41.   He said last week he was refusing to take part in the election because of his age, communist past and unwillingness to clash with a hostile parliament.

42.   His anger and the saga behind the shortages show that Bulgaria has not shaken its Communist past, and is becoming a volatile poorhouse.

43.   However, there were nagging doubts that he had never quite left his Communist past behind.

44.   In addition to sharing a Communist past, both Poland and Romania are transforming from a centralized to a market economy, with varying degrees of success.

45.   It likely reflected a weariness among Bulgarians of debate about the Communist past, and their struggle to get by as the country tries to build a market economy.

46.   Lawmakers say the revelations will help Bulgaria break with its communist past.

47.   More importantly, it forces Poland to confront its communist past after almost a decade of arguing over whether that would help or harm the country.

48.   Romanians finally rejected their communist past when they voted for Constantinescu and his center-right Democratic Convention alliance.

49.   Recalling the friendship of their communist pasts, Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to Mongolia on Tuesday to revitalize relations that languished after the former allies embraced democracy.

50.   Romania has already implemented various reforms aimed at promoting economic growth in a country beset with many social, economic and political problems carried over from its communist past.