slovo, vol. 20, No.

1, 2008, 1–16

Europeans against Europe: the practice

of foreign isolationism and seclusion
in Stalinist Romania
CEZAR STANCIU
University Valahia of Targoviste

The confrontations of the Cold War had a dramatic impact on Romania’s

foreign relations. The Communist regime, following Moscow’s instructions
and trying to preserve its security, severed all connections with the West.
Two primary factors originating outside of Romania itself contributed to the
country’s foreign isolationism: Soviet influence and mutual antagonism
with the West. In the context of the wider anti-cosmopolitan campaign,
counteracting Western influence at every level was viewed as a guarantor of
security. The explication of these influences reveals how exogenous factors
contributed to the radical change in Romanian foreign policy.

Introduction
The Sovietization of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War caused
a complete break from the relations these countries had with Western Europe through-
out modern history. The Communist elites brought to power in East European
countries were far removed from the societies of which they were taking control.
Their primary support came from the Red Army, which occupied these territories,
and from the political influence of the Soviet Union.1 Such factors led to the complete
submission of local Communist elites to the Kremlin.
Starting in 1947, Moscow abandoned the previous strategy of communization,
which allowed for multiple national paths towards socialism. Instead, the Kremlin
imposed its unique model of socialism, Bolshevism.2 The implementation of the
Bolshevik model, a radical and revolutionary rhetoric inspired by the Marxist-
Leninist ideology and summarized by Andrei Zhdanov at the Cominform meeting of
1947, erased any trace of continuity in Romanian foreign policy.3
1
Stelian Tănase, Elite şi societate. Guvernarea Gheorghiu-Dej 1948–1965, (Bucharest: Editura Humanitas, 1998),
p. 37.
2
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc. Unity and Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967),
pp. 80–81.
3
Andrei Jdanov, ‘Despre situat‚ia internat‚ională: Raport făcut la Consfătuirea informativă a reprezentant‚ilor
unor Partide Comuniste, ce a avut loc la sfârşitul lunii septembrie 1947 în Polonia’ (Report on the international
Situation), (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Comunist Român, 1947), pp. 16–18.

© School of Slavonic & East European Studies, DOI 10.1179/000000000X00000 1

University College London, 2008

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 2 CEZAR STANCIU

The change of Soviet strategies from national paths to socialism to uniformity in

the process compromised all chance for dialogue.4 In the Soviet perspective, the West
was divided into two groups: the Communists, who deserved attention and trust from
Moscow, and the others — the bourgeoisie, politicians, exploiters, enemies of the
working class, etc. — with whom dialogue was useless. Here Cominternist radicalism
was extended to international relations perspectives in the cleavage between two dif-
ferent attitudes: those who love the Soviet Union must hate the West and those who
love the West must hate the Soviet Union.5 Such a simplistic mode of thought left no
room for interaction and compromise. Therefore, the break from the West did not
only mean separation, but enmity as well. The binary logic did not allow neutral
sides. The perception of enmity is translated as a negative reaction towards Western
Europe, which acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hostile actions, justified by ideologi-
cal perception, generate hostile reactions, thus forming a perpetual cycle.6 Fiction and
reality intermingle until fiction replaces reality.
As Western Europe was seen as a source of enmity and hostility, the only reliable
support for the Romanian regime came from the Soviet Union and the other people’s
democracies, the so-called community of Socialist states. All Soviet satellites adopted
these ideas as the basis for their policy towards the West. Europe became a theatre
of ideological and historical antinomy, which Communists used to explain Eastern
Europe’s historical evolution. As Dimitrov stated in 1948, the Balkans owes its unfor-
tunate past of inner-struggle solely to ‘Imperialist machinations’. The peoples of the
Balkans had been enslaved by Western European imperialists, with the support of the
local bourgeoisie, and had turned against one another. According to Dimitrov,
the national and social liberation brought on by the proletarian revolution banished
the bourgeoisie, giving power to the people and putting an end to imperialist plots.
Thus, the Balkans, according to Dimitrov, had a new brilliant future of friendship
and cooperation in a kind of Socialist brotherhood.7
The social liberation against imperialism started to take on a specifically anti-
European tone, as is apparent in propaganda blaming the West for Eastern Europe
being in a backwards stage of development. It was argued that these countries,
with their differing economic profiles, could help each other on the basis of com-
plementary features to overcome underdevelopment.8 Obsession with economic
development was a traditional feature of East European political thought, which
the Communist regimes inherited.9 As Hugh Seton-Watson argues, Lenin had a dual
political goal: both social and national liberation, due to Marx’s legacy and the
Russian intelligentsia of the nineteenth century.10
4
Eduard Mark, Revolution by Degrees: Stalin’s National Front Strategy for Europe 1941–1947, Working Paper
no. 31 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2001), p. 42.
5
Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961), p. 400.
6
Patrick Major and Rana Mitter, ‘East is East and West is West? Towards a Comparative Socio-Cultural
History of the Cold War’, Cold War History, 4 (2003) 1–23 (p. 7).
7
Scânteia, 15 January 1948
8
V. Carra, ‘Rolul t‚ărilor de democrat‚ie populară în economia Europei’, Probleme Externe, 2 (1948), 20–41
(p. 41).
9
Silviu Brucan, Generat‚ia irosită: Memorii (Bucharest: Editurile Universul şi Calistrat Hogaş, 1992), p. 253. See
also Kenneth Jowitt, The New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1992), p. 12.
10
Seton-Watson, pp. 412–413.

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 3

The exacerbation of the conflict in the early Cold War period of 1947–1953 had
detrimental consequences for Romania’s relations with its former Western European
allies. During its nation and state building process, Romania had developed close
cultural and political relations with Western European countries, especially France.
Romania’s domestic modernization programme in the nineteenth century was an
emulation of the French model. Later, in the inter-war period, Romania’s security
policy depended greatly upon its relations with Western European countries, guaran-
teed by the Versailles system. These traditional links were dramatically severed after
World War II. This article will identify aspects of the absolute and irreconcilable
enmity that developed between Romania and Western Europe in this early stage of
the Cold War. Although the United States played a very important role in the
Communist discourse towards the West, this paper will focus only on Western
Europe due to the strong political and cultural ties that connected Romania and
Western Europe during the previous century. This article demonstrates that, despite
its traditions, the regime in Romania did perceive Western Europe as hostile and
responded to this perceived threat by practising isolationism and seclusion in relation
to the outside world. By adopting the Bolshevik model of Socialist construction as the
only viable model, this approach was ideologically justified. This global outlook of
the implacable animosity between socialism and capitalism was fully embraced by the
Communist regime in Romania as the only objective truth.

The Bolshevik Model of Socialist Construction

With the assistance of Soviet councillors and cadres instructed by Moscow, the
Stalinist model was closely emulated in economics, politics, society, and culture in all
countries under direct Soviet influence. This model prescribed rapid industrialization,
the collectivisation of agriculture in economic policy, and a uniform configuration of
society and politics under Marxist-Leninist ideology enforced by the Party. Staliniza-
tion involved transplanting these features to East European countries with the help
of the state apparatus dominated by Communist elites. This occurred despite the
absence of any revolutionary movement to legitimate its implementation, as had
occurred in Russia.11 These factors generated a strict dependence of local Communists
on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Following the CPSU model, all
Communist parties functioned as isolated oligarchic systems with closed institutional
practices, engaged with the utopian project of Socialist construction.12 In their efforts
to achieve this goal, the Communist parties would use the Stalinist model as their
only reference and, therefore, would remain isolated from the societies they were
supposedly representing.
The Romanian Communist regime, absorbing Soviet rhetoric as Communist
parties in the satellite countries did, defined itself as a ‘people’s democracy’.
Ideologically, a people’s democracy differed from a bourgeois democracy due to one
fundamental feature: the social class holding political power was not the bourgeoisie,

11
Giuseppe Boffa, The Stalin Phenomenon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 159.
12
Mircea Chirit‚oiu, ‘Democrat‚iile populare sub tutela stalinismului 1950–1953’, Arhivele Totalitarismului,
3 (2000), 89–96 (p. 89–90).

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 4 CEZAR STANCIU

but rather the proletariat and working peasants. The Communist Party, as an inter-
mediary, exercised this political power, proclaiming itself as the revolutionary avant-
garde of the toiling masses. This expression was first used by Iosip Broz Tito in
a 1945 speech, whilst East European countries still had coalition governments in
power13. Marxist-Leninist ideology claims that the transition from capitalism to
socialism occurs through a dictatorship of the proletariat. However, in the context of
the uncertain domestic situations faced by the coalition governments, dictatorships of
the proletariat were not possible at the time. The concept of people’s democracy was
therefore called upon to explain a new type of political regime, different from the
Soviet one due to one essential feature: a broad coalition including progressive
bourgeois elements. In November 1946, Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka affirmed
that Poland was not a dictatorship of the proletariat and would, moreover, achieve
socialism without going through such a phase.14
This moderate ‘national front’ approach was justified by the USSR’s imperative to
maintain good relations with its Western allies. After 1947 the complete deterioration
of the international situation led Stalin towards a different strategy for Eastern
Europe, one of complete uniformity and homogeneity. As a result, the theoretical
substance of the ‘people’s democracy’ concept would be further explained by two
leading Communists, G. Dimitrov and Joszef Revai, in terms completely different to
before. Revai stated in 1949 that the people’s democracy represented the dictatorship
of the proletariat without the Soviet model. Accordingly, he claimed that people’s
democracies were established through the people’s liberation struggle. In the first
stage this struggle had a national, anti-fascist character, later becoming a social
struggle for liberation against the reign of the bourgeoisie and landlords. This trans-
formation occurred under the influence of the Red Army, which created the premises
for social liberation. The Cominform also played a vital role because of the guidance
it offered. It showed that the fight should not stop, but must continue until all forms
of exploitation were liquidated.15 Therefore, the concept of people’s democracy,
though initially appearing as a form of compromise between the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the coalition with bourgeois parties, in the end was identified
completely with the dictatorship of the proletariat. The assumption and application
of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the Communist parties were indispensable
components of the Bolshevik model after the concept of national roads to Socialism
was abandoned.
Stalin defined the dictatorship of the proletariat as an instrument of the proletari-
ans’ revolution that was meant to fulfil two primary objectives: the liquidation of all
resistance from former exploiters overthrown from power and the facilitation of the
construction of socialism. The revolution, in Stalin’s view, overthrew the capitalist
exploiters from power, but their resistance must be quashed entirely through liquida-
tion during the dictatorship of the proletariat.16 The idea came from one of Lenin’s
books written in 1917 in which, following in Engels’ footsteps, Lenin endeavoured to

13
Brzezinski, pp. 24–25
14
Brzezinski, pp. 24–26.
15
Anonymous, ‘The Character of a “People’s Democracy”’, Foreign Affairs, (1949), 143–152 (pp. 145–147).
16
I. V. Stalin, Problemele leninismului (Moscow: Editura în Limbi Străine, 1940), pp. 40–41.

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 5

define the relationship between the state and the revolution.17 Marxism proclaimed
that the victory of socialism would unavoidably lead to the disappearance of the state.
Lenin, on the other hand, argued that between capitalism and socialism there lies a
long period of transition in which the state is necessary to repress and liquidate the
exploiters and ensure the ultimate victory of the toiling masses. Consequently, the
state was necessary during the transition period, in order to ensure the dictatorship
of the proletariat.18 This meant, by Lenin’s definition, democracy for the majority of
people and repression for the exploiters. This difference was destined to disappear
as the transition to socialism was completed. Until then, the dictatorship of the
proletariat involved mobilization accompanied by a necessary restriction of civil
liberties.19
The Romanian Communist regime considered itself a dictatorship of the
proletariat of the Marxist-Leninist model:
The imposition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Romania confirmed once again
that there is no other way of passing from Capitalism to Socialism but the one showed
by Marxist-Leninism and verified by the historical experience of CPSU and of the broth-
erly parties from the other people’s democracies. The way is to overthrow the exploiting
classes from the political leadership and the instauration of the working class power.20

As a dictatorship of the proletariat, the regime in Romania performed three main

functions: repressing the exploiters overthrown from power, defending the revolu-
tionary gains of the proletariat against imperialist manoeuvres, and preparing the
socio-economic conditions for the construction of Socialism.21
After 1948, due to the change in its tactics, the Soviet Union endeavoured to bring
the satellite states in line, making them completely uniform in order to enhance
Moscow’s control over them. The Bolshevik model of socialism’s construction thus
became an ideological instrument of uniformity. The basic principle consisted of the
so-called ‘bolshevization’ of the Communist parties. This involved a complete reor-
ganization of the parties in order to become parties of the ‘new type’: revolutionary
parties, differing from bourgeois parties through their inherent task of producing
revolutionary transformations of society. The reorganization relied on the application
of the Bolshevik experience in all fields. It was believed that:
A continuous study and assumption of the Bolshevik experience is an indispensable
condition for strengthening the Communist parties. No matter what peculiarities may
exist in each country, the general principles of Bolshevism are valid for all countries.
Forgetting or ignoring the historical experience of the CPSU unavoidably leads to fatal
consequences.22

17
V. I. Lenin, Opere, vol. XXV (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatură Politică, 1954), pp. 375–485.
18
Lenin, p. 455.
19
ibid. See also Mihailo Marhović, ‘Stalinism and Marxism’, in Stalinis: Essays in Historical Interpretation, ed.
by Robert C. Tucker (New York: WW Norton, 1977), pp. 313–314.
20
Lect‚ii în ajutorul celor care studiază istoria PMR (Bucharest: Editura Politică, 1960), pp. 563–564.
21
ibid. p. 564.
22
E. Burdjalov, ‘Important‚a internat‚ională a experient‚ei istorice a Partidului Bolşevic’, Probleme Externe,
6 (1948), 7–20 (p. 7).

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 6 CEZAR STANCIU

The theory admitted that the situation of the people’s democracies working
towards socialist societies was remarkably different from the situation in Soviet
Union, for the simple fact that people’s democracies were not isolated and could
benefit from the Soviet experience. The importance of the Soviet experience was seen
as fundamental: ‘the general laws of transition from Capitalism to Socialism, dis-
covered by Marx and Engels, verified and developed by Lenin and Stalin based on the
experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state, are valid for all countries.’23
The ideology demanded a scientific character and that is why, once they were con-
firmed by practice, the laws became compulsory, for they were considered unique.
The law could not be changed in relation to local conditions, although these con-
ditions could differ. Henceforth, the law applied in the USSR was accepted as valid
and compulsory everywhere.
The process of the ‘bolshevization’ of all Communist parties was initiated at the
Fifth Comintern Congress in 1924, when the Stalin–Zinoviev–Kamenev troika was
engaged in a terrible row with Trotsky. The Resolution of the Congress specified that
all parties must adopt the methods and practices of the Bolshevik Party, as the only
ones verified on a historical scale. This meant, in turn, that the Communist parties
of Europe were subjugated to Moscow’s control.24 After the Comintern was dissolved
in 1943, the idea became secondary, along with relinquishing revolutionary rhetoric.
The concept of ‘bolshevization’ was resurrected in 1948 through the East European
Communist parties.
Drawing upon the Bolshevik experience in socialist construction, cooperating with
the CPSU, and using its experience, were considered indispensable conditions for
a successful construction of socialism in Romania. The Party’s official newspaper
Scânteia stressed the idea that:
[Our] friendship with the USSR is the guarantee of a successful construction of Socialism
in our country. The help given to us by the Soviet Union, in the framework of the new
type of relations cultivated by the Stalinist policy toward the people’s democracies is a
Socialist and brotherly help.25

The transformation project assumed by the Party was therefore dependent on Soviet
assistance. Concurrently, resisting imperialist aggressions was inconceivable without
Soviet help. In the People’s Republic of Romania, according to Gheorghiu-Dej, the
Bolshevik experience was the starting point for construction of a Socialist system.26

Foreign Isolationism and the Enemy Within

Anti-cosmopolitan campaigns of the period were inherent components of Communist
uniformity, meant to increase the control in two directions: Moscow over the local
Communists and the local regime over society. Activists of the Foreign Policy Section
(FPS) of the Central Committee of the CPSU visited the people’s democracies in May
23
Burdjalov, p. 20.
24
Leszek Kołakovski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origin, Growth and Dissolution, vol. III (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 109.
25
Scânteia, nr. 1617/27.12.1949.
26
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Marea Revolut‚ie Socialistă din Octombrie a arătat oamenilor muncii din lumea
întreagă căile de eliberare de sub jugul imperialist (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1949),
p. 20.

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 7

1949 and reached the conclusion that the local Communist parties had not under-
taken sufficient measures to control information, to prevent the infiltration of West-
ern propaganda, and to fight ‘Imperialist machinations’.27 The anti-cosmopolitan
campaigns functioned as instruments for information control and the removal of
Western influences from culture and collective memories.28
Even during 1945–1946, Moscow was preoccupied with the flow of information to
and from the Soviet Union. In November 1945, Soviet authorities introduced the first
drastic restrictions on the freedom of expression for foreign press correspondents in
Moscow. Later, in August 1946, Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov (Minister for State
Security) and Anatoly Kuznetsov (Secretary of the CC) proposed very restrictive con-
ditions on subscriptions to foreign publications by Soviet citizens or institutions. They
expressed great concerns as to how easily such publications entered the Soviet Union
without any filter.29 The anti-cosmopolitan campaign reflected the need to counteract
foreign influence, due mainly to the Soviet populations’ close contact with Western
countries during World War II, in particular its soldiers. The central target of the
campaign was the ‘anti-patriots’: those under Western influence or with Western
sympathies. Molotov would publicly condemn, in 1947, what he called ‘prostration’
in front of Western culture. During the same year, the Writers’ Union leadership was
summoned to the Kremlin to debate the idea of ‘Soviet patriotism.30
The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was launched at the end of 1948, when, at a meet-
ing of the Writers’ Union, a number of theatre critics who had expressed negative
comments regarding a few plays, were harshly condemned for ‘Western prostration’
and ‘anti-patriotism’. The Party newspaper Pravda adopted this stance and published,
at the beginning of 1949, a series of articles denouncing ‘rootless cosmopolitans’.31
The theme was loudly endorsed by the press of the Romanian Party, as well as by all
other people’s democracies.
Gheorghiu-Dej warned against the danger represented by hostile elements within
the population who were not loyal to the regime and maintained intimate connections
abroad. Imperialism, in Gheorghiu-Dej’s opinion, recruits its agents from the inside
and aims to undermine the Party and the successes of the people’s regime. In order
to prevent this, extraordinary vigilance was required to unmask the ‘class enemy’:
[The imperialists] recruit bourgeois and petit-bourgeois elements, fascist gutters, corrupt
faltering and backward elements from within the working people, turn into their
informers any babblers who do not know how to keep a party and state secret, they
manipulate unsatisfied elements.32
27
Tatiana Pokivailova, ‘Problema controlului asupra informat‚iilor în contextul politicii represive a Kremlinului
şi a partidelor comuniste din t‚ările Europei de Est’, in Analele Sighet 7. Anii 1949–1953: Mecanismele terorii,
ed. by Romulus Rusan (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civică, 1999), pp. 418–425 (p. 420).
28
Harold Wydra, Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),
pp. 220–221.
29
Dzhahangir G. Nadzhafov, ‘The Beginning of the Cold War Between East and West: the Aggravation of the
Ideological Confrontation’, Cold War History 2 (2004), 140–174 (pp. 143–146).
30
Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, ‘From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism: Stalin and the Impact
of the Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaigns on Soviet Culture’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 1 (2002), 66–80
(pp. 67–68).
31
Werner G. Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation 1947–1953,
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 119.
32
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Vigilent‚a revolut‚ionară a popoarelor în lupta pentru socialism (Bucharest: Editura
Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1951), p. 8.

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 8 CEZAR STANCIU

In Gheorghiu-Dej’s view, the main ideological weapon of the class enemy was
bourgeois nationalism. Through nationalism, chauvinistic sentiments were infused
into the working class. For a successful victory of socialism, it would be necessary to
fight bitterly against cosmopolitan tendencies:
The enemy uses, especially among intellectuals, poisoned ideas of cosmopolitanism. As
the facts show, cosmopolitanism is the anti-chamber of Imperialist espionage. Cosmo-
politans with no homeland easily fall in the arms of Anglo-American espionage. This is
why, the fight against nationalism and cosmopolitanism is an essential part of the fight
for Socialism.33

Romanian Party propaganda fervently cultivated a strongly anti-Western xenophobia

in parallel with the russification of culture. Confronting international challenges
required the feelings of self-confidence and self-sufficiency in order to offer the
masses extra pugnacity in the struggle against the ‘class enemy’.34
In order to protect the Party from the menace represented by such elements,
purification was considered necessary, which entailed verification of credentials and
the removal of all cosmopolitan and opportunistic elements. The verification of the
Party cadres started at the unification Congress of February 1948, which was part of
a trend seen in all Communist parties of Eastern Europe.35 It was conducted using
the model of the Stalinist purges and its beginning was marked by Gomulka’s
removal in Poland.36 The purges had an ‘educative’ role, initiating cadres in the
Stalinist practices whilst also annihilating any independent or individual initiatives.
This was done to strengthen the Party’s unity. Those members who did not have a
Cominternist background and were not informed of the ‘great purges’ were espe-
cially targeted. In most of the satellite countries, public trials took place following
the model of the 1930s show trials in Moscow.37 Many Party leaders like László
Rajk, Traicio Kostov, and Rudolf Slanski were convicted of various charges. All
accusations brought against them involved charges of Titoism with Anglo-American
espionage. Rajk, for example, was accused of facilitating the infiltration of Yugoslav
spies, who were in the service of the Anglo-American espionage, into Hungary. Titoist
propaganda, according to the accusations, was an Anglo-American instrument meant
to undermine the people’s democracies.38 The propaganda cultivated the idea of the
malefic nature of any connections one may have had with both Tito and Titoism, and
with the British or Americans. Practically, this was intended to raise suspicions
amongst the Party members and the society in regard to any connection with the
outside world.

33
Gheorghiu-Dej, Vigilent‚a revolut‚ionară, p. 14.
34
Alina Ilinca and Liviu Marius Bejenaru, ‘Spiono-manie şi controlul informat‚iilor în perioada stalinizării
României (1948–1953)’, Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Contemporană 5 (2006), 121–152 (pp. 124–125).
35
In February 1948, the Romanian Communist Party and the Social-Democratic Party unified, forming the
Romanian Workers Party under Communist control.
36
Mircea Chirit‚oiu, ‘Cum s-a impus modelul stalinist 1948–1953’, Document. Buletinul Arhivelor Militare,
2 (1998), 64–70 (p. 69).
37
Marius Oprea, ‘Comuniştii români sub control sovietic’, in Analele Sighet 5. Anul 1947 — Căderea Cortinei,
ed. by Romulus Rusan (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civică, 1997), 105–150 (p. 117).
38
‘Actul de acuzare în procesul de trădare al lui Laszlo Rajk’, Probleme Externe, 9 (1949), 69–74 (p. 71).

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 9

The verification of members of the Romanian Workers Party was performed by

special committees between 1948–1950 and resulted in the expulsion of more than
190,000 members from the Party. A large number of the expelled were the extreme-
rightist factions welcomed into the Party in 1945, at Ana Pauker’s initiative, as well
as opportunists who joined the party in hope of future benefits. Some of the former
Iron Guardists had also joined the Communist Party in an attempt to escape punish-
ment. The verifications were intended to expel these elements, but also to improve
the social composition of the party, in which workers were far from constituting a
majority. Moreover, strengthening the party line and increasing homogeneity and
discipline also served to enhance the transmission of decisions to local organizations
and tightened Party control over state institutions.39
The Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee in July 1950 adopted a resolution
that confirmed the expulsion of twenty percent of Party members labelled as ‘exploit-
ing elements’.40 The Stalinist obsession with the infiltration of the class enemy within
the Party became more intense after the Soviet-Yugoslav split. In 1951, a government
decision established Special Bureaus, under the control of the Securitate, in all state
institutions for the protection of secret documents. The spy-mania was a complemen-
tary feature of the purge campaign, best exemplified by Matyas Rakosi’s claim of a
‘unique network of espionage in all people’s democracies’ announced during the Rajk
trial.41
The entire process of verification and purification was accompanied domestically
by strong political repression. In August 1948, the General Direction of the People’s
Security (Securitate) was established and a year later special Securitate troops
were created as well. Article 209 of the Criminal Code of 1948 mentions the crime of
plotting against the social order.42 In January 1950, a new governmental decision
established labour colonies with the publicly declared purpose of ‘re-educating hostile
elements’, or those who had tried to jeopardize the people’s democracy regime.
In April 1950, a new law was introduced to punish those who spread alarmist or
hostile rumours, listened to or disseminated ‘hostile propaganda’ from imperialist
radio stations, or brought offence to the People’s Republic of Romania or the Soviet
Union. The law also punished citizens who had any connection with foreign embas-
sies or cultural institutions. The crime of grand treason was extended to those who
committed economic sabotage, which was made punishable by death.43

Virulent Animosity with the West

Both the Zhdanovist view of world affairs and the insecurity felt by the Romanian
regime internationally contributed to a complete breakdown in Romania’s relations

39
Mioara Anton, ‘Dinamica reorganizărilor în PMR (1948–1953)’, Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Contemporană,
3 (2004), 95–107 (pp. 95–98). For further details see Nicoleta Ionescu-Gură, ‘Verificarea membrilor Partidului
Muncitoresc Român’, Arhivele Securităt‚ii, 1 (2004), 326–348.
40
Rezolut‚ii şi Hotărîri ale Comitetului Central al Partidului Muncitoresc Român 1948–1950 (Bucharest: Editura
Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1951), pp. 240.
41
Ilinca and Bejenaru, pp. 126–140.
42
Ion Bălan, Regimul concentrat‚ionar din România 1945–1964, (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civică, 2000),
pp. 64–67.
43
Bălan, pp. 79–81.

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 10 CEZAR STANCIU

with Western countries, perpetuating for many years a situation of mistrust and
hostility between Romania and the West. Romania’s requests for acceptance to the
United Nations and other international organizations were met with constant oppo-
sition from Western governments. The regime suffered from a major absence of credi-
bility given the circumstances surrounding its ascension to power. The animosity
between Romania and West European countries grew stronger after 1948, due to the
total support Romania granted to all Soviet initiatives, mutual suspicion between
Romania and the West, and Romanian domestic policies, such as the nationalization
of property. The act of nationalization negatively affected the interests of many
Western countries.
Numerous Western governments responded to Romania’s nationalization of pro-
perty by adopting harsh measures against the Romanian government. For example,
the Swiss government decided, in the summer of 1948, to freeze all Romanian state
accounts held in Swiss banks. The funds amounted to fifteen tons of gold and five
million dollars. The government of Switzerland informed the Romanian authorities
that the measures were necessary because its interests had been badly affected by
Romania’s nationalization policy and the People’s Republic of Romania’s refusal to
meet the Swiss demands for compensation.44 For the Romanian regime, this was a
very difficult issue, as the money was necessary for immediate purchases abroad,
which could not be delayed, such as technology for the reconstruction of industry.
Nonetheless, as Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Minister of Foreign Trade, explained in a
Politburo meeting, to offer compensation for Switzerland would encourage other
countries to demand similar compensations. Gheorghiu-Dej strongly opposed the
idea of compensation, labelling the Swiss actions as nothing short of blackmail. He
believed that if Romania constantly refused to pay compensation, Switzerland would
eventually renounce its claims to compensation.45
Similar demands were voiced by other countries whose citizens held property
and assets in Romania that were lost during Romania’s nationalization process.
The United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands sent official notes of protest
claiming that the Romanians had discriminated against Western interests in favour
of Soviet interests in their nationalization policy. In the spring of 1949, the British
government threatened that if Romania did not acquiesce their requests for compen-
sation, Britain would proceed to take similar measures to the Swiss and freeze
Romanian funds held in British banks.46 London demanded approximately twenty
million pounds for a loan obtained by Romania from Britain in 1939, which Ion
Antonescu refused to pay in 1941,47 as well as compensation for British citizens who
had lost property in Romania.48
Like the Swiss and the British, the French also demanded five hundred million
dollars, which the French government estimated to be the amount of French interests
affected by the Romanian nationalization program, and another one hundred million
44
Stenogramele şedint‚elor Biroului Politic şi ale Secretariatului Comitetului Central al PMR, vol. I 1948,
(Bucharest: Arhivele Nat‚ionale ale României, 2002), p. 182
45
ibid. p. 183.
46
ibid. pp. 209–210.
47
Between 1941–1944 Romania was at war with the Allies, due to its alliance with Nazi Germany and its
participation in the anti-Soviet war.
48
ANIC (National Historical Archives of Romania), fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 25/1953. Referat M.A.E,
pp. 35–37.

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 11

dollars for the Romanian public debt owed to France.49 The Swedish government
also made such demands. Besides demands for compensation of almost one million
dollars, the estimation of Swedish assets lost due to the Romanian nationalization
program, Sweden also demanded four million dollars for an industrial contract from
the 1930s, which was annulled by a Romanian court in 1947.50
In addition to the pressures at the governmental level, the Romanian regime also
felt as though it was under a permanent propaganda siege from the West. The regime
felt undermined by broadcasts of Western radio, brochures, and newspapers, which
it felt attempted to shake its political base. This material denied the legitimacy
and credibility of the regime. A report signed by ‘professor XXX’, addressed to the
Section of Foreign Relations (SRE) of the Central Committee, described propaganda
outside the country as follows:
You find them swarming in all centres, near businessmen of Romanian origin, near the
personnel of our Legations and Consulates, in permanent contact with the navigating
personnel of our airlines, etc. With great ability, they infiltrate venom in the weak hearts
and maintain an atmosphere of permanent alarm: the war is coming; only a war can
save the world or at least Europe, and other similar phrases at every step [. . .]. The
propaganda going on abroad [. . .] is visibly well organized and supported by consistent
funds, for wherever a Romanian might travel, he will encounter either people, either
publications — apparently well documented — and certainly cleverly conceived, which
try to denigrate democratic Romania.51

In the initial phase of the purges in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (occurring
between 1945–1947), anti-Communist propaganda was supported even by the
diplomatic personnel in Romanian legations. An informative note sent by Alexandru
Buican to the SRE warned the Party about the dubious activities occurring at
Romanian embassies in Paris, the Hague, and Prague52. In Paris, even the cultural
attaché informed the French authorities about every Communist in the legation. A
Danish delegate who Buican met in Paris admitted that the Romanian diplomats in
the French capital were engaging in anti-government propaganda.53 The diplomats
of the inter-war period had realized where Romania was headed under a Soviet-led
regime and thus the majority of them refused to take part in the ‘New Course’.
In addition to the anti-communist propaganda, many of these diplomats either aban-
doned their missions or were removed from their positions.54 This process intensified
greatly after Ana Pauker was appointed minister of Foreign Affairs.55
49
AMAE (Diplomatic Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), fund 220, dos. Frant‚a 1954,
Informarea Legat‚iei R.P.R. din Paris către M.A.E. nr. 301/4.12.1954, pp. 4–6.
50
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 25/1952. Date privind pretent‚iile financiare reciproce între R.P.R. şi
Suedia, pp. 20–23.
51
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Raport al Prof. XXX cu ocazia deplasării sale în străinătate,
p. 37.
52
Alexandru Buican was a top party official and editor at Scînteia, the RCP newspaper.
53
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Informare semnată de Al. Buican, p. 48.
54
Ion Calafeteanu, ‘Schimbări în aparatul diplomatic românesc după 6 martie 1945’, in 6 martie 1945. Începutu-
rile comunizării României (Bucharest : Editura Enciclopedică, 1995) 164–171 (pp. 165–167). See also Ion
Calafeteanu, Scrisori către tovarăşa Ana (Bucureşti: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 2005), pp. 234.
55
Ana Pauker was Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Political Bureau. For further details see Robert
Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

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 12 CEZAR STANCIU

The Stalinist mechanisms of control were spread through all political levels and
Ana Pauker utilized them to organize diplomatic activity. People in whom she had
complete trust were appointed to the most important diplomatic positions with no
regard to their professional qualifications. Professional experience was not a quality
diplomats required, as they were not expected to take any initiative.56 The direction
of Romanian foreign policy was decided by Moscow’s foreign policy.57 The Roma-
nian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ only expectation was obedience from its diplomats.
They were required to be unsusceptible to Western propaganda, loyal, reliable, and
devoted to the regime.
In 1950, the Political Bureau of the Romanian Workers’ Party decided to organize
a special Section of the Exterior Party Cadres (SCPE). Its purpose was to support the
activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by conducting political and ideological
education for diplomatic employees. The SCPE was also responsible for the recruit-
ment of Party members for activities abroad and to verify the personal histories and
‘political reliability’ of personnel.58 This was a necessity for the regime as there were
insufficient personnel for activities abroad. Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the Ministry of Foreign Trade complained about this lack of personnel. The condi-
tions which the personnel abroad were required to fulfil were, according to the SCPE,
‘honest comrades, verified, with a developed class consciousness, disciplined, not
to be opened to influences, with party spirit and revolutionary vigilance, without
relatives in capitalist countries.’59
In Bucharest, the Communists were convinced that American and British diplomats
were in close contact with the CIA and consequently were plotting subversive actions
against the regime. From this perspective, American and British diplomats were
aiding the regime’s enemies.60 Such acts were regarded as a component of the impe-
rialist effort to overthrow the regime, which also included the non-acceptance of
Romania in international organizations and discriminatory commercial measures as
other components. The activities of exiles also inflamed Western hostility. Romanian
exiles who left the country from 1944 to 1947 led an intensive campaign against
the Communist regime through the organization of conferences, the publication of
newspapers, and contact with Western statesmen. For example, in the spring of 1952,
the Romanian National Committee addressed a letter to American president Harry
Truman, alleging human rights abuse.61 The issue of human rights was a very sensi-
tive topic for the regime in Bucharest. From 1949, the United States had embarked
on a considerable campaign against human rights abuse in Romania, Hungary, and

56
Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics. Conversations with Felix Chuev, ed. Albert Resis (Chicago: Ivan
D. Ree, 1993), pp. 69–70.
57
László Borhi, ‘Empire by Coercion: The Soviet Union and Hungary in the 1950s’, Cold War History, 1 (2001),
47–72 (pp. 57). Borhi’s considerations on Hungary’s foreign policy during the early 1950s are generally valid
for Romania, as well as for all other satellite states.
58
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. 20/1950. Regulament de funct‚ionare. Sect‚ia Cadrelor de Partid din Exterior,
p. 21.
59
ibid.
60
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 3/1949. Lupta imperialismului anglo-american împotriva României
democratice, p. 18.
61
Liviu T‚îrău, ‘Un episod din istoria războiului rece: Comitetul Nat‚ional Român se adresează preşedintelui
Truman — 26 mai 1952’, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Cluj-Napoca, XXXVI (1997), 297–307 (p. 297).

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 13

Bulgaria. In regards to these three countries, Washington took advantage of its posi-
tion granted by the Peace Treaties in order to argue that the respect for human rights
was a recognized right and therefore abuse of this kind was a violation of the inter-
national law. As a signatory, the United States brought the issue before the UN
General Assembly, which forwarded it to the International Court of Justice in The
Hague. The Court decision acknowledged instances of human rights abuse in these
countries and demanded that measures be taken to end them. Romania rejected the
Court’s decision with the full support of the Soviet Union.62 The matter was never
resolved. Nevertheless, the debates in the Western press on this issue were extremely
embarrassing for the Romanian Communists.
The Romanian diplomatic missions — after complete purges from 1947 to 1948
— were responsible for surveillance and counter-action relying particularly on the
support of the Communist press in the West. Newspapers with such an orientation
launched strong attacks on all ‘calumnies’ directed against the people’s regime and
‘unmasked’ the fascist and criminal past of the exiles based on biographies fabricated
in Bucharest. At the beginning of 1952, the Congress of the Commission for Central
and Eastern Europe took place in London. On this occasion, Ana Toma, one of
Pauker’s right hands in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanded that the Romanian
legation in Paris contact all ‘friendly’ (i.e. Communist) newspapers and associations,
in order to prepare a plan for refuting the expected calumnies. The plan was to show
the achievements of the regime and to unmask its traitors relying on biographical
material prepared at home.63
The SRE within the party recognized the underlying objectives of the Anglo-
American methods of propaganda and identified several methods of efficient counter
measures. The ‘inventory’ of imperialist methods of propaganda was comprised of
radio broadcasts, newspapers and magazines in English, religious neo-protestant
activities, spreading rumours, artistic displays at their legations in Bucharest, etc.64
Propagandistic activities hostile to the regime were to be thwarted by similar means.
The most important instrument of the counter-propaganda measures was the press.
Its task was to ‘unmask Imperialist plots’ through articles, sketches, and humour, so
that the message would reach common people.65 As foreign policy was nothing but a
reflection of Soviet initiatives, there was a strong connection between the positions
argued by the regime in international affairs and the positions expressed by Party
propaganda domestically. The Party press feverishly denounced the so-called imperi-
alist intrigues directed against the regime and promoted peace and the struggle for
peace by all means.
Peace and propaganda of peace was a useful Soviet tool. Its goal was to convince
public opinion at home and abroad of its honest intentions and reduce the
public support for aggressive policies directed against the USSR and the peoples’
democracies. The precise aim of such propagandistic activities was to thwart Western

62
Ghit‚ă Ionescu, Communism in Rumania 1944–1962 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 195.
63
AMAE, fund TC, box Frant‚a 1952–1953. Telegramă A MAE Direct‚ia Cabinetului către Legat‚ia RPR Paris nr.
90460/1952.
64
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Metode actuale de propagandă anglo-americană, pp. 43–44.
65
Eugen Denize, ‘Propaganda radiofonică românească şi evenimentele internat‚ionale din perioada 1947–1953’,
Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Contemporană, 3 (2004), 79–94 (p. 79).

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 14 CEZAR STANCIU

initiatives, such as arming Germany and creating NATO, by exploiting public

sentiments regarding war and military engagements. The Soviet Union had used this
strategy in the inter-war period, as well, in the form of Popular Fronts. These
were officially directed against the ascension of fascism, but at the same time useful
instruments of pressure against Western governments. Stalin resurrected this strategy
during the Cold War.66 The regime in Romania adopted this direction, firstly, because
of simple subordination rationalities and secondly, because war was not an option
for the Communist elites. Given their extreme vulnerability, both domestically and
internationally, a war would have certainly shaken their position to the brink of
extinction.
Communist counter-propaganda activities required that measures be taken to
restrict the enemy’s ability to transmit messages by limiting the potential effects
of propaganda through severe measures.67 The party cadres were set the special
task of developing the revolutionary spirit among the masses through organization
conferences and debates inside and outside of Party structures in order to unmask
imperialist plots. Propagandistic agitation undertaken by party agitators with the
intention of spreading agitation among the working people was required for the same
purpose.68 A probative example about the way in which counter-propaganda mea-
sures functioned is presented by the situation of the British Broadcasting Company
(BBC) radio station. Party organs noticed the large numbers of complaints against the
regime and the government from within Romania addressed to the BBC. The SRE
report proposed sending the BBC a number of letters of criticism from ‘working
people’ attacking the ‘calumnious’ broadcasts and expressing full support for the
regime. The SRE also recommended that the number of letters and correspondence
reaching the BBC be drastically reduced by intervention from the Securitate.69 The
written press, it was also mentioned, must assume the task of unmasking British
propaganda.70
Communist propaganda also had a foreign reach. The People’s Republic of
Romania organized numerous activities with propagandistic content abroad, such as
artistic or cultural events, the publication of brochures, etc., all intended to display
the ‘great achievements’ of the regime. A number of publications were edited in
Romania and sent to the legations in Western capitals and to the United Nations.
Such publications were usually very suspiciously received, which is why the regime
attempted to obtain the consent of Western writers or personalities to sign such
publications to increase their credibility. In 1952, for example, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs published such a brochure for propagandistic purposes, but required that a
foreign attorney write it. The Romanian legation in Paris received orders to find
a French attorney, preferably with Communist sympathies, willing to come to
Romania, gather documentation, and later write a book about how human rights,
particularly the right of employment, were respected in Romania. The material
66
Marshall D. Shulman, Stalin’s Foreign Policy Reappraised (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963),
pp. 80–82.
67
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Metode actuale de propagandă anglo-americană, pp. 47–48.
68
Metode actuale de propagandă anglo-americană, p. 49.
69
For more details on the secret political police see Dennis Deletant, Communist Terror in Romania: Gheorghiu-
Dej and the Police State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999).
70
ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 16/1948. Referat cu privire la activitatea propagandistică britanică,
p. 6.

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 EUROPEANS AGAINST EUROPE 15

was to be published abroad, most likely in France, at the Romanian government’s

expense.71
The hostile and aggressive perception of the West also lead to other, more
severe, measures. In 1948, the authorities decided to disband the French Institute of
Bucharest, and later the Italian Institute. The decision was proposed by Ana Pauker
as a provocative measure, as Pauker explained in a Politburo meeting:
Our people in France are permanently subjected to persecution and anybody coming to
our Legation is checked up. Let’s show that we cannot cooperate with a government who
arrests our representatives, let’s break the cultural convention with France and close down
the institute.72

The same provocative manner was evident in the decision to turn down an offer for
assistance on social and medical issues from the United Nations. Pauker requested
that the answering note should mention that, ‘our country takes care of its own needs
by itself.’73
Due to the Western governments’ enmity vis-à-vis the Romanian regime, interna-
tional tensions, as well as the regime’s vulnerability, Romania expected help from
only the Soviet Union and the other people’s democracies. The relations between
these countries was based on mutual help and were the only foreign guarantees for
the Romanian Communist regime. Gheorghiu-Dej stated this very clearly in February
1948, when the Treaty of Friendship was signed between Romania and the USSR:
The Treaty signed in Moscow strikes a terrible blow to the illusions nurtured by reac-
tionary circles inside and outside the country that a return of the former regime is
possible, when Romania was but an instrument in the service of Imperialist powers, alien
to our people’s interests.74

Gheorghiu-Dej thus connected the domestic survival of the regime to the condition-
ality of Soviet support.
Romanian policy toward the USSR was explained through the fact that the
policy defended the Romanian people’s interests, especially its ‘revolutionary’ gains.
In the past, Gheorghiu-Dej argued, foreign policy had been serving the exploitation
of classes, but it was now in the hands of the toiling masses and their interests
coincided with the interests of the Soviet Union.75 The USSR was the guarantor of
the people’s ‘revolutionary conquests’ because the Romanian people and the Soviet
Union were both engaged in the same battle of constructing socialism.
The constant pressures exerted by Western governments, in particular the United
States, upon the East European regimes caused them to draw nearer to the Soviet
Union. In order to maintain their dominant position in domestic politics, these
regimes rallied around Moscow and intensified domestic repression aimed at

71
AMAE, fund TC, box Frant‚a 1952–1953. Telegramă A cu nr. 98 810/30.08.1952.
72
Stenogramele şedint‚elor Biroului Politic . . . , 1948. Proces-verbal nr. 18 al şedint‚ei Secretariatului din 20
octombrie 1948, p. 319.
73
Stenogramele şedint‚elor Biroului Politic . . . , 1948. Proces-verbal nr. 26 al şedint‚ei Secretariatului din 6
decembrie 1948, p. 395.
74
Scânteia, 13 February 1948.
75
Scânteia, 27 December 1949.

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 16 CEZAR STANCIU

expunging the enemies who enjoyed such large support abroad. Therefore, Western
policies such as ‘containment’ or ‘roll-back’ unexpectedly contributed to strengthen-
ing the bonds between the USSR and the people’s democracies instead of weakening
them.76

Conclusion
The years of Stalinist domination from 1947 to 1953 represented an abandonment
of Romanian foreign policy focused on the West that had been established and
consistently followed for more than a century. Before the Communist era, Romanian
modern history had consisted of great efforts to emulate the Western model and
develop relations with Western nations, mainly France and Great Britain. Russia was
perceived as a threat and a menace to national identity, due to its expansionist policy
in the Balkans. The Cold War dichotomy between East and West and Romania’s
forced placement in the Eastern camp represented a rupture from Romania’s past and
led to its denial of Romania’s foreign policy identity from the previous century. Such
a dramatic rupture was unprecedented in Romania’s modern history.
The Romanian Communist regime was completely aligned to Moscow and the
underlying focus of its foreign policy was defined by the Kremlin. Every measure
taken in the field of international relations was a reflexive reaction determined by the
Soviet position. This position generated a terrible animosity between the Communist
regime in Romania and Western Europe. This article has demonstrated that there are
two sources of this adversity between Romania and the West: obedience to Moscow
and mutual mistrust. Nonetheless, both sources of such a conduct were exogenous
to the Romanian regime. They were not the result of a careful consideration of
the country’s options in foreign affairs, but were determined only by international
political realities. Subordination to the Soviet Union, as well as the animosity of
the Cold War, were the primary reasons that lead to the aforementioned rupture.
Isolationism and seclusion reflected the anxiety of a vulnerable regime lacking legi-
timate power. Even political manifestations of isolationism had been borrowed by
the Romanian regime from the Soviet Union. Consequently, the conclusion can be
reached that both Romania’s behaviour in foreign affairs, as well as the sources of its
behaviour, were exogenous to the regime.

76
Paul Nistor, Înfruntând Vestul. PCR, România lui Dej şi politica americană de îngrădire a comunismului,
(Bucureşti: Editura Vremea, 2006), pp. 141.

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 Author Query
Journal title: SLV
Volume and issue: 20/1
Article title: Europeans against Europe: the practice of foreign isolationism and
seclusion in Stalinist Romania
Author name: Cezar Stanciu

QUERY NO. QUERY DETAILS

1 Please supply DOI number if need.

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