Also as means of control, the government sanctions and the party operates a number of mass organizations that affect or influence the lives of most people in the country. The Fatherland Front is a large umbrella organization that includes all other groups as well as individual members. The other mass organizations include trade unions, youth groups, athletic societies, and similar interest groups. Other than these officially sanctioned groups, there are no organizations permitted and, because the party retains control through the leadership positions, all organized activity in the country comes under BKP supervision. Such organizations also serve as upward channels of information through which the party hierarchy is able to keep in touch with popular opinion.
Militarily, Bulgaria in 1973 maintained about 160,000 men in its armed forces, which are committed to the Soviet-dominated alliance known as the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact). Ground forces constitute the great bulk of the so-called Bulgarian People's Army, but it also includes a small air and air defense force, a small naval force, and the border guards. All of the armed forces are under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defense, but top-level policymaking is a prerogative of the BKP. The party maintains great influence in the armed forces through the officer corps, 85 percent of which is made up of party members. Those officers who are not party members usually belong to the communist youth organization. Many career noncommissioned officers are also party members and, for the conscript in the ranks, political indoctrination is as regular as his military training.
The history of Bulgaria is marked by four interrelated motifs or themes. The first motif is that of regional rivalry coupled with irredentism. The second is Bulgaria's strategic significance for the leading powers of Europe and the varying relationships with those powers. The third theme is Bulgaria's constant conflict between loyalty to, and alliances with, the East--particularly Russia and the Soviet Union--on the one hand and to the West--particularly Italy and Germany--on the other. The fourth major theme in Bulgarian history is the influence exerted by Russia (and the Soviet Union) on the internal and external affairs of Bulgaria. This influence was intermittent from the late nineteenth century until World War II but was constant after that war.