CONSTITUȚIA DIN 1952 – INSTRUMENT DE PROPAGANDĂ ȘI CONTROL AL REGIMULUI COMUNIST DIN ROMÂNIA
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1952 – AN INSTRUMENT OF PROPAGANDA AND CONTROL FOR THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: The communist regime managed to obtain full power over the Romanian society în 1948. This state of affairs was followed by the implementation of the first communist Constitution of Romania, in the same year. The second communist Constitution, only four years later, was primarily a result of the increasing Soviet control over Romania. This Constitution was the closest copy ever of a foreign constitution in the entire history of Romania. About 80% of the text of the Constitution of 1952 was simply copied from the Soviet Constitution of 1936, which produced constitutional clones in all communist countries of Eastern Europe in 1946-1949. The Romanian Constitution of 1952 was above all an act of propaganda, not a fundamental law to be followed and observed by citizens and authorities of the country. Its purpose was to legitimize the communist regime and to give it a façade of democracy. In reality, the supreme power remained limited to the little circle of a few persons – the so-called Secretariat of the Central Commitee of the Party. All aspects which could be related to a democratic organization – elections, parliament, human rights, the balance of powers within the state – were actually hollow and devoid of any substance. The Constitution of 1952 was not fundamentally different from those of 1948 and 1965. Its specific trait was just a deeper immitation of the Soviet model and an underline of the subordination of Romania to its real master – The Soviet Union. A part of the text was that of Constitution of 1948, with the important innovation that the new Constitution mentioned that the Communist Party was the holder of the entire political power in the state.

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