„Doresc să se prezinte ca parteneri egali.” Relațiile dintre România și URSS în anii 1950-1970 în documentele școlilor de partid sovietice
Through the agreements concluded by the Western Allies with the USSR during and after the Second World War, the states in Eastern Europe would be in the Soviet sphere of influence. After the instauration of the regimes based on “People’s republics,” particularly through the use of force, from the mid-1950s, the Soviet leadership began using other tools, too, for long-term control over these states. Promoting the Soviet model played a significant role in its “soft power” policy inspired, in part, by Western practices. To this end, starting from the well-established tradition of the USSR, the Soviet leadership promoted, among others, the creation of a network of Party schools in the socialist states. They had the fame of primary “incubators” for the local communist regimes and instruments for promoting Soviet interests. Initially known as “A. A. Jdanov” and then famous under the name “Ștefan Gheorghiu”, “the Superior Party school” in Romania represented a local replica of the Academy of Social Sciences (ASS) attached to the CC of the CPSU. The paper analysed the Soviet-Romanian relations in 1950-1970, based on reports and memoirs of the ASS management or its collaborators, targeting Romania. These documents, which historians have never used thus far (the Moscow-based State Archive of Social-Political History in Russia, i.e., RGASPI hosts them), provide relevant information on the evolution of the relations between the USSR and the RPR/RSR. They concerned mostly mutual perceptions, Romania’s status in the power system of the socialist camp, the emergence of Romanian nationalism (Protochronism) and its interpretation by the Soviet authorities, particularly from the perspective of the disputes concerning the status of Bessarabia/Moldovan SSR.
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