How communism impacted society

“Workers of the world,

unite!”
Point
s

Propagand Police Working Econom

a1.Human state
1.Political
class
1.Collectivizatio
y
1.Command
rights system n economy
2.External 2.Administrative 2.Industrializatio 2.Five-year
policies system n plan
3.Securitate & 3. Education 3.Nationalizatio
Miliție n
Propagand
a
1. Human rights
2. External policies
Human rights infrigement

Freedom of Freedom of literary and Freedom of religion

speech
During the Communist era,
political repression was
practiced by the secret police
services. An extensive
network of civillian informants,
most forcibly recruited, was
used to collect information for
the government and report
cases of suspected dissent.
scientific expression
Censorship in the Communist
era was persuasive and strictly
enforced. Art, literature and
science were placed under
strict ideological scrutiny -
many scientifical disciplines
were supressed as they were
condemned as “ bourgeois
pseudoscience ”.
The regime's relationship with the
Church was ambiguous - while it
declared itself as atheist, it
actively collaborated with the
Church.Many priests collaborated
with the Secret Police, giving it
information received from
confessions - according to a
Securitate officer, more than 80%
of priests were informers.
External policies

Romania's foreign policy was aligned with all

nations that were aligned with the Soviet Union.
Under Ceaușescu it enjoyed strategic relations
with the Western Bloc and the Non-Aligned
Movement.
Following the Sino-Soviet split, Romania also
maintained relations with China and North Korea.

Romania's foreign policy experienced a revival

starting from the tumultuous moments when
Gheorghiu-Dej ( Nicolae Ceaușescu's
predecessor) listened to Khrushchev's Secret
Report at the 20th Congress in February 1956.
Fearing the loss of his position in power,
Gheorghiu-Dej saw relations outside the
Communist Bloc as a source of stability.

Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and Kim Il-Sung, the first leader of
North Korea, during the firstmentioned's visit to Pyongyang
Police
state
1. Political
system
2. Administrative
system
3. Securitate &
Miliție
 Political system
the a break
start
Soviet from the
of rule Soviets
model

The communists, though they had few supporters, came to power in the spring of 1945 because the Soviet
Union had intervened forcefully on their behalf. Extraordinary pressure by Soviet authorities forced King
Michael to appoint a procommunist government. The communists were now able to accelerate the Sovietization
of public life, which was to result in an isolation from the West far more complete than that which the
Romanians had experienced at the height of Ottoman domination.They provided themselves with a formal
political structure in 1948 by adopting a Soviet-style constitution that reserved ultimate authority for the party.
Governmental institutions served merely as the machinery to carry out party decisions.The decade of the 1960s
brought a period of relaxation at home and defiance of the Soviet Union in international relations. After
Gheorghiu-Dej’s death in 1965, his successor as head of the party, Nicolae Ceaușescu, redoubled efforts to
lessen the country’s dependence on the Soviet Union. Ceaușescu sought to expand economic relations with
the West and skillfully played on the widespread anti-Soviet sentiments of the population in order to mobilize
support for the Romanian party.
Administrative
system
The Great National Assembly
(Romanian: Marea Adunare
Naţională; MAN) was the
legislature of the Socialist
Republic of Romania (known as
the Romanian People's
Republic before 1965).
In February 1968, the old administrative
division of județ was reinstated. On
January 14, 1968 the law proposal
included 35 counties. The final result was
substantially different from the situation
existent before 1950. This included 39
counties, municipality of Bucharest, 236
cities, out of which 47 were municipalities.
The Great National Assembly
Territorial division
The Constitution
The Great National Assembly
was elected every four years
and each individual member
represented 60,000 citizens.
The system was created to
imitate the Soviet model.
There were several reasons for restoring
the județe. For one, the Nicolae
Ceaușescu regime wished to distance
itself from the Soviet Union, and
discarding the Soviet administrative
model was a means of achieving that.
Finally, during his first years, Ceaușescu
was preoccupied with replacing
functionaries named by his predecessor
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and creating
his own power base; dismissing the
regional administrations and naming his
own county officials was a step in that
process.

Since the imposition of full communist control in December 1947, Romania has had three constitutions. The first, designating
the country a "people's republic," was adopted by the Grand National Assembly (GNA) in April 1948, just four weeks after the
assembly had been reorganized under new communist leadership. The second, adopted in September 1952, was closer to the
Soviet model. The third, ostensibly reflecting Romania's social and ideological development, went into effect on August 21,
1965.
The Securitate
&
Miliție
The Securitate (Department of
State Security), the secret police On the 22th of January 1949, the
agency of the Socialist Republic of
M

e
Romanian Police became " Miliția ",
Romania. It was founded on 30 ili

at
August 1948, with help from the ție whose members were semi-illiterate

rit
Soviet NKVD, while Romania was workers who took a course for two

cu
practically under the Red Army's months. It was one of the instruments the

Se
occupation. The Securitate was, in communists used to take complete control
proportion to Romania's of the Romanian society. The "bourgeois"
population, one of the largest of Police and Gendarmerie were dismantled
secret police forces in the Eastern
p on and many of its employees incarcerated
Th cre
bloc. At its height, the Securitate se ea
e tp
tw and the Miliție used its influence to closely
m o
employed some 11,000 agents and
re
os lic
had a half-million informers for a c e monitor the " hostile revolutionary risk "
e
tb e
country with a population of 22 s im and the terror acts they involved
e g
ru
h
T er e
ta
million by 1985. Under Ceaușescu, themselves with included torture,
l
the Securitate was one of the most th propaganda and blackmail.
brutal secret police forces in the
world, responsible for the arrests,
torture and deaths of thousands of
people.
Working
class
1. Collectivization
2. Industrialization
3. Education
Collectivization
The initiative sought to bring about a thorough
01
transformation in the property regime and
organization of labour in agriculture.
02
A problem that the Party encountered
with written propaganda was the high
03
rate of illiteracy amongst the Romanian
peasantry. In order to combat this, the
Party engaged in a campaign to
04
increase literacy amongst the peasants.
The full propaganda system
(newspapers, radio, mobile caravans,
brochures, direct action by agitators)
was put in motion in order to convince
peasants to form collective farming units.
The communist ideology clashed
with the traditional hierarchical
structures of the Romanian villages,
which were not egalitarian. Many of
the village elites were godparents or
patrons for poor peasants, providing
them access to land in return for
their labor. Many in the lower
classes aspired to join the educated
elite, and prosperity was seen as a
sign of virtue and hard work.
 Industrialization

Romania made progress with the

economy .Several branches of heavy
industry were founded, including the
machine-tool, tractor, and automotive
industries; large-tonnage shipbuilding;
pursuing
the manufacture of electric diesel
Gheorghe Dej's
locomotives; and the electronics and
industrial dream
petrochemical industries.
High density residential neighbourhoods
were built on the outskirts of the city, some
of architectural and urban planning value.
Conservation plans were made, but all
were halted after Ceaușescu embarked on
a change of
what is known as "The Small Cultural
heart
Revolution" after visiting North Korea and
the People's Republic of China.

In the late 1970s, the construction of
the Bucharest Metro system was
started. After two years, 10 km of
network were already complete and
after another 2 years, 9 km of tunnels
were ready for use. By 17 August
1989, 49 km of the subway system
and 34 stations were already in use.
Not every industrialization project was
what the
the start of a failure : Ceaușescu left Romania
industrialization
something great with a reasonably effective system of
left behind
power generation and transmission,
gave Bucharest a functioning subway,
and left many cities with an increase in
habitable apartment buildings.
 The educational system
Romania's transition to Communism had serious
impact on the people, limiting their freedom and
indocrinating them with communist ideas. Using
the schools as a platform, leaders sought to
infiltrate the curriculum and influence the
children, training them to be future, faithful
Communists, the effect of which are still present
in the educational realm today.
indoctrinating
the youth
The revolution also affected education as teachers and
students alike transitioned into a post-Communist world.
In prior years, education was highly regimented and the
curriculum
"was strictly controlled, as all-important decisions were
centralised". After the shifts, reforms took place that
altered curriculum, demanded new and updated
textbooks, and increased teachers autonomy. However,
the process of reform was slow and current educational
practices are still dealing with the effects of Communism.
dealing with
the aftermath
 Economy
1.
Nationalization
2. Five-year
plan
3. Command economy
 Nationalization although people often associate
nationalization with the countries
affected by the Soviet influence, the
phenomenon happened in many
Western countries that opted for
capitalism : Great Britain, France,Italy
and the German Federal Republic.

In June 1948, the Great National Assembly passed a

nationalization law which resulted in the nationalization of
virtually all of Romania's industrial means of production.
Together, with the nationalization, central planning was
introduced, first using one-year-plans (in 1949 and 1950), then
using five-year plans (starting in 1951).
The nationalization also included a significant number of
homes. The figure of around 400,000 buildings is regularly
mentioned.
Semantically speaking, the term of “ nationalization ” was used
incorrectly by the Communist regime, giving it a propagandistic
character. In reality, what happened was more of a seizure,
based on the fact that no moral or material compensation was
offered to the rightful owners.
 The five-year
plan

In 1948, the Communists have fully taken over the power in Romania and started to
5

nationalize property and means of production. They began forced economic

1 2 development and industrialization by adopting the Soviet concept of five-year plans
start of project that set a number of goals to fulfill by the end of the terms.
the Soviet
end of project
influence
There were eight such five-year plans, including one that didn't make it to the end of
at its finest its term due to the Revolution of 1989. Most were unsuccessful or didn't work out as
5

planned, with one exception - the 1966-1970 plan, run under Nicolae Ceaușescu's
regime, which gave a new impulse to industrialization, focusing this time on the
4 heavy industry. It was allegedly finished in four and a half years, this being
mentioned over the years in many propaganda writings and songs.
 The command economy photo showing people queueing for bread

The economy of the Socialist Republic of

Romania was centrally planned similar to the
one of the Soviet Union. Most of the means of
production were owned by the state, which
established production plans as part of the seizing the
Five-Year Plans. means of
The economy grew between the 1950s and production During the 1980s, dictator
1970s at one of the fastest rates in the world, Nicolae Ceaușescu began an
changing Romania from a predominantly austerity policy in order to pay
agricultural country into an industrialized
paying off all foreign debts, leading to a
country. debt decade-long stagnation and
negatively affecting the living
standards of the Romanians.

Almost 30% of the population moved during this period from rural to urban areas to
work in the newly-built factories.
Thank
you !