Comment by Ivaylo Noyzi Tsvetkov:
A few days ago, an acquaintance, a type of “cavy socialist“, told me the following joke while we were discussing the arrogant and somewhat cynical post-November 10th existence of the BSP and its leaders – if Parvanov got us into NATO, and Stanishev – in the European Union, it is quite logical that now none other than Zafirov has brought us into the eurozone.
Far more amusing, however, is the recent context in which the BSP mastodon (especially under Ninova) is gradually fading and its ribs have begun to be counted to the extent that after its last “assembly” with GERB, ITN and de facto DPS-New Beginning, there was serious talk that it was about to fall out of parliament in the next elections. Of course, let's not forget the new narrative in which Radev would gather all the pro-Putin/pro-Putin party bodies, i.e. the real danger of cannibalizing everything that wants to pass for the official left and for which Russia is still that name “sacred, native, dear, it is our light in the darkness” etc.
BSP has a historic chance
In short, on the morning of February 7, the BSP looked as if it was starting to pack up its bags from the parliamentary scene after 36 years. However, that same evening, it already had a brand new leader - Krum Zarkov, who - black swan or not - literally turned the context upside down (or up, depending on where we look). We are talking about the party that succeeded Zhivkov, which for decades posed in the red underwear of a socialist party, without actually being one for a moment; on the contrary, the BCP remained the BCP, only after 1990 we had to read this abbreviation as the “Bulgarian Capitalist Party“, from whose warm bosom almost the entire future oligarchic elite emerged. But here the BSP, like a bolt from the blue, is faced with a historic chance, while asking itself the question “and now where”. Because Zarkov has the real opportunity to take the eventual turn from a pseudo-left of a pro-Putinoid type to a social democratic one of a Western type, given mostly the very “Sorbonne”-left and modern nature of the new leader.
In this sense, the chance is for a possible reach towards a “Labor” left, or, if we go back further – Mario Soares-left. By – notice – stripping off the old dried skin, shaking off the red oligarchy and a decisive catharsis towards the past. I don't really believe in the latter, by the way, because it involves repentance and apology for the piles of atrocities and crimes of all kinds by the Bulgarian Communist Party, but who knows, even greater political miracles have happened in our country.
How big is this chance?
If we are realistic, Zarkov himself should hardly be burdened with the expectation of tectonic shifts. However, he seems to have a special flame of unpredictability, which gives some hope for a real change in the direction of the aforementioned left-wing social-democratic progressivism of the Western type; in other words, he is visibly aware of what he is talking about and longs to be recorded in history, the question is whether the large backs he climbed are inclined, paradoxically, to reconcile a possible “BG Laborism“ with their strictly capital tasks and interests.
The cynical answer seems obvious. And the funny thing is that until now it seems to be in the very DNA of this party to combine something else - on the one hand, talk about solidarity, a welfare state, redistribution, a progressive tax framework and other good-night talk, and on the other - the ruthless, coldly calculating conservative-capitalist practices of its internal elite.
This is how Zarkov finds himself in one of the paradoxes of the left icon Antonio Gramsci - "the masses" may want it, but without the sanction of the leaders of this same "mass" any more drastic movement for systemic change seems doomed, especially in the domestic context. Not to mention that recently Bulgarian politics has been a practical competition in "leftism", in which the centenarian seemingly has neither an ideological nor an instrumental chance to join. (Because where further to the left from 2021, to the draft budget that raised major protests? Let's nationalize everything?)
The three "elephants in the room"
The new leader of the BSP will undoubtedly have to pay attention to several "elephants in the room". The first is Rumen Radev – and Zarkov has yet to prove that his departure from the presidency as legal advisor was not a preemptive trick. In other words, the serious suspicion here among the traditional red voter is that he is becoming a victim of tactical maneuvers, the eventual goal of which would be for the BSP to be wrapped in brand new cellophane with a bright red ribbon and handed over to Radev in April.
The second elephant is the attitude towards GERB and, somehow by analogy, towards “DPS-New Beginning“. Ideologically, “software“ and in any case, BSP has no place in this company, unless it is a question of business interests, and then, damn it, in the end it is always a question of business interests, given the particular oligarchic intertwining on our soil. Here, the spirit of Gramsci, or even Benedetto Croce, cannot help; because after all, we are also talking about a political challenge.
Hence the third elephant in Zarkov's new cabinet – lest it turns out that some circles within the BSP have been displaced by other circles (without accusing the new leader of excessive naivety), who have long wanted to value their purely politically serious red capitals (this word so dirty to the orthodox socialist ear).
But I am optimistic. Krum Zarkov has the ideas, the social democratic layers within him and even some experience to turn the old tanker in the direction of the modern left. There are various smaller problems left, such as finding an electorate somewhere.