Abstract
In 1956 Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’, the Polish unrest and the Hungarian uprising created the greatest unrest in Eastern Europe since the establishment of communism. The influence of those events was felt differently in the countries of the Soviet Bloc and local leaders adopted various tactics in their attempts to contain the challenge posed to the status quo by those proceedings. This chapter deals with the impact of Khrushchev’s speech in Romania. It attempts to identify the strategies adopted by the Romanian leadership to diminish its influence and to get rid of those who, using this opportunity, attacked the position of the general secretary of the Romanian Workers’ Party (RWP), Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. This specific episode has been examined by various scholars. Dennis Deletant analyses it as part of a larger investigation of the role played by the political police during the Gheorghiu-Dej regime, as one of the main charges lodged against him was of the use of terror and intimidation prior to 1956.1 Stelian Tănase and Vladimir Tismăneanu approach the events of 1956 in terms of individual and interest group conflicts within the party.2 This chapter focuses primarily on the investigation of the accusations regarding strictly the ‘personality cult’. Furthermore, it will explore the strategies adopted by Gheorghiu-Dej to restrain the consequences of the speech and its employment by his opponents.
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Notes
Dennis Deletant, Teroarea comunistă în România, Gheorghiu-Dej şi statul poliţienesc, 1948–1965 (Iaşi, 2001), pp. 194–7.
Stelian Tănase, Elite şi societate, Guvernarea Gheorghiu-Dej 1948–1965 (Bucharest, 1998), pp. 120–4;
Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political Histoly of Romanian Communism (Berkeley, Cal., 2003), pp. 142–4.
Scînteia, 25 October 1949, 1. For a comparative analysis of Stalin’s 70th birthday celebrations in the other socialist countries see Anders Aman, Architecture and Ideology in Eastern Europe during Stalin Era: An Aspect of Cold War History (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1992) p. 28.
Jeffrey Brooks. Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (Princeton, NJ, 2000) pp. 219–23. A first-hand account of the celebrations within the Soviet B loc can be found in the Cominform’s newspaper, Pentru o pace trainică, pentru democraţie populară, nos 9 December 1949, 16 December 1949, 21 December, 30 December 1949.
Michael Montias, Economic Development in Communist Rumania (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).
On the impact of Sovietisation upon Romanian culture in the late forties and the fifties see Marin Niţescu, Sub zodia proletcultismului (Bucharest, 1995)
and Ana Selejan, România în timpul primului război cultural (1944–1948), vol. I, Trădarea intelectualilor (Sibiu, 1992), vol. II, Reeducare şi prigoană (Sibiu, 1993).
See also Vladimir Tismăneanu, Arheologia terorii (Bucharest, 1992).
Vlad Georgescu, Istoria românilor: De la origini pîna în zilele noastre (Bucharest, 1992), p. 261. See for a more detailed account of the Romanian delegation’s participation to the Congress, Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, pp. 142–4.
Alina Tudor and Dan Cătănui, O destalinizare ratată, Culisele cazului Miron Constantinescu — Iosif Chişinevschi (Bucharest, 2001), p. 38.
Ibid., p. 13. See for the 1952 episode the following books of memoirs: Paul Sfetcu, 13 ani în anticamera lui Dej (Bucharest, 2000), p. 78;
Silviu Brucan, Generaţia irosită, Memorii (Bucharest, 1992), p. 60.
Georgescu, Istoria românilor, p. 246. See also Stephen Fischer-Galaţi, Twentieth Century Romania (New York, 1991), pp. 121–3;
For a detailed account of the trial see Robert Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist (Berkeley, Cal., 2001), pp. 194–219.
Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, p. 163; Ghiţă Ionescu, Communism in Romania, 1944–1962 (London, 1964), p. 284;
Kenneth Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development: The Case of Romania, 1944–1965 (Berkeley, Cal., 1971), p. 173.
Vladimir Tismăneanu, Fantoma lui Gheorghiu-Dej (Bucharest, 1995), pp. 115–18; Tănase, Elite şi societate, pp. 103–6.
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Mocanescu, A. (2004). Surviving 1956: Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and the ‘Cult of Personality’ in Romania. In: Apor, B., Behrends, J.C., Jones, P., Rees, E.A. (eds) The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230518216_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230518216_14
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