Communist Romania

The Soviets pressed for inclusion of Romania's heretofore negligible Communist Party in the post-war government, while non-communist political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. King Michael abdicated under pressure in December 1947, when the Romanian People's Republic was declared, and went into exile.

Internecine struggle

The early years of Communist rule in Romania were marked by repeated changes of course and by mass arrests and imprisonments, as factions contended for dominance. In 1948 the earlier agrarian reform was reversed, replaced by a move toward collective farms. This led to tens of thousands of arrests, as did the effort to liquidate the Uniate Church. On June 11, 1948, all banks and large businesses were nationalized. Romania developed a system of forced labor and political prisons similar to the Soviet Union, with an estimated 100,000 forced laborers dying in an unsuccessful effort to build a Danube?Black Sea Canal.

Related Topics:
1948 - Collective farm - Uniate Church - June 11 - Danube?Black Sea Canal

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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:

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• The "Muscovites," notably Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca, had spent the war in Moscow.
• The "Prison Communists," notably Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, had been imprisoned during the war.
• The somewhat less firmly Stalinist "Secretariat Communists," notably Lucre?iu P?tr??canu had made it through the Antonescu years by hiding within Romania and had participated in the broad governments immediately after King Michael's 1944 coup.

Ultimately, with Stalin's backing, and probably due in part to the anti-Semitic policies of late Stalinism (Pauker was Jewish), Gheorghiu-Dej and the "Prison Communists" won out. Pauker was purged from the party (along with 192,000 other party members); P?tr??canu was executed after a show trial.

Related Topics:
Stalin - Jewish - Show trial

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