Omogenizarea socială şi sensul progresului social în „epoca de aur”
Social Homogenization and the Meaning of Social Progress in the „Golden Age”

Summary/Abstract: In 1965, at the 9th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, Nicolae Ceauşescu was appointed General Secretary. He was the youngest party leader among brotherly socialist countries. He immediately got the attention of the public opinion, affirming that the role of the nation was not over. He proclaimed the nation the foundation for the future socialist society. It was the beginning of Ceauşescu’s regime, a period dominated by the overrepresentation of the socialist nation within official and public discourse. One particular trait of Ceauşescu’s understanding of the nation was its homogeneity. It was this homogeneity that shaped his perspective about social progress in Romania and, later, caused much harm to the social fabric of the country. The article explores the beginning of this theory of a homogenous society as the ideal endpoint of the social revolution as it had been envisioned by the party officials. The theory affected not only the Romanian society but the Communist Party as well. It was designed to remove differences between villagers and city dwellers, between workers and intellectuals and, eventually, between party members and the rest of the people. It was this homogeneity that gave the unmistakable stifling air of the last decade of the Romanian socialist regime.

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