Civil defense tasks are divided into three categories. The first includes provision of shelters and defense for the population, providing warning of attack, and training of the people for implementation of dispersal and evacuation plans and for defense and salvage work. The second includes implementation of measures intended to maintain production and to keep transportation, communications media, and power supplies in operation. The third includes industrial salvage, restoration of production, fire fighting, decontamination, and provision of medical assistance.

Specific work assignments vary widely in differing locations and enterprises. For example, industrial teams train to maintain or restore production. Agricultural teams work to save crops, farm animals, or to protect feed and watering spots. People's councils at all levels, party and youth groups, and the mass organizations are instructed to assist in specific ways and to volunteer in other ways as opportunities arise.

Enthusiasm for civil defense activities varies widely. One town with a population of just over 1,000, for example, built or modified areas to shelter 6,000 people. In more typical situations tasks such as those of civil defense that have little to contribute to the needs of the moment receive much lower priority.

PUBLIC ORDER

The Communist Party and Social Organizations

The most important element in establishing control of the country at the inception of the post-World War II communist government was the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP—see Glossary), with the iron discipline it held over its carefully chosen members and its single-minded planning and direction. After gaining control, the party attempted to retain its exclusive character, insofar as possible recruiting as members only those whose loyalty was unquestioned and who could organize and lead.

To maintain control based on a broader segment of the population, the party then encouraged the development of a number of social and special-interest organizations, designed to appeal to the interests of as many of the people as possible and to enlist them in activities that shape public opinion, regulate the conduct of the people, and support the party and its policies. These organizations ranged in size from the extremely large Fatherland Front and the trade unions to the painters, writers, and composers unions, whose memberships numbered between 100 and 800 (see ch. 9).

With the exceptions of the party, the Fatherland Front, and the small artists unions, these groups are called mass organizations. The small unions do not qualify because they are far from massive in size; the party and the front have the requisite membership, but they are set apart from the others. The Fatherland Front attempts to gather members from all other socially or politically active organizations in the country, combining as many as possible of them within it. Its membership includes nearly one-half of the country's population. The party, although ostensibly a member organization of the Fatherland Front, is set above all other organizations. It controls and directs the others and requires them to support it in general and specific ways (see ch. 9).

The largest of the mass organizations are, in descending order, the trade unions, the Bulgarian Red Cross, the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union (Dimitrovski Komunisticheski Mladezhki Suyuz—commonly referred to as the Komsomol), the Bulgarian Union for Physical Culture and Sports, and the Bulgarian Union of Tourists. Their memberships range from about 1 million to approximately 2.5 million. The Bulgarian Agrarian Union, the Bulgarian Hunting and Fishing Union, the Teachers Union, and the Scientific and Technical Union are much smaller, having memberships between 100,000 and 200,000. The Fatherland Front attracts nearly 4 million people; the party has 700,000 members.

Youth Programs