Bulgaria’s Zhivkov Quits as Communist Party Leader

Todor Zhivkov abruptly resigned today after 35 years as Communist Party leader during which he led Bulgaria through the Cold War and made it an impenetrable part of the Iron Curtain.

He was the Soviet Bloc’s longest-serving party leader when he stepped down, at age 78, during a meeting of the Central Committee. The official news agency BTA said Petar Mladenov, foreign minister since 1971, will replace him.

Zhivkov also asked to be relieved of his membership on the ruling Politburo, the news agency said.

His resignation follows by less than a month the removal of 77-year-old Erich Honecker in East Germany, where mass emigration and protest have propelled breathtaking change. It leaves Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania as the last old guard Communist still reigning in Eastern Europe.

Through his long career, Zhivkov was an agile politician.

He became party chief in 1954 with help of Bulgarian supporters of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died the previous year. Two years later, he sided with Nikita S. Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor and ideological foe.

Rumors had circulated for years that Zhivkov was on the way out, but both diplomats and dissidents said the change at this juncture was a surprise.

They said Mladenov, 53, had been the one expected to be removed from the leadership. He was said to have angered hard-liners by pushing Sofia as the site of an international environmental conference, which was held last week and gave Bulgarian dissidents a chance to speak publicly of reform.

A diplomat said privately that Mladenov was a middle-ground politician who might adapt to the tide of change that is sweeping Eastern Europe as a result of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s campaign for openness and reform.

Although Bulgaria under Zhivkov paid lip-service to change, the leadership has resisted the broad political reforms already seen in Poland and Hungary and possibly coming to East Germany.