joining forces against the power that condemns them to poverty.
Our post-socialist reality has repeatedly reproduced this tendency, inherent in Western capitalist societies. The most striking example of this is how the public conversation often focused on illegal Roma buildings, while entire wealthy neighborhoods, surrounded by barriers, took over territories of forests, mountains and rivers in contradiction to all norms and standards, appeared before our eyes.
The social issue was turned into a moral issue, which divided communities into "worthy" and "unworthy" poor, into "useful" and "dangerous" refugees, into "lazy" and "necessary labor". The moral stigma always coincides with the needs of the holders of capital and power.
The collapse of the welfare state has shifted the responsibility for renewing life onto the shoulders of families and especially women. Conservative currents have skillfully created a public moral panic around the epidemics of domestic violence and homophobia in order to strengthen their ideological theses, disguised as a concern for the preservation of traditional virtues. The result - our society has divided, and its members have hated each other. Conditions have been created for fierce violence, for self-harm, for the return of the attitude towards women from years ago in complete contrast to the struggles for emancipation of millions of socialist women.
We reject forms of domination that oppose people according to their class origin, skin color, religion, gender and sexuality. As heirs of the anti-fascist tradition, we clearly state: there is no freedom without equality and there can be no real democracy without solidarity. Against the politics of hatred, we raise the politics of justice and human liberation.
We know that the rejection of the economic, social and regional inequalities imposed by the capitalist class requires continuous and self-sacrificing efforts. But we are ready for them, because the stake is the lives of today's and tomorrow's generations. Therefore:
We fight for education that unleashes human potential, that educates in solidarity and prepares people not just for the labor market, but for active participation in democratic public life.
We fight for healthcare that puts the work of the healer and the health of the treated above the profit accumulated at the expense of our suffering and that of our loved ones.
We fight for affordable housing – for a warm, clean and safe home. For an accessible culture – with opportunities for creativity and shared joy.
Our struggle is for a society in which no one is condemned to poverty, humiliation or suffering because of the circumstances of their birth; a society in which equality is not a slogan, but the basis of a free and meaningful human life; the basis for a life without oppression.
Our answer to division is solidarity.
For the power of labor, not capital
In a society in which a person fails to live a dignified life through his labor, fraud, theft and corruption flourish.
In a country in which workers are disenfranchised, a race to the bottom quickly ensues – for lower wages, for fewer rights and for cheaper labor. In such a system, even honest entrepreneurs are forced to be exploiters and unfair taxpayers if they want to survive in the crushing competition.
This is exactly what is happening in Bulgaria. For nearly four decades, we have been promised prosperity - but! - if we are patient, if we work more and want less. For thirty-six years, we have been waiting in vain for low wages and extended working hours to create enough wealth at the top so that it can flow down. But the goods created with our labor are concentrated at the top and remain there.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria has been turned into a periphery of the European economy. Into a labor colony. Into a country that exports its people and whose most valuable resource is their cheap labor. Entire generations are forced to pack their bags for abroad, while investors and politicians turn our homeland into a warehouse for cheap labor.
We reject Bulgaria's assigned place as a reservoir for labor. The people who work in factories, hospitals, schools, laboratories, offices and fields create incomparably more wealth, knowledge and social value than they receive in return. Our society has an enormous labor, intellectual and creative potential that deserves to be developed, not exported; respected, not exploited.
We oppose the model that turns cheap labor into a national strategy. The army of the working poor is the most convincing evidence of capitalism's inability to provide justice even to those who create public wealth.
Society depends on the labor of millions of people. Without them, not a single factory works, not a single store opens, not a single hospital treats, not a single train runs. With their collective strength and will, these millions can create a reality different from the one in which they are oppressed. To prevent this alternative, the advantaged fight against all forms of conscious workers' action: from unionization to socialist political representation. The nurse, the teacher, the taxi driver, the doctor, the welder, the miller, the delivery man, the programmer, the salesperson and all other workers have common interests: decent pay, job security, time for rest and respect for their work.
We reject the lie that insecurity is freedom and exploitation is modernization. Let us together liberate the forces of labor by uniting in defense of our common good. We believe that the future belongs to solidarity, and wealth to those who create it!
...
The paradox of our time is cruel. We produce more than ever, but we have fewer and fewer minutes for ourselves. Technology connects us like never before, but we have never been so lonely and divided. We have unprecedented scientific and technical capabilities, but we are losing control over our lives. Alienation and mental suffering are taking on epidemic proportions; there is already an entire “Generation Stress“. This is not about individual failures. These are social consequences of the all-consuming market logic and the insane competition between everyone for everything.
A society that evaluates people solely according to their productivity subordinates their entire existence to the requirements of profit-making production. Globalized capitalism does not allow for a meaningful conversation about the quality of life. Its measure is reduced to the value with which we contribute to the enrichment of individuals and to the hours of labor that we can sell. But the economy must serve man, not the other way around.
Work should be a guarantee of a decent life. But life cannot be only work. A full human life also requires time outside the workplace: time for family, for friendship, for sports, creativity, music, culture and social participation - free time.
Socialism deals not only with questions of property and wages. It answers the question "How and for what do we live?".
We, the people of the left, do not seek to restore the socialist models of the previous century. We look ahead with the conviction that technological progress should free up time for life, instead of increasing the pressure for more work. We will build a society in which education, culture, recreation, and free time are a universal right, not a privilege of the economic elite.
On overcoming capitalism as a defense of democracy
The Bulgarian Constitution of July 12, 1991, was erected on a pedestal of values, namely - freedom, peace, humanism, equality, justice, and tolerance. But the values to which its implementation has been subject are completely different? in recent decades: competition, profiteering, relentless accumulation of capital, budgetary austerity, denationalization, and corruption. Dozens of governments have changed over the years, but none of them has wanted to see the damage caused by modern capitalism.
Bulgarian leaders are convinced and have convinced many of our compatriots that democracy and capitalism are inextricably linked and mutually dependent. However, the capitalist thirst for accumulation constantly places limits on the democratic development of our societies, hindering the realization of mass political participation and ignoring the possibilities for workers' control over the means of production. Democracy and capitalism can no longer coexist without the deep contradictions between them becoming apparent.
Liberal political theory separates the economic from the political sphere. This liberal imperative is a historical feature of societies organized in capitalist relations, not a natural state of the democratic process. Liberal theory presents the economy to us as a separate private area of our lives that should not be democratically governed. We see it every day. We vote for governments, but we cannot democratically decide how to organize production, where to direct investments, or how to distribute wealth. The owners of capital are in fact the ones who exercise power. They decide who will work, under what conditions and for what pay, and what a given enterprise will invest in. And these are decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. And it is precisely these decisions that are not subject to democratic control.
Isn't it easier to imagine the end of democracy today than the end of capitalism? It is a matter of political and ideological choice what we will ensure: whether the power of the people, by the people and for the people, survives, or whether the omnipotence of capital persists.
We, the people of the left, choose democracy over capitalism.
We choose a project for democracy that extends it beyond the institutions of the liberal state. We choose a democratic alternative that encompasses the economic relations that determine our destiny. We choose a democracy that does not stop at the door of the enterprise, in which public investments are subject to public control, and decisions about production and distribution are subject to democratic control. We choose the constitutional principles enshrined in the 1991 preamble over capitalist ones.
We insist on human, not market, freedom.
We categorically state that economic and social inequalities inevitably lead to political inequalities and vice versa. In recent years, we have been living in a situation in which, even if we formally have equal rights, the accumulation of wealth at the top creates conditions for lobbying and influence on the media and parties. This situation gave birth to the vicious phenomena of bought and controlled votes, which took root in the economic domination of some people over others. Economic power is not ashamed to buy political power, just as political power is not embarrassed to accumulate economic power.
Power turns into money, and money into power. As long as this vicious circle remains intact, justice will continue to be an unfulfilled election promise. The Eastern European transition, including the Bulgarian one, produced societies in which many work and create, and few own and govern. That is why the numerous governments in Bulgaria often defend the privileges of the rich, not the rights of the majority. When legal law is not an expression of the common will, it becomes an instrument of economic domination of the minority.
It is time to responsibly declare that a state cannot be just without being truly democratic and truly social. Because justice is more than obedience to legal norms. It means real power of the majority over decisions that are vitally important for it. It means the abolition of privileges, the participation of workers in government, and public wealth that is shared, not appropriated.
For peace, against imperialism
We live in a world in which international law has not only been trampled on, but has also been declared hopeless and eradicated as an idea. The legal and humanitarian consensus formalized after World War II has been effectively abolished. Wars and genocides are broadcast live. Despite humanity's resistance to these merciless crimes, governments around the world ignore the cry for an end to the devastation. The concept of universal, comprehensive, and unconditional human rights has also lost its power.
Contrary to the dominant narrative, the world is not divided between good and bad empires. Imperialism reproduces itself in the common root of capitalism with its contradictions. Behind complex geopolitical conflicts, there is most often a struggle for access to markets, resources, cheap labor, and untold profits. In this struggle, the superfluous “others” are inhumanly defined, whose lives can be sacrificed on the altar of profiteering. Millions of people pay the price of this model, becoming victims of fighting, poverty, destroyed cities, and forced migration. While the capitalist class multiplies its own profits, the working class bears the burden of destruction and feeds the military meat grinder.
In recent years, the systematic extermination of entire peoples has shown that the imperialist interests that rule our world are stronger than the claims to international law and a humane world order. The genocide in Gaza has become a symbol of resistance around the world, because the deafening silence of governments and political parties in the so-called civilized world has brought us face to face with the hypocrisy and double standards of their political elites. At the same time, the humanitarian civilian flotillas to Gaza and Cuba, solidarity with refugees from Ukraine, workers' blockades of arms supplies and boycott campaigns show the existence of a global network of international solidarity, stretching from Gaza to Sudan and from Cuba to Ukraine. We, the socialists in Bulgaria, will be part of this network. Against any war.
We are against any form of imperialism. Bulgaria has no interest in being a pawn in foreign geopolitical projects. Our direction is international solidarity, support for liberation movements and cooperation between working and oppressed people across borders, ethnicities and countries.
In our opinion, peace is not achieved through more weapons, but through a stronger alliance between those who desire it.
Capitalists around the world see war as another opportunity to accumulate capital. Socialism is incompatible with war. Socialists see it as an obstacle to human cooperation and global prosperity. This difference is of paramount importance. It is also the main legitimation of the left forces - bearers of peace and understanding between peoples.
For a Europe of peace and labor, against market fundamentalism
We are part of Europe and we believe that the future of Bulgaria is connected to the future of other peoples around the world. But the European Union is increasingly moving away from the principles of solidarity and cohesion on which it was built after the Second World War.
Today, European institutions put competitiveness, deregulation and geopolitical rivalry at the heart of policy. Instead of competing to ensure a better life for people, European governments compete to offer more advantageous conditions for capital. The interests of large corporations and financial institutions are increasingly presented as the interests of society as a whole.
The results of this policy are visible. Nearly a fifth of the EU population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Millions of people live in precarious employment and more than a million are homeless. More and more workers are forced to accept precarious employment, long working hours and poor working conditions, while the fruits of economic growth are concentrated in the hands of a few. Bulgaria knows the consequences of this model particularly well.
At the same time, the European Union is heading towards ever greater militarization. The new emphasis on security, defense and geopolitical competition is pushing into the background issues of social protection, the quality of public services and the standard of living of European citizens.
We are against the uncontrolled increase in military spending at the expense of public needs. Armament funds must be balanced against the needs of healthcare, education, science, culture, social security and regional development. Security cannot be separated from democratic legitimacy. It requires transparency, public control and trust. It requires an international alliance rooted in mutually beneficial relations between peoples, not international chaos protected by killer drones and destroyed infrastructure for life.
Security without social cohesion is an illusion. Undermining the social contract in the name of militarization carries the risk of internal instability, which can be no less dangerous than external threats. Neither the climate transition, nor the digital transformation, nor lasting peace can be achieved without a solid social foundation and a fair economic policy.
We are fighting for another Europe - a Europe of peace, work, equality and solidarity. A Europe that puts human dignity above profit, cooperation above competition and cohesion above the division between center and periphery.
For a healthy planet, against “green” capitalism
The constant pursuit of economic growth and the thirst for ever greater profits have pushed the planet to the brink of ecological collapse. Capitalism, with its boundless greed, threatens the natural balance and thus becomes a threat to humanity. As corporations greedily and maniacally expand their assets, forests disappear, the planet warms, and water and air become polluted. The climate crisis is a consequence of the way capitalism organizes the relationship between society and nature.
The climate crisis is not a natural disaster. It is the result of an economic system that puts profit above all else. It is a structural feature of capitalist production, in which accumulation necessarily leads to more accumulation. Capitalism therefore constantly demands more raw materials, more energy, more land, more transport, more consumption. But the planet has a finite ecological resource that constantly conflicts with the dynamics of capitalist logic. We, ordinary people, pay the price of this madness. The poorest and most vulnerable suffer the most from droughts, floods, and rising energy prices.
This general observation is painfully true for Bulgaria. The last few years have been the warmest, with the highest temperatures ever measured in our country. Forest and field fires, droughts and floods are becoming more frequent, soil erosion and depletion are accelerating. Deaths caused by heat waves are increasing. The most affected are families who cannot afford either the increased food prices or the means to escape the heat and the rising waters.
Having injected its poison into nature, capitalism has tried to offer a cure in the form of even more capitalism. The “Green economy“ has become another market opportunity for millionaires and billionaires, and the “green transition“ is widening the gap between them and those working on a monthly salary. The real alternative at the national and international level lies in protecting water spaces and forests, in the socialization of the energy and transport sectors. We urgently need cooperative agriculture, which creates security for local producers and shortens supply chains to consumers.
The climate crisis is a class issue and its containment is the subject of class struggle. We reject the idea of “green capitalism“ as fundamentally impossible. Our fight is for climate justice. Production should be organized according to public needs, not according to the opportunities it provides for private profits. Economic priorities must be the subject of democratic decisions that take into account to the greatest extent the effects of capital's war on the planet. We know that transformations are inevitable and we insist that their burden be borne by the big polluters, not by workers and households. The price should be paid by those responsible for the crisis, not by those who suffered from it.
Together for solidarity! Join us!
The ideologists of capitalist social organization teach us to always perceive ourselves as competitors and to view the other as a threat.
The ideal of socialism teaches us that people are dependent on each other and that the freedom, security and dignity of each depend on the freedom, security and dignity of all.
The only valid response to the current and upcoming crises is solidarity.
Solidarity is not charity or a gesture of generosity from the strong to the weak.
Solidarity is the awareness that we are connected and no one will save themselves alone.
Solidarity is the willingness to fight not only for our own salvation, but also for those who are different from us. us.
Solidarity is the refusal to let difference become division.
The history of humanity is the history of solidarity. It does not belong to the past; it is a necessity for the present and a path to the future.
For us, solidarity is not just a moral principle, but a principle of social organization – with democratic participation, with inclusion instead of exclusion, with cooperation instead of competition.
To pursue this path, we need a movement that is bigger than any party, individual, community or association.
A movement that unites us – us, the people who refuse to accept poverty, inequalities, discrimination, the destruction of our planet, war.
This movement is inevitable, because the smoke from the fires of our time reaches all of us. The fight against exploitation, oppression, alienation, the draining of our vital abilities and the destruction of our planet is not a fight to improve someone's situation. It is a fight for the future of humanity.
Support this manifesto and we will set off together on the steep path to building a just, solidary and equal society!*
Dear comrades,
I allow myself to address you directly, in the first person and without intermediaries. I am writing to invite you to a fateful discussion about the future of the organized socialist movement in Bulgaria. About its ultimate goal - overcoming capitalism.
I am sending you a text. A draft of a Manifesto of the Left Forces, entitled “Socialism of Our Century“. What is it? What is its philosophy? What are its main themes in the contemporary environment? What are its manifestations, addressees and opponents? These are some of the questions to which I offer possible answers.
I am not simply looking for support for certain views. I am looking for co-authors and as potential ones I am turning to you - my fellow party members. Co-authors of a common manifesto that will serve as the ideological basis of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and, in general, the left forces in Bulgaria in the coming years.
The project that you will find here does not claim to contain final statements. It should be seen as a framework for conversation, without which the discussion risks scattering in all directions. And this discussion, in addition to being large-scale, is also extremely responsible.
All those who wish to participate must have the opportunity to do so, and therefore we will use all possible communication channels. A series of meetings in various formats and at all levels are coming up. We are starting on the eve of our traditional gathering on Mount Buzludzha. On July 31, at 5:30 p.m. in Stara Zagora, we will hold a special conference on the topic. In September, we will publish a schedule of meetings with party organizations across the country. In the meantime, anyone who wishes can send their comments and notes to the email address chairman@bsp.bg and be assured that they will be seriously studied and commented on.
Naturally, all representative bodies of the party will be involved in the process - the Executive Bureau, the National Council, municipal and regional councils, as well as the active discussion clubs. So that together we can reach a Congress meeting at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, where we can establish a clear course forward.
The supreme body will also have another task before it: the adoption of a new statute, consistent with the party and political realities. This is absolutely essential for the BSP to become an effective instrument for achieving the goals set out in the Manifesto.
Therefore, in the attached document you will not read about the current state of the BSP, nor will you find specific policies or detailed descriptions of the necessary state actions and role. These are fundamental topics, but they are the subject of another conversation, which usually displaces the one about the goal. And without a goal we wander. Without a goal we fall victim to pragmatic policies. We have seen what this leads to.
But! There is no room for despondency, it is simply that finally the time has come for reflection, which should precede purposeful and united actions. A serious and responsible process that only the BSP can organize and carry out. With self-confidence, but without pretensions to exclusivity.
Let us also invite others - parties, movements, individuals - who share our ideology and goal. Let us consolidate, but also open up. Let us reconnect with the backbone of every socialist movement – the working people. The manifesto is an appeal to them. An outstretched hand for unity. The more people get involved during its preparation, the more we will be able to rely on during the period of its implementation.
Dear comrades,
The Bulgarian Socialist Party and the left in Bulgaria will not be reborn without a struggle. Join it by actively participating in the process of understanding the Socialism of our century. This is an act of responsibility and courage. Responsibility for the duty bequeathed to us over the past 135 years. And the courage to say here and now, against the dominant ideology of capitalist power: “I am a socialist!“.
Yours, Krum Zarkov
Source: duma.bg