HISTORICAL SETTING
Romania's history as an independent state dates from about the middle of
the nineteenth century; as a communist state, from about the end of
World War II. The history of the Romanian people, however, is long,
complex, and important when considered in the context of the overall
history of the Balkan region. The origin and development of the
Romanians remain controversial subjects among Romanian and Hungarian
historians, whose arguments serve to support or deny claims to rightful
ownership of large areas within Romania's borders (see fig. 1).
Until the end of World War II Romania's history as a state was one of
gains and losses of territory and shifting borders. As the Ottoman
Empire in Europe receded, the Romanians found themselves pressured by
the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. Borders arranged by the
victorious powers after World War I increased Romania's territory but
also increased its minority population, particularly the Hungarian.
Between the two world wars the country experienced a period of fascist
dictatorship and aligned itself with Nazi Germany early in World War II,
but it eventually overthrew the fascists and finished the war on the
side of the Allies.
The borders arranged after World War II formalized the loss of territory
to the Soviet Union but have remained stable since the end of the war.
In the postwar chaos of the late 1940s, with Soviet troops occupying the
country, Romania deposed its king and emerged as a communist state under
the close scrutiny and supervision of its powerful northern neighbor,
the Soviet Union. After the death of Josef Stalin the Romanian
leadership began a slow pursuit of nationalist goals, which continued in
the early 1970s. Although the Moscow-Bucharest ties have often been
strained, the Romanians have carefully avoided a break that would
provoke a reaction such as the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in
1968.
The Romanian people see themselves as a Latin island surrounded by Slavs
and Magyars (Hungarians). They are proud of their long, distinctly
different historical development and consider that their history is
important to them as proof of their ethnic uniqueness in the area and as
proof that Romania belongs to the Romanians.
EARLY ORIGIN
The earliest recorded inhabitants of the area included in present-day
Romania were Thracian tribes, known as Dacians, who settled in the area
well before the Christian Era and established a major center in
Transylvania (see fig. 2). These people practiced a primitive form of
agriculture and engaged in limited trade with Greek settlements along
the western coast of the Black Sea. By the middle of the first century
A.D. the Dacians had grouped themselves into a loosely formed state
ruled by a series of kings who attempted to expand their power to the
north and west and, most aggressively, to the south into the area below
the lower Danube River.
[Illustration: _Note._ Internal boundaries have not been shown
because of the long history of expansion, contraction, and
shifting borders and because the provinces are no longer
political entities.
_Figure 2. Romania, Historic Provinces._]
In their advance southward the Dacians came into conflict with the
Romans who, during the same period, were attempting to extend their
control over the Balkan region and to push the northern border of their
empire up to the natural barrier formed by the Danube River. In a
series of campaigns between A.D. 101 and 106, the Roman emperor Trajan
succeeded in conquering the areas known as Banat, Oltenia, and Walachia
and in finally reducing the Dacian stronghold in Transylvania. After
consolidating and unifying his control over the people, Trajan fortified
the area, stationed Roman legions in garrisons at strategic points, and
organized the region to serve as a province of the Roman Empire.
As a border province, Dacia developed rapidly and became one of the most
prosperous in the empire. Colonists were brought in from other parts of
the empire, cities were built, agriculture and mineral resources were
developed, and profitable commercial relations were established with
other regions under Roman control. The province proved vulnerable to
periodic barbarian incursions, however, and toward the end of the third
century the Roman emperor Aurelian was forced to abandon Dacia and
withdraw the Roman troops to defend similarly threatened areas farther
to the south.
Aside from the romanization of the native population, little evidence of
the occupation survived the Roman evacuation of Dacia. Among the traces
of the Roman presence remaining were the vestiges of Christianity
introduced in the second century and the legacy of the name of the
future state of Romania as well as the Latin basis for its language.
Lacking natural geographical barriers to invasion from the east and
south, the greater part of the Dacian territory was overrun by
successive waves of barbarian invaders for ten centuries after the
withdrawal of the Romans. Little is known of the fate of the Daco-Roman
population during this long, turbulent period until new settlements
inhabited by a Latin-speaking people known as Vlachs emerged on the
Romanian plains in the eleventh century. Although historic records are
lacking, these Vlachs were believed to be descendants of the earlier
Daco-Roman colonists, many of whom either sought refuge in the
Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania or migrated south of the Danube
River to escape the invaders. Having survived, they returned to
reestablish themselves in their historic homeland.
The succession of barbaric invasions exploited and devastated the
country. The Germanic Goths were followed by Slavs and Avars, and not
until the Bulgars overran the area in the seventh century was a
semblance of civic order established. The region developed a rudimentary
form of cultural life, and Christianity in the Eastern Orthodox form was
introduced after the conversion of the Bulgar Tsar Boris in 864. The
Bulgars were eventually displaced by Hungarians who, in turn, gave way
to Asiatic Tatars, all of whom left limited, but lasting, influences on
the land and its inhabitants.
FORMATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES
Walachia and Moldavia
As the threats of invasion diminished, the Vlachs gradually moved
farther into the foothills and plains of the Danube basin and fused with
a population that, while retaining a small Vlach element, had by then
acquired a heavy mixture of Slavs and Tatars. Two distinct groups
eventually emerged, one settling in the area now known as Walachia and
the other settling farther to the east and north in Moldavia. The
earliest events surrounding the development of these areas are not
known, but after a period of colonization the two regions emerged, in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, respectively, as the
semi-independent principalities of Walachia and Moldavia.
When the Ottoman Empire overran southeastern Europe in the fifteenth
century, these Danubian principalities were forced to accept Turkish
suzerainty and remained Turkish dependencies until the middle of the
nineteenth century. Unlike other areas under Turkish rule, the Romanian
principalities were controlled by native princes, who maintained their
position through concessions to the nobles, from among whom they had
gained preeminence, and through the concurrence of the Turks, to whom a
substantial annual tribute was paid. This system of political control
led to intrigues and a long succession of rulers who, assisted by the
nobles, systematically exploited the peasantry, from whom the heavy
annual tribute was collected.
Continued misrule and long-term economic exploitation of the regions
seriously affected the social structure within the principalities. The
lesser nobility, including the landed gentry, was reduced to the level
of free peasants; the peasantry itself was placed in virtually complete
serfdom; and cultural activity became almost nonexistent. Even the
appearance of outstanding political and military leaders, such as
Michael the Brave of Walachia (1593-1601) and Stephen the Great, prince
of Moldavia (1457-1504), could not reverse the general trend of
deterioration, although the harshness of the feudal system was somewhat
lessened during their tenure in office.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Ottoman Empire began to
decline, and the Turks instituted a system of direct control over
Walachia and Moldavia, in order to ensure the continued receipt of
maximum revenue from the countries. Greek merchants known as Phanariots,
named for the Phanar district of Constantinople, which was their
center, were invested as rulers in the principalities upon direct
payment of large sums of money. Since their period in office was
indefinite and generally lasted only until outbid by a successor, an
even more intensive system of exploitation within the countries was
introduced to extract greater tribute in shorter periods of time. This
period of oppressive rule lasted until 1821 and proved to be the most
disastrous experienced by the inhabitants. Conditions under this corrupt
system became almost intolerable and led to massive resistance and
eventually to the heavy migration of the peasantry into neighboring
areas, particularly Transylvania.
Transylvania
The historic development of Transylvania was substantially different and
more complex than that experienced by the principalities of Walachia and
Moldavia. Overrun by Asiatic Magyars as early as the ninth century, the
region was organized originally as a province in the eleventh century.
In order to strengthen this eastern outpost, the Hungarians encouraged
two groups of people--Szeklers, or Szekelys, an ethnic group of people
akin to the Hungarians, and Germans--to emigrate from the west into the
area. Although these colonists eventually reached substantial numbers,
the native Romanian speakers remained in the majority (see ch. 4).
With the expansion of Turkish power, Transylvania became the
battleground for opposing Turkish and Hungarian forces. Under Turkish
pressure Hungarian control declined in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and by 1526 the region had become a semiautonomous
principality ruled by Hungarian princes but still subject to Turkish
authority. At the end of the sixteenth century Michael the Brave, the
ruler of Walachia and Moldavia, succeeded in revolting against Turkish
rule and united Transylvania with the other Romanian territories. This
union, however, was short lived, and all three principalities
subsequently reverted to Turkish control. Toward the end of the
seventeenth century Austria conquered Hungary, and Transylvania as part
of Hungary then was included in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
From the earliest times the position of the Romanians in Transylvania
was inferior to that of the other nationalities, and accounts of the
long-term measures practiced against them have been perpetuated among
their descendants. The Romanians were mostly serfs, and their social and
economic status was the lowest in the province. Their Orthodox
Christianity was not recognized, in contrast to the Lutheran, Calvinist,
Unitarian, and Roman Catholic faiths practiced by the various other
nationalities (see ch. 5). To gain religious equality and to win a
larger measure of economic and social recognition, many of the Romanians
gradually abandoned their Eastern Orthodox creed and became Uniates by
accepting papal authority in 1698.
Although the Romanians were slow to benefit from the relatively high
cultural and political level reached in Transylvania under the
Austro-Hungarians, an appreciable number of concessions had been made to
them by the middle of the nineteenth century. They began to share in the
political life after political parties were established, schools were
opened for Romanian children, and education became more widespread among
the general population. Progress in these and associated fields
stimulated the Romanian desire for full equality and the hope for
eventual unification of all Romanians in their own national state.
WESTERN INFLUENCES
Although Romania was late in achieving national recognition, many of the
factors that were to influence its Western orientation after
independence began to evolve as early as the seventeenth century. In
Transylvania the Uniate church became an important medium by which
Romanian national identity was fostered in the struggle against foreign
assimilation. The Habsburg rulers favored the expansion of the church
and permitted the opening of seminaries for the training of young
Romanian clergy. Many of these young clerics were sent to Rome to
complete their studies and, while there, became aware of their Roman
ancestry. They saw the famous column of Trajan, which recorded, in
stone, the early conquest of their Dacian ancestors by the Romans, and
they also discovered that Romanian was an essentially Latin language
(see ch. 4).
The contacts established with Rome encouraged the scholarly development
of a "Latinist" movement in the homeland in the late eighteenth century,
which produced many adherents among the Transylvanian Romanians. It was
the efforts of this group that led to the replacement of the Cyrillic
alphabet, then in common use, with the Latin, the writing of the first
latinized Romanian grammar and, later, the introduction of the first
dictionary that traced the full historical development of the Romanian
language. These reforms helped to create a uniform literary language as
an essential basis for the broad development of Romanian culture (see
ch. 7).
During their long experience under the Habsburgs and Hungarians, the
Transylvanian Romanians also became intimately associated with the
events of central and western Europe. Opportunities for travel and
cultural contacts that later developed were also predominantly within
Western areas and intensified the political consciousness of the
Romanians along Western lines.
Meanwhile, in Walachia and Moldavia interest in Western ideas and
affairs was provided by French influences introduced initially by the
Greek Phanariot princes, who were in power during most of the eighteenth
century. These rulers established French as the court language, and many
of the Greek merchants, clergymen, and teachers who followed them into
the areas helped spread the use of French among the urban population in
Bucharest and Iasi, the respective capital cities. Gradually, French was
introduced into Romanian schools, and eventually Romanian students from
the principalities were sent abroad in considerable numbers to study at
French universities.
In addition to Romanian students, many of the young sons of Romanian
nobles traveled in France. These two groups gradually formed the nucleus
of an intellectual class, which favored French philosophy and thought
and which became receptive to the liberal ideas of the French Revolution
and later periods.
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE
A phase of major significance and a turning point in Romanian history
began in 1821 with a revolt led by Tudor Vladimirescu, a Romanian and
former officer in the Russian army. This uprising against the harsh
Phanariot rule was the first with a national character, and it attempted
to give expression to the revolutionary ideas of emancipation and
independence. Although the outbreak was suppressed by the Turks, it did
achieve the objective of bringing about the early abolition of the
Phanariot regime and the restoration of Romanian princes as rulers in
the Danubian principalities.
After the Russo-Turkish war from 1826 to 1828 Russian forces occupied
both Walachia and Moldavia to ensure the payment of a large war
indemnity by the Turks. Under the ensuing six-year enlightened and
competent rule of the Russian governor Count Pavel Kiselev, the
foundations were laid for a new Romanian state. The first constitutional
assemblies were organized along identical lines in each province; a
rudimentary governmental administration was established and modeled on
that of the French; an educational system was begun; commerce and a
modest industry were encouraged; and provisions were made for the
creation of a national militia. The intentional similarity in the
fundamental laws that were also enacted in each area further encouraged
the two principalities to develop side by side.
During the two decades after the departure of Russian occupying forces,
the national movement within the two principalities continued to grow
under the rule of native princes who had been restored to power.
Considerable stimulation was provided by the 1848 revolutionary events
in France, the basic ideas of which were imported by the French-educated
Romanians. Dissension arose, and street demonstrations took place during
which demands were made for freedom of speech, assembly, and the press,
as well as for the unification of all Romanians in one independent
state. Similar emancipation efforts were also organized in Transylvania,
but they, too, were forcibly repressed, as were those in Walachia and
Moldavia.
Despite the setbacks suffered by the intellectuals and other leaders of
the revolutionary movement, the modern ideas of liberal government took
firm root and continued to flourish. The dispute between Russia and
Turkey that culminated in the Crimean War, however, provided the actual
opportunity for the first step toward ultimate independence. French and
Russian collaboration at the Congress of Paris, which concluded the war
in 1858, succeeded in producing agreements that finally led to the
establishment of the autonomous United Principalities of Walachia and
Moldavia in 1859.
Although still subject to Ottoman authority, the United Principalities
moved rapidly under their newly elected leader, Alexander Cuza, to
further unify and modernize themselves. Cuza fused the administration of
the two principalities into a single government, established a single
capital at Bucharest, and changed the name from United Principalities to
Romania. Domestic reforms were also undertaken, among which were the
emancipation of the serfs in 1864, the institution of a broad land
distribution program, the introduction of free and compulsory education,
and the adoption of the French civil and penal codes as the basis for a
revised legal system. Political parties on the Western pattern began to
take form as well, the conservatives representing the large landowners
and the liberals representing the new urban class.
The reforms instituted by Cuza were bold and progressive, but his
methods proved to be harsh and unpopular. Forced to abdicate in 1866, he
was succeeded by a German prince, Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Charles, who reigned from 1866 to 1914, extended the reforms initiated
by Cuza. He gave the country its first formal constitution modeled after
that of the Belgians, built the country's first railroad, and modernized
and enlarged the small army. In 1878 the country's full independence was
recognized by the Treaty of Berlin, which ended the two-year
Russo-Turkish war in which Romania participated as an ally of Russia.
The Kingdom of Romania was proclaimed formally in 1881 with the crowning
of Prince Charles in Bucharest as Carol I.
The period from 1878 to 1918 brought significant advances in Romania,
largely in the economic and political fields. Under the initiative of
King Carol I and with considerable backing from German capital, new
industries were started, and others were expanded; railroad and port
construction was emphasized; and the considerable petroleum resources of
the country were developed and exploited. The goals of political parties
and leaders became more clearly defined, and modern government
institutions, including a bicameral parliament, were organized.
Economic and formal political progress, however, was not matched by
similar advancement of democratic processes in the social field. The
liberal provisions of the 1866 Constitution were circumvented under the
authoritarian governmental system, leaving much actual power in the
hands of the landed aristocracy. The slowly rising middle class and
small number of industrial entrepreneurs were granted some rights, but
the increasing number of industrial workers and the great peasant
majority shared very little in the political life of the country.
A major peasant revolt in 1907 attempted unsuccessfully to rectify the
serious social imbalance. The uprising was forcefully suppressed with
extensive loss of life and, although some corrective measures were later
instituted that improved working conditions and resulted in the division
of more large landholdings, the general political strength and living
standards of the peasants and workers were not materially improved.
Related also to this social unrest was another problem that grew more
intense during the latter half of the nineteenth century--that of the
increasing size and economic importance of a large Jewish minority.
Forbidden to own land and subject to many other restrictions, the Jews
had settled in urban areas, engaged successfully in commercial
activities and, as a class, gained economic influence and position
generally out of proportion to their overall numerical strength in the
population. To an unusual degree, they formed the prosperous urban
middle class, overshadowing the far smaller number of native Romanians
in that category. In rural centers, as moneylenders, they also became
the middlemen between landlords and peasants; as such, the Jew became a
symbol of oppression, which over the years was transferred into intense
anti-Semitism. Consequently, the Jews were included as a target in the
1907 uprising, and the animosity shown then remained a feature of later
Romanian society.
WORLD WAR I
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Romania's leaders were indecisive
and proclaimed an armed neutrality, which lasted for nearly two years.
Much of the pro-Russian and pro-French political orientation of the
1840s and 1850s still existed in the country, but this was offset in
large measure by the strong ties of King Carol I with Bismarck's Germany
and by the rapprochement with Germany that had resulted from the large
investment of German capital in the country. In addition, territorial
inducements, which were attractive to Romania, were made by each side to
influence its entry into the conflict. The Central Powers offered
Bessarabia to be taken from Russia, and the Allies promised the cession
of Transylvania from Austro-Hungary.
After the death of King Carol I and the accession of his nephew, King
Ferdinand, to the throne, Romania entered the war on the Allied side in
1916. By December 1917, however, Romania was forced to conclude an
armistice when the Russian forces disintegrated on the Balkan front
after the Bolshevik revolution of that year. Before the armistice was
ratified, however, and as the defeat of the Central Powers was becoming
apparent, the Romanian army, which had not been demobilized, reentered
the war, liberated Bucharest from the Germans, and occupied much of
Bessarabia and Transylvania. After the war, in response to the expressed
will of the popular assemblies in Transylvania, Bessarabia, and
Bukovina, those provinces were united with the Kingdom of Romania--often
called the Old Kingdom. Formal treaties in 1919 and 1920 confirmed these
decisions, and virtually all Romanians were finally reunited within the
historic homeland.
INTERWAR YEARS, 1918-40
With the annexation of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina, postwar
Romania, sometimes referred to as Greater Romania, doubled in size, as
well as in population. Included among the newly acquired population were
large ethnic minorities--principally Hungarians, Germans, and
Jews--whose diverse backgrounds and development presented complex
social, political, economic, and administrative problems for the
Romanian government. The various traditions of the people within the
acquired lands could not easily be transformed into new patterns,
largely because of the government's reluctance to share power with any
political leaders except those representing the Transylvanian Romanians.
As a result, minority elements were largely excluded from national
affairs, and discriminatory policies developed that bred resentment and
increased political instability (see ch. 4).
The immediate postwar years were dominated by the Liberal Party of the
Old Kingdom. The party instituted a series of land reforms, fostered
increased industrialization, and sponsored a broadly democratic
constitution in 1923, which made the new state a centralized
constitutional monarchy. The Transylvanian Romanians, long accustomed to
considerable autonomy and self-government under Hungarian rule, resented
the imposition of central control, especially under the administration
of officials from Bucharest. In protest, a new party, the National
Peasant Party, was formed in 1926 by a fusion of the Transylvanian
National Party with the Peasant Party in the Old Kingdom.
Other parties were active during this early period, but all were
overshadowed by the Liberal Party and the National Peasant Party. The
Social Democratic Party had been organized at the beginning of the
twentieth century but, lacking any sizable number of industrial workers,
the socialist movement remained weak. After the Russian revolution,
however, the radical left-wing elements of the Social Democratic Party
seceded and formed the Romanian Communist Party in 1921. The Communists
went underground after being banned in 1924 and were largely ineffective
until after World War II.
The death of King Ferdinand in 1927 and the elections of the following
year brought significant changes in the Romanian government. Ferdinand's
son, Carol II, was excluded from the succession because of his earlier
renunciation of all claims to the throne to accept exile with his
mistress, Magda Lupescu. A regency was therefore appointed to rule in
the name of Carol's young son, Michael, and a new government led by
Iuliu Maniu and the National Peasant Party was elected, thus ending the
six-year tenure of the Liberals.
Although Maniu's government instituted a series of reforms intended to
improve general economic and social conditions, its efforts were largely
offset by the adverse effects of the worldwide depression of the early
1930s. Also, early dissatisfaction with the regency resulted in the
return of Carol II from exile and his assumption of the crown in late
1930. His agreement to sever relations with Magda Lupescu was not kept,
however, and in protest Maniu resigned the premiership. In the unstable
conditions that followed, King Carol II emerged as the chief political
figure in the country, and his rule evolved into a royal dictatorship.
King Carol's assumption of power was aided initially by the rise of a
fanatical fascist and anti-Semitic group known as the Iron Guard. This
group was strongly pro-German and employed tactics similar to those of
the Nazi party, which was then emerging as the dominant political force
in Germany. The fascist movement, with financial and indirect support
from Germany, increased the influence of the Iron Guard, which was
reflected in the 1937 elections. The coalition government that resulted
supported King Carol but was later overthrown, bringing to power a new
coalition of right-wing extremists.
In order to halt the increasing threat to his power, Carol proclaimed a
personal dictatorship in 1938 and promulgated a new constitution that
abolished all political parties and instituted censorship and other
control measures. This action was followed by the suppression of the
Iron Guard, whose leader, Corneliu Codreanu, was shot. Absolute
authority was maintained by the king, who was supported by the army and
by the National Renaissance Front, a monopoly party that he founded
later in the same year.
Internal instability and uncertainty were aggravated by rapidly
developing international events that threatened the security of the
state. The swift rise of Germany under Adolf Hitler resulted in the
annexation of Austria in 1938 and the subsequent dismemberment and
absorption of Czechoslovakia. These actions, unopposed by the Western
powers, were early warnings of weakness in the Western-oriented
collective security system on which Romania had depended since World War
I. The lessening of confidence in the West led Romania in 1939 to
conclude a treaty of economic collaboration with Germany. This agreement
greatly increased German influence in the country and placed the
extensive Romanian oil and other resources at Germany's disposal for
later wartime use.
Although Romania's territorial integrity had been guaranteed by both
Great Britain and France after the fall of Czechoslovakia, these
assurances were nullified by the early German military successes
achieved following the outbreak of World War II. After the conclusion of
a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in August 1939, Germany
invaded and occupied Poland and, by mid-1940, had defeated France and
forced the evacuation of the European mainland by British forces. Faced
with the loss of its two strongest partners in the alliance system and
with the aggressive ambitions of the two strongest totalitarian powers
on the European continent--Germany and the Soviet Union--Romania had
little chance of continued independent survival.
WORLD WAR II
The first claims against Romania were made by the Soviet Union, which in
June 1940 demanded the immediate cession of Bessarabia and northern
Bukovina. Under German pressure Romania acceded to these demands, as
well as to the later loss of northern Transylvania, which Germany and
Italy transferred to Hungary at a joint conference held in Vienna on
August 30, 1940. A third loss of territory, also under German pressure,
followed one week later with the return of southern Dobruja to Bulgaria,
which had already entered the war on the side of Germany.
The crisis caused by these territorial losses had a serious impact
within the country. King Carol was forced to appoint a pro-German
cabinet, and the government was heavily infiltrated with members of the
Iron Guard, most of whom were released from custody under German
pressure. A national protest against the king in early September
culminated in his abdication in favor of his son, Michael. A new
government under General Ion Antonescu was formed, composed almost
entirely of members of the Iron Guard, whose leader was made vice
premier. German troops entered the country under the pretext of
protecting the oilfields, and on November 23, 1940, Romania joined
Germany, Italy, and Japan in the Anti-Comintern Pact.
In January 1941 members of the Iron Guard, attempting to seize full
control of the government, initiated a terroristic campaign that was
suppressed with much bloodshed by the Romanian army, which had remained
loyal to the government. With the continued support of the Germans,
Antonescu dissolved the Iron Guard and formed an almost exclusively
military dictatorship. After stabilization of the government, Romania
entered the war against the Soviet Union and incurred heavy losses in
the prolonged fighting on the eastern front.
After the defeat of the German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad in
early 1943, the Soviets mounted a counteroffensive, which by mid-1944
had liberated the southwestern portions of the Soviet Union and had
advanced deep into Romania and threatened Bucharest. On August 23, 1944,
King Michael, with the support of the major political and military
leaders, overthrew the regime of Antonescu, halted all fighting, and
installed a new, moderate, coalition government. Under the terms of the
armistice that followed, Romania reentered the war on the side of the
Allies, agreed to reparation payments, and accepted the military
occupation of the country until the conclusion of a final peace
settlement.
Romanian forces that continued the war were committed in support of the
Soviet army in Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Those engaged
on the Moldavian front were disarmed, and control over the greater part
of the country was maintained by the Soviets. Among the occupation
troops stationed in Romania was the communist-indoctrinated "Tudor
Vladimirescu" division, a force composed of captured Romanian prisoners
that had been organized after the German-Romanian defeat at Stalingrad.
In addition, the Soviets were given the chairmanship of the Allied
Control Commission, the joint body that was established to administer
the occupied country.
COMMUNIST SEIZURE OF POWER
The several conferences held by the Allied powers concerning postwar
arrangements and the understandings that resulted from bilateral
discussion among individual leaders indicated that the Soviet Union was
to become the dominant military and political power in the Balkans. As a
result, the Soviets, from the outset of their period of occupation,
acted determinedly to consolidate their position within Romania and to
influence the development of a permanent postwar governmental system
designed along communist lines.
Although Romania had surrendered in August 1944, it took several months
to create a government stable enough to carry out essential programs.
The first postwar coalition regimes included relatively few Communists
who ostensibly cooperated with the revived traditional political
parties. Despite their small numbers, however, they vigorously engaged
in disruptive antigovernment tactics to prevent the stabilization of
political authority along democratic lines. This course of action was
dictated by the general weakness of the Communists who had surfaced
after the war and was handicapped by the absence of partisan or
resistance organizations, which could have been used as a basis for
expanding political control.
Lacking popular support, the Communist Party set about creating mass
organizations, labor unions, and front organizations through which they
could increase their power. Among the leaders in these activities were
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, an early Communist who had been imprisoned
during the war, and Ana Pauker, who had spent the war years in Moscow
before returning to Romania after the entry of Soviet forces. By the
fall of 1944 the Communists had been successful in grouping a
leftist-oriented agrarian party called the Plowman's Front, splinter
elements of the Social Democratic Party, various labor unions, and
several social welfare organizations into the National Democratic Front.
The front became the principal instrument through which the party worked
to achieve political dominance.
The National Democratic Front received recognition in the December 1944
government of General Nicolae Radescu and, although given a number of
important posts, was generally held to a role subordinate to that of the
National Peasant, the Liberal, and the Social Democratic parties. In
late January 1945 after a visit to Moscow by Pauker and Gheorghiu-Dej,
the leftist leadership within the government initiated a virulent
campaign of disorder, agitation, and denunciation against Radescu and
called for the replacement of his regime with one to be formed by the
National Democratic Front.
The anti-Radescu campaign was prolonged and intensified by the
Communists who, through their control of the printer's union, were able
to silence the opposition press and thus enhance their own propaganda.
In February 1945, during a staged demonstration, the Communists provoked
an incident in which several participants were killed. Demands were made
for Radescu's arrest, and he was forced to seek asylum within a foreign
mission. Using this latest incident as a pretext, Soviet Deputy
Commissar for Foreign Affairs Andrei Vyshinsky, who arrived from Moscow
within two days of the event, forced King Michael to accept a National
Democratic Front government to be headed by Petru Groza, the leader of
the Plowman's Front and longtime communist sympathizer.
The government installed by Groza on March 6, 1945, was dominated by
Communists and fellow travelers and represented an effective seizure of
power by relatively peaceful means. Although a few dissident former
members of the Liberal and National Peasant parties were given posts to
maintain the facade of representative government, no leaders or
representative members of the historic political parties were included.
After recognition by the Soviet Union in August 1945 and by the United
States and Great Britain in February 1946, the Groza government held
rigged elections for the Grand National Assembly and emerged with 379 of
the 414 seats. Having thus achieved legislative as well as executive
control, the Communists proceeded methodically during the following year
to eliminate all political opposition. National Peasant and Liberal
leaders were arrested and tried, and these two major parties were
outlawed in June 1947. This action was followed in the spring of 1948 by
the fusion of the Social Democrats with the Communists into a new party
called the Romanian Workers' Party, which the Communists controlled. As
a final step the National Democratic Front was reorganized into the
People's Democratic Front, which then included the Romanian Workers'
Party, the Plowman's Front, and two new puppet organizations--the
National Popular Party and the Hungarian People's Union.
By the end of 1947 the only remaining link with the prewar system was
the monarchy. King Michael, in addition to being a popular ruler,
represented a national symbol around whom anticommunist opposition could
rally and, as such, was an unacceptable threat to the embryonic
communist dictatorship. Accordingly, in a meeting in December requested
by Groza and Gheorghiu-Dej, King Michael was forced to abdicate under
the threat of civil war. On the same day the government announced the
creation of the Romanian People's Republic. This action represented the
last step in the seizure of power and placed Romania under complete
communist control.
THE COMMUNIST STATE
Having seized effective control of the government, the Communists
embarked on a program of organizing the state along totalitarian lines.
As the first step toward consolidating their position, the Communists
initiated extensive purges and liquidation of anticommunist elements in
preparation for the holding of new parliamentary elections. The
carefully controlled elections held in March 1948 overwhelmingly favored
the single list of candidates put forward by the People's Democratic
Front, which received 405 of the 414 seats. The new National Assembly
met the following month, adopted a constitution modeled after that of
the Soviet Union, and formalized the establishment of the Romanian
People's Republic.
Over the next five years the country rapidly assumed the characteristics
of a satellite state of the Soviet Union. The Allied Control Commission
was withdrawn by mutual consent, and the Soviets were given the right to
retain occupation troops in the country beyond the 1947 peace treaty
date on the basis of an alleged need to protect the lines of
communication with other Soviet forces being maintained in Austria.
Under these favorable conditions and with close party supervision,
locally appointed people's councils had little difficulty in
administratively organizing the local governments in accordance with the
Soviet system.
Soviet-style instruments of control also appeared in a broad pattern in
all major fields and included the collectivization of agriculture, the
nationalization of industry, the centralization of control of the
national economy on a planned basis, and the creation of militia and
police forces whose function was to maintain the authority of the
communist regime and to eliminate all actual or potential opposition to
its policies.
The 1951-53 show trials and political purges within the communist ranks,
which were spearheaded from Moscow, served more to strengthen than to
weaken Romanian leadership in the party. Although Gheorghiu-Dej, a
native leader, had headed the party as its general secretary since 1945,
his influence and that of other Romanian Communists in government
affairs was limited. The Moscow-trained element led by Pauker, which
followed the Soviet forces into Romania, had become dominant in the
party organization, largely because it enjoyed both the support and
confidence of the Soviets. This group, considered essentially foreign
within the Romanian communist movement, firmly controlled the party
apparatus, including the secret police, the key posts that dealt with
foreign affairs, and the domestic economy.
This maldistribution of power within the ruling group led to factional
disputes and internal bickerings, which were brought to the surface and
finally solved by the purging of Pauker and the remainder of the
Muscovite group in 1952. After the purges Gheorghiu-Dej and his close
collaborators assumed full and undivided authority within the party. The
party was successful in maintaining a high degree of homogeneity in its
leadership, and the resultant stability within its ranks enabled it to
adopt, and later carry out, policies that favored Romanian over
international interests in communist affairs.
After the purges Gheorghiu-Dej assumed the premiership and, as the
government and party machinery were now in Romanian hands, the
nationalistic character of the communist government began to appear. In
the early stages emphasis was placed on disengaging the country from
many of the tight Soviet controls that still existed. As an initial move
the Romanians in 1954 successfully negotiated the dissolution of the
onerous joint Soviet-Romanian industrial concerns that had been used by
the Soviets to drain the Romanian economy during the postwar years. This
was followed in 1958 by obtaining Soviet agreement to the withdrawal of
all occupation forces from Romanian territory. At the same time efforts
to stimulate and improve the economy led to the establishment of limited
economic relations with several Western and noncommunist bloc countries
(see ch. 14).
Despite the nationalistic shift in Romanian external policy during this
period, the Romanians were careful to indicate to Moscow that, although
they wished to conduct their affairs with a minimum of Soviet
interference, they had no intention either of abandoning their adherence
to the Soviet bloc or of diminishing their efforts toward the
achievement of all basic communist aims in the country. The manner and
form of internal control in Romania remained repressive and essentially
Stalinist; only minor liberalizing changes took place over the next
several years.
After the death of Stalin in 1953 Gheorghiu-Dej supported the new form
of collective leadership, which separated government and party
functions. Following the Soviet pattern he gave up his party post but
reclaimed it two years later, coincidentally with the emergence of
Nikita Khrushchev as the leading figure in the Soviet hierarchy. Also,
Romania further demonstrated its allegiance to the communist cause by
formally endorsing the drastic action taken by the Soviets in
suppressing the Hungarian revolt against the communist regime in 1956.
The next step in the pursuit of national goals was taken in the economic
field and consisted of measures that sought to lessen Romania's economic
dependence on the Soviet Union and the more developed East European
countries. These goals were embodied in the country's Five-Year Plan
(1960-65), which called for the accelerated creation of an expanded
industrial base supported by its own natural resources and technical
assistance from the more advanced noncommunist countries. This ambitious
program was vigorously pursued beginning in 1960 and, by 1962, had come
into sharp conflict with Premier Khrushchev's announced plans of
revitalizing the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) and
transforming it into a unified system that would integrate the economies
of all Eastern European member nations (see ch. 14).
COMECON, set up by the Soviets in 1949 as a counterpoise to the European
Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), was basically an economic commission
designed to assist the economic development of the communist Eastern
European nations during the post-World War II period. Within this
organization Romania had acted largely as a supplier of agricultural
products, petroleum, and other raw materials and depended on the more
industrialized member states for most manufactured goods. Under the
Khrushchev plan, Romania's role in this organization would remain
unchanged, and all domestic plans that had been developed to produce a
balanced economy through increased industrialization would be
effectively nullified.
Khrushchev, in pushing his revised plans for COMECON, publicly called
for the creation of a supranational planning agency within the
organization that would be empowered to select investment projects,
allocate regional resources, and prescribe economic tasks to be
undertaken by the individual member states on the basis of a majority
vote. Romanian leaders reacted firmly and resolutely to this suggestion
by publishing a statement of the party Central Committee that definitely
rejected the policy of supranational economic integration and the
utilization of majority decisions as a means of forcing economic
cooperation. The committee's resolution further pointed out that
economic collaboration should be based on respect for national
independence, sovereignty, and the equality inherent in the rights of
nations.
Pressure was exerted to bring the Romanian leadership into line. To
counter this, the Romanians took steps to demonstrate their
determination to hold to their independent views. A program of
desovietization was begun throughout the country, during which Soviet
bookshops were closed, the compulsory study of the Russian language in
schools was ended, and those street names that had been changed to honor
Soviet persons or events reverted to their original Romanian
designations. Also, in the field of foreign policy Romania adopted an
attitude of nonalignment in the Sino-Soviet dispute, resumed relations
with Albania (which had been severed after that country left the Soviet
bloc in 1961), and conducted negotiations for increased trade with the
People's Republic of China as well as with several Western nations.
By the end of 1963 it was apparent that Soviet plans for revising
COMECON could not be implemented and, with Romania retaining its
membership, it remained an organization of national economies
cooperating with one another along both bilateral and multilateral
lines. The Soviets, however, retained leadership of the organization and
continued to be a major benefactor from its operation.
The surfacing of the policy conflict with Moscow and the subsequent
activities of the Romanians in defiance of general Soviet interests and
leadership were followed in April 1964 by a formal statement published
by the party Central Committee that proclaimed Romania's inalienable
right to national autonomy and full equality in the communist world.
This so-called declaration of independence made it abundantly clear that
the national and independent character of Romanian policy had been
extended to all fields and would be applied in both domestic and foreign
relations.
The policy of greater national autonomy and political independence from
the Soviet Union was continued by Nicolae Ceausescu, who succeeded
Gheorghiu-Dej as party chief after the latter's sudden death in March
1965. A militant nationalist in the Gheorghiu-Dej pattern, Ceausescu
acted quickly after assuming power not only to maintain the political
momentum generated by the new national line but also to more closely
identify the communist leadership and policies with this expression of
traditional national aspiration (see ch. 9).
In April the name of the Romanian Workers' Party was changed to the
Romanian Communist Party, and new organizational measures were adopted
that were intended to broaden the party's popular base. This action was
followed by the adoption of a new constitution, which changed the name
of the country to the Socialist Republic of Romania, a step that
elevated the country to an advanced status in the communist system by
self-proclamation.
In 1967 Ceausescu's position was further strengthened when he assumed
the presidency of the Council of State to become the head of the country
in title as well as in fact. Since that time Romania has maintained a
firm, orthodox communist control pattern in its domestic affairs but has
continued to pursue an independent foreign policy, which has diverged
remarkably, from time to time, from those of the Soviet Union and its
Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) allies.
Differences have included opposition to the full integration of the
Warsaw Pact military alliance, refusal to joint the Soviet bloc in
condemning Israel after the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War, and
unilateral establishment of diplomatic relations with the Federal
Republic of Germany (West Germany). Perhaps the strongest position
vis-à-vis the Soviet Union was taken in 1968, when Ceausescu denounced
the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty among socialist
nations, which was used by the Soviets to justify the invasion of
Czechoslovakia (see ch. 10).