Todor Zhivkov was the communist leader of Bulgaria for over twenty years. He stepped down only after the fall of communism and under threat of an army coup.
He seems an unremarkable Soviet-era communist leader. Three things seem worth noting. First, is Zhivkov's longevity in office -- he survived the Sino-Soviet split, Khrushchev's fall in October 1964, an attempted Stalinist-Maoist coup in 1965, Brezhnev's death in 1982, and Mikhail Gorbachev's post-1985 reforms. Second, is his nepotism and creation of a class of relatively privileged Bulgarians. Zhivkov appointed family members to prominent posts and created a large class of people -- party members, informers, prominent artists, scientists, and industrialists, etc. -- who received significant, extra benefits, such as better housing, luxury imported goods, hard currency, the ability to travel abroad, superior medical and dental treatment and entry to higher education for their children. When younger Bulgarians described parents that owned houses and cars during the communist era, I wondered whether the parents had been part of this class.
Finally, Zhivkov named Bulgaria's first personal computer after his hometown.