Conducerea PCR și problema tineretului (1968-1971). Preliminarii la „minirevoluția culturală”
The RCP leadership and the youth problem (1968-1971): Preliminaries to the „Cultural minirevolution”

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the impact of the student protests of 1968 upon the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) and argues that these events played a central role in N. Ceauşescu’s decision to reconsider the party’s policies towards the youth. In his vision – as revealed by his conversations with other party leaders – the youth had been neglected by the Communist parties which made it vulnerable to other ideologies and predisposed to street action outside party control. N. Ceauşescu believed that Communist parties had to elaborate special policies aimed at improving the political education of students and youth so that social protests as those recorded in 1968 in Paris and elsewhere could be guided and controlled by the Communist parties. The experience of 1968 determined RCP’s leadership to increase its political pressure on students and youth, which culminated in 1971 with the abrupt interruption of the liberalization course initiated years before.

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