ABSTRACT
In Bulgaria, the regime became aware of economic difficulties by 1965 and, in December of that year, approved a set of draft theses for a New System of Planning and Management of the National Economy. More troubling were the data recording the growth in imports from Western countries. There are two more measures of economic failure worth mentioning – real wages and poverty. One of the most striking features of the Stalinist era was the abuse of imprisonment and execution for political purposes. In Poland, October 1956 brought less radical change than in Hungary, when Gomulka returned to power. Although the Polish constitution of 1952 guaranteed equal rights to women in public life, in culture, in access to education, social security, rest and recreation, and established the principle of equal pay for equal work, in practice attaining something that might pass for substantive equality proved harder to realize.
