Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A itar
rh iv el e To t al
Academia Română
Arhivele Totalitarismului
EDITORIAL
Radu Ciuceanu
Istoria ca un balast, XXXIV ....................................................................................... 5
STUDII
Ion Iliescu
Emil Constantinescu
Alexandru-Murad Mironov
Ion Constantin
Felician Duică
Cristina Diac
O problemă controversată: Partidul Comunist şi rebeliunea legionară din ianuarie
1941. ....................................................................................................................... 67
1
Sumar
Ion Bălan
Elena Dragomir
Reacţii ale populaţiei româneşti în contextul evenimentelor din Ungaria, 1956, I .. 96
A.K. Sokolov
DOCUMENTE
Florin Şandru
Radu Ciuceanu
Octavian Roske
Vasile Buga
2
Sumar
MĂRTURII
DICŢIONARUL INSTITUŢIILOR
DICŢIONAR BIOGRAFIC
3
Sumar
BIBLIOTECA I.N.S.T.
AGENDA I.N.S.T.
COLEGIUL DE REDACŢIE
Ilie Bădescu, Gheorghe Buzatu, Ioan Chiper, acad. Florin
Constantiniu, acad. Nicolae Dabija, acad. Dinu C. Giurescu, Mihai
Golu, Armin Heinen, Vladimir Iliescu, Radu Ciuceanu, Gheorghe
Onişoru, Octavian Roske, Ioan Scurtu, Dumitru Şandru, acad. Ştefan
Ştefănescu, Florian Tănăsescu, acad. Răzvan Theodorescu, acad.
Dorel Zugrăvescu
4
CONTENTS.
SUMMARY.
CONTRIBUTORS.
Totalitarianism Archives
Review of the National Institute for
the Study of Totalitarianism
Volume XVIII Number 66-67 Autumn 2010
Editorial
RADU CIUCEANU, History as Ballast, XXXIV ......................................................... 5
Radu Ciuceanu, director of the N.I.S.T., president of the N.I.S.T. Scientific Council;
Ph.D. in history, former political prisoner. Also coordinates the research theme The
Encyclopedia of the Communist Regime in Romania, 1945-1989. The Anticommunist
Resistance. Recent book: The Katyn Massacres, N.I.S.T., 2008 (co-author).
Keywords: World War II, Soviet-American-British negotiations 1942.
Studies
ION ILIESCU, 1989 and the Importance of the Romanian Revolution.......................17
In a speech on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Revolution of December 1989,
held at the Romanian Academy in October 2009, the former President of Romania
(1990-1996 and 2000-2004) focuses mainly on the idea of a spontaneous popular revolt
which occurred in Romania in December 1989, in the international context of the end of
Eastern European communist regimes. The President emphasized that the revolutionary
image was overshadowed by the political disputes that followed, which revoked the
revolutionary individuality of December 1989 and accused the newly elected
government of 1990 of involvement in a political coup d’etat against the Communist
leadership, a coup disguised as revolution. Mr. Iliescu noted that the main opponents of
the idea of Revolution in December 1989 are precisely those who did not participate in
the revolts against Nicolae Ceauşescu’s government.
Ion Iliescu – Chairman of the Council of the National Salvation Front (22 December
1989), chairman of the Provisional Council of National Unity (January-May 1990);
president of Romania (1990-1992, 1992-1996, 2000-2004).
Keywords: 1989 Romanian Revolution, the end of Eastern European Communist regimes.
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documents and relevant articles from the time’s press to support his approach. With
several illustrative examples of treason or desertion motivated by the temptation of
power, the author notes that party switching existed also in the interwar period and in
the wake of World War II. Political migration stood and stands, in fact, for a way of
cheating and altering the election returns, the result often being an illegitimate majority
issued from a distortion of the democratic mechanisms.
Felician Duică has a Ph.D. in history; he was a research assistant with the National
Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism (2004-2006), and since 2006 he has been a
parliamentary adviser with the Chamber of Deputies Secretariat for parliamentary blocs
(the National Liberal Party bloc). Volume published: Solidarnosc: the Polish Revenge,
NIST, 2007 (coordinator).
Keywords: political migration, interwar period, World War II.
CRISTINA DIAC, A Controversial Issue: The Communist Party and the Legionary
Rebellion of January 1941..............................................................................................67
According to certain interpretations, the communists were involved in the unrest of
January 21-23, backing the Legionaries against Ion Antonescu. The fact is proved with
documents from the time’s authorities, the Police, the secret services, the intelligence
services. Just as in the case of other marginal groups, the group of career revolutionaries
was attributed the force and coherence the communists were dreaming of, although they
never had it. Striking in this situation is the fact that the documents issued at the time by
the communist party almost ignored the events, few specific details being provided
about the days of the Rebellion. The political guidelines Stefan Foris conveyed to the
communists in Romania clearly indicate that the party had never intended to participate
in any unrest, no matter what kind. In the documents drafted right after the rebellion, the
Communist leadership admitted that the cadre shortage and the insufficient followers of
the party did not allow it to get involved in the events.
Cristina Diac is Ph.D. student, University of Bucharest; assistant researcher with NIST. MA
in History, University of Bucharest.
Keywords: January 1941 Legionary Rebellion, Romanian Communist Party.
ION BĂLAN, The “Socialist Transformation of Agriculture” in Mihailesti District,
1950-1956.......................................................................................................................82
Ion Balan’s article surveys the way the collectivization was implemented locally, using
the Mihailesti district of Bucharest region as an example. The author insists on how
difficult it was to set up collective farms and then on the problems the new farms came
across, especially as the peasants tacitly refused to support the collectivization.
Ion Bălan has a Ph.D. in history and works for the Contemporary Archives Division of
the Directorate of the Central National Historical Archives. Recent volume: A
Monograph of Gogosari Commune, Pelican Publishers, 2008 (co-author).
Keywords: collectivization, collective farms, peasants opposition to collectivization.
ELENA DRAGOMIR, Reactions of the Romanian Population in the Context of the
Hungarian Revolution, 1956 ..........................................................................................96
The scientific literature focusing on the subject of Romanian reactions in the context of
the 1956 Hungarian Revolution has emphasized the lack of any significant
anticommunist manifestations, except the student riots. Accepting this conclusion, the
article draws the analytical distinctions between antigovernment and anticommunist
reactions, showing that the antigovernment manifestations were widespread in October-
November 1956 in Romania, while the anticommunist manifestations were indeed few.
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Using the instruments of the critical discourse analysis, this study advances new
perspectives and hypotheses in the research of the 1956 Romanian communism. The
article also advances several explanations as to why these reactions did not evolve into
anticommunist mass movements.
Elena Dragomir – Ph.D. student at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social
Sciences, Department of Social Science History; associate research scholar with The
Finnish Graduate School for Russian and East European Studies, Aleksanteri Institute,
Helsinki University.
Keywords: 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Communism, studen riots in Romania.
CRISTIAN RĂDUŢ, Regarding the Withdrawal from Romania of the Soviet
Occupation Troops in the Summer of 1958 ..................................................................111
The article briefly reveals some of the main actions that established the Soviet military
occupation in Romania from World War II until the summer of 1958 and also surveys
the steps that made it possible for this event to take place successfully, which would
undoubtedly foster a new direction in Romanian politics. Except subsequently Albania,
the Romanian People's Republic was the only member country of the Warsaw Treaty
from which the Soviet Union withdrew its troops. Also on this issue there are different
views: was it the result of the subtlety of the Romanian Workers' Party leadership,
especially Gheorghiu-Dej, as evidenced in memoirs, or higher was the economic and
military purpose of the Soviet Union, especially Nikita Khrushchev, as researchers
considered in terms of studying the Romanian and Soviet archival sources?
Cristian Răduţ is a graduate from the University of Craiova, Faculty of History and a
Ph.D. candidate.
Keywords: 1958 Soviet troops withdrawal, Romanian Worker’s Party, Romanian politics.
A.K. SOKOLOV, New Approaches in Russian Contemporary History .....................122
The study analyses the evolution of Russian historiography after 1990, focusing on the
subjects that were approached by scholars and made the object of many studies: political
history. He shows that political history, although a tradition among Russian academia,
slowly is losing interest. A new generation of historians is involved in new approaches,
mainly influenced by social history and its methods. Despite the continuing publication of
documents related to political history, the public shows growing interest to the history(-
ies) of women, youth, childhood e.g., in pre-Revolutionary Russia or during Soviet times.
A. K. Sokolov has a Ph.D. in history; research scholar with the Russia History Institute
of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords: Russian historiography, political history, social history.
Documents
FLORIN ŞANDRU, The Comintern and the Romanian Communists as Seen by the
Police Department of the Capital City, 1941, I ............................................................129
The article reproduces the first part of a work compiled in 1941 by police commissioner
Nicolae Turcu in connection with the origin, aim and action methods of the Comintern and
the latter’s relationship with the Communist Party in Romania. Comprising information
about the communist movement Nicolae Turcu had collected throughout his career, the work
is important no so much for its the disclosures but because it reveals the capacity of the
Romanian political police to understand the overall communist phenomenon.
Florin Şandru – Research assistant with NIST; Ph.D. student, the University of Craiova.
Keywords: Comintern, Romanian Communist Party, political police.
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Testimonies
FLORIN-RĂZVAN MIHAI, Memories about the Last International Meeting of the
Communist and Worker Parties (5-17 June 1969) .......................................................196
Between 5-17 June 1969, as the Soviet hegemony in the Communist world was
endangered by China, Moscow hosted the international meeting of communist and
worker parties. Attending the proceedings for the Romanian Communist Party was a
delegation led by Nicolae Ceausescu, secretary general of the Central Committee of
the RCP; the delegation was made up of members of the party leadership, activists in
the field of the press and propaganda, journalists and translators. The article has three
parts: an introductory study about the Sino-Soviet tensions and the holding of the
above-mentioned conference, and the memoirs, related to this theme, of Ion Bucheru
(editor-in-chief of daily Informaţia Bucureştiului) and Romulus Căplescu (editor with
the Agerpres news agency), who attended the event on behalf of the Romanian press.
Florin-Răzvan Mihai is research assistant with NIST. MA in International Relations,
Faculty of History, University of Bucharest.
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Dictionary of Institutions
DAN CĂTĂNUŞ, The State Committee on Collection of Agricultural Produce .......212
The State Committee on Collection of Agricultural Produce was the main body through
which the communist regime organized the collection of the mandatory quotas from
peasants. In June 1948 a State Commission on Collection of Grain was set up, and on
February 18, 1950 it was replaced by the State Committee on Collection of Agricultural
Produce, based on a Soviet model. It was officially dismantled on February 1, 1957,
when a State Committee for the Capitalization of Agricultural Produce was set up.
Dan Cătănuş, has a Ph.D. in history, is senior researcher with N.I.S.T.; Recent book:
Romanian Intellectuals in the Communism Archives, Nemira, 2006 (co-author).
Keywords: collection of agricultural produce, Communist institutions.
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N.I.S.T. LIBRARY
Authors .....................................................................................................................276
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