Donald W. Bernier

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.

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).