Romanian Communist Party
Encyclopedia
The Romanian Communist Party (Romanian
: , PCR) was a communist political party
in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik
wing of the Socialist Party of Romania
, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution
and the disestablishment of Greater Romania
. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the interwar period
, and submitted to direct Comintern
control. During the 1930s, most of its activists were imprisoned or took refuge in the Soviet Union
, which led to the creation of separate and competing factions until the 1950s. The Communist Party emerged as a powerful actor on the Romanian political scene in August 1944, when it became involved in the Royal coup
that toppled the pro-Nazi
government of Ion Antonescu
. With support from Soviet occupation forces
, the PCR was able to force King
Michael I
into exile, and establish the Romanian communist regime
in 1948, becoming the dominant, and later single ruling party
until 1989.
In 1947, the Communist Party absorbed much of the Social Democratic Party
, while attracting various new members. In the early 1950s, the PCR's dominant wing around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
, with support from Joseph Stalin
, defeated all the other factions and achieved full control over the party and country. After 1953, the Romanian Communists did not apply De-Stalinization
, and, in time, theorized a "national path" to Communism. This nationalist and national communist
stance was continued under the leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu
. Following an episode of liberalization
in the late 1960s, Ceauşescu again adopted a hard line, and imposed the July Theses
. At the time, the PCR massively and artificially increased in size, while being entirely submitted to the will of its general secretary. Its disappearance was a direct consequence of the 1989 Revolution
.
The PCR coordinated several organizations during its existence, including the Union of Communist Youth
, and organized training for its cadres at the Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy
. In addition to Scînteia
, its official platform and main newspaper between 1931 and 1989, the Communist Party issued several local and national publications at various points in its history (including, after 1944, România Liberă
).
The party was founded in 1921 when the Bolshevik
-inspired maximalist
faction won control of Romania's Social-Democratic
party—the Socialist Party of Romania
, successor to the defunct Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and the short-lived Romanian Social Democratic Party
(the latter was refounded in 1927, reuniting those opposed to communist policies). The establishment was linked with the socialist group's affiliation to the Comintern
(just before the latter's Third Congress): after a delegation was sent to Bolshevist Russia
, a group of moderates (including Ioan Flueraş
, Iosif Jumanca, Leon Ghelerter, and Constantin Popovici) left at different intervals beginning in May 1921.
The party renamed itself the Socialist-Communist Party and, soon after, the Communist Party of Romania ( or PCdR). Competition with other socialist groups brought a drastic reduction in its membership—from the ca. 40,000 members the Socialist Party had, the new group was left with as much as 2,000 or as little as 500; at the end of World War II
, it had only around 1,000 members.
The early Communist Party had little influence in Romania. This was due to a number of factors: the country's lack of industrial development
, which resulted in a relatively small working class and a large peasant population; the minor impact of Marxism
among Romanian intellectual
s; the success of state repression in driving the party underground and limiting its activities; and finally, the party's "anti-national" policy, as it began to be stated in the 1920s—supervised by the Comintern, this policy called for the breakup of Greater Romania
, which was regarded as a colonial entity "illegally occupying" Transylvania
, Dobruja
, Bessarabia
and Bukovina
(regions that, the communists argued, had been denied the right of self-determination
). In 1924, the Comintern provoked Romanian authorities by encouraging the Tatarbunary Uprising
in southern Bessarabia, in an attempt to create a Moldavian
republic on Romanian territory; also in that year, a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
, roughly corresponding to Transnistria, was established inside the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the left-wing political spectrum was dominated by Poporanism
, an original ideology which partly reflected Narodnik
influence, placed its focus on the peasantry (as it notably did with the early advocacy of cooperative farming
by Ion Mihalache
's Peasants' Party
), and usually strongly supported the post-1919 territorial status quo—although they tended to oppose the centralized system
it had come to imply. (In turn, the early conflict between the PCdR and other minor socialist groups has been attributed to the legacy of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
's quasi-Poporanist ideas inside the latter, as an intellectual basis for the rejection of Leninism
.)
The PCdR's "foreign" image was due to the fact that ethnic Romanians
were a minority in its ranks until after the end of World War II: between 1924 and 1944, none of its general secretaries
was of Romanian ethnicity. Interwar
Romania had a minority population of 30%, and it was largely from this section that the party drew its membership—a large percentage of it was Jews
, Hungarians and Bulgarians
. Actual or perceived ethnic discrimination against these minorities added to the appeal of revolutionary
ideas in their midst.
's bomb attack on the Parliament of Romania
; all major party figures, including the general secretary Gheorghe Cristescu
, were prosecuted in the Dealul Spirii Trial. Constantin Argetoianu
, the Minister of the Interior in the Alexandru Averescu
, Take Ionescu
, and Ion I. C. Brătianu
cabinets, equated Comintern membership with conspiracy
, ordered the first in a series of repressions, and, in the context of trial, allowed for several communist activists (including Leonte Filipescu
) to be shot while in custody—alleging that they had attempted to flee. Consequently, he stated his belief that "communism is over in Romania", which allowed for a momentary relaxing of pressures—begun by King
Ferdinand
's granting of an amnesty
to the tried PCdR.
The PCdR was thus unable to send representatives to the Comintern, and was virtually replaced abroad by a delegation of various activists who had fled to the Soviet Union
at various intervals (Romanian groups in Moscow and Kharkiv
, the sources of a "Muscovite wing" in the following decades). The interior party only survived as an underground group after it was outlawed by the Brătianu government through the Mârzescu Law (named after its proponent, Minister of Justice Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu), passed in early 1924; Comintern sources indicate that, around 1928, it was losing contact with Soviet overseers. In 1925, the question of Romania's borders as posed by the Comintern led to protests by Cristescu and, eventually, to his exclusion from the party (see Balkan Communist Federation
).
Around the time of the party's Fifth Congress in 1931, the Muscovite wing became the PCdR's main political factor: Joseph Stalin
replaced the entire party leadership, including the general secretary Vitali Holostenco
—appointing instead Alexander Stefanski, who was at the time a member of the Communist Party of Poland
.
Through regained Comintern control, the interior wing began organizing itself as a more efficient conspiratorial network. The onset of the Great Depression
in Romania, and the series of strikes infiltrated (and sometimes provoked) by the interior wing signified relative successes (see Lupeni Strike of 1929
), but gains were not capitalized—as lack of ideological appeal and suspicion of Stalinist
directives remained notable factors. In parallel, its leadership suffered changes that were meant to place it under an ethnic Romanian and working class leadership—the emergence of a Stalin-backed group around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
before and after the large-scale Griviţa Strikes
.
In 1934, Stalin's Popular Front
doctrine was not fully passed into the local party's politics, mainly due to the Soviet territorial policies (culminating in the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
) and the widespread suspicion other left-wing forces maintained toward the Comintern. The Communists did, nevertheless, attempt to reach consensus with other groupings on several occasions (in 1934–1943, they established alliances with the Ploughmen's Front
, the Hungarian People's Union, and the Socialist Peasants' Party), and small Communist groups became active in the leftist sections of mainstream parties. In 1934, Petre Constantinescu-Iaşi and other PCdR supporters created Amicii URSS
, a pro-Soviet group reaching out to intellectual
s, itself banned later in the same year.
During the 1937 elections
, the Communists backed Iuliu Maniu
and the National Peasants' Party
against King Carol II
and the Gheorghe Tătărescu
government (who had intensified repression of Communist groups), finding themselves placed in an unusual position after the Iron Guard
, a fascist movement, signed an electoral pact with Maniu; participation in the move was explained by Communist historiography
as provoked by the Social-Democrats
' refusal to collaborate with the PCdR.
In the years following the elections, the PCdR entered a phase of rapid decline, coinciding with the increasingly authoritarian
tone of King Carol's regime (but in fact inaugurated by the 1936 trial of Ana Pauker
and other high-ranking Communists in Craiova
). Journals viewed as associates of the party were closed down, and all suspected PCdR activists faced detention (see Doftana Prison
). Siguranţa Statului, the Romanian secret police
, infiltrated the small interior wing and probably obtained valuable information about its activities. The financial resources of the party, ensured by Soviet support and by various satellite organizations (collecting funds in the name of causes such as pacifism
or support for the Republican
side in the Spanish Civil War
), were severely drained—by political difficulties at home, as well as, after 1939, by the severing of connections with Moscow in France and Czechoslovakia
.
Consequently, the Executive Committee of the Comintern called on Romanian Communists to infiltrate the National Renaissance Front
(FRN), the newly-created sole legal party of Carol's dictatorship, and attempt to attract members of its structures to the revolutionary cause.
Until 1944, the group active inside Romania became split between the "prison faction" (political prisoner
s who looked to Gheorghiu-Dej as their leader) and the one around Ştefan Foriş
and Remus Koffler. The exterior faction of the party was decimated during the Great Purge
: an entire generation of party activists was killed on Stalin's orders, including, among others, Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea
, David Fabian, Ecaterina Arbore
, Imre Aladar, Elena Filipescu, Dumitru Grofu, Ion Dic Dicescu
, Eugen Rozvan
, Marcel Pauker
, Alexander Stefanski, Timotei Marin, and Elek Köblös
. It was to be Ana Pauker
's mission to take over and reshape the surviving structure.
to the Soviet Union and Southern Dobruja
to Bulgaria (see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Treaty of Craiova
); in contrast with the general mood, the PCdR welcomed both gestures along the lines of its earlier activism. Official history, after ca. 1950, stated that the PCdR protested Northern Transylvania
's cession to Hungary later in the same year (the Second Vienna Arbitration), but evidence is inconclusive (party documents attesting the policy are dated after Nazi Germany
's invasion of the Soviet Union
). As the border changes sparked a political crisis leading to an Iron Guard takeover—the National Legionary State
—the interior wing's confusion intensified: the upper echelon faced investigation from Georgi Dimitrov
(as well as other Comintern officials) on charges of "Trotskyism
", and, since the FRN had crumbled, several low-ranking party officials actually began collaborating with the new regime. At around the same time, a small section of the exterior wing remained active in France, where it eventually joined the Resistance
to German occupation
—it included Gheorghe Gaston Marin
and the Francs-tireurs
Olga Bancic
, Nicolae Cristea
and Joseph Boczov
.
As Romania came under the rule of Ion Antonescu
and, as an Axis
country, joined in the German offensive against the Soviets
, the Communist Party began approaching traditional parties that were engaged in semi-clandestine opposition to Antonescu: alongside the Social Democrats
, it began talks with the National Peasants
' and the National Liberal
parties. At the time, virtually all the interior leadership was imprisoned at various locations (most of them interned
at Caransebeş
or in a concentration camp near Târgu Jiu
). Some communists, such as Filimon Sârbu
, Francisc Panet
or Ştefan Plavăţ
, tried to establish organised resistance groups, however they were quickly captured by the Romanian authorities and executed. The antisemitic Antonescu regime established a distinction between PCdR members of Jewish Romanian
origin and those of ethnic Romanian
or other heritage, deporting the majority of the former, alongside Romanian and Bessarabian Jews
in general, to camps, prisons and makeshift ghetto
s in occupied Transnistria
(see Holocaust in Romania). Most Jews from the PCdR category were held in Vapniarka
, where improper feeding caused an outbreak of paralysis, and in Rîbniţa
, where some 50 were victims of the authorities' criminal negligence
and were shot by retreating German troops in March 1944.
In June 1943, at a time when troops were suffering major defeats on the Eastern Front
, the PCdR proposed that all parties form a Blocul Naţional Democrat ("National Democratic Bloc"), in order to arrange for Romania to withdraw from its alliance with Nazi Germany. The ensuing talks were prolonged by various factors, most notably by the opposition of National Peasants' Party leader Iuliu Maniu
, who, alarmed by Soviet successes, was trying to reach a satisfactory compromise with the Western Allies
(and, together with the National Liberals' leader Dinu Brătianu
, continued to back negotiations initiated by Antonescu and Barbu Ştirbey
with the United States and the United Kingdom).
In early 1944, as the Red Army
reached and crossed the Prut River during the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, the self-confidence and status gained by the PCdR made possible the creation of the Bloc, which was designed as the basis of a future anti-Axis government. Parallel contacts were established, through Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
and Emil Bodnăraş
, between the PCdR, the Soviets, and King
Michael. A seminal event also occurred during those months: Ştefan Foriş
, who was still general secretary, was deposed by with Soviet approval by the rival "prison faction" (at the time, it was headed by former inmates of Caransebeş prison); replaced with the troika
formed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
, Constantin Pîrvulescu
, and Iosif Rangheţ, Foriş was discreetly assassinated in 1946. Several assessments view Foriş' dismissal as the complete rupture in historical continuity between the PCdR established in 1921 and what became the ruling party of Communist Romania
.
On August 23, 1944, King Michael, a number of Romanian Armed Forces
officers, and armed Communist-led civilians supported by the National Democratic Bloc arrested dictator Ion Antonescu
and seized control of the government (see King Michael's Coup
). King Michael then proclaimed the old 1923 Constitution
in force, ordered the Romanian Army to enter a ceasefire
with the Red Army on the Moldavia
n front, and withdrew Romania from the Axis. Later party discourse tended to dismiss the importance of both the Soviet offensive and the dialogue with other forces (and eventually described the coup as a revolt with large popular support).
The King named General Constantin Sănătescu
as Prime Minister of a coalition government
which was dominated by the National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, but included Pătrăşcanu as Minister of Justice—the first Communist to hold high office in Romania. The Red Army entered Bucharest
on August 31, and thereafter played a crucial role in supporting the Communist Party's rise to power as the Soviet military command virtually ruled the city and the country (see Soviet occupation of Romania
).
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After having been underground for two decades, the Communists enjoyed little popular support at first, compared to the other opposition parties (however, the decrease in popularity of the National Liberals was reflected in the forming of a splinter-group around Gheorghe Tătărescu
, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, who later entered an alliance with the Communist Party). Soon after August 23, the Communists also engaged in an increasingly violent campaign against Romania's main political group of the times, the National Peasants' Party, and its leaders Iuliu Maniu
and Ion Mihalache
. The conflict's first stage was centered on Communist allegations that Maniu had encouraged violence against the Hungarian community in newly-recovered Northern Transylvania
—at a time when the region's status was being assessed by the Paris Peace Conference
.
The Communist Party, engaged in a massive recruitment campaign, was able to attract ethnic Romanians in large numbers—workers and intellectuals alike, as well as former members of the fascist Iron Guard
. By 1947, it grew to around 710,000 members. Although the PCR was still highly disorganized and factionalized, it benefited from Soviet backing (including that of Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov
and other Soviet appointees to the Allied Commission
). After 1944, it was leading a paramilitary wing, the Patriotic Defense (Apărarea Patriotică, disbanded in 1948), and a cultural society, the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union.
On PCdR initiative, the National Democratic Bloc was dissolved on October 8, 1944; instead, the Communists, Social Democrats, the Ploughmen's Front
, Mihai Ralea's Socialist Peasants' Party (which was absorbed by the former in November), the Hungarian People's Union
(MADOSZ), and Mitiţă Constantinescu
's Union of Patriots formed Frontul Naţional Democrat (the "National Democratic Front", FND) which, campaigned against the government, demanding the appointment of more Communist officials and sympathizers, while claiming democratic
legitimacy and alleging that Sănătescu had dictatorial ambitions. The FND was soon joined by the Liberal group around Tătărescu, Nicolae L. Lupu
's Democratic Peasants' Party (the latter claimed the legacy from the defunct Peasants' Party
), and Anton Alexandrescu's faction (separated from the National Peasants' Party
).
Sănătescu resigned in November, but was persuaded by King Michael
to form a second government which collapsed within weeks. General Nicolae Rădescu
was asked to form a government and appointed Teohari Georgescu
to the Ministry of the Interior, which allowed for the introduction of Communists into the security forces. The Communist Party subsequently launched a campaign against the Rădescu government, culminating in a February 13, 1945 demonstration outside the Royal Palace
, and followed a week later by street fighting between Georgescu's Communist forces and supporters of the National Peasants' Party in Bucharest. In a period of escalating chaos, Rădescu called for elections. The Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrey Vyshinsky
went to Bucharest to demand to the monarch that he appoint Communist sympathizer Petru Groza
as Prime Minister, offering that Romania would be given sovereignty over Transylvania
if he agreed, and intimating a Soviet takeover of the country if he did not. King Michael, under pressure from Soviet troops who were disarming the Romanian military and occupying key installations, agreed and dismissed Rădescu, who fled the country.
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On March 6, Groza became leader of a Communist-led government and named Communists to lead the Romanian Armed Forces
as well as the ministries of the Interior (Georgescu), Justice
(Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
), Communications (Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
), Propaganda
(Petre Constantinescu-Iaşi) and Finance
(Vasile Luca
). The non-Communist ministers came from the Social Democrats (who were falling under the control of the pro-Communists Lothar Rădăceanu
and Ştefan Voitec
) and the traditional Ploughmen's Front
ally, as well as, nominally, from the National Peasants' and National Liberal
parties (followers of Tătărescu and Alexandrescu's dissident wings).
As a result of the Potsdam Conference
, where Western Allied
governments refused to recognize Groza's administration, King Michael called on Groza to resign. When he refused, the monarch went to his summer home in Sinaia
and refused to sign any government decrees or bills (a period colloquially known as greva regală—"the royal strike"). Following Anglo-American mediation, Groza agreed to include politicians from outside his electoral alliance, appointing two secondary figures in their parties (the National Liberal Mihail Romaniceanu and the National Peasants' Emil Haţieganu
) as Ministers without Portfolio
(January 1946). At the time, Groza's party and the PCR came to publicly disagree on several agrarian issues, before the Ploughmen's Front was eventually pressured into supporting Communist tenets.
In the meantime, the first measure taken by the cabinet was a new land reform
that advertised, among others, an interest into peasant issues and a respect for property (in front of common fears that a Leninist
program was about to be adopted). Although contrasted by the Communist press with its previous equivalent, the measure was in fact much less relevant—land awarded to individual farmers in 1923 was more than three times the 1945 figures, and all effects were canceled by the 1948–1962 collectivization.
It was also then that, through Pătrăşcanu and Alexandru Drăghici, the Communists consecrated their control of the legal system—the process included the creation of the Romanian People's Tribunals
, charged with investigating war crime
s, and constantly supported by agitprop
in the Communist press. During the period, government-backed Communists used various means to exercising influence over the vast majority of the press, and began infiltrating or competing with independent cultural forums. Economic dominance, partly responding to Soviet requirements, was first effected through the SovRoms (created in the summer of 1945), directing the bulk of Romanian trade towards the Soviet Union.
) and agreed to replace the Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
-Constantin Pîrvulescu
-Iosif Rangheţ troika
with a joint leadership reflecting an uneasy balance between the external and internal wings: while Gheorghiu-Dej retained his general secretary position, Ana Pauker
, Teohari Georgescu
and Vasile Luca
became the other main leaders. The post-1945 constant growth in membership, by far the highest of all Eastern Bloc
countries, was to provide a base of support for Gheorghiu-Dej. The conference also saw the first mention of the PCdR as the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), the new name being used as a propaganda
tool suggesting a closer connection with the national interest
.
Party control over the security forces was successfully used on November 8, 1945, when the Bucharest populace gathered in front of the Royal Palace
to express solidarity with King Michael, who was still refusing to sign his name to new legislation, on the occasion of his name day
. Demonstrators were faced with gunshots; around 10 people were killed, and many wounded. The official account, according to which the Groza government responded to a coup attempt, was since dismissed in many researches.
The PCR and its allies won the Romanian elections of November 19
, although there is evidence of widespread electoral fraud
. The following months were dedicated to confronting the National Peasants' Party
, which was annihilated after the Tămădău Affair
and show trial
of its entire leadership. On December 30, 1947, the Communist Party's power was consolidated when King Michael was forced to abdicate
and a "People's Republic
", firmly aligned with the Soviet Union, was proclaimed. According to the king, his signature was obtained after the Groza cabinet representatives threatened to kill 1,000 students they had rounded up in custody.
In February 1948, the Communists ended a long process of infiltrating the Romanian Social Democratic Party
(ensuring control through electoral alliances and the two-party Frontul Unic Muncitoresc—Singular Workers' Front, the PCR had profited from the departure of Constantin Titel Petrescu
's group from the Social Democrats in March 1946). The Social Democrats fused with the PCR to form the Romanian Workers' Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român, PMR) which remained the ruling party's official name until 1965 (when it returned to the designation as Romanian Communist Party). Nevertheless, Social Democrats were excluded from most party posts and were forced to support Communist policies on the basis of democratic centralism
; it was also reported that only half of the PSD's 500,000 members joined the newly-founded grouping. Capitalizing on these gains, the Communist government banned almost all other political parties after winning purely formal elections in 1948 (the Ploughmen's Front
and the Hungarian People's Union
dissolved themselves in 1953).
A new series of economic changes followed: the National Bank of Romania was passed into full public ownership (December 1946), and, in order to combat the Romanian leu
's devaluation
, a surprise monetary reform
was imposed as a stabilization
measure in August 1947 (with disastrous consequences on the livelihoods of middle class citizens). The Marshall Plan
was being overtly condemned, while nationalization
and a planned economy
were enforced beginning June 11, 1948. The first five-year plan
, conceived by Miron Constantinescu
's Soviet-Romanian committee, was adopted in 1950. Of newly-enforced measures, the arguably most far-reaching was collectivization
—by 1962, when the process was considered complete, 96% of the total arable land
had been enclosed in collective farming
, while around 80,000 peasants faced trial for resisting and 17,000 others were uprooted or deported
for being chiaburi (the Romanian equivalent of kulak
s). In 1950, the party, which viewed itself as the vanguard of the working class
, reported that people of proletarian
origin held 64% of party offices and 40% of higher government posts, while results of the recruitment efforts remained below official expectations.
, and the newly-emerged and weaker "Secretariat wing" led by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
. After October 1945, the two former groups had associated in neutralizing Pătrăşcanu's—exposed as "bourgeois" and progressively marginalized, it was ultimately decapitated in 1948. Beginning that year, the PMR leadership officially questioned its own political support, and began a massive campaign to remove "foreign and hostile elements" from its rapidly expanded structures. In 1952, with Stalin's renewed approval, Gheorghiu-Dej emerged victorious from the confrontation with Ana Pauker
, his chief "Muscovite" rival, as well as purging Vasile Luca
, Teohari Georgescu
, and their supporters from the party—alleging that their various political attitudes were proof of "right-wing deviationism
". Out of a membership of approximately one million, between 300,000 and 465,000 members, almost half of the party, was removed in the successive purges. The specific target for the "verification campaign", as it was officially called, were former Iron Guard
affiliates.
The move against Pauker's group echoed Stalinist
purges of Jews in particular from other Communist Parties in the Eastern bloc
—notably, the anti-"Cosmopolitan"
campaign in which Joseph Stalin
targeted Jews in the Soviet Union, and the Prague Trials in Czechoslovakia which removed Jews from leading positions in that country's Communist government. At the same time, a new republican constitution
, replacing its 1948 precedent, legislated Stalinist tenets, and proclaimed that "the people's democratic state is consistently carrying out the policy of enclosing and eliminating capitalist elements". Gheorghiu-Dej, who remained an orthodox Stalinist, took the position of Premier while moving Petru Groza
to the Presidency of the People's Republic. Executive and PMR leaderships remained in Gheorghiu-Dej's charge until his death in 1965 (with the exception of 1954–1955, when his office of PMR leader was taken over by Gheorghe Apostol
).
From the moment it came to power and until Stalin's death, as the Cold War
erupted, the PMR endorsed Soviet requirements for the Eastern Bloc
. Aligning the country with the Cominform
, it officially condemned Josip Broz Tito
's independent actions
in Yugoslavia
; Tito was routinely attacked by the official press, and the Romanian-Yugoslav Danube
border became the scene of massive agitprop
displays (see Tito-Stalin split
and Informbiro
).
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Uncomfortable and possibly threatened by the reformist measures adopted by Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev
, Gheorghiu-Dej began to steer Romania towards a more "independent" path while remaining within the Soviet orbit during the late 1950s. Following the Twentieth Party Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, in which Khurshchev initiated De-Stalinization
, Gheorghiu-Dej issued propaganda
accusing Pauker, Luca and Georgescu of having been an arch-Stalinists responsible for the party's excesses in the late 1940s and early 1950s (notably, in regard to collectivization)—despite the fact that they had occasionally opposed a number of radical measures advocated by the General Secretary. After that purge, Gheorghiu-Dej had begun promoting PMR activists who were perceived as more loyal to his own political views; among them were Nicolae Ceauşescu
, Gheorghe Stoica, Ghizela Vass
, Grigore Preoteasa
, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer
, Gheorghe Gaston Marin
, Paul Niculescu-Mizil, and Gheorghe Rădulescu; in parallel, citing Khrushchevite precedents, the PMR briefly reorganized its leadership on a plural basis (1954–1955), while Gheorghiu-Dej reshaped party doctrine to include ambiguous messages about Stalin's legacy (insisting on the defunct Soviet's leader contribution to Marxist thought, official documents also deplored his personality cult and encouraged Stalinists to self-criticism
).
In this context, the PMR soon dismissed all the relevant consequences of the Twentieth Soviet Congress, and Gheorghiu-Dej even argued that De-Stalinization had been imposed by his team right after 1952. At a party meeting in March 1956, two members of the Politburo
who were supporters of Khruschevite reforms, Miron Constantinescu
and Iosif Chişinevschi
, criticized Gheorghiu-Dej's leadership and identified him with Romanian Stalinism. They were purged in 1957, themselves accused of being Stalinists and of having been plotting with Pauker. Through Ceauşescu's voice, Gheorghiu-Dej also marginalized another group of old members of the PMR, associated with Constantin Doncea (June 1958).
On the outside too, the PMR, leading a country that had joined the Warsaw Pact
, remained an agent of political repression: it fully supported Khurshchev's invasion of Hungary
in response to the Revolution of 1956, after which Imre Nagy
and other dissident Hungarian leaders were imprisoned on Romanian soil. The Hungarian rebellion also sparked student protests in such places as Bucharest, Timişoara
, Oradea
, Cluj
and Iaşi
, which contributed to unease inside the PMR and resulted in a wave of arrests. While refusing to allow dissemination of Soviet literature exposing Stalinism (writers such as Ilya Ehrenburg
and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
), Romanian leaders took active part in the campaign against Boris Pasternak
.
Despite Stalin's death, the massive police apparatus headed by the Securitate
(created in 1949 and rapidly growing in numbers) maintained a steady pace in its suppression of "class enemies
", until as late as 1962–1964. In 1962–1964, the party leadership approved a mass amnesty
, extended to, among other prisoners, ca. 6,700 guilty of political crime
s. This marked a toning down in the violence and scale of repression, after almost twenty years during which the Party had acted against political opposition and active anti-communist resistance
, as well as against religious institutions
(most notably, the Romanian Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic
Churches). Estimates for the total number of victims in the 1947/1948-1964 period vary significantly: as low as 160,000 or 282,000 political prisoners, and as high 600,000 (a great number were killed or died in custody—according to one estimate, about 190,000 people). Notorious penal facilities of the time included the Danube-Black Sea Canal
, Sighet
, Gherla, Aiud
, Piteşti
, and Râmnicu Sărat
; another method of punishment was deportation to the inhospitable Bărăgan Plain
.
Nationalism and national communism
penetrated official discourse, largely owing to Gheorghiu-Dej's call for economic independence and distancing from the Comecon
. Moves to withdraw the country from Soviet overseeing were taken in quick succession after 1953. Khrushchev allowed Constantinescu to dissolve the SovRoms in 1954, followed by the closing of Romanian-Soviet cultural ventures such as Editura Cartea Rusă at the end of the decade. Industrialization along the PMR's own directives highlighted Romanian independence—one of its consequences was the massive steel-producing industrial complex in Galaţi
, which, being dependent on imports of iron from overseas, was for long a major strain on Romanian economy. In 1957, Gheorghiu-Dej and Emil Bodnăraş
persuaded the Soviets to withdraw their remaining troops
from Romanian soil. As early as 1956, Romania's political apparatus reconciled with Josip Broz Tito
, which led to a series of common economic projects (culminating in the Đerdap venture).
An drastic divergence in ideological outlooks manifested itself only after autumn 1961, when the PMR's leadership felt threatened by the Soviet Union's will to impose the condemnation of Stalinism as the standard in communist states. Following the Sino-Soviet split
of the late 1950s and the Soviet-Albanian split
in 1961, Romania initially gave full support to the Khrushchev's stance, but maintained exceptionally good relations with both the People's Republic of China and Communist Albania. Romanian media was alone among Warsaw Pact countries to report Chinese criticism of the Soviet leadership from its source; in return, Maoist
officials complimented Romanian nationalism by supporting the view that Bessarabia
had been a traditional victim of Russian imperialism
.
The change in policies was to become obvious in 1964, when the Communist regime offered a stiff response to the Valev Plan, a Soviet project of creating trans-national economic units and of assigning Romanian areas the task of supplying agricultural products. Several other measures of that year also presented themselves as radical changes in tone: after Gheorghiu-Dej endorsed Andrei Oţetea's publishing of Karl Marx
's Russophobic
texts (uncovered by the Polish
historian Stanisław Schwann), the PMR itself took a stand against Khrushchevite principles by issuing, in late April, a declaration published in Scînteia
, through which it stressed its commitment to a "national path" towards Communism (it read: "There does not and cannot exist a «parent» party and a «son» party or «superior» party and «subordinate» parties"). During late 1964, the PMR's leadership clashed with new Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
over the issue of KGB
advisers still present in the Securitate
, and eventually managed to have them recalled, making Romania the Eastern Bloc
's first country to have accomplished this.
These actions gave Romania greater freedom in pursuing the program which Gheorghiu-Dej had been committed to since 1954, one allowing Romania to defy reforms in the Eastern Bloc and to maintain a largely Stalinist course. It has also been argued that Romania's emancipation was, in effect, limited to economic relations and military cooperation, being as such dependent on a relatively tolerant mood inside the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the PMR's nationalism made it increasingly popular with Romanian intellectual
s, and the last stage of the Gheorghiu-Dej regime was popularly identified with liberalization
.
Gheorghiu-Dej died in March 1965 and was succeeded by a collective leadership made up of Nicolae Ceauşescu
as general secretary, Chivu Stoica
as President and Ion Gheorghe Maurer
as Premier. Ceauşescu removed rivals such as Stoica, Alexandru Drăghici, and Gheorghe Apostol
from the government, and ultimately from the party leadership, and began accumulating posts for himself. By 1969, he was in complete control of the Central Committee
. The circumstances surrounding this process are still disputed, but theories evidence that the support given to him by Ion Gheorghe Maurer
and Emil Bodnăraş
, as well as the ascendancy of Ilie Verdeţ
, Virgil Trofin
, and Paul Niculescu-Mizil, were instrumental in ensuring legitimacy. Soon after 1965, Ceauşescu used his prerogatives to convoke a Party Commission headed by Ion Popescu-Puţuri, charged with investigating both Stalinist legacy and Gheorghiu-Dej's purges: resulting in the rehabilitation
of a large number of Communist officials (including, among others, Ştefan Foriş
, Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
, Miron Constantinescu
, Vasile Luca
, and Romanian victims of the Soviet Great Purge
). This measure was instrumental in consolidating the new leadership while further increasing its distance from Gheorghiu-Dej's political legacy.
In 1965, Ceauşescu declared that Romania was no longer a People's Democracy but a Socialist Republic
and changed the name of the party back to the Romanian Communist Party—steps which were meant to indicate that Romania was following strict Marxist policies while remaining independent. He continued Romanianization and de-Sovietization efforts by stressing notions such as sovereignty
and self-determination
. At the time, Ceauşescu made references to Gheorghiu-Dej's own personality cult, while implying that his was to be a new style of leadership. In its official discourse, the PCR introduced the dogmas of "socialist democracy" and direct communication with the masses. From ca. 1965 to 1975, there was a noted rise in the standard of living
for the Romanian population as a whole, which was similar to developments in most other Eastern bloc countries. Political scientist Daniel Barbu
, who noted that this social improvement trend began ca. 1950 and benefited 45% of the population, concluded that one of its main effects was to increase the citizens' dependency on the state.
A seminal event occurred in August 1968, when Ceauşescu highlighted his anti-Soviet discourse by vocally opposing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
; a highly popular measure with the Romanian public, it led to sizable enrollments in the PCR and the newly-created paramilitary Patriotic Guards
(created with the goal of meeting a possible Soviet intervention in Romania). From 1965 to 1976, the PCR rose from approximately 1.4 million members to 2.6 million. In the contingency of an anti-Soviet war, the PCR even sought an alliance with the maverick Yugoslav
leader Josip Broz Tito
—negotiations did not yield a clear result. Although military intervention in Romania was reportedly taken into consideration by the Soviets, there is indication that Leonid Brezhnev
had himself ruled out Romanian participation in Warsaw Pact maneuvers, and that he continued to rely on Ceauşescu's support for other common goals.
While it appears that Romanian leaders genuinely approved of the Prague Spring
reforms undertaken by Alexander Dubček
, Ceauşescu's gesture also served to consolidate his image as a national and independent communist leader. One year before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Ceauşescu opened up diplomatic ties with West Germany
, and refused to break links with Israel following the Six-Day War
. Starting with the much-publicized visit by France's Charles de Gaulle
(May 1968), Romania was the recipient of Western world support going well into the 1970s (significant visits were paid by United States Presidents Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford
, in 1969 and 1975 respectively, while Ceauşescu was frequently received in Western capitals).
Ceauşescu developed a cult of personality
around himself and his wife Elena
(herself promoted to high offices) after visiting North Korea and noting the parallel developed by Kim Il-sung
, while incorporating in it several aspects of past authoritarian
regimes in Romania (see Conducător
). During the early 1970s, while curbing liberalization, he launched his own version of China's Cultural Revolution
, announced by the July Theses
. In effect, measures to concentrate power in Ceauşescu's hands were taken as early as 1967, when the general secretary became the ultimate authority on foreign policy.
At the time, a new political body was instituted under the name of Front of Socialist Unity (eventually renamed Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy); tightly controlled by party activists, it was meant to affiliate virtually all non-party members, and thus consolidate the impression that the entire population was backing Ceauşescu's policies. As a result of these new policies, the Central Committee
, which acted as the main PCR body between Congresses, had increased to 265 full members and 181 candidate members (supposed to meet at least four times a year). By then, the general secretary also called for women to be enrolled in greater numbers in all party structures. In parallel, the political doctrine in respect to minorities
claimed interest in obtaining allegiance from both Hungarians and Germans
, and set up separate workers' councils for both communities.
Members of the upper echelons of the party who objected to Ceauşescu's stance were accused of supporting Soviet policies; they included Alexandru Bârlădeanu, who criticized the heavy loans contracted in support of industrialization policies. In time, the new leader distanced himself from Maurer and Corneliu Mănescu
, while his career profited from the deaths of Stoica (who committed suicide) and Sălăjan (who died while undergoing surgery). Instead, he came to rely on a new generation of activists, among them Manea Mănescu
.
At the XIth Party Congress in 1974, Gheorghe Cioară, the Mayor of Bucharest, proposed to extend Ceauşescu's office as General Secretary for life, but was turned down by the latter. Shortly before that moment, the collective leadership of the Presidium was replaced with a Political Executive Committee, which, in practice, elected itself; together with the Secretariat, it was controlled by Ceauşescu himself, who was president of both bodies. During the same year, the general secretary inaugurated the office of President of the Socialist Republic
, following a ceremony during which he was handed a sceptre
; this was the first in a succession of titles, also including Conducător
("Leader"), "supreme commander of the Romanian Army", "honorary president of the Romanian Academy
", and "first among the country's miners". Progressively after 1967, the large bureaucratic structure of the PCR again replicated and interfered with state administration and economic policies. The President himself became noted for frequent visits on location at various enterprises, where he would dispense directives, for which the termed indicaţii preţioase ("valuable advice") was coined by official propaganda.
and a series of autarkic
goals, brought major economic problems to Romania, beginning with the effects of the 1973 oil crisis
, and worsened by the 1979 energy crisis
. The profound neglect of services and decline in quality of life
, first manifested when much of the budget was diverted to support an over-sized industry, was made more drastic by the political decision to pay in full the country's external debt
(in 1983, this was set at 10 billion United States dollars, of which 4.5 was accumulated interest
). By March 1989, the debt had been paid in full.
Two other programs initiated under Ceauşescu had massive consequences on social life. One of them was the plan, announced as early as 1965, to "systemize rural areas
", which was meant to urbanize Romania at a fast pace (of over 13,000 communes
, the country was supposed to be left with 6,000); it also brought massive changes for the cities—especially Bucharest
, where, following the 1977 Earthquake
and successive demolitions, new architectural guidelines were imposed (see Ceauşima
). By 1966, Romania outlawed abortion
, and, progressively after that, measures were endorsed to artificially increase the birth rate—including special taxes for childless couples. Another measure, going hand in hand with economic ones, allowed ethnic Germans a chance to leave Romania and settle in West Germany
as Auslandsdeutsche, in return for payments from the latter country. Overall, around 200,000 Germans left, most of them Transylvanian Saxons
and Banat Swabians
.
Although Romania adhered to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(1973) and signed the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, Ceauşescu also intensified political repression in the country (beginning in 1971). This took a drastic turn in 1977, when, confronted with Paul Goma
's movement in support for Charter 77
, the regime expelled him and others from the country. A more serious disobedience occurred in August of the same year, when Jiu Valley
miners went on strike, briefly took hold of Premier Ilie Verdeţ
, and, despite having reached an agreement with the government, were repressed and some of them expelled (see Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977
). A newly-created and independent trade union, SLOMR
, was crushed and its leaders arrested on various charges in 1979. Progressively during the period, the Securitate
relied on involuntary commitment
to psychiatric hospital
s as a means to punish dissidence
.
A major act of discontent occurred inside the party during its XIIth Congress in late November 1979, when PCR veteran Constantin Pîrvulescu
spoke out against Ceauşescu's policy of discouraging discussions and relying on obedient cadres (he was subsequently heckled, evicted from the Congress hall, and isolated). In 1983, Radu Filipescu
, an engineer working in Bucharest, was imprisoned after distributing 20,000 leaflets which called for a popular rally against the regime, while a protests of miners in Maramureş County
against wage cuts was broken up by Securitate forces; three years layer strike organized by Romanian and Hungarian industrial workers in Turda
and Cluj-Napoca
met with the same result. Also in 1983, fearing the multiplication of samizdat
documents, Minister of the Interior George Homoştean ordered all citizens to hand down their typewriter
s to the authorities. This coincided with a noted popular rise in support for outspoken dissidents who were kept under house arrest, among whom were Doina Cornea
and Mihai Botez.
By 1983, membership of the PCR had risen to 3.3 million, and, in 1989, to 3.7–3.8 million—meaning that, in the end, over 20% of Romanian adults were party members, making the PCR the largest communist group of the Eastern Bloc
after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
. 64,200 basic party units, answering to county
committees, varying in number and representing various areas of Romanian society, were officially recorded in 1980. Statistics also indicated that, during the transition from the 1965 PMR (with 8% of the total population) to the 1988 PCR, the membership of workers had grown from 44 to 55%, while that of peasants had dropped from 34 to 15%. In the end, these records contrasted the fact that the PCR had become completely submitted to its leader and no longer had any form of autonomous activity, Deletant & Ionescu, p. 41–42; Frunză, p. 481–483 while membership became a basic requirement in numerous of social contexts, leading to a purely formal allegiances and political clientelism
.
At the same time, the ideological viewpoint was changed, with the party no longer seen as the vanguard of the working class
, but as the main social factor and the embodiment of the national interest
. In marked contrast with the Perestroika
and Glasnost
developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev
, Romania adopted Neo-Stalinist
principles in both its internal policies and its relation to the outside.
As recorded in 1984, 90% of the PCR members were ethnic Romanian
, with 7% Hungarians (the latter group's membership had dropped by more than 2% since the previous Congress). Formal criticism of the new policies regarding minorities had also been voiced by Hungarian activists, including Károly Király, leader of the PCR in Covasna County
. After 1980, the nationalist ideology adopted by the PCR progressively targeted the Hungarian community as a whole, based on suspicions of its allegiance to Hungary, whose policies had become diametrically opposed to the methods of Romanian leaders (see Goulash Communism
).
Especially during the 1980s, clientelism was further enhanced by a new policy, rotaţia cadrelor ("cadre rotation" or "reshuffling"), placing strain on low-level officials to seek the protection of higher placed ones as a means to preserve their position or to promote. This effectively prompted activists who did not approve of the change in tone to retire, while others—Virgil Trofin
, Ion Iliescu
and Paul Niculescu-Mizil among them—were officially dispatched to low-ranking positions or otherwise marginalized. In June 1988, the leadership of the Political Executive Committee was reduced from 15 to 7 members, including Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife.
Announced by a February 1987 protest of workers and students in Iaşi
, the final crisis of the PCR and its regime began in the autumn, when industrial employees in Braşov
called a strike that immediately drew echoes with the city's population (see Braşov Rebellion
). In December, authorities convened a public kangaroo trial
of the movement's leaders, and handed out sentences of imprisonment and internal exile.
Inaugurated by Silviu Brucan
's public criticism of the Braşov repression, and inspired by the impact of changes in other Eastern Bloc countries, protests of marginalized PCR activists became notorious after March 1989, when Brucan and Pîrvulescu, together with Gheorghe Apostol
, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Grigore Răceanu
and Corneliu Mănescu
, sent Ceauşescu their so-called Letter of the Six, publicized over Radio Free Europe
. At around the same time, systematization
provoked an international response, as Romania was subjected to a resolution of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
, which called for an inquiry into the state of ethnic minorities and the rural population; the political isolation experienced by Communist Romania was highlighted by the fact that Hungary endorsed the report, while all other Eastern bloc countries abstained. This followed more than a decade of deteriorating relations between the PCR and the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
.
Eventually, both Ceauşescu and the party were overthrown in the Romanian Revolution of December 1989
, begun as a popular rebellion in Timişoara
and eventually bringing to power the National Salvation Front, comprising an important number of former PCR members who supported Gorbachev's vision. Having fled the PCR's headquarters under street pressure, the general secretary and his wife were captured, tried and executed by the new authorities in Târgovişte
, and the PCR disbanded. The spontaneity of the latter move and the rapid pace at which the PCR, one of the largest political parties of its kind, dissolved itself were held by commentators as additional proof that membership provided a highly inaccurate image in respect to actual convictions.
While many former members of the PCR have been major players in the post-1989 political scene, the PCR itself has never been revived, and no present-day Romanian party claims to be its successor. In nearly every other Eastern Bloc country, a party reckoned to be the successor of the former ruling Communist Party is a major player. While a Communist party does exist in Romania in the form of the Communist Party (Nepecerişti), that party does not claim to be the PCR's successor.
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: , PCR) was a communist political party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
wing of the Socialist Party of Romania
Socialist Party of Romania
The Socialist Party of Romania was a Romanian socialist political party, created on December 11, 1918 by members of the Romanian Social Democratic Party , after the latter emerged from clandestinity...
, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution
Communist revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
and the disestablishment of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, and submitted to direct Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
control. During the 1930s, most of its activists were imprisoned or took refuge in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which led to the creation of separate and competing factions until the 1950s. The Communist Party emerged as a powerful actor on the Romanian political scene in August 1944, when it became involved in the Royal coup
King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
that toppled the pro-Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
government of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
. With support from Soviet occupation forces
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
, the PCR was able to force King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Michael I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
into exile, and establish the Romanian communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
in 1948, becoming the dominant, and later single ruling party
Single-party state
A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
until 1989.
In 1947, the Communist Party absorbed much of the Social Democratic Party
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
, while attracting various new members. In the early 1950s, the PCR's dominant wing around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
, with support from Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, defeated all the other factions and achieved full control over the party and country. After 1953, the Romanian Communists did not apply De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, and, in time, theorized a "national path" to Communism. This nationalist and national communist
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
stance was continued under the leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
. Following an episode of liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
in the late 1960s, Ceauşescu again adopted a hard line, and imposed the July Theses
July Theses
The July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu on July 6, 1971, before the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party...
. At the time, the PCR massively and artificially increased in size, while being entirely submitted to the will of its general secretary. Its disappearance was a direct consequence of the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
.
The PCR coordinated several organizations during its existence, including the Union of Communist Youth
Union of Communist Youth
The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation, modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.-History:Founded in 1922, the UTC went underground...
, and organized training for its cadres at the Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy
Stefan Gheorghiu Academy
The Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy The Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy The Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy (Romanian: Academia Ştefan Gheorghiu, in full: Academia de învăţămînt social-politic Ştefan Gheorghiu de pe lîngă CC al PCR - approx...
. In addition to Scînteia
Scînteia
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
, its official platform and main newspaper between 1931 and 1989, the Communist Party issued several local and national publications at various points in its history (including, after 1944, România Liberă
România Libera
România Liberă is one of the leading newspapers in Romania. Based in Bucharest, the Romanian-language daily has a paid daily circulation of 40,000....
).
Socialist-Communists: creation
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
-inspired maximalist
Maximum programme
In Marxist theory, a maximum programme consists of a series of demands which will achieve socialism.The concept of a maximum programme comes from the Erfurt Programme of the SPD, later mirrored by much of the Socialist International. The maximum is contrasted with a minimum programme of immediate...
faction won control of Romania's Social-Democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
party—the Socialist Party of Romania
Socialist Party of Romania
The Socialist Party of Romania was a Romanian socialist political party, created on December 11, 1918 by members of the Romanian Social Democratic Party , after the latter emerged from clandestinity...
, successor to the defunct Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and the short-lived Romanian Social Democratic Party
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
(the latter was refounded in 1927, reuniting those opposed to communist policies). The establishment was linked with the socialist group's affiliation to the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
(just before the latter's Third Congress): after a delegation was sent to Bolshevist Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
, a group of moderates (including Ioan Flueraş
Ioan Flueras
Ioan Flueraş was a Romanian social democratic politician and a victim of the communist regime.-Early activities:...
, Iosif Jumanca, Leon Ghelerter, and Constantin Popovici) left at different intervals beginning in May 1921.
The party renamed itself the Socialist-Communist Party and, soon after, the Communist Party of Romania ( or PCdR). Competition with other socialist groups brought a drastic reduction in its membership—from the ca. 40,000 members the Socialist Party had, the new group was left with as much as 2,000 or as little as 500; at the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it had only around 1,000 members.
The early Communist Party had little influence in Romania. This was due to a number of factors: the country's lack of industrial development
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
, which resulted in a relatively small working class and a large peasant population; the minor impact of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
among Romanian intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s; the success of state repression in driving the party underground and limiting its activities; and finally, the party's "anti-national" policy, as it began to be stated in the 1920s—supervised by the Comintern, this policy called for the breakup of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, which was regarded as a colonial entity "illegally occupying" Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
(regions that, the communists argued, had been denied the right of self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
). In 1924, the Comintern provoked Romanian authorities by encouraging the Tatarbunary Uprising
Tatarbunary Uprising
The Tatarbunary Uprising was a Bolshevik-inspired peasant revolt that took place on 15–18 September 1924, in and around the town of Tatarbunary in Budjak , then part of Greater Romania, now part of Odessa Oblast, Ukraine...
in southern Bessarabia, in an attempt to create a Moldavian
Moldovenism
Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia...
republic on Romanian territory; also in that year, a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
, roughly corresponding to Transnistria, was established inside the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the left-wing political spectrum was dominated by Poporanism
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
, an original ideology which partly reflected Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
influence, placed its focus on the peasantry (as it notably did with the early advocacy of cooperative farming
Cooperative farming
An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative where farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity....
by Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache was a Romanian agrarian politician, the founder and leader of the Peasants' Party and a main figure of its successor, the National Peasants' Party .-Early life:...
's Peasants' Party
Peasants' Party (Romania)
The Peasants' Party was a political party in post-World War I Romania that espoused a left-wing ideology partly connected with Agrarianism and Populism, and aimed to represent the interests of the Romanian peasantry. Through many of its leaders, the party was connected with Romanian populism , a...
), and usually strongly supported the post-1919 territorial status quo—although they tended to oppose the centralized system
Centralized government
A centralized or centralised government is one in which power or legal authority is exerted or coordinated by a de facto political executive to which federal states, local authorities, and smaller units are considered subject...
it had come to imply. (In turn, the early conflict between the PCdR and other minor socialist groups has been attributed to the legacy of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
's quasi-Poporanist ideas inside the latter, as an intellectual basis for the rejection of Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
.)
The PCdR's "foreign" image was due to the fact that ethnic Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
were a minority in its ranks until after the end of World War II: between 1924 and 1944, none of its general secretaries
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
was of Romanian ethnicity. Interwar
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
Romania had a minority population of 30%, and it was largely from this section that the party drew its membership—a large percentage of it was Jews
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
, Hungarians and Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
. Actual or perceived ethnic discrimination against these minorities added to the appeal of revolutionary
Communist revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
ideas in their midst.
PCdR: Comintern and internal wing
Shortly after its creation, the PCdR's leadership was alleged by authorities to have been involved in Max GoldsteinMax Goldstein
Max Goldstein , also known as Coca, was a Romanian revolutionary, variously described as a communist and an anarchist.Born in Bârlad to a Jewish family, he worked as a clerk and moved to Bucharest, where he became a Communist sympathizer...
's bomb attack on the Parliament of Romania
Parliament of Romania
The Parliament of Romania is made up of two chambers:*The Chamber of Deputies*The SenatePrior to the modifications of the Constitution in 2003, the two houses had identical attributes. A text of a law had to be approved by both houses...
; all major party figures, including the general secretary Gheorghe Cristescu
Gheorghe Cristescu
Gheorghe Cristescu was a Romanian socialist and, for a part of his life, communist militant. Nicknamed "Plăpumarul" , he is also occasionally referred to as "Omul cu lavaliera roşie" , after the most notable of his accessories.-Early activism:Born in Copaciu Gheorghe Cristescu (October 10, 1882...
, were prosecuted in the Dealul Spirii Trial. Constantin Argetoianu
Constantin Argetoianu
Constantin Argetoianu was a Romanian politician, one of the best-known personalities of interwar Greater Romania, who served as the Prime Minister between September 28 and November 23, 1939. His memoirs, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri Constantin Argetoianu...
, the Minister of the Interior in the Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu was a Romanian marshal and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets . He first rose to prominence during the peasant's revolt of 1907, which he helped repress in violence...
, Take Ionescu
Take Ionescu
Take or Tache Ionescu was a Romanian centrist politician, journalist, lawyer and diplomat, who also enjoyed reputation as a short story author. Starting his political career as a radical member of the National Liberal Party , he joined the Conservative Party in 1891, and became noted as a social...
, and Ion I. C. Brătianu
Ion I. C. Bratianu
Ion I. C. Brătianu was a Romanian politician, leader of the National Liberal Party , the Prime Minister of Romania for five terms, and Foreign Minister on several occasions; he was the eldest son of statesman and PNL leader Ion Brătianu, the brother of Vintilă and Dinu Brătianu, and the father of...
cabinets, equated Comintern membership with conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
, ordered the first in a series of repressions, and, in the context of trial, allowed for several communist activists (including Leonte Filipescu
Leonte Filipescu
Leonte Filipescu was one of the leaders of the early Romanian communist movement, shot in custody by the Romanian authorities....
) to be shot while in custody—alleging that they had attempted to flee. Consequently, he stated his belief that "communism is over in Romania", which allowed for a momentary relaxing of pressures—begun by King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Ferdinand
Ferdinand I of Romania
Ferdinand was the King of Romania from 10 October 1914 until his death.-Early life:Born in Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany, the Roman Catholic Prince Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern, was a son of Leopold, Prince of...
's granting of an amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
to the tried PCdR.
The PCdR was thus unable to send representatives to the Comintern, and was virtually replaced abroad by a delegation of various activists who had fled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
at various intervals (Romanian groups in Moscow and Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
, the sources of a "Muscovite wing" in the following decades). The interior party only survived as an underground group after it was outlawed by the Brătianu government through the Mârzescu Law (named after its proponent, Minister of Justice Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu), passed in early 1924; Comintern sources indicate that, around 1928, it was losing contact with Soviet overseers. In 1925, the question of Romania's borders as posed by the Comintern led to protests by Cristescu and, eventually, to his exclusion from the party (see Balkan Communist Federation
Balkan Communist Federation
The Balkan Federation was a project about the creation of a Balkan federation or confederation, based mainly on left political ideas.The concept of a Balkan federation emerged at the late 19th century from among left political forces in the region...
).
Around the time of the party's Fifth Congress in 1931, the Muscovite wing became the PCdR's main political factor: Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
replaced the entire party leadership, including the general secretary Vitali Holostenco
Vitali Holostenco
Vitali Holostenco or Holostenko was a Romanian and Soviet communist politician. He used several pseudonyms, among which Barbu and Petrulescu.-Early life:...
—appointing instead Alexander Stefanski, who was at the time a member of the Communist Party of Poland
Communist Party of Poland
The Communist Party of Poland is a historical communist party in Poland. It was a result of the fusion of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the Polish Socialist Party-Left in the Communist Workers Party of Poland .-1918-1921:The KPRP was founded on 16 December 1918 as...
.
Through regained Comintern control, the interior wing began organizing itself as a more efficient conspiratorial network. The onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in Romania, and the series of strikes infiltrated (and sometimes provoked) by the interior wing signified relative successes (see Lupeni Strike of 1929
Lupeni Strike of 1929
The Lupeni Strike of 1929 took place on August 5 and 6 1929 in the mining town of Lupeni, in the Jiu Valley of Transylvania, Romania.-Chronology:...
), but gains were not capitalized—as lack of ideological appeal and suspicion of Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
directives remained notable factors. In parallel, its leadership suffered changes that were meant to place it under an ethnic Romanian and working class leadership—the emergence of a Stalin-backed group around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
before and after the large-scale Griviţa Strikes
Grivita Strike of 1933
The Grivița Strike of 1933 was a railway strike which was started at the Grivița Workshops, Bucharest, Romania, on 16 February 1933 by workers of Căile Ferate Române . The strike was brought about by the increasingly poor working conditions of railway employees in the context of the worldwide Great...
.
In 1934, Stalin's Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
doctrine was not fully passed into the local party's politics, mainly due to the Soviet territorial policies (culminating in the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
) and the widespread suspicion other left-wing forces maintained toward the Comintern. The Communists did, nevertheless, attempt to reach consensus with other groupings on several occasions (in 1934–1943, they established alliances with the Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
, the Hungarian People's Union, and the Socialist Peasants' Party), and small Communist groups became active in the leftist sections of mainstream parties. In 1934, Petre Constantinescu-Iaşi and other PCdR supporters created Amicii URSS
Amicii URSS
Amicii URSS was a cultural association in interwar Romania, uniting left-wing and anti-fascist intellectuals who advocated a détente between their country and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union Amicii URSS (Romanian for "[The] Friends of the Soviet Union"; , occasionally known as Prietenii URSS , which...
, a pro-Soviet group reaching out to intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, itself banned later in the same year.
During the 1937 elections
Romanian general election, 1937
General elections were held in Romania on 20 and 22 December 1937. It was Romania's last election before King Carol II dissolved Parliament and instituted a royal dictatorship the following February. By the next elections under the 1923 Constitution, Romania had passed through two dictatorships and...
, the Communists backed Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian politician. A leader of the National Party of Transylvania and Banat before and after World War I, he served as Prime Minister of Romania for three terms during 1928–1933, and, with Ion Mihalache, co-founded the National Peasants'...
and the National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
against King Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
and the Gheorghe Tătărescu
Gheorghe Tatarescu
Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania , three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs , and once as Minister of War...
government (who had intensified repression of Communist groups), finding themselves placed in an unusual position after the Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
, a fascist movement, signed an electoral pact with Maniu; participation in the move was explained by Communist historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
as provoked by the Social-Democrats
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
' refusal to collaborate with the PCdR.
In the years following the elections, the PCdR entered a phase of rapid decline, coinciding with the increasingly authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
tone of King Carol's regime (but in fact inaugurated by the 1936 trial of Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
and other high-ranking Communists in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
). Journals viewed as associates of the party were closed down, and all suspected PCdR activists faced detention (see Doftana Prison
Doftana prison
Doftana was a Romanian prison. Built in 1895, it was used in the 1930s to detain political prisoners, among them the future president Nicolae Ceauşescu. It is situated close to the village with the same name, in the Telega commune...
). Siguranţa Statului, the Romanian secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, infiltrated the small interior wing and probably obtained valuable information about its activities. The financial resources of the party, ensured by Soviet support and by various satellite organizations (collecting funds in the name of causes such as pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
or support for the Republican
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
side in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
), were severely drained—by political difficulties at home, as well as, after 1939, by the severing of connections with Moscow in France and Czechoslovakia
First Republic of Czechoslovakia
-Independence:The Czechoslovak declaration of independence was published by the Czechoslovak National Council, signed by Masaryk, Štefánik and Beneš on October 18, 1918 in Paris, and proclaimed on October 28 in Prague...
.
Consequently, the Executive Committee of the Comintern called on Romanian Communists to infiltrate the National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
(FRN), the newly-created sole legal party of Carol's dictatorship, and attempt to attract members of its structures to the revolutionary cause.
Until 1944, the group active inside Romania became split between the "prison faction" (political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s who looked to Gheorghiu-Dej as their leader) and the one around Ştefan Foriş
Stefan Foris
Ştefan Foriş was a Romanian communist activist and journalist who served as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party between 1940 and 1944....
and Remus Koffler. The exterior faction of the party was decimated during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
: an entire generation of party activists was killed on Stalin's orders, including, among others, Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea or Alexandru Gherea was a Romanian communist militant and son of socialist, sociologist and literary critic Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea...
, David Fabian, Ecaterina Arbore
Ecaterina Arbore
Ecaterina Arbore, Arbore-Ralli or Ralli-Arbore , daughter of Zamfir Arbore , was a Romanian, Soviet and Moldovan communist activist and official.-Early life:She trained towards a medical...
, Imre Aladar, Elena Filipescu, Dumitru Grofu, Ion Dic Dicescu
Ion Dic Dicescu
Ion Dic Dicescu was a Romanian communist and journalist.Although born in Bucharest, he spend most of his life in Russia/Soviet Union . He became a member of the Bolshevik Party and from 1922 a teacher at various Moscow universities...
, Eugen Rozvan
Eugen Rozvan
Eugen Rozvan was a Hungarian-born Romanian communist activist, lawyer, and Marxist historian, who settled in the Soviet Union late in his life.-Biography:...
, Marcel Pauker
Marcel Pauker
Marcel Pauker was a Romanian communist militant and husband of the future Romanian Communist leader Ana Pauker....
, Alexander Stefanski, Timotei Marin, and Elek Köblös
Elek Köblös
Elek Köblös was an Austro-Hungarian-born Hungarian and Romania communist activist and political leader. He was also known by the pseudonyms Balthazar, Bădulescu, and Dănilă.-Early years:...
. It was to be Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
's mission to take over and reshape the surviving structure.
PCdR: World War II
In 1940, Romania had to cede Bessarabia and Northern BukovinaBukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
to the Soviet Union and Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja is an area of north-eastern Bulgaria comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of Dobrich and Silistra...
to Bulgaria (see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Treaty of Craiova
Treaty of Craiova
The Treaty of Craiova was signed on 7 September 1940 between the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Romania. Under the terms of this treaty, Romania returned the southern part of Dobruja to Bulgaria and agreed to participate in organizing a population exchange...
); in contrast with the general mood, the PCdR welcomed both gestures along the lines of its earlier activism. Official history, after ca. 1950, stated that the PCdR protested Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
's cession to Hungary later in the same year (the Second Vienna Arbitration), but evidence is inconclusive (party documents attesting the policy are dated after Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
). As the border changes sparked a political crisis leading to an Iron Guard takeover—the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
—the interior wing's confusion intensified: the upper echelon faced investigation from Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
(as well as other Comintern officials) on charges of "Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
", and, since the FRN had crumbled, several low-ranking party officials actually began collaborating with the new regime. At around the same time, a small section of the exterior wing remained active in France, where it eventually joined the Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
to German occupation
German occupation of France in World War II
The Military Administration in France was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II. It remained in existence from May 1940 to December 1944. As a result of the defeat of France and its Allies in the Battle of France, the French cabinet sought a cessation...
—it included Gheorghe Gaston Marin
Gheorghe Gaston Marin
Gheorghe Gaston Marin was a Romanian former communist politician who had many roles under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceauşescu. He was born Gheorghe Grossmann in Pădureni Vaslui County...
and the Francs-tireurs
Francs-tireurs
Francs-tireurs – literally "free shooters" – was used to describe irregular military formations deployed by France during the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War...
Olga Bancic
Olga Bancic
Olga Bancic , also known under her French nom de guerre Pierrette , was a Jewish Romanian communist, known for her role in the French Resistance during World War II. A member of the FTP-MOI and the Manouchian Group, she was captured by Nazi German forces in late 1943...
, Nicolae Cristea
Nicolae Cristea
Nicolas or Nicolae Cristea was a Romanian communist, a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and in the French Resistance during World War II.Cristea was born in a poor workers family in Galaţi...
and Joseph Boczov
Joseph Boczov
Joseph Boczov or József Boczor, aka Ferenc Wolff , was a chemical engineer, Hungarian Jew, and volunteer fighter for the French liberation army FTP-MOI. In 1942 Boczov founded and led the 4th detachment, called the dérailleurs, as they specialized in derailing trains...
.
As Romania came under the rule of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
and, as an Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
country, joined in the German offensive against the Soviets
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the Communist Party began approaching traditional parties that were engaged in semi-clandestine opposition to Antonescu: alongside the Social Democrats
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
, it began talks with the National Peasants
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
' and the National Liberal
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
parties. At the time, virtually all the interior leadership was imprisoned at various locations (most of them interned
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
at Caransebeş
Caransebes
Caransebeş is a city in Caraş-Severin County, part of the Banat region in southwestern Romania. It is located at the confluence of the river Timiş with the river Sebeş, the latter coming from the Ţarcu Mountains. To the west, it is in direct contact with the Banat hills...
or in a concentration camp near Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu is the capital of Gorj County, Oltenia, Romania. It is situated on the Southern Sub-Carpathians, on the banks of the river Jiu. Eight villages are administered by the city: Bârseşti, Drăgoeni, Iezureni, Polata, Preajba Mare, Româneşti, Slobozia and Ursaţi.-History:The city takes its name...
). Some communists, such as Filimon Sârbu
Filimon Sârbu
Filimon Sârbu was a Romanian communist activist and anti-fascist militant executed by the pro-Nazi authorities during World War II. After the war, he was acclaimed as a hero by the communist government....
, Francisc Panet
Francisc Panet
Francisc Panet or Paneth was a Romanian chemical engineer and communist activist executed by the pro-Nazi authorities during the Second World War. He was active in the Romanian Communist Party and in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.Panet was born in a wealthy family in Târgu Mureş...
or Ştefan Plavăţ
Ştefan Plavăţ
Ştefan Plavăţ was a Romanian communist activist, leader of a resistance group active in South-Western Romania during World War II.Plavăţ was born in Eşelniţa, in South-Eastern Banat, to a family of poor peasants...
, tried to establish organised resistance groups, however they were quickly captured by the Romanian authorities and executed. The antisemitic Antonescu regime established a distinction between PCdR members of Jewish Romanian
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
origin and those of ethnic Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
or other heritage, deporting the majority of the former, alongside Romanian and Bessarabian Jews
Bessarabian Jews
-Early history:Jews are mentioned from very early in the Principality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in Moldavia was commerce, but they could not compete with Greeks and Armenians, who had the knowledge of the Levantine commerce and relationships...
in general, to camps, prisons and makeshift ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
s in occupied Transnistria
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...
(see Holocaust in Romania). Most Jews from the PCdR category were held in Vapniarka
Vapniarka
Vapniarka , also known as Vapniarca, Vapnyarka, Wapnjarka or Wapniarka, is a town in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine, known since 1870 as a railroad station. Its name from the Ukrainian language translates as a lime settlement...
, where improper feeding caused an outbreak of paralysis, and in Rîbniţa
Rîbnita
Rîbnița, also spelled Râbnița is a city in Moldova. The city is under the administration of the breakaway government of the Transnistria. According to the 2004 Census in Transnistria, it has a population of 53,648. Rîbniţa is situated in the northern half of Transnistria, on the left bank of the...
, where some 50 were victims of the authorities' criminal negligence
Criminal negligence
In the criminal law, criminal negligence is one of the three general classes of mens rea element required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is defined as an act that is:-Concept:...
and were shot by retreating German troops in March 1944.
In June 1943, at a time when troops were suffering major defeats on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, the PCdR proposed that all parties form a Blocul Naţional Democrat ("National Democratic Bloc"), in order to arrange for Romania to withdraw from its alliance with Nazi Germany. The ensuing talks were prolonged by various factors, most notably by the opposition of National Peasants' Party leader Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian politician. A leader of the National Party of Transylvania and Banat before and after World War I, he served as Prime Minister of Romania for three terms during 1928–1933, and, with Ion Mihalache, co-founded the National Peasants'...
, who, alarmed by Soviet successes, was trying to reach a satisfactory compromise with the Western Allies
Western Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
(and, together with the National Liberals' leader Dinu Brătianu
Dinu Bratianu
Dinu Brătianu , born Constantin I. C. Brătianu, was a Romanian politician, who led the National Liberal Party starting with 1934.-Early career:...
, continued to back negotiations initiated by Antonescu and Barbu Ştirbey
Barbu Stirbey
Prince Barbu Ştirbey was briefly Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Romania in 1927. He was the son of Prince Alexandru Ştirbey and his wife Maria Ghika-Comăneşti, and grandson of another Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbey , who was Prince of Wallachia and died in 1869.He married Princess Nadèje Bibescu about...
with the United States and the United Kingdom).
PCdR: 1944 Coup
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
reached and crossed the Prut River during the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, the self-confidence and status gained by the PCdR made possible the creation of the Bloc, which was designed as the basis of a future anti-Axis government. Parallel contacts were established, through Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
and Emil Bodnăraş
Emil Bodnaras
Emil Bodnăraş was an influential Romanian Communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent...
, between the PCdR, the Soviets, and King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Michael. A seminal event also occurred during those months: Ştefan Foriş
Stefan Foris
Ştefan Foriş was a Romanian communist activist and journalist who served as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party between 1940 and 1944....
, who was still general secretary, was deposed by with Soviet approval by the rival "prison faction" (at the time, it was headed by former inmates of Caransebeş prison); replaced with the troika
Troika (triumvirate)
Troika is a committee consisting of three members. The origin of "troika" comes from the term in Russian used to describe three-horse harnessed carriage, or more often, horse-drawn sledge.- Communist states :...
formed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
, Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu was a Romanian communist politician, one of the founders of the Romanian Communist Party , and, eventually, an active opponent of Communist Romania's leader Nicolae Ceauşescu...
, and Iosif Rangheţ, Foriş was discreetly assassinated in 1946. Several assessments view Foriş' dismissal as the complete rupture in historical continuity between the PCdR established in 1921 and what became the ruling party of Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
.
On August 23, 1944, King Michael, a number of Romanian Armed Forces
Romanian Armed Forces
The Land Forces, Air Force and Naval Forces of Romania are collectively known as the Romanian Armed Forces...
officers, and armed Communist-led civilians supported by the National Democratic Bloc arrested dictator Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
and seized control of the government (see King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
). King Michael then proclaimed the old 1923 Constitution
1923 Constitution of Romania
The 1923 Constitution of Romania, also called the Constitution of Union, was intended to align the organisation of the state on the basis of universal male suffrage and the new realities that arose after the Great Union of 1918. Four draft constitutions existed: one belonging to the National...
in force, ordered the Romanian Army to enter a ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
with the Red Army on the Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
n front, and withdrew Romania from the Axis. Later party discourse tended to dismiss the importance of both the Soviet offensive and the dialogue with other forces (and eventually described the coup as a revolt with large popular support).
The King named General Constantin Sănătescu
Constantin Sanatescu
Constantin Sănătescu was a Romanian statesman who served as the first Prime Minister of Romania after the August 23, 1944 coup, through which Romania left the Axis Powers and joined the Allies....
as Prime Minister of a coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
which was dominated by the National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, but included Pătrăşcanu as Minister of Justice—the first Communist to hold high office in Romania. The Red Army entered Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
on August 31, and thereafter played a crucial role in supporting the Communist Party's rise to power as the Soviet military command virtually ruled the city and the country (see Soviet occupation of Romania
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
).
PCdR: in opposition to Sănătescu and Rădescu
Gheorghe Tatarescu
Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania , three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs , and once as Minister of War...
, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, who later entered an alliance with the Communist Party). Soon after August 23, the Communists also engaged in an increasingly violent campaign against Romania's main political group of the times, the National Peasants' Party, and its leaders Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian politician. A leader of the National Party of Transylvania and Banat before and after World War I, he served as Prime Minister of Romania for three terms during 1928–1933, and, with Ion Mihalache, co-founded the National Peasants'...
and Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache was a Romanian agrarian politician, the founder and leader of the Peasants' Party and a main figure of its successor, the National Peasants' Party .-Early life:...
. The conflict's first stage was centered on Communist allegations that Maniu had encouraged violence against the Hungarian community in newly-recovered Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
—at a time when the region's status was being assessed by the Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
.
The Communist Party, engaged in a massive recruitment campaign, was able to attract ethnic Romanians in large numbers—workers and intellectuals alike, as well as former members of the fascist Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
. By 1947, it grew to around 710,000 members. Although the PCR was still highly disorganized and factionalized, it benefited from Soviet backing (including that of Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov
Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov
Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov was a Russian military leader and social activist. He fought in the First World War, Russian Civil War and Second World War and ended his military career Lieutenant General of the Quartermaster Corps.During the occupation of Romania he represented Rodion Malinovsky,...
and other Soviet appointees to the Allied Commission
Allied Commission
Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allied Powers were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far Eastern Advisory Commission to make recommendations...
). After 1944, it was leading a paramilitary wing, the Patriotic Defense (Apărarea Patriotică, disbanded in 1948), and a cultural society, the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union.
On PCdR initiative, the National Democratic Bloc was dissolved on October 8, 1944; instead, the Communists, Social Democrats, the Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
, Mihai Ralea's Socialist Peasants' Party (which was absorbed by the former in November), the Hungarian People's Union
Hungarian People's Union
The Hungarian People's Union was a left-wing political party active in Romania between 1934 and 1953, claiming to represent the Hungarian community...
(MADOSZ), and Mitiţă Constantinescu
Mitita Constantinescu
Mitiţă Constantinescu was a Romanian economist and liberal politician. He was an advocate of industrialization and a degree of dirigisme.-Biography:...
's Union of Patriots formed Frontul Naţional Democrat (the "National Democratic Front", FND) which, campaigned against the government, demanding the appointment of more Communist officials and sympathizers, while claiming democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
legitimacy and alleging that Sănătescu had dictatorial ambitions. The FND was soon joined by the Liberal group around Tătărescu, Nicolae L. Lupu
Nicolae L. Lupu
Dr. Nicolae Lupu was a Romanian politician and medical doctor, active in the National Peasants' Party....
's Democratic Peasants' Party (the latter claimed the legacy from the defunct Peasants' Party
Peasants' Party (Romania)
The Peasants' Party was a political party in post-World War I Romania that espoused a left-wing ideology partly connected with Agrarianism and Populism, and aimed to represent the interests of the Romanian peasantry. Through many of its leaders, the party was connected with Romanian populism , a...
), and Anton Alexandrescu's faction (separated from the National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
).
Sănătescu resigned in November, but was persuaded by King Michael
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
to form a second government which collapsed within weeks. General Nicolae Rădescu
Nicolae Radescu
Nicolae Rădescu was a Romanian army officer and political figure. He was the last pre-communist rule Prime Minister of Romania, serving from December 7, 1944 to March 1, 1945....
was asked to form a government and appointed Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu was a high-ranking member of the Romanian Communist Party.-Life:Born in Bacău, he was the third of seven children of Constantin and Aneta Georgescu. Georgescu, whose formal education ended after the fourth grade, began his career as an assistant in his father's store...
to the Ministry of the Interior, which allowed for the introduction of Communists into the security forces. The Communist Party subsequently launched a campaign against the Rădescu government, culminating in a February 13, 1945 demonstration outside the Royal Palace
National Museum of Art of Romania
The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937...
, and followed a week later by street fighting between Georgescu's Communist forces and supporters of the National Peasants' Party in Bucharest. In a period of escalating chaos, Rădescu called for elections. The Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Januaryevich Vyshinsky – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow trials and in the Nuremberg trials. He was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, after having served as Deputy Foreign...
went to Bucharest to demand to the monarch that he appoint Communist sympathizer Petru Groza
Petru Groza
Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
as Prime Minister, offering that Romania would be given sovereignty over Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
if he agreed, and intimating a Soviet takeover of the country if he did not. King Michael, under pressure from Soviet troops who were disarming the Romanian military and occupying key installations, agreed and dismissed Rădescu, who fled the country.
PCdR: First Groza cabinet
Romanian Armed Forces
The Land Forces, Air Force and Naval Forces of Romania are collectively known as the Romanian Armed Forces...
as well as the ministries of the Interior (Georgescu), Justice
Ministry of Justice (Romania)
The Ministry of Justice of Romania is one of the fifteen ministries of the Romanian Government. It administers the judicial system.The current minister of justice is Cătălin Predoiu, an independent.-External links:* *...
(Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
), Communications (Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
), Propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
(Petre Constantinescu-Iaşi) and Finance
Ministry of Public Finance (Romania)
The Ministry of Public Finance of Romania is one of the fifteen ministries of the Government of Romania.The minister's seat is currently held by the Democratic Liberal Party's Gheorghe Ialomiţeanu.The following agencies are subordinated to the Minister:...
(Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
). The non-Communist ministers came from the Social Democrats (who were falling under the control of the pro-Communists Lothar Rădăceanu
Lothar Radaceanu
Lothar or Lotar Rădăceanu was a Romanian journalist and linguist, best known as a socialist and communist politician.-Early life and politics:...
and Ştefan Voitec
Stefan Voitec
Ştefan Voitec was a Romanian socialist and communist journalist, politician, and statesman of Communist Romania.-Biography:...
) and the traditional Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
ally, as well as, nominally, from the National Peasants' and National Liberal
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
parties (followers of Tătărescu and Alexandrescu's dissident wings).
As a result of the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, where Western Allied
Western Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
governments refused to recognize Groza's administration, King Michael called on Groza to resign. When he refused, the monarch went to his summer home in Sinaia
Sinaia
Sinaia is a town and a mountain resort in Prahova County, Romania. The town was named after Sinaia Monastery, around which it was built; the monastery in turn is named after the Biblical Mount Sinai...
and refused to sign any government decrees or bills (a period colloquially known as greva regală—"the royal strike"). Following Anglo-American mediation, Groza agreed to include politicians from outside his electoral alliance, appointing two secondary figures in their parties (the National Liberal Mihail Romaniceanu and the National Peasants' Emil Haţieganu
Emil Hatieganu
Emil Haţieganu was a Romanian politician and jurist, a prominent member of the Romanian National Party and of its successor, the National Peasants' Party ; he was physician Iuliu Haţieganu's brother...
) as Ministers without Portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
(January 1946). At the time, Groza's party and the PCR came to publicly disagree on several agrarian issues, before the Ploughmen's Front was eventually pressured into supporting Communist tenets.
In the meantime, the first measure taken by the cabinet was a new land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
that advertised, among others, an interest into peasant issues and a respect for property (in front of common fears that a Leninist
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
program was about to be adopted). Although contrasted by the Communist press with its previous equivalent, the measure was in fact much less relevant—land awarded to individual farmers in 1923 was more than three times the 1945 figures, and all effects were canceled by the 1948–1962 collectivization.
It was also then that, through Pătrăşcanu and Alexandru Drăghici, the Communists consecrated their control of the legal system—the process included the creation of the Romanian People's Tribunals
Romanian People's Tribunals
The two Romanian People's Tribunals , the Bucharest People's Tribunal and the Northern Transylvania People's Tribunal were set up by the post-World War II government of Romania, overseen by the Allied Control Commission to try suspected war criminals, in line with Article 14 of the Armistice...
, charged with investigating war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s, and constantly supported by agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
in the Communist press. During the period, government-backed Communists used various means to exercising influence over the vast majority of the press, and began infiltrating or competing with independent cultural forums. Economic dominance, partly responding to Soviet requirements, was first effected through the SovRoms (created in the summer of 1945), directing the bulk of Romanian trade towards the Soviet Union.
PCR: 1945 restructuring and second Groza cabinet
The Communist Party held its first open conference (October 1945, at the Mihai Viteazul High School in BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
) and agreed to replace the Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
-Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu was a Romanian communist politician, one of the founders of the Romanian Communist Party , and, eventually, an active opponent of Communist Romania's leader Nicolae Ceauşescu...
-Iosif Rangheţ troika
Troika (triumvirate)
Troika is a committee consisting of three members. The origin of "troika" comes from the term in Russian used to describe three-horse harnessed carriage, or more often, horse-drawn sledge.- Communist states :...
with a joint leadership reflecting an uneasy balance between the external and internal wings: while Gheorghiu-Dej retained his general secretary position, Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
, Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu was a high-ranking member of the Romanian Communist Party.-Life:Born in Bacău, he was the third of seven children of Constantin and Aneta Georgescu. Georgescu, whose formal education ended after the fourth grade, began his career as an assistant in his father's store...
and Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
became the other main leaders. The post-1945 constant growth in membership, by far the highest of all Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
countries, was to provide a base of support for Gheorghiu-Dej. The conference also saw the first mention of the PCdR as the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), the new name being used as a propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
tool suggesting a closer connection with the national interest
National interest
The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État , is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The concept is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist...
.
Party control over the security forces was successfully used on November 8, 1945, when the Bucharest populace gathered in front of the Royal Palace
National Museum of Art of Romania
The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937...
to express solidarity with King Michael, who was still refusing to sign his name to new legislation, on the occasion of his name day
November 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Nov. 7 - Eastern Orthodox Church calendar - Nov. 9-Fixed commemorations:All fixed commemorations below are observed on November 21 by Old Calendarists-Saints:...
. Demonstrators were faced with gunshots; around 10 people were killed, and many wounded. The official account, according to which the Groza government responded to a coup attempt, was since dismissed in many researches.
The PCR and its allies won the Romanian elections of November 19
Romanian general election, 1946
The Romanian general election of 1946 was a general election held on November 19, 1946, in Romania. Officially, it was carried with 79.86% of the vote by the Romanian Communist Party , its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties , and its associates — the Hungarian People's Union , the...
, although there is evidence of widespread electoral fraud
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
. The following months were dedicated to confronting the National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
, which was annihilated after the Tămădău Affair
Tamadau Affair
The Tămădău Affair was an incident that took place in Romania in the summer of 1947, the source of a political scandal and show trial.It was provoked when an important number of National Peasants' Party leaders, including party vice president Ion Mihalache, had been offered a chance to flee...
and show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
of its entire leadership. On December 30, 1947, the Communist Party's power was consolidated when King Michael was forced to abdicate
Abdication
Abdication occurs when a monarch, such as a king or emperor, renounces his office.-Terminology:The word abdication comes derives from the Latin abdicatio. meaning to disown or renounce...
and a "People's Republic
People's Republic
People's Republic is a title that has often been used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist...
", firmly aligned with the Soviet Union, was proclaimed. According to the king, his signature was obtained after the Groza cabinet representatives threatened to kill 1,000 students they had rounded up in custody.
PMR: creation
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
(ensuring control through electoral alliances and the two-party Frontul Unic Muncitoresc—Singular Workers' Front, the PCR had profited from the departure of Constantin Titel Petrescu
Constantin Titel Petrescu
Constantin Titel Petrescu was a Romanian politician and lawyer. He was the leader of the Romanian Social Democratic Party.He was born in Craiova, the son of an employee of the National Bank in Bucharest...
's group from the Social Democrats in March 1946). The Social Democrats fused with the PCR to form the Romanian Workers' Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român, PMR) which remained the ruling party's official name until 1965 (when it returned to the designation as Romanian Communist Party). Nevertheless, Social Democrats were excluded from most party posts and were forced to support Communist policies on the basis of democratic centralism
Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
; it was also reported that only half of the PSD's 500,000 members joined the newly-founded grouping. Capitalizing on these gains, the Communist government banned almost all other political parties after winning purely formal elections in 1948 (the Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
and the Hungarian People's Union
Hungarian People's Union
The Hungarian People's Union was a left-wing political party active in Romania between 1934 and 1953, claiming to represent the Hungarian community...
dissolved themselves in 1953).
A new series of economic changes followed: the National Bank of Romania was passed into full public ownership (December 1946), and, in order to combat the Romanian leu
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
's devaluation
Devaluation
Devaluation is a reduction in the value of a currency with respect to those goods, services or other monetary units with which that currency can be exchanged....
, a surprise monetary reform
Monetary reform
Monetary reform describes any movement or theory that proposes a different system of supplying money and financing the economy from the current system.Monetary reformers may advocate any of the following, among other proposals:...
was imposed as a stabilization
Stabilisation policy
A stabilization policy is a package or set of measures introduced to stabilize a financial system or economy.The term can refer to policies in two distinct sets of circumstances: business cycle stabilization and crisis stabilization....
measure in August 1947 (with disastrous consequences on the livelihoods of middle class citizens). The Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
was being overtly condemned, while nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
and a planned economy
Planned economy
A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
were enforced beginning June 11, 1948. The first five-year plan
Five-year plans of Romania
The Five-Year Plans of Romania were economic development projects in Communist Romania, largely inspired by the Soviet model. Starting from 1951, there were 8 five-year plans.-Origins:...
, conceived by Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
's Soviet-Romanian committee, was adopted in 1950. Of newly-enforced measures, the arguably most far-reaching was collectivization
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
—by 1962, when the process was considered complete, 96% of the total arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
had been enclosed in collective farming
Collective farming
Collective farming and communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise...
, while around 80,000 peasants faced trial for resisting and 17,000 others were uprooted or deported
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
for being chiaburi (the Romanian equivalent of kulak
Kulak
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...
s). In 1950, the party, which viewed itself as the vanguard of the working class
Vanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
, reported that people of proletarian
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
origin held 64% of party offices and 40% of higher government posts, while results of the recruitment efforts remained below official expectations.
PMR: internal purges
During the period, the central scene of the PMR was occupied by the conflict between the "Muscovite wing", the "prison wing" led by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-DejGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
, and the newly-emerged and weaker "Secretariat wing" led by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
. After October 1945, the two former groups had associated in neutralizing Pătrăşcanu's—exposed as "bourgeois" and progressively marginalized, it was ultimately decapitated in 1948. Beginning that year, the PMR leadership officially questioned its own political support, and began a massive campaign to remove "foreign and hostile elements" from its rapidly expanded structures. In 1952, with Stalin's renewed approval, Gheorghiu-Dej emerged victorious from the confrontation with Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
, his chief "Muscovite" rival, as well as purging Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
, Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu was a high-ranking member of the Romanian Communist Party.-Life:Born in Bacău, he was the third of seven children of Constantin and Aneta Georgescu. Georgescu, whose formal education ended after the fourth grade, began his career as an assistant in his father's store...
, and their supporters from the party—alleging that their various political attitudes were proof of "right-wing deviationism
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
". Out of a membership of approximately one million, between 300,000 and 465,000 members, almost half of the party, was removed in the successive purges. The specific target for the "verification campaign", as it was officially called, were former Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
affiliates.
The move against Pauker's group echoed Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
purges of Jews in particular from other Communist Parties in the Eastern bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
—notably, the anti-"Cosmopolitan"
Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
campaign in which Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
targeted Jews in the Soviet Union, and the Prague Trials in Czechoslovakia which removed Jews from leading positions in that country's Communist government. At the same time, a new republican constitution
1952 Constitution of Romania
The 1952 Constitution of Romania, also called the "constitution of building socialism", expressed the consolidation of Communist power, featuring greater ideological content than its 1948 predecessor. A draft was written by a commission elected by the Great National Assembly on March 27, 1952 and...
, replacing its 1948 precedent, legislated Stalinist tenets, and proclaimed that "the people's democratic state is consistently carrying out the policy of enclosing and eliminating capitalist elements". Gheorghiu-Dej, who remained an orthodox Stalinist, took the position of Premier while moving Petru Groza
Petru Groza
Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
to the Presidency of the People's Republic. Executive and PMR leaderships remained in Gheorghiu-Dej's charge until his death in 1965 (with the exception of 1954–1955, when his office of PMR leader was taken over by Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol was a Romanian politician, deputy Prime Minister of Romania and a former leader of the Communist Party, noted for his rivalry with Nicolae Ceauşescu.-Early life:...
).
From the moment it came to power and until Stalin's death, as the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
erupted, the PMR endorsed Soviet requirements for the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. Aligning the country with the Cominform
Cominform
Founded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
, it officially condemned Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
's independent actions
Titoism
Titoism is a variant of Marxism–Leninism named after Josip Broz Tito, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, primarily used to describe the specific socialist system built in Yugoslavia after its refusal of the 1948 Resolution of the Cominform, when the Communist Party of...
in Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
; Tito was routinely attacked by the official press, and the Romanian-Yugoslav Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
border became the scene of massive agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
displays (see Tito-Stalin split
Tito-Stalin Split
The Tito–Stalin Split was a conflict between the leaders of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948...
and Informbiro
Informbiro
Informbiro was a period in the history of Yugoslavia characterized by conflict and schism with the Soviet Union...
).
PMR: Gheorghiu-Dej and de-Stalinization
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, Gheorghiu-Dej began to steer Romania towards a more "independent" path while remaining within the Soviet orbit during the late 1950s. Following the Twentieth Party Congress
20th Congress of the CPSU
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during 14– 25 February 1956. It is known especially for Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of Joseph Stalin....
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, in which Khurshchev initiated De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, Gheorghiu-Dej issued propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
accusing Pauker, Luca and Georgescu of having been an arch-Stalinists responsible for the party's excesses in the late 1940s and early 1950s (notably, in regard to collectivization)—despite the fact that they had occasionally opposed a number of radical measures advocated by the General Secretary. After that purge, Gheorghiu-Dej had begun promoting PMR activists who were perceived as more loyal to his own political views; among them were Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, Gheorghe Stoica, Ghizela Vass
Ghizela Vass
Ghizela Vass , a Romanian Communist, was an activist and politician of the Romanian Communist Party...
, Grigore Preoteasa
Grigore Preoteasa
Grigore Preoteasa was a Romanian communist activist, journalist, and politician, who served as Communist Romania's Minister of Foreign Affairs between October 4, 1955 and the time of his death.-Biography:...
, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.-Biography:Born in Bucharest to a Saxon father and a Romanian mother of French origin, he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements...
, Gheorghe Gaston Marin
Gheorghe Gaston Marin
Gheorghe Gaston Marin was a Romanian former communist politician who had many roles under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceauşescu. He was born Gheorghe Grossmann in Pădureni Vaslui County...
, Paul Niculescu-Mizil, and Gheorghe Rădulescu; in parallel, citing Khrushchevite precedents, the PMR briefly reorganized its leadership on a plural basis (1954–1955), while Gheorghiu-Dej reshaped party doctrine to include ambiguous messages about Stalin's legacy (insisting on the defunct Soviet's leader contribution to Marxist thought, official documents also deplored his personality cult and encouraged Stalinists to self-criticism
Self-criticism
Self-criticism refers to the pointing out of things critical/important to one's own beliefs, thoughts, actions, behaviour or results; it can form part of private, personal reflection or a group discussion.-Philosophy:...
).
In this context, the PMR soon dismissed all the relevant consequences of the Twentieth Soviet Congress, and Gheorghiu-Dej even argued that De-Stalinization had been imposed by his team right after 1952. At a party meeting in March 1956, two members of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
who were supporters of Khruschevite reforms, Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
and Iosif Chişinevschi
Iosif Chisinevschi
Iosif Chişinevschi , born Iosif Roitman, was a Romanian communist politician. The leading ideologue of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to 1957, he served as head of its Agitprop Department from 1948 to 1952 and was in charge of propaganda and culture from 1952 to 1955...
, criticized Gheorghiu-Dej's leadership and identified him with Romanian Stalinism. They were purged in 1957, themselves accused of being Stalinists and of having been plotting with Pauker. Through Ceauşescu's voice, Gheorghiu-Dej also marginalized another group of old members of the PMR, associated with Constantin Doncea (June 1958).
On the outside too, the PMR, leading a country that had joined the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
, remained an agent of political repression: it fully supported Khurshchev's invasion of Hungary
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
in response to the Revolution of 1956, after which Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
and other dissident Hungarian leaders were imprisoned on Romanian soil. The Hungarian rebellion also sparked student protests in such places as Bucharest, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, Oradea
Oradea
Oradea is the capital city of Bihor County, in the Crișana region of north-western Romania. The city has a population of 204,477, according to the 2009 estimates. The wider Oradea metropolitan area has a total population of 245,832.-Geography:...
, Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
and Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, which contributed to unease inside the PMR and resulted in a wave of arrests. While refusing to allow dissemination of Soviet literature exposing Stalinism (writers such as Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...
and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
), Romanian leaders took active part in the campaign against Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
.
Despite Stalin's death, the massive police apparatus headed by the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
(created in 1949 and rapidly growing in numbers) maintained a steady pace in its suppression of "class enemies
Enemy of the people
The term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. The term implies that the "enemies" in question are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notion of "enemy of the state". The term originated in Roman times as ,...
", until as late as 1962–1964. In 1962–1964, the party leadership approved a mass amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
, extended to, among other prisoners, ca. 6,700 guilty of political crime
Political crime
In criminology, a political crime is an offence involving overt acts or omissions , which prejudice the interests of the state, its government or the political system...
s. This marked a toning down in the violence and scale of repression, after almost twenty years during which the Party had acted against political opposition and active anti-communist resistance
Romanian anti-communist resistance movement
An armed resistance movement against the communist regime in Romania was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime...
, as well as against religious institutions
Religion in Romania
Romania is a secular state, and it has no state religion. However, an overwhelming majority of the country's citizens are Christian. 86.7% of the country's population identified as Eastern Orthodox in the 2002 census...
(most notably, the Romanian Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic
Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic
The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic is an Eastern Catholic Church which is in full union with the Roman Catholic Church. It is ranked as a Major Archiepiscopal Church and uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Romanian language....
Churches). Estimates for the total number of victims in the 1947/1948-1964 period vary significantly: as low as 160,000 or 282,000 political prisoners, and as high 600,000 (a great number were killed or died in custody—according to one estimate, about 190,000 people). Notorious penal facilities of the time included the Danube-Black Sea Canal
Danube-Black Sea Canal
The Danube – Black Sea Canal is a canal in Romania which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube to Agigea and Năvodari on the Black Sea...
, Sighet
Sighet prison
The Sighet prison, located in the town of Sighetu Marmaţiei, Maramureş county, Romania, was used by the communist regime to hold political prisoners...
, Gherla, Aiud
Aiud
Aiud is a city located in Alba county, Transylvania, Romania. The city has a population of 28,934 people. It has the status of municipality and is the second-largest city in the county, after county seat Alba Iulia. The Aiud administrative region is 142.2 square kilometres in area.- Administration...
, Piteşti
Pitesti prison
The Pitești prison was a penal facility in Pitești, Romania, best remembered for the brainwashing experiment carried out by Communist authorities in 1949-1952...
, and Râmnicu Sărat
Râmnicu Sarat
Râmnicu Sărat is a city in Buzău County, Romania. It was declared a municipality in 1439. On December 21, 1994 it celebrated its 555th anniversary....
; another method of punishment was deportation to the inhospitable Bărăgan Plain
Baragan deportations
The Bărăgan deportations were a large-scale action of penal transportation, undertaken during the 1950s by the Romanian Communist regime. Their aim was to forcibly relocate individuals who lived within approximately 25 km of the Yugoslav border to the Bărăgan Plain.-Reasons:After relations...
.
PMR: Gheorghiu-Dej and the "national path"
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
penetrated official discourse, largely owing to Gheorghiu-Dej's call for economic independence and distancing from the Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
. Moves to withdraw the country from Soviet overseeing were taken in quick succession after 1953. Khrushchev allowed Constantinescu to dissolve the SovRoms in 1954, followed by the closing of Romanian-Soviet cultural ventures such as Editura Cartea Rusă at the end of the decade. Industrialization along the PMR's own directives highlighted Romanian independence—one of its consequences was the massive steel-producing industrial complex in Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
, which, being dependent on imports of iron from overseas, was for long a major strain on Romanian economy. In 1957, Gheorghiu-Dej and Emil Bodnăraş
Emil Bodnaras
Emil Bodnăraş was an influential Romanian Communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent...
persuaded the Soviets to withdraw their remaining troops
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
from Romanian soil. As early as 1956, Romania's political apparatus reconciled with Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, which led to a series of common economic projects (culminating in the Đerdap venture).
An drastic divergence in ideological outlooks manifested itself only after autumn 1961, when the PMR's leadership felt threatened by the Soviet Union's will to impose the condemnation of Stalinism as the standard in communist states. Following the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
of the late 1950s and the Soviet-Albanian split
Soviet-Albanian Relations
Albania–Soviet Union relations refers to the foreign relations between Albania and the former Soviet Union.-Early Cold War:Because the Soviet Red Army never entered Albania, the Albanians liberated their own nation. Albania had developed very good relations with Yugoslavia, and especially their...
in 1961, Romania initially gave full support to the Khrushchev's stance, but maintained exceptionally good relations with both the People's Republic of China and Communist Albania. Romanian media was alone among Warsaw Pact countries to report Chinese criticism of the Soviet leadership from its source; in return, Maoist
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
officials complimented Romanian nationalism by supporting the view that Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
had been a traditional victim of Russian imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
.
The change in policies was to become obvious in 1964, when the Communist regime offered a stiff response to the Valev Plan, a Soviet project of creating trans-national economic units and of assigning Romanian areas the task of supplying agricultural products. Several other measures of that year also presented themselves as radical changes in tone: after Gheorghiu-Dej endorsed Andrei Oţetea's publishing of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's Russophobic
Russophobia
Russophobia refers to a diverse spectrum of prejudices, dislikes or fears of Russia, Russians, or Russian culture. Its opposite is Russophilia....
texts (uncovered by the Polish
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
historian Stanisław Schwann), the PMR itself took a stand against Khrushchevite principles by issuing, in late April, a declaration published in Scînteia
Scînteia
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
, through which it stressed its commitment to a "national path" towards Communism (it read: "There does not and cannot exist a «parent» party and a «son» party or «superior» party and «subordinate» parties"). During late 1964, the PMR's leadership clashed with new Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
over the issue of KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
advisers still present in the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
, and eventually managed to have them recalled, making Romania the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
's first country to have accomplished this.
These actions gave Romania greater freedom in pursuing the program which Gheorghiu-Dej had been committed to since 1954, one allowing Romania to defy reforms in the Eastern Bloc and to maintain a largely Stalinist course. It has also been argued that Romania's emancipation was, in effect, limited to economic relations and military cooperation, being as such dependent on a relatively tolerant mood inside the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the PMR's nationalism made it increasingly popular with Romanian intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, and the last stage of the Gheorghiu-Dej regime was popularly identified with liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
.
PCR: Ceauşescu's rise
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
as general secretary, Chivu Stoica
Chivu Stoica
Chivu Stoica was a leading Romanian Communist politician.Stoica was born in Smeeni, Buzău County, the sixth child of a ploughman. At age 12 he left home, and started working as an apprentice at Căile Ferate Române, the state railway corporation...
as President and Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.-Biography:Born in Bucharest to a Saxon father and a Romanian mother of French origin, he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements...
as Premier. Ceauşescu removed rivals such as Stoica, Alexandru Drăghici, and Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol was a Romanian politician, deputy Prime Minister of Romania and a former leader of the Communist Party, noted for his rivalry with Nicolae Ceauşescu.-Early life:...
from the government, and ultimately from the party leadership, and began accumulating posts for himself. By 1969, he was in complete control of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
. The circumstances surrounding this process are still disputed, but theories evidence that the support given to him by Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.-Biography:Born in Bucharest to a Saxon father and a Romanian mother of French origin, he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements...
and Emil Bodnăraş
Emil Bodnaras
Emil Bodnăraş was an influential Romanian Communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent...
, as well as the ascendancy of Ilie Verdeţ
Ilie Verdet
Ilie Verdeţ was a Romanian politician.Born in Comăneşti, Bacău County, and a miner from age 12, he joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1945. After graduating from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, he climbed through the Party apparatus...
, Virgil Trofin
Virgil Trofin
Virgil Trofin was a Romanian communist activist and politician, who served as minister under the Communist regime.-Biography:Born in Vaslui, Trofin had an early career as a mechanical fitter and boilermaker...
, and Paul Niculescu-Mizil, were instrumental in ensuring legitimacy. Soon after 1965, Ceauşescu used his prerogatives to convoke a Party Commission headed by Ion Popescu-Puţuri, charged with investigating both Stalinist legacy and Gheorghiu-Dej's purges: resulting in the rehabilitation
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
of a large number of Communist officials (including, among others, Ştefan Foriş
Stefan Foris
Ştefan Foriş was a Romanian communist activist and journalist who served as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party between 1940 and 1944....
, Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
, Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
, Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
, and Romanian victims of the Soviet Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
). This measure was instrumental in consolidating the new leadership while further increasing its distance from Gheorghiu-Dej's political legacy.
In 1965, Ceauşescu declared that Romania was no longer a People's Democracy but a Socialist Republic
Socialist state
A socialist state generally refers to any state constitutionally dedicated to the construction of a socialist society. It is closely related to the political strategy of "state socialism", a set of ideologies and policies that believe a socialist economy can be established through government...
and changed the name of the party back to the Romanian Communist Party—steps which were meant to indicate that Romania was following strict Marxist policies while remaining independent. He continued Romanianization and de-Sovietization efforts by stressing notions such as sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
and self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
. At the time, Ceauşescu made references to Gheorghiu-Dej's own personality cult, while implying that his was to be a new style of leadership. In its official discourse, the PCR introduced the dogmas of "socialist democracy" and direct communication with the masses. From ca. 1965 to 1975, there was a noted rise in the standard of living
Standard of living
Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods , or measures of health such as...
for the Romanian population as a whole, which was similar to developments in most other Eastern bloc countries. Political scientist Daniel Barbu
Daniel Barbu
Daniel Barbu is a Romanian political scientist, publisher, essayist, journalist, and professor at the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Political Science. The head of the Research Institute at the University of Bucharest, and former dean of the Faculty, he was also director of Realitatea...
, who noted that this social improvement trend began ca. 1950 and benefited 45% of the population, concluded that one of its main effects was to increase the citizens' dependency on the state.
A seminal event occurred in August 1968, when Ceauşescu highlighted his anti-Soviet discourse by vocally opposing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
On the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact – Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , Hungary and Poland – invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization...
; a highly popular measure with the Romanian public, it led to sizable enrollments in the PCR and the newly-created paramilitary Patriotic Guards
Patriotic Guards (Romania)
The Patriotic Guards were Romanian paramilitary formations formed during the Communist era, designed to provide additional defense in case of outside attack.-History:...
(created with the goal of meeting a possible Soviet intervention in Romania). From 1965 to 1976, the PCR rose from approximately 1.4 million members to 2.6 million. In the contingency of an anti-Soviet war, the PCR even sought an alliance with the maverick Yugoslav
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
leader Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
—negotiations did not yield a clear result. Although military intervention in Romania was reportedly taken into consideration by the Soviets, there is indication that Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
had himself ruled out Romanian participation in Warsaw Pact maneuvers, and that he continued to rely on Ceauşescu's support for other common goals.
While it appears that Romanian leaders genuinely approved of the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
reforms undertaken by Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
, Ceauşescu's gesture also served to consolidate his image as a national and independent communist leader. One year before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Ceauşescu opened up diplomatic ties with West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, and refused to break links with Israel following the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
. Starting with the much-publicized visit by France's Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
(May 1968), Romania was the recipient of Western world support going well into the 1970s (significant visits were paid by United States Presidents Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
, in 1969 and 1975 respectively, while Ceauşescu was frequently received in Western capitals).
PCR: Ceauşescu's supremacy
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
around himself and his wife Elena
Elena Ceausescu
Elena Ceaușescu was the wife of Romania's Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Deputy Prime Minister of Romania.-Background:She was born Elena Petrescu into a peasant family in Petrești commune, Dâmboviţa County, in the informal region of Wallachia. Her family was supported by her father's job...
(herself promoted to high offices) after visiting North Korea and noting the parallel developed by Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death...
, while incorporating in it several aspects of past authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
regimes in Romania (see Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
). During the early 1970s, while curbing liberalization, he launched his own version of China's Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, announced by the July Theses
July Theses
The July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu on July 6, 1971, before the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party...
. In effect, measures to concentrate power in Ceauşescu's hands were taken as early as 1967, when the general secretary became the ultimate authority on foreign policy.
At the time, a new political body was instituted under the name of Front of Socialist Unity (eventually renamed Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy); tightly controlled by party activists, it was meant to affiliate virtually all non-party members, and thus consolidate the impression that the entire population was backing Ceauşescu's policies. As a result of these new policies, the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, which acted as the main PCR body between Congresses, had increased to 265 full members and 181 candidate members (supposed to meet at least four times a year). By then, the general secretary also called for women to be enrolled in greater numbers in all party structures. In parallel, the political doctrine in respect to minorities
Minorities of Romania
Officially, 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities . The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Roma people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina...
claimed interest in obtaining allegiance from both Hungarians and Germans
Germans of Romania
The Germans of Romania or Rumäniendeutsche were 760,000 strong in 1930. They are not a single group; thus, to understand their language, culture, and history, one must view them as independent groups:...
, and set up separate workers' councils for both communities.
Members of the upper echelons of the party who objected to Ceauşescu's stance were accused of supporting Soviet policies; they included Alexandru Bârlădeanu, who criticized the heavy loans contracted in support of industrialization policies. In time, the new leader distanced himself from Maurer and Corneliu Mănescu
Corneliu Manescu
Corneliu Mănescu was a Romanian diplomat born in Ploieşti. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania from 1961 to 1972 and as President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1967 to 1968....
, while his career profited from the deaths of Stoica (who committed suicide) and Sălăjan (who died while undergoing surgery). Instead, he came to rely on a new generation of activists, among them Manea Mănescu
Manea Manescu
Manea Mănescu was a former Romanian communist politician who served as Prime Minister for five years during Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist regime....
.
At the XIth Party Congress in 1974, Gheorghe Cioară, the Mayor of Bucharest, proposed to extend Ceauşescu's office as General Secretary for life, but was turned down by the latter. Shortly before that moment, the collective leadership of the Presidium was replaced with a Political Executive Committee, which, in practice, elected itself; together with the Secretariat, it was controlled by Ceauşescu himself, who was president of both bodies. During the same year, the general secretary inaugurated the office of President of the Socialist Republic
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
, following a ceremony during which he was handed a sceptre
Sceptre
A sceptre is a symbolic ornamental rod or wand borne in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia.-Antiquity:...
; this was the first in a succession of titles, also including Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
("Leader"), "supreme commander of the Romanian Army", "honorary president of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
", and "first among the country's miners". Progressively after 1967, the large bureaucratic structure of the PCR again replicated and interfered with state administration and economic policies. The President himself became noted for frequent visits on location at various enterprises, where he would dispense directives, for which the termed indicaţii preţioase ("valuable advice") was coined by official propaganda.
PCR: Late 1970s crisis
The renewed industrialization, which based itself on both a dogmatic understanding of Marxian economicsMarxian economics
Marxian economics refers to economic theories on the functioning of capitalism based on the works of Karl Marx. Adherents of Marxian economics, particularly in academia, distinguish it from Marxism as a political ideology and sociological theory, arguing that Marx's approach to understanding the...
and a series of autarkic
Autarky
Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...
goals, brought major economic problems to Romania, beginning with the effects of the 1973 oil crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
, and worsened by the 1979 energy crisis
1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
. The profound neglect of services and decline in quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
, first manifested when much of the budget was diverted to support an over-sized industry, was made more drastic by the political decision to pay in full the country's external debt
External debt
External debt is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. The debtors can be the government, corporations or private households. The debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such...
(in 1983, this was set at 10 billion United States dollars, of which 4.5 was accumulated interest
Interest
Interest is a fee paid by a borrower of assets to the owner as a form of compensation for the use of the assets. It is most commonly the price paid for the use of borrowed money, or money earned by deposited funds....
). By March 1989, the debt had been paid in full.
Two other programs initiated under Ceauşescu had massive consequences on social life. One of them was the plan, announced as early as 1965, to "systemize rural areas
Systematization (Romania)
Urban planning in communist countries was subject to the ideological constraints of the system. Except for the Soviet Union where the communist regime started in 1917, in Eastern Europe communist governments took power after World War II....
", which was meant to urbanize Romania at a fast pace (of over 13,000 communes
Communes of Romania
A commune is the lowest level of administrative subdivision in Romania. There are 2686 communes in Romania. The commune is the rural subdivision of a county .There is no clear restriction on the population of a commune, even though when a commune...
, the country was supposed to be left with 6,000); it also brought massive changes for the cities—especially Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, where, following the 1977 Earthquake
1977 Bucharest Earthquake
The 1977 Vrancea Earthquake occurred on Friday, 4 March 1977, 21:20 local time and was felt throughout the Balkans. It had a magnitude of 7.2 with an epicenter in Vrancea at a depth of ....
and successive demolitions, new architectural guidelines were imposed (see Ceauşima
Ceausima
Ceauşima is a vernacular word construction in Romanian, sarcastically linking former Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu to Hiroshima. This portmanteau term was sometimes coined in the 1980s to describe the huge urban areas of Bucharest that Ceauşescu ordered torn down, comparing the results with...
). By 1966, Romania outlawed abortion
Abortion in Romania
Abortion in Romania is legal during the first 14 weeks of the pregnancy. Abortions during later stages of pregnancy are legal only when the woman's life is at risk...
, and, progressively after that, measures were endorsed to artificially increase the birth rate—including special taxes for childless couples. Another measure, going hand in hand with economic ones, allowed ethnic Germans a chance to leave Romania and settle in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
as Auslandsdeutsche, in return for payments from the latter country. Overall, around 200,000 Germans left, most of them Transylvanian Saxons
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
and Banat Swabians
Banat Swabians
The Banat Swabians are an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe, part of the Danube Swabians. They emigrated in the 18th century to what was then the Austrian Banat province, which had been left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. This once strong and important ethnic Banat Swabian...
.
Although Romania adhered to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
(1973) and signed the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, Ceauşescu also intensified political repression in the country (beginning in 1971). This took a drastic turn in 1977, when, confronted with Paul Goma
Paul Goma
Paul Goma is a Romanian writer, also known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and currently resides in France as a stateless person...
's movement in support for Charter 77
Charter 77
Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was...
, the regime expelled him and others from the country. A more serious disobedience occurred in August of the same year, when Jiu Valley
Jiu Valley
The Jiu Valley is a region in southwestern Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains...
miners went on strike, briefly took hold of Premier Ilie Verdeţ
Ilie Verdet
Ilie Verdeţ was a Romanian politician.Born in Comăneşti, Bacău County, and a miner from age 12, he joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1945. After graduating from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, he climbed through the Party apparatus...
, and, despite having reached an agreement with the government, were repressed and some of them expelled (see Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977
Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977
The Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977 was the largest protest movement against the Communist regime in Romania before its final days, ushering in a period of intermittent labour unrest that would last a dozen years, and the most important challenge posed by a group of workers to the regime since...
). A newly-created and independent trade union, SLOMR
SLOMR
SLOMR was a Romanian free trade union founded, without prior preparation, in February 1979, as a means to oppose the control exercised by the ruling Communist Party during the country's communist period...
, was crushed and its leaders arrested on various charges in 1979. Progressively during the period, the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
relied on involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
to psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
s as a means to punish dissidence
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
.
PCR: 1980s
Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu was a Romanian communist politician, one of the founders of the Romanian Communist Party , and, eventually, an active opponent of Communist Romania's leader Nicolae Ceauşescu...
spoke out against Ceauşescu's policy of discouraging discussions and relying on obedient cadres (he was subsequently heckled, evicted from the Congress hall, and isolated). In 1983, Radu Filipescu
Radu Filipescu
Radu Filipescu is a former Romanian anti-Communist dissident. He is the youngest son of Zorel Filipescu and Carmelita-Ileana Filipescu. His elder brother is Doru Filipescu, a well known orthopedic surgeon on Sf. Ioan Hospital, in Bucharest...
, an engineer working in Bucharest, was imprisoned after distributing 20,000 leaflets which called for a popular rally against the regime, while a protests of miners in Maramureş County
Maramures County
Maramureș is a county of Romania, in the Maramureș region. The county seat is Baia Mare.- History :* The 10th century frontier county of Borsova was founded by Stephen I of Hungary. Since then Máramaros served as the north-eastern border of the Hungarian Kingdom until 1920, the Trianon Peace...
against wage cuts was broken up by Securitate forces; three years layer strike organized by Romanian and Hungarian industrial workers in Turda
Turda
Turda is a city and Municipality in Cluj County, Romania, situated on the Arieş River.- Ancient times :The city was founded by Dacians under the name Patavissa or Potaissa...
and Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
met with the same result. Also in 1983, fearing the multiplication of samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
documents, Minister of the Interior George Homoştean ordered all citizens to hand down their typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s to the authorities. This coincided with a noted popular rise in support for outspoken dissidents who were kept under house arrest, among whom were Doina Cornea
Doina Cornea
Doina Cornea is a Romanian human rights activist and French professor. She was notable as a dissident during the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu.-Dissidence under communism:...
and Mihai Botez.
By 1983, membership of the PCR had risen to 3.3 million, and, in 1989, to 3.7–3.8 million—meaning that, in the end, over 20% of Romanian adults were party members, making the PCR the largest communist group of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. 64,200 basic party units, answering to county
Counties of Romania
The 41 judeţe and the municipality of Bucharest comprise the official administrative divisions of Romania. They also represent the European Union' s NUTS-3 geocode statistical subdivision scheme of Romania.-Overview:...
committees, varying in number and representing various areas of Romanian society, were officially recorded in 1980. Statistics also indicated that, during the transition from the 1965 PMR (with 8% of the total population) to the 1988 PCR, the membership of workers had grown from 44 to 55%, while that of peasants had dropped from 34 to 15%. In the end, these records contrasted the fact that the PCR had become completely submitted to its leader and no longer had any form of autonomous activity, Deletant & Ionescu, p. 41–42; Frunză, p. 481–483 while membership became a basic requirement in numerous of social contexts, leading to a purely formal allegiances and political clientelism
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...
.
At the same time, the ideological viewpoint was changed, with the party no longer seen as the vanguard of the working class
Vanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
, but as the main social factor and the embodiment of the national interest
National interest
The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État , is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The concept is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist...
. In marked contrast with the Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and Glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, Romania adopted Neo-Stalinist
Neo-Stalinism
Neo-Stalinism is a political term referring to attempts at rehabilitating the role of Joseph Stalin in history and re-establishing the political course of Stalin, at least partially. The term is also used to designate the modern political regimes in some states, political and social life of which...
principles in both its internal policies and its relation to the outside.
As recorded in 1984, 90% of the PCR members were ethnic Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, with 7% Hungarians (the latter group's membership had dropped by more than 2% since the previous Congress). Formal criticism of the new policies regarding minorities had also been voiced by Hungarian activists, including Károly Király, leader of the PCR in Covasna County
Covasna County
Covasna is a county of Romania, in Transylvania, with the capital city at Sfântu Gheorghe.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 222,449 and the population density was 60/km².*Hungarians – 73.79% *Romanians – 23.28%...
. After 1980, the nationalist ideology adopted by the PCR progressively targeted the Hungarian community as a whole, based on suspicions of its allegiance to Hungary, whose policies had become diametrically opposed to the methods of Romanian leaders (see Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism or Kádárism refers to the variety of communism as practised in the Hungarian People's Republic from the 1960s until the collapse of Communism in Hungary in 1989...
).
Especially during the 1980s, clientelism was further enhanced by a new policy, rotaţia cadrelor ("cadre rotation" or "reshuffling"), placing strain on low-level officials to seek the protection of higher placed ones as a means to preserve their position or to promote. This effectively prompted activists who did not approve of the change in tone to retire, while others—Virgil Trofin
Virgil Trofin
Virgil Trofin was a Romanian communist activist and politician, who served as minister under the Communist regime.-Biography:Born in Vaslui, Trofin had an early career as a mechanical fitter and boilermaker...
, Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator for the Social Democratic Party , whose honorary president he remains....
and Paul Niculescu-Mizil among them—were officially dispatched to low-ranking positions or otherwise marginalized. In June 1988, the leadership of the Political Executive Committee was reduced from 15 to 7 members, including Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife.
PCR: Downfall
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, the final crisis of the PCR and its regime began in the autumn, when industrial employees in Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
called a strike that immediately drew echoes with the city's population (see Braşov Rebellion
Brasov Rebellion
The 1987 Rebellion of Braşov was a revolt against Nicolae Ceauşescu's economic policies in Communist Romania.- Prelude :Beginning in late 1986, the seeds of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 were sown, as workers throughout this Soviet Bloc country mobilized in protest of communist leader Nicolae...
). In December, authorities convened a public kangaroo trial
Kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
of the movement's leaders, and handed out sentences of imprisonment and internal exile.
Inaugurated by Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan was a Romanian communist politician. Though he disagreed with Nicolae Ceauşescu's policies, he never gave up his communist beliefs and did not oppose communist ideology...
's public criticism of the Braşov repression, and inspired by the impact of changes in other Eastern Bloc countries, protests of marginalized PCR activists became notorious after March 1989, when Brucan and Pîrvulescu, together with Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol
Gheorghe Apostol was a Romanian politician, deputy Prime Minister of Romania and a former leader of the Communist Party, noted for his rivalry with Nicolae Ceauşescu.-Early life:...
, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Grigore Răceanu
Grigore Raceanu
Grigore Ion Răceanu was a Romanian communist politician and opponent of Nicolae Ceauşescu.Born in Cojocna, Cluj County, he became a train driver for Căile Ferate Române. He was also a trade union leader, being one of the organizers of the strikes of Cluj in 1929-1933. He became a member of the...
and Corneliu Mănescu
Corneliu Manescu
Corneliu Mănescu was a Romanian diplomat born in Ploieşti. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania from 1961 to 1972 and as President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1967 to 1968....
, sent Ceauşescu their so-called Letter of the Six, publicized over Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
. At around the same time, systematization
Systematization (Romania)
Urban planning in communist countries was subject to the ideological constraints of the system. Except for the Soviet Union where the communist regime started in 1917, in Eastern Europe communist governments took power after World War II....
provoked an international response, as Romania was subjected to a resolution of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...
, which called for an inquiry into the state of ethnic minorities and the rural population; the political isolation experienced by Communist Romania was highlighted by the fact that Hungary endorsed the report, while all other Eastern bloc countries abstained. This followed more than a decade of deteriorating relations between the PCR and the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of Hungary between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working People's Party during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution...
.
Eventually, both Ceauşescu and the party were overthrown in the Romanian Revolution of December 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, begun as a popular rebellion in Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
and eventually bringing to power the National Salvation Front, comprising an important number of former PCR members who supported Gorbachev's vision. Having fled the PCR's headquarters under street pressure, the general secretary and his wife were captured, tried and executed by the new authorities in Târgovişte
Târgoviste
Târgoviște is a city in the Dâmbovița county of Romania. It is situated on the right bank of the Ialomiţa River. , it had an estimated population of 89,000. One village, Priseaca, is administered by the city.-Name:...
, and the PCR disbanded. The spontaneity of the latter move and the rapid pace at which the PCR, one of the largest political parties of its kind, dissolved itself were held by commentators as additional proof that membership provided a highly inaccurate image in respect to actual convictions.
While many former members of the PCR have been major players in the post-1989 political scene, the PCR itself has never been revived, and no present-day Romanian party claims to be its successor. In nearly every other Eastern Bloc country, a party reckoned to be the successor of the former ruling Communist Party is a major player. While a Communist party does exist in Romania in the form of the Communist Party (Nepecerişti), that party does not claim to be the PCR's successor.
Party Congresses
| Name/Period | Location |
|---|---|
| Ist (May 1921) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| IInd (October 1922) | Ploieşti Ploiesti Ploiești is the county seat of Prahova County and lies in the historical region of Wallachia in Romania. The city is located north of Bucharest.... |
| IIIrd (August 1924) | Vienna Vienna Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre... |
| IVth (July 1928) | Kharkiv Kharkiv Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was... |
| Vth (December 1931) | Gorikovo |
| VIth (February 1948) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| VIIth (December 1955) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| VIIIth (June 1960) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| IXth (July 1965) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| Xth (August 1969) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| XIth (November 1974) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| XIIth (November 1979) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| XIIIth (November 1984) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
| XIVth (November 1989) | Bucharest Bucharest Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River.... |
See also
- List of Romanian communists
- Proclamation of TimişoaraProclamation of TimisoaraThe Proclamation of Timişoara was a thirteen-point written document, drafted on March 11, 1990 by the Timişoara participants in Romania's 1989 Revolution, and partly issued in reaction to the first Mineriad...
- Eastern Bloc politicsEastern Bloc politicsEastern Bloc politics followed the Red Army's occupation of much of eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the Soviet Union's installation of Soviet-controlled communist governments in the Eastern Bloc through a process of bloc politics and repression...