The KGB and the Bulgarian State Security Service – Connections and Dependences (1950-1991) (480 pages) [CRYPTOME]

Part of the Bulgarian State Security in Communist Era Files collection.

[Original English Contents and Foreword, main document in Bulgarian.]

CONTENTS

1. Foreword -- Tatyana Kiryakova, member of the CDDAABCSBNA, managing editor ........................................................................................................ 6

2. Introduction -- associated professor dr. Jordan Baev, scientific consultant ........ 9

3. List of documents ................................................................................................... 22

4. Facsimile of documents ......................................................................................... 28

5. Comparative structure of KGB (1954-1991) and the Bulgarian State Security Services (1952-1990).................................................................... 450

6. Terms and abbreviations ..................................................................................... 452

7. Index of names ..................................................................................................... 456

8. List of the documents with an English annotation ............................................ 467

FOREWORD

The Commission for Disclosing the Documents and Announcing Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens to the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army has as an important aspect of its work the granting of access to the secret files for the purposes of research and investigative journalism. By virtue of article 10 of the Act on Access to and Declassification of the Records and on Disclosure of Involvement of Bulgarian Nationals With the Former State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian Peopleis Army, the Commission undertook the publication of a part of the documents preserved in the integrated archive it created.

The collection of records "The KGB and the Bulgarian State Security Services -- connections and dependences" is the first in a series of publications which will facilitate researchers in their work with confidential files from the funds of the archives of the Bulgarian former secret services. Until now they had access only to a part of the documents preserved in the archive of the Ministry of the Interior. This collection will enable them to view for the first time entirely unknown archive units of the National Intelligence Service which is the heir to the First Chief Directorate of the State Security.

We decided on this topic because it is part of a major international project entitled "The KGB cooperation with the Central and Eastern European secret services." The publication of the collected records "The KGB and the Bulgarian State Security Services -- connections and dependences" will represent the timely and necessary Bulgarian contribution to the implementation of this project as a follow-up to the Commission's joining the European network for the preservation of the archives.

This year we mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and the beginnings of the new democratic order in Central and Eastern Europe. The publication of unfamiliar documents will shed more light on the historical period under review and will help reveal more thoroughly the reasons that led to the events of 1989.

After the release of the secret records of the CIA and the US National Security Council from the Cold War period, a disclosure of the archives related to the cooperation between the Bulgarian State Security and the KGB will help researchers in conducting a more comprehensive analysis of the global confrontation between the two opposing camps which led to the emergence, expansion and regulation of a number of regional crises.

The documents included in the collection of records are yet another proof of our country's strong dependence on the Soviet Union. They are an additional provocation to foreign researchers because the archive documents included in the publication are a true mirror of the political orientation and the behaviour of the Soviet intelligence from the period of the early 1950s through the late 1980s of the last century.

The facsimiles published in the collection follow a chronological order. We decided on this approach because it allows a more precise investigation of the stages the Bulgarian intelligence went through. One can distinguish the differences in the management style of individual Soviet party and state leaders as well as of the heads of the KGB. The subjective factor in the management of the state and the secret services in the USSR had a direct impact on the style and the working methods of the Bulgarian secret services. This explains their own contribution to the exacerbation or the rapprochement of the relations between the two confronted world systems.

The volume of archive units on this topic is truly enormous. At this point we limited ourselves to selecting the most important documents, a total of 53 agreements, papers, reports and notes. We found many of the copies of the documents in the archives of the various departments of the Bulgarian State Security Services. We selected only the originals which were signed and stamped. This is why some of the documents are in Russian. We also publish some documents in Russian because we did not find their translation in our archives. We kept the original titles and attached a brief annotation on the contents to each document.

In accordance with the internal rules of processing the documents belonging to the integrated archive and conserved in the Commissionís Archive Department, we described the origin of the documents in observance of the rule of attributing each document to the archive fund it derived from and preserving the original order in the fund (subfund) as determined by the services which delivered these documents to us as prescribed by the law.

In pursuance of article 31, paragraph 6 from the Law, when the contents of the documents could significantly break the rights and lawful interests of third persons their names are being blacked out.

The reference materials of the edition include a list of the documents in Bulgarian and in English, charts of the structures of the KGB and the Bulgarian State Security Services during the period under review, index and a list of terms and abbreviations. The stamp reading "The level of classification is waived" represents an integral element of the documents' authenticity because it evidences when and on what legal grounds each archive unit has been declassified.

It is our intention in the future to upload the entire record of documents.

Tatyana KIRYAKOVA