Romania

The Unfinished Revolution

Stephen D. Roper

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135287573
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Categoria: Política

The Romanian revolution was motivated by a desire for greater political and intellectual freedom and economic prosperity. It was the bloodiest of the eastern European transitions due to Ceausescu's cult of personality. However, many of the goals of the revolution are still unfulfilled. The lack of civil society, charges of political corruption, the failure to transform the economy, and concerns over the protection of ethnic minority rights are all factors in Romania's failure to become a fully integrated European country.
Tracing the country's political history and examining Romania's postcommunist politics, economic transition and foreign policy, this book contemplates the prospects for this country as it enters the twenty first century.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

The 1996 parliamentary and presidential elections were a turning point in Romanian history. For the first time in almost sixty years, voters used the ballot box to change the government. This “road to normalcy” was marked by several twists and turns including a monarchical regime, an authoritarian government, almost forty-five years of communist rule and the bloodiest of the 1989 Eastern European transitions.¹ While Romania might be on the road to normalcy, the challenges that the country faces are extraordinary. Like all East European countries, Romania has had to undergo simultaneous political and economic reform. However unlike the Visegrad countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, Romanian economic reform has been lackluster. Moreover, there were always concerns regarding the level of political reform and democracy during the presidency of Ion Iliescu. Because of the lack of economic reform and the fragility of democracy, Romania was excluded from the first round of NATO expansion and EU² accession discussions, which had been the country’s top foreign policy priorities. Now as the country enters the 21^st century, it has to compete not only with its neighbors but also with the member-states of the EU. The challenges facing Romania are formidable, but the opportunities are also immense. Romanian agriculture and chemical facilities have great economic potential. The country’s strategic geographic location makes it an important regional actor. The key question is whether the government will pursue the economic policies necessary to transform the economy, provide stability to society and increase the country’s opportunity of joining Euro-Atlantic organizations.

In order to understand the current economic and political debates occurring in the country, this book traces Romanian political and economic development since the creation of the new Romanian state in the 19^th century. Communist policies dominated the country’s political life from 1944 until 1989, and the legacies of communism still haunt it today. Moreover, the nationalism of the Iron Guard during the 1940s has much in common with the rhetoric of today’s nationalist parties. This is not to suggest that Romanian prewar and interwar history have predetermined postcommunist politics.³ However, the debates that occur today over land reform, ethnic minority educational policy and the role of the monarchy reflect some of the same debates that have occurred throughout the existence of the Romanian state. To understand the current debates, this section examines the issues that have historically shaped Romanian political development.

THE CREATION OF THE ROMANIAN STATE

Like their counterparts in Central Europe, the Romanian liberals of 1848 wanted to establish an ethnic state. At that time, Romanians inhabited a number of territories but were primarily concentrated in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. These principalities were caught between the Ottoman and Russian empires. While liberal reform was never enacted in Moldavia, the Wallachian “forty-eighters” were able to briefly establish a provisional government that promised political and economic reform.⁴ Russian intervention eliminated any opportunity for Romanian self-government, but in 1859 the Moldavian and Wallachian principalities each elected Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince, thereby creating a de facto union between the two. Cuza’s reign only lasted eight years before he was deposed and replaced by Prince Carol I of the German Hohenzollern-Sigmaringer dynasty. Following the Berlin Congress, the principalities achieved independence in 1878 and were recognized as a kingdom in 1881.

While many Romanians lived in the Old Kingdom, approximately four million Romanians lived in the surrounding territories of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania.⁵ They were completely alienated from the ruling elite and subject to policies of ethnic assimilation. Several politicians in the Old Kingdom, most notably Premier Ion Bratianu, advocated the unification of the Old Kingdom with these territories. By the end of World War I, as the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed, ethnic Romanians in these territories declared a union with the Old Kingdom.⁶ By 1919, the territory and population of Greater Romania had more than doubled; however, ethnic Romanians comprised only half of the population in these newly acquired territories.

THE INTERWAR PERIOD

The period between 1918 and 1940 produced profound changes in the development of the Romanian nation and state. Emerging from World War I in 1918, Greater Romania was much larger, more populated and much more ethnically diverse than the old state. However by 1940, the country had lost much of this territory under the terms of the Second Vienna Award and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Northern Transylvania, Northern Bukovina and all of Bessarabia were quickly incorporated into other states. For Romania, the interwar period was one of territory and populations won and lost and democracy promised and destroyed. The beginning of the period, however, held great potential for the country.

During the 1920s, Romanian politics were generally more stable and more democratic than at any other point during the interwar period. While there were nine different governments, most of them were led by either the National Peasants Party (Partidul National Taranesc or PNT) or the National Liberal Party (Partidul National Liberal or PNL).⁷ In addition, the monarchy under King Ferdinand provided stability to the political process. This was essential because under the 1923 constitution, the king had the power to appoint and to dismiss cabinet ministers as well as to veto legislation and to issue discretionary regulations. The issues that dominated the legislative agenda of the 1920s included land reform, industrialization and cultural policies.

During this period, the government implemented educational and linguistic reforms in the new territories to forge a new Romanian urban elite. These policies were intended to assimilate certain ethnic groups (such as the Szeklers in Transylvania and the Germans in Bukovina) and differentiate other ethnic groups (Jews throughout all of the newly incorporated territories and Hungarians in Transylvania). These policies were designed to create a new Romanian nation; however, the nationalism advocated by the state engendered extremist reactions from several groups, particularly students. Irina Livezeanu argues that “[y]outhful radical nationalists became the most committed freelance nation builders.”⁸ Student leaders of Romania’s “new generation” of the 1920s believed that the state’s nation-building policies needed to go much further in developing the nation.

The nationalism of the 1920s attempted to isolate ethnic Hungarians and Jews, and these ethnic groups had difficulty assimilating into the political process and into the traditional parties such as the PNT and the PNL. Instead, they created their own parties and many turned increasingly towards the Romanian Communist Party (Partidul Comunist Roman or PCR). The PCR was founded in May 1921. Before 1921, the communists had operated within the Romanian Social Democratic Party (Partidul Social Democrat Roman or PSDR).⁹ While several nationalist organizations increased their membership in the 1920s, the PCR’s membership was extremely low, often numbering in the hundreds. There were a number of reasons why the PCR was so unpopular. Firstly, it was a member of the Communist International (Comintern), and the Soviets placed their own foreign policy goals above the PCR’s need to become a legitimate political force. For example, the PCR supported the position that Bessarabia should be relinquished to the Soviet Union. This made it very unpopular with the population. To many, particularly farmers, the PCR was considered antinationalist. Secondly, the party’s ideology of class conflict was not suited to the conditions of the country. Romania was overwhelmingly an agricultural country, and there was no aggressive industrialization program that would have developed a class-consciousness. Finally, the PCR was viewed as a foreign organization. It was largely composed of ethnic Hungarians and Jews. In fact, ethnic Romanians constituted less than 25% of the membership, and ethnic Hungarians and Jews held many of the party’s leading positions.¹⁰

In 1924, the ruling PNL outlawed the PCR, and the Soviets and the PCR leadership hoped to use this event as propaganda to attract more members; however, the PCR was too distrusted by the population. Therefore during the 1920s, the party exerted little influence on electoral outcomes or policy decisions. The party was fighting two battles. Firstly, it was coming under constant criticism from the Soviet Union for its lack of organization and political success. The PCR had to adjust its policies to appease the Soviet Union. Secondly, it had to prove to the Romanian population that it was not a tool of the Soviets. With these two conflicting objectives, it is easy to understand why the party lacked any political influence during this period.¹¹

The conflicts between the PCR and the Comintern lasted until 1931. At the Fifth Congress of the Comintern the differences between the party and the Soviet leadership were settled. These problems were of course resolved in a manner most beneficial to the Soviet Union and its foreign policy objectives. The PCR’s ideological and organizational bases were strictly established along Soviet lines.¹² This move ensured that for the next decade, the party would not be a political force; consequently, when the PCR came to power in the mid-1940s, it had to rely on the Soviet Union for legitimacy.

THE 1930s AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PCR

One problem that plagued the PCR even after the Fifth Congress was the lack of consistent party leadership. During the interwar years, a number of Romanian communists were either imprisoned in Romania (home communists) or living in the Soviet Union (Muscovite communists). This left only a small group of Romanian communists free during the 1930s and the 1940s. This group consisted of men such as Stefan Foris and Lucretiu Patrascanu, who never developed any effective underground and were distrusted by both the home and Muscovite communists. There was not a unified leadership in the PCR; in fact, during this period, there was a clear division in the party’s leadership. The dispute between the home and Muscovite communists was a general feature of Eastern European communist politics. The Soviet Union used this lack of party cohesion to increase its own policy options.

During the 1930s, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was one of the symbols of Romanian communism. His initial claim to fame was organizing the 1933 railway workshop strikes in the city of Grivita. Though he was actually arrested before the strike, Gheorghiu-Dej was considered its architect, and he was one of the few popular PCR figures. He was sent to jail in 1933 and remained there until 1944. Although he was imprisoned, Gheorghiu-Dej was still active in the party’s leadership. The home communists recognized him as the party’s leader while in jail, and the Muscovite group endorsed Gheorghiu-Dej’s position because it felt that they could use him as their puppet.¹³

Those men who were imprisoned with Gheorghiu-Dej would later form the core of the party’s leadership and included Gheorghe Apostol, Chivu Stoica, Alexandru Moghioros and Nicolae Ceausescu. Those home communists who were not imprisoned with Gheorghiu-Dej, such as Patrascanu, automatically became suspect. Gheorghiu-Dej’s elevation to party secretary while in jail demonstrates how desperate the PCR and the Soviets were for a popular figure. The party hoped that he would become the popular symbol that it did not have during the 1920s. Because of his working-class background, it was assumed that he would be able to form associations with workers. He was also an ethnic Romanian, and this was particularly important because the Muscovite communists were mostly Jewish and ethnic Hungarians who were distrusted by the population. While the PCR failed to attract a significant following, several right-wing organizations enjoyed popularity, particularly with youths.

THE MONARCHY AND THE RISE OF THE RIGHT-WING

The 1930s in Romania has been described as the period of the “ebbing of democracy.”¹⁴ Democratic institutions such as the parliament, lost or ceded power to the monarchy. Unlike his father Ferdinand, King Carol II did not support parliamentary democracy or the traditional parties. At the same time that parliamentary democracy was weakening, right-wing nationalism was intensifying. University students in the Moldavian provincial capital of Iasi in the 1920s assisted in the formation of the League of National Christian Defense. With the guidance of the well-known anti-Semite A. C. Cuza, the dean of the University of Iasi Law School, students began to harass Jewish students and threaten Jewish newspaper editors. Students were organized under the leadership of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a law school student and strident nationalist, and in 1927 he organized the Legion of Archangel Michael (Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail or LAM).¹⁵

By the early 1930s, the LAM had organized a political unit called the Iron Guard. The traditional parties banned the Iron Guard, but it continued its political activity under the newly created All for the Country party. Although Carol and the traditional parties opposed the fascist ideology of the Iron Guard, they felt that they could use it for their own political purposes. During the 1937 parliamentary election, Iuliu Maniu, leader of the PNT, signed an electoral pact with Codreanu. This agreement brought some measure of respect to the Iro...