Bulgaria joins the Warsaw Pact on May…

Bulgaria joins the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955.

In spite of the 1954 party shifts, Chervenkov remains the unchallenged leader of Bulgaria.

The Chervenkov period has featured harsh repression of all deviation from the party line, arbitrary suppression of culture and the arts along the lines of Soviet-prescribed socialist realism, and an isolationist foreign policy.

The economic shift away from heavy industry toward consumer goods continues in the mid-1950s, and direct Soviet intervention in Bulgarian economic and political life diminishes.

By 1955, some 10,000 political prisoners have been released.

In an attempt to win political support from the peasants, Chervenkov eases the pace of collectivization and increases national investment in agriculture.

However, events in the Soviet Union will soon end this brief period of calm.

The Belgrade Declaration restores Soviet-Yugoslav friendship and reinstates Tito to the fraternity of world communist leaders, but because Chervenkov had branded Tito and the Yugoslavs as arch-villains during his rise to power, this agreement erodes his position.