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The evolution of the Romanian Communist Party is presented here, from the participation in, to its taking control over the government. The positions and differences in opinion of the Romanian communist leaders are presented in detail as to the directions to pursue and type of relationships with the "bourgeois" political parties. The Stalinist model in the sovietization of Romania is analyzed on the background of the events in eastern Europe.
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Even though internment camps for political detainees were abolished on 24 August 1944 by royal decree, on 25 August 1944 the Ministry of Internal Affairs directed the police and the guards corps to investigate all civilians in Romania over the age of 16, subjects of inimical countries or Romanian citizens members of the German Ethnic Group. Those considered dangerous were to be interned in ad-hoc organized camps. The documents supply interesting data on the system used by detainees in breaking out of internment centres, forced labour brigades, and hospitals.
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The author recounts the history of a resistance group led by Filimon Bodiu against Soviet occupation in Bessarabia. Soon after the reoccupation of Bessarabia by the Soviet troops, Bodiu was arrested. Succeeding to escape, he initiated a resistance movement against the Soviet regime with an eight to ten member group. The authorities annihilated the group in 1950-1951. Filimon Bodiu was killed in an encounter in November 1950. The survivors, his family members included, were tried in June 1951 and received harsh prison sentences.
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The author presents the stenographic notes of the meeting of the territorial activists of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers' (Communist) Party (P.M.R.) held on 23 November 1956. Following the revolution in Hungary, the P.M.R. leadership alerted its representatives all over the country with a view to containing a possible expansion of the revolution in Romania, too. Syntheses of the situation existing in the country's territorial and administrative units were presented during the meeting.
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The military occupation of Bessarabia in June 1940. by the USSR was the beginning of the process of communist sovietization of this Romanian province. The Bessarabian Romanians would suffer the agony of political terror, deportation, denationalization, the indoctrination of communist ideology. The political administration set up by Moscow started with the extermination of the Romanian population on the left bank of the Prut river. The electoral campaign and the spurious elections of 12 January 1941 stand proof of the antidemocratic character of the regime established in Bessarabia and its methods of implementing the totalitarian policy. The vote was a political farce, conceived and staged in the true Bolshevik style, designed to enthrone the Soviet system in the Romanian province.
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In the aftermath of WW II, Romania and several other eastern and central European states were included in the sphere of influence dominated by the Soviet Union. The invasion of Romania by the Soviet troops, following the coup d'etat of 23 August 1944, was the beginning of a process during which the history ofthe Romanian nation would be falsified, and presented in the perspective of the stalinist dogmas. The operation was coordinated by practiced 'illegalists', trained at Moscow's party schools. The duress that accompanied the implementation of the Soviet model in Romania is explained by the fact that both Stalin and other experts in the international communist revolution would rate Romania, alongside Poland, as a "vanguard of international imperialism". Holder of a doctor's degree in history,
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Terror was identified by many Western authors as an essential feature of totalitarian systems, communist or fascist. Ever since 1970s, however, a new interpretation suggested that belief rather than terror motivated the Soviet population even during the years of the so-called "Great Purge" (1935-1939). In an article published in 1986. based on new memoirs literature and the Smolensk Archives, Robert Thurston challenged the conventional view prevalent among sovietologists, arguing that the "Great Purge" was not a purge; it was not even great. Moreover, since not even the "Great Purge" was a total terror, totalitarianism as a political concept is misleading and does not capture the essence of the Soviet-type system and, more generally, of the communist systems. This article presents the Thurston - Conquest debate (that is the "revisionist" - "totalitarian" debate), and the way in which "revisionists" have challenged terror as the essence of totalitarianism. It is further suggested that any analysis of the role of terror in a totalitarian system should take into account Hannah Arendt’s description of the "banality of evil".
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In a set of documents, the author presents the reactions of the Party leadership in Romania in connection with the anti-communist revolution in Hungary. Among the eight documents there is also a Report on steps to be taken following the enemy manifestations of some students in Timișoara on 10 November 1956.
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This article aims to make known unique documents and images representing Al. Marcu, a conspicuous scholar dedicated to Italian studies and former minister of National Propaganda from 1941 till 1944. Thus, it reveals —in a new light and in a broader context-a turning point in his remarkable activity, which reflects the springs of the cultural diplomacy during the war. This scientific approach it is founded mainly on unpublished archival sources, but also on memoirs and specialized studies that allow us to fulfill the portrait of an outstanding agent of the Romanian cultural diplomacy in Italy.
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The main topic of the article is about Institute for Promoting Romanian Culture Abroad (IRRCS - the Romanian abbreviation), institution in charge with promoting cultural diplomacy and it’s predictable end when the political system collapsed during the Romanian Revolution from December 1989. This aftermath could be seen in the lack of power over the cultural diplomacy due to the fact that IRRCS had no control over the cultural and propaganda field and the result of this Romania’s image abroad during the communist regime was provided exclusively by the official propaganda channels strictly controlled by the Romanian Communist Party. These propaganda channels followed the guidelines drawn by the politicians who served very well soviet interests in Romania and, in a small, almost insignificant measure this was accomplished also by traditional means, sustained by the voluntary undertakings of the men of culture, literary men, artists, or independent cultural propagators. Year 1989 was a tremendous turning point also for IRRCS and the ways of dealing with the new political and social context were discussed in a series of meetings at IRRCS headquarter. The documents preserved in IRRCS archives kept records from this meetings from November, December 1989 and January 1990.
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In Romania, between WWI and WWII, differently from other states such as Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, or Czechoslovakia the communists represented a really minor political force. Among the ethnically non-Romanian members of the tiny Romanian Communist Party was the Bulgarian Dimităr Kolev (Dumitru Coliu) whose biography is presented in this article. The consulted documents, including a number of autobiographies, contain numerous divergent, confusing and contradictory information expressing at this level also the permanent effort of re-writing the past in agreement with different conjunctural requirements.
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Born in a wealthy family from Sibiu, Ioan Lupaș asserted himself as an intellectual who fought for the rights of Romanians under Austria-Hungary. As a historian, he wrote numerous works on the history of Transylvanian Romanians, of the Orthodox Church. He was a member of the Romanian Academy, professor of history at the University of Cluj, parliamentarian and minister. He founded together with Alexandru Lapedatu the Institute of National History in Cluj. He was arrested in May 1950 together with other former dignitaries and intellectuals from the interwar period, being imprisoned in Sighet. There he was subjected to very harsh conditions of detention, but survived, being released in 1955. He was under the supervision of the Securitate, and from 1957 some of his scientific works began to be published.
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Review of: Csaba Békés' book, Hungary’s Cold War. International Relations from the End of World War II to the Fall of the Soviet Union, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2022, 400 p.
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Review of: the special issue of the journal Secolul XX. Mariana Celac. Contemporanul nostru, I, „Secolul 21”, nr. 10-12/2020; 1-3/2021, număr realizat de Alina Ledeanu, 370 p.
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In this article, the author presents some of the interference forms of the Soviet military' authorities, stationed on the Romanian territory, which supported the local communists in their fight for power. In northern Moldova, in the spring of 1944, and then in autumn, in northern Transylvania, where the Russians had complete control over the territories, they changed the leaders of the county and the communal administrative institutions, and imposed the institution of internal order organizations meant to replace those dependent on the Romanian government. These bodies, not only executed docilely the orders given by the Russians, but they actually supported the Romanian communists who lacked mass support. In parallel, sometimes, the Russian military bodies illegally and directly involved themselves in the replacement of the civil servants with persons who lacked the population credit. The article is inspired from documents preserved in the central (Bucharest) and regional archives (Jassy, Galafi, Oradea), the bulk of the information coming from the find of the General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie.
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The selection of propaganda images on Soviet Science brings together photos reproduced in newspapers, reviews and popularization booklets designed for the rural population subjected to the collectivization policy. The Soviet agricultural model got visual support from ’’the most advanced science in the world”, as it was called in the political discourse of the time. The selection is provided with an introductory study, notes and bibliographical references. Octavian Roske, scientific secretary' with N.I.S T., is the coordinator of The Dossier of the Agricultural Collectivization in Romania, 1949-1962.
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Anton Golopenția (1909-1951) Anton Golopenția was arrested in 1950 by the communist regime, the charge being his "politics”, despite his nonpolitical activity and. after 18 months of imprisonment, he died in jail, without having been brought to trial; his family could not have his body for the funerals. Petru Groza (1884-1958) Until 1944. when the Soviet troops invaded Romania’s territory. Petru Groza was a political mediocrity at the national level. After 1933, although educated in European universities (Budapest. Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels, Leipzig), he would adopt a more and more pronounced left-wing position. On March 6. 1945. he was appointed as President of the Council of Ministers. In 1958. the year of his demise, he was holding the position of President of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly, officially the highest position in state. Through the positions held and his ideological compliance, the bourgeois Petru Groza credited and contributed to the installation of the communist regime in Romania. Paul Halunga (1895-1941) While very early in his military career, appreciated as an officer of great expectations and later on an elite officer of the Romanian army, in the inter-war period Paul Halunga held positions adequate to his rank, and distinguished himself through his entire activity. He obtained remarkable results on the Eastern Front, as a commander of Regiment 10 Rangers, during the battles in Bessarabia and on the Odessa Front, where he died in battle on August 28. 1941. Horia Măcellarin (1894-1989). Horia Măcellariu had a brilliant military career, and in 1941, he was appointed Chief of the Navy General Staff. In 1943, Horia Măcellariu yvas involved in the Crimea evacuation operation, and in 1944 he yvas appointed Counter Admiral. Brought to trial in October 1948 as one of the leaders of the National Resistance Movement, he got a life sentence to hard labour and all his property was confiscated. Released in 1964. after having served time in the prisons of Aiud. Râmnicu-Sărat. Gherla, he died in Bucharest, on July 11. 1989. Vasile Motrescu (1920-1958) A poor peasant of Vicovu de Jos. Suceava county. Vasile Motrescu took part as a ranger in the Caucasus and Crimea War (1942-1943). He fought as a partisan against the Russians, in 1944. defending Bukovina. Hunted by the NKVD and Securitate, he defended his life, arm-in-hand, loghether with Contantin Cenușă, between 1949-1951 and with Gavril Vatamaniuc between 1952-1955. He saved a partisan group in Făgăraș and confronted a Securitate company at Batea Corbului. He also sent a series of daring letters to the Romanian communist leaders. He was sentenced to death in contumacy. Betrayed, he was captured and executed in 1958. Ana Pauker (1893-1960) Undoubtedly, one of the prominent figures in the communists' fight for power in Romania, after 23 August, 1944, was Ana Pauker. Wearing the aura of the Comintern's international activist, enjoying Moscow’s full support, even seemingly that of Stalin himself, Ana Pauker was propelled by the external party wing to the highest rank. Yet she encountered the silent, tenacious and tough opposition of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Under the circumstances, she was a victim of the fight for power between the so-called national wing of the Communist Party in Romania and the international wing consisting mostly of Jewish activists. The fight started in 1952, when the group of Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca and Teohari Georgescu was annihilated and was concluded with the elimination of Iosif Chișinevschi and Miron Constantinescu, in 1957.
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The most dramatic stage in the lawful life of the Romanian Workers' (Communist) Party, i.e., the 1950-1952 interval, begins with the purges of a quarter of the party members (according to official figures, between 192,000 and 300,000 members) and ends with Act I of the internal struggle for power, within the Party, between the "inner wing" (Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej) and the "outer (pro-Soviet) wing" led by Ana Pauker, with Vasile Luca and Teohari Georgescu among its members.
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