The draft of the new constitution was presented for nationwide discussion on March 30, 1971, just three weeks before the opening of the tenth BKP congress. The congress approved the draft in its entirety on the opening day of session. The constitution was approved through a popular referendum on May 16 and was proclaimed law two days later by the National Assembly. General elections under the new law took place on June 27, 1971.
The structure and functioning of the different organs of state power as outlined in the Dimitrov Constitution remained essentially the same except that the State Council became a more powerful governmental body than the Presidium of the National Assembly that it replaced and, in effect, overshadowed the Council of Ministers in authority. The new document continues to define Bulgaria as a people's republic but also refers to its socialist character and to its membership in the international community of socialist states. Two new features are the declaration of principles in the preamble and the sanction given to the leadership of the BKP, aided by the Bulgarian Agrarian Union (also called the Agrarian Party) within a united Fatherland Front (see ch. 9).
The Constitution of 1971 reflects the new changes in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic development of the country as viewed by the communist leadership. The first chapter consists of twelve articles that briefly define the political philosophy upon which the constitution is based and the direction in which the party expects the country to move under the new charter. Simply stated, the philosophy avows that Bulgaria is "a socialist state of the working people of town and country, headed by the working class," and "the guiding force in society and the state is the Bulgarian Communist Party." The direction of movement expected by the country's leadership is evidenced by the assertion that "the socialist state shall promote the evolution of the socialist society into a communist society." This chapter also affirms the Marxist-Leninist principles that underlie the functioning of the state and the society.
The new document also addresses itself to significant changes in the interrelationships between the National Assembly, State Council (formerly the presidium), and the Council of Ministers. For instance, the constitution expanded the right of legislative initiative to include not only the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers but also the State Council, the permanent commissions of the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the chief prosecutor, and the district people's councils. The rationale was that the National Assembly is not a continuously sitting body so that its functions must, of necessity, be assigned to state bodies of a permanent nature.