World Notes EASTERN EUROPE

Political reform does not necessarily put food on the table, as Bulgarians and Romanians are learning. In Sofia last week, several hundred rioters stormed, ransacked and torched the headquarters of the ruling Socialist Party, the former Communists. That triggered a protest by thousands of police, who demanded the resignation of incompetent commanders and a more independent force.

The anti-Communist rioters' anger was sparked in part by the government's failure to remove the hated Communist red star from the roof of the party building, but the flames were stoked by the government's inability to cope with a depressed economy and the prospects of winter shortages. Admitted Socialist leader Alexander Lilov: "Radical reforms should have absolute priority before all other questions."

In Romania demonstrations erupted against food and fuel shortages, amid calls for the resignation of President Ion Iliescu. In an apparent effort to deflect attention from its troubles, the government endorsed ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the forced cession of parts of Transylvania to Hungary in 1940. The maneuver may have worked in the short term, but at the price of increasing tensions between the region's 6 million Romanians and 2.3 million ethnic Hungarians.