The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a communist state that existed from 1947 to the Romanian revolution in 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Republic (, RPR). The RSR was an Eastern Bloc state and a member of the Warsaw Pact with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. Geographically, RSR was bordered by the Black Sea to the east, the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian and Moldavian SSRs) to the north and east, Hungary and Yugoslavia (via SR Serbia) to the west, and Bulgaria to the south.
As World War II ended, the Kingdom of Romania, a former Axis member which had overthrown their pro-Axis government, was occupied by the Soviet Union as the sole representative of the Allies. On 6 March 1945, after mass demonstrations by communist sympathizers and political pressure from the Soviet representative of the Allied Commission, a new pro-Soviet government that included members of the previously outlawed Romanian Workers' Party was installed. Gradually, more members of the Workers' Party and communist-aligned parties gained control of the administration and pre-war political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. In December 1947, King Michael I was forced to abdicate and the People's Republic of Romania was declared.
At first, Romania's scarce post-war resources were drained by the "SovRoms," new tax-exempt Soviet-Romanian companies that allowed the Soviet Union to control Romania's major sources of income. Another drain was the war reparations paid to the Soviet Union. However, during the 1950s, Romania's communist government began to assert more independence, leading to, for example, the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Romania by 1958. Overall, from the 1950s to the 1970s, the country exhibited high rates of economic growth and significant improvements in infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy, urbanization, and women's rights, but then stagnated in the 1980s.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Nicolae Ceaușescu became General Secretary of the Communist Party (1965), Chairman of the State Council (1967), and the newly established role of President in 1974. Ceaușescu's denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression led to a positive image both at home and in the West. However, rapid economic growth fueled in part by foreign credits gradually gave way to austerity and increased repression that ultimately reached totalitarian levels. By the 1970s, Ceaușescu presided over one of the most repressive regimes of modern times. It lasted until he was violently overthrown and executed in December 1989.
Many people were arrested, executed or died in custody under communist Romania, most during the Stalinist era of the 1950s, for political, economical, or other reasons. Tens or even hundreds of thousands were arrested, executed or died in custody, while judicial executions between 1945 and 1964 numbered 137,Balázs Szalontai, The Dynamics of Repression: The Global Impact of the Stalinist Model, 1944–1953. Russian History/ Vol. 29, Issue 2–4 (2003), pp. 415–442. deaths in custody are estimated in the tens or hundreds of thousands.Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Penguin Press, 2005. . "In addition to well over a million in detainees in prison, labor camps, and slave labor on the Danube-Black Sea Canal, of whom tens of thousands died and whose numbers don't include those deported to the Soviet Union, Romania was remarkable for the severity of its prison conditions.". During debates over the overall number of victims of the Communist government between 1947 and 1964, Corneliu Coposu spoke of 282,000 arrests and 190,000 deaths in custody.Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, Doubleday, April, 2003. . The author gives an estimate of 200,000 dead at the Danube-Black Sea Canal alone.
The 1965 Constitution remained in effect after its dissolution and was amended to reflect Romania's transition to democracy. It was replaced by the current constitution on 8 December 1991, after a nationwide referendum abolished the socialist system of government completely and replaced it with a semi-presidential system.
History
Soviet occupation and rise of the Communists
When King Michael, supported by the main political parties, overthrew Ion Antonescu in August 1944, breaking Romania away from the Axis and bringing it over to the Allied side, Michael could do nothing to erase the memory of his country's recent active participation in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Romanian forces fought under Soviet command, driving through Northern Transylvania into Hungary proper, and on into Czechoslovakia and Austria. However, the Soviets treated Romania as a conquered territory,Romulus Rusan (dir.), in Du passé faisons table rase ! Histoire et mémoire du communisme en Europe, Robert Laffont, Paris, 2002, p. 376–377 and Soviet troops continued to occupy the country on the basis of the Romanians having been active Nazi allies with a fascist government until very recently.
The Yalta Conference had granted the Soviet Union a predominant interest in Romania. The Paris Peace Treaties did not acknowledge Romania as an allied co-belligerent, as the Romanian army had fought hard against the Soviets for the better part of the war, changing sides only when the tides started to turn. The Communists, as all political parties, played only a minor role in King Michael's first wartime government, headed by General Constantin Sănătescu, though their presence increased in the one led by Nicolae Rădescu. This changed in March 1945, when Dr. Petru Groza of the Ploughmen's Front, a party closely associated with the Communists, became prime minister. His government was broad-based on paper, including members of most major prewar parties except the fascist Iron Guard. However, the Communists held the key ministries, and most of the ministers nominally representing non-Communist parties were, like Groza himself, fellow travelers.
The King was not happy with the direction of this government, but when he attempted to force Groza's resignation by refusing to sign any legislation (a move known as "the royal strike"), Groza simply chose to enact laws without bothering to obtain Michael's signature. On 8 November 1945, King Michael's name day, a pro-monarchy demonstration in front of the Royal Palace in Bucharest escalated into street fights between opposition supporters and soldiers, police and pro-government workers, resulting in dozens of killed and wounded; Soviet officers restrained Romanian soldiers and police from firing on civilians, and Soviet troops restored order.
Despite the King's disapproval, the first Groza government brought land reform and women's suffrage, the former giving the party widespread popularity among peasants from the south and east, while the latter gained it the support of educated women. However, it also brought the beginnings of Soviet domination of Romania. In the elections of 19 November 1946, the Communist-led Bloc of Democratic Parties (BPD) claimed 84% of the votes. These elections were characterized by widespread irregularities, including intimidation, electoral fraud, and assassinationsRădulescu-Motru, in Cioroianu, p.65 Archives confirm suspicions at the time that the election results were, in fact, falsified.Frucht, R. (2005). Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture, Volume 1, p. 759. ABC-CLIO.
After forming a government, the Communists moved to eliminate the role of the centrist parties; notably, the National Peasants' Party was accused of espionage after it became clear in 1947 that their leaders were meeting secretly with United States officials. A show trial of their leadership was then arranged, and they were put in jail. Other parties were forced to "merge" with the Communists. In 1946 and 1947, several high-ranking members in the pro-Axis government were executed as war criminals, primarily for their involvement in the Holocaust and for attacking the Soviet Union. Antonescu himself was executed on 1 June 1946.
By 1947, Romania remained the only monarchy in the Eastern Bloc. On 30 December that year, Michael was at his palace in Sinaia when Groza and Gheorghiu-Dej summoned him back to Bucharest. They presented him with a pretyped instrument of abdication and demanded that he sign it. With pro-Communist troops surrounding his palace and his telephone lines cut, Michael signed the document.
Romanian People's Republic 1947–48 takeover On 30 December 1947, only hours after Michael abdicated, Parliament abolished the monarchy and proclaimed Romania a socialist republic. In February 1948, the Communists merged with the Social Democrats to form the Romanian Workers' Party. However, most independent-minded Socialists were soon pushed out. Meanwhile, many non-Communist politicians had either been imprisoned or fled into exile.
The communist regime was formalized with the constitution of 13 April 1948. The new constitution was a near-copy of the 1936 Soviet Constitution. While it guaranteed all manner of freedoms on paper, any association which had a "fascist or anti-democratic nature" was forbidden. This provision was broadly interpreted to ban any party not willing to do the Communists' bidding and gave a legal façade to political repression.
Religion Although the 1948 Constitution and its two successors provided a simulacrum of religious freedom, the regime in fact had a policy of promoting Marxist–Leninist atheism, coupled with religious persecution. The role of religious bodies was strictly limited to their houses of worship, and large public demonstrations were strictly forbidden. In 1948, in order to minimize the role of the clergy in society, the government adopted a decree nationalizing church property, including schools.Chiriac, Marian (2005). Provocările diversității: politici publice privind minoritățile naționale și religioase în România, p. 111. Bucharest: Centrul de Resurse pentru Diversitate Etnoculturală, . The regime found wiser to use religion and make it subservient to the regime rather than to eradicate it. The communist government also disbanded the Romanian Greek-Catholic Uniate Church, declaring its merger with the Romanian Orthodox Church.Ageing, Ritual and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe; Ashgate AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Series; Daniela Koleva; Peter Coleman; Routledge Press, 2016; Pgs. 6–7; "The Romanian Orthodox Church by contrast has shown a much stronger development since the Second World War. After the initial waves of militant atheism were spent, a strong spiritual renewal movement took place in the late 1950s, and there has been a stream of notable spiritual figures both before and after communism. ... There was also a lack of consistent suppression of the Romanian Orthodox church by communist authorities. A large number of churches were left open, and monasteries continued to function."
Early years
The early years of communist rule in Romania were marked by repeated changes of course and by numerous arrests and imprisonments as factions contended for dominance. The country's resources were also drained by the Soviet's SovRom agreements, which facilitated shipping of Romanian goods to the Soviet Union at nominal prices.
On 11 June 1948, all banks and large businesses were nationalized.
In the communist leadership, there appear to have been three important factions, all of them Stalinist, differentiated more by their respective personal histories than by any deep political or philosophical differences. Later historiography claimed to identify the following factions: the "Muscovites", notably Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca, who had spent the war in Moscow and the "Prison Communists", notably Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who had been imprisoned during the war.