in his campaign for complete party discipline. Out of 460,000 members, 100,000 were expelled from the party by 1953. Although Chervenkov's personality cult model was similar to that of Stalin - various places were named after him like the Medical University in Sofia and one of the city's districts. He personally accepted it only as a necessity of the current political situation and strongly opposed any extremities. By 1953, Bulgaria had cut ties with the West and 90% of its exports and imports involved Soviet partnership. Chervenkov's cabinet used intimidation and supply discrimination to increase collectivization rates. Between 1950 and 1953, state-owned arable land increased from 12% to 61%. Despite these collectivization efforts, the 1949–1953 Five-Year Plan failed to achieve its target, marking −0.9% growth in agriculture for the period, although at the same time industry marked a 20.7% growth, while total economic growth amounted to 8.4%. Even before the death of Stalin, Chervenkov had already begun moving away from the Stalinist line. The official approval of Dimitar Dimov's novel Tobacco marked a slight loosening of Party control over cultural activities. In 1953, formal relations with Greece and Yugoslavia were re-established, some political amnesties were granted, and planners discussed increasing production of consumer goods and reducing the prices of commodities. After 1953 Chervenkov was in an insecure position, and made several steps in order to gain political support – he gave up his leadership of the Party in 1954, reduced Soviet intervention in Bulgarian economic and political life, reduced the pace of collectivisation and released some 10,000 political prisoners by 1955. In April 1956, following Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation, the Bulgarian Communist Party denounced Stalinism (and implicitly, Chervenkov's authoritarianism). He resigned the same year. In 1961, he was banned from Politburo. He was later put under house arrest and strict supervision by the secret services which would continue till his death. In 1962, Chervenkov was expelled from the communist party for "anti-party activities", although his membership was renewed in 1969 by a suggestion from Zhivkov in the context of the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring. Chervenkov died in 1980 in Sofia. The communist party did not inform immediately about his death and forbade huge groups of mourners, fearing that such a ceremony may evolve into a protest against the Zhivkov rule. Personal life In 1926 Chervenkov married Georgi Dimitrov's youngest sister, Elena. They had two children – Irina (1931–2014) and Vladimir