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446 Anelia Kassabova communist society. Ihe children and adolescents had to participate in productive work seen as a key factor in their development. Generally the LES did not provide sufficient preparation for further education at universities. The focus in labor educational schools signified that the Other children were trained to be prepared for manual and industrial work and to become part of the working class. Consequently, these schools were administered inexpensively. All LES were on state budget, but additional resources were needed for meeting the most basic needs of food, clothing, and firewood. Productive labour was combined with school education; preparation in a strict daily regime from 06:00 to 22:00 with tight timing in organized activities was obligatory. Each activity had to be done collectively, in supervised groups. The juveniles were divided in classes according to age and level of literacy. The school programme in the 1960s followed polytechnic school regulations. It followed Todor Pavlov’s educational idea that only historical materialism was capable of revealing the true “objective” meaning of historical development, and the current socialist reality is a necessary outcome of the history of the Bulgarian people.'? In order to promote socialist patriotism, proletarian internationalism and Bulgarian-Soviet friendship, a class-and-party standpoint (partiynost) had to be taken in all school subjects. Not individual but group work predominated in the organization of the LES. Education in vertical collectivism with a strict chain of command was the primary principle, derived from ideas of the most influential individual at that time in Soviet space educational theory and practice, Anton S. Makarenko. Considered and presented in the public as “dangerous” and as “bad role models” Bulgaria’s own Other had to be hidden from public society and be out of sight. The correctional schools were surrounded by fences, walls, or other barriers to prevent escape and to protect the local community. In the 1950s-1960s the trend was to establish these institutions away from cities—in the suburbs and mostly on the outskirts of villages (for girls there were only two LES—in the village of Vranya stena and in the village of Podem, Pleven region. For boys—Rakitovo town; village Godlevo, Blagoevgrad region; village Ivancha, Targovishte region; village Kereka, Gabrovo region; village Kazichene, Sofia region; village Slavovitsa, Pleven region; village Boychinovtsi, since 1974, a town; etc.). The Concrete Reality The centralized hierarchical power structure defines the important role of the personality of the director. In order to better understand this role, one needs a thorough insight into both the social conditions under which the school functioned and the life of its director. Sources of information about the school are official documents (protocols of the meetings of the pedagogical council of the LES, annual plans, reports of the ' On the ideology and philosophy of Todor Pavlov see Daskalov 2011.
