Parti communiste roumain

Pour les articles homonymes, voir PCR.

██████████27 % Traduction --- Romanian Communist Party → Parti communiste roumain --- (+)

•  Statut de la traduction : En cours
•  Commentaire : Vu qu'avant la traduction, il n'existait pas encore d'article sur ce sujet sur la wikipédia française et que je trouve ce parti comme jouant un rôle très important de l'histoire de la Roumanie contemporaine, j'ai décidé de commencer à le traduire. Toute aide est bienvenue. À noter que la version traduite actuellement est d'août 2006 alors qu'il y a eu beaucoup de travail récemment sur la page anglaise. Il faudra donc mettre à jour les parties déjà traduites. Vu que l'article final sera plus long, il est très probable que l'avancement va reculer de quelques points.
•  Demandeur : (de)(fr)(en)(ro)(kor)(it) 5 janvier 2007 à 19:53 (CET)
•  Intérêt de la traduction : article très développé avec beaucoup de notes de bas de pages
•  Projet : Roumanie

---

•  Traducteur(s) : (de)(fr)(en)(ro)(kor)(it)
  •  Avancement de la traduction : ██████████27 %
•  Version traduite : 10 octobre 2011
•  Liens utiles : Comment participer à la traduction ? ; Traduire les liens internes

Page de suivi de traduction   ---   Mettre à jour ces informations

 

Le logo du PCR

Le Parti communiste roumain ((ro) Partidul Comunist Român, PCR) est un parti communiste en Roumanie. Illégal durant de nombreuses années au début de son existence, et ne dépassant pas un millier de membres, il émergea comme une force importante dans le paysage politique roumain après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Il fut ensuite le parti unique au pouvoir durant la dictature communiste, atteignant vers la fin près de trois millions de membres (15% de la population)^[1], disparut durant un an après la révolution roumaine de 1989, se reconstitua en novembre 1990 sous le nom de "Parti socialiste du travail" (Partidul Socialist al Muncii), devînt en 2003 l'"Alliance Socialiste" (Alianța Socialistă) et reprit son nom d'origine en 2010. Toutefois, la très grande majorité des membres du PCR de l'époque où il était au pouvoir, a rejoint d'autres partis (notamment le Parti de la Démocratie Sociale) ou a abandonné la politique. Aujourd'hui le PCR a retrouvé sa taille d'avant la dictature communiste^[2].

Histoire

La création du parti

Critique communiste des partis socialistes, illustrée par cette caricature de décembre 1922 de Nicolae Tonitza. Le propriétaire de la mine au mineur : « Un socialiste, tu dis? Mon fils est aussi socialiste, mais il ne fait pas de grève…, c'est pourquoi il a déjà son propre capital… »

Au XIX^e siècle, il y avait un "Parti social-démocratique des travailleurs de Roumanie" (interdit en 1899) auquel succéda au XX^e siècle un éphémère "Parti social démocratique de Roumanie" (1910-1916), dissout dès son troisième congrès, la veille de l'entrée de la Roumanie dans la guerre, parce que son aile gauche, maximaliste et révolutionnaire, voulait s'affilier au Komintern, tandis que l'aile droite, modérée et réformiste, voulait maintenir un cap social-démocrate. La majorité des membres choisit une voie moyenne: les plus modérés des social-démocrates (partisans de l'économie de marché, simplement réglementée) quittent le parti et refonderont un Parti Social-Démocratique en 1927^[3]tandis que les autres (partisans de la mise en commun des moyens de production) forment un Parti socialiste de Roumanie. En 1921, après que ce Parti socialiste a envoyé une délégation en Russie bolchévique un groupe de modérés (comprenant Ioan Flueraș, Iosif Jumanca, Leon Ghelerter et Constantin Popovici) est expulsé du parti en mai 1921^[4] par la fraction bolchévique (adepte de moyens coercitifs et violents) qui prend le contrôle du parti, alors renommé "Parti socialiste-Communiste" ((ro) Partidul Socialist-Comunist) et peu après "Parti communiste de Roumanie" ((ro) Partidul Comunist din România ou PCdR).

La majorité des membres n'accepte pas cette prise de contrôle et 38 000 membres sur 40 000 démissionnent pour rejoindre d'autres groupements socialistes^[5] (selon d'autres sources ce sont 39 500 qui auraient quitté le parti^[6]) et à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le PCdR comptait environ 1.000 membres^[7].

Le parti communiste n'eut à ses débuts que très peu d'influence sur la Roumanie, où affluaient les réfugiés de Russie bolchévique, témoins des horreurs de la guerre civile russe et de la collectivisation forcée puis de la Holodomor et des déportations, de sorte que le PCdR était surtout perçu, par ceux qui en avaient connaissance et par les autorités, comme un groupe d'agents à la solde de la Russie bolchévique. Par ailleurs, l'industrie n'étant que peu développée, la classe ouvrière, réputée plus ouverte à de telles idées, était peu nombreuse, alors que la population agricole formait plus de 80% des Roumains, restait très religieuse et aspirait à la propriété. De leur côté, si la plupart des intellectuels étaient réceptifs au Marxisme, ils étaient effrayés par la politique des Bolchéviks en Russie, pays voisin. C'est pourquoi l'État parvint à interdire le parti, le poussant dans la clandestinité et limitant ainsi ses activités. Enfin, la ligne communiste « anti-nationale » déclarée dans les années 1920 et supervisée par le Komintern, qui demandait le démantèlement de la Grande Roumanie à peine formée (considérée par les communistes comme une entité coloniale « occupant illégalement » la Transylvanie, la Dobrogée, la Bessarabie et la Bucovine), heurtait l'identité même des Roumains, qui estimaient au contraire s'être libérés du colonialisme impérial austro-hongrois et russe, de sorte que plus de la moitié des mille membres du PCdR étaient issus des minorités nationales^[8], ce qui lui conféra une image de « parti étranger »^[9] : entre 1924 et 1944, aucun de ses secrétaires généraux ne fut d'origine roumaine. Dans la Roumanie de l'entre-deux-guerres, 30% de la population faisaient partie d'une minorité, dont une grande partie juive, hongroise et allemande^[10]

En 1924, le Komintern, pour contester la souveraineté roumaine sur la Bessarabie, organisa l'opération Bessarabie rouge: des brigades rouges formées de jeunes volontaires locaux, appartenant au prolétariat ou étudiants, et issus des minorités, armés par des chaloupes soviétiques via le Dniestr et le liman du Conduc, s'emparèrent des mairies de Hotin, Tighina et Tătărești, y proclamèrent une "république soviétique moldave" et y soutinrent le siège des gendarmes roumains, croyant, comme on le leur avait promis, que l'Armée rouge viendrait les soutenir; quelques-uns furent tués (ils tuèrent aussi des gendarmes), la plupart finirent en prison, certains purent fuir en URSS où ils disparurent, mais le but des bolchéviks était atteint : « prouver » au monde que la Roumanie n'est qu'un État impérialiste et répressif^[11]. La même année, une République autonome socialiste soviétique moldave est établie dans les frontières de l'Union soviétique, en Ukraine.

Au même moment, la gauche de l'échiquier politique roumain était « agrarienne » ((ro) țărănism, poporanism): une idéologie originale partiellement influencée par celle des Narodnikis, qui représentait les aspirations de la classe paysanne, formulées par le Parti national paysan de Ion Mihalache:

• le coopérativisme (promotion des coopératives agricoles autogérées, comprenant aussi des foyers ruraux, des écoles, des dispensaires);
• liberté religieuse;
• jacobinisme administratif (état centralisé avec des départements de statut égal, une seule langue d'état: le roumain)
• maintien du statu quo territorial de l'après 1918 (Grande Roumanie).

Une forme d'« agrarianisme » plus socialiste, non-nationaliste et laïque, était issue des idées du socialiste Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea.

L'« agrarianisme » rejetait la violence du léninisme et c'est pourquoi le PCdR s'y opposait fermement, le considérant comme aussi réactionnaire que les idéologies libérales^[12].

Jusqu'à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les membres d'origine ethnique roumaine du PCdR étaient en minorité dans le parti, et c'étaient pour la plupart, des personnes « connues des services de police » comme Nicolae Ceaușescu, car les idées légitimant la violence révolutionnaire ne trouvaient un terrain favorable que dans les catégories sociales ou ethniques marginalisées dans la société bourgeoise et rurale roumaine. Nicolae Iorga disait du PCdR que c'était « une secte d'intellectuels minoritaires frustrés et de voyous en quête de légitimité »^[13].

PCdR : Le Komintern et l'aile interne

Peu de temps après sa création, la direction du PCdR a été accusée par les autorités d'être impliquée dans l'attentat à la bombe de Max Goldstein sur le Parlement de la Roumanie ; ses principaux membres, y compris son secrétaire général Gheorghe Cristescu, furent poursuivis dans le procès de Dealul Spirii^[14]. Constantin Argetoianu, ministre de l'Intérieur dans les cabinets d'Alexandru Averescu, de Take Ionescu, et de Ion I. C. Brătianu, assimilant l'adhésion au Komintern à une forme de conspiration, dirigea la première vague de répression, et, dans ce contexte troublé, il permit que plusieurs activistes communistes (y compris Leonte Filipescu) soient abattus lors de leur garde à vue, sous prétexte de tentative de fuite^[15]. C'est ainsi qu'il put affirmer qu'il n'y avait « plus de communisme en Roumanie »^[16], lors d'une détente momentanée des pressions, commencée par le roi Ferdinand en octroyant l'amnistie au PCdR^[17].

Le PCdR ne fut donc pas en mesure d'envoyer de représentants au Komintern et fut remplacé par une délégation d'activistes divers qui avaient fui en Union soviétique à des moments différents (les groupes roumains à Moscou et à Kharkiv furent à l'origine d'une « aile moscovite » dans les décades suivantes)^[18]. Le parti interne ne survécut qu'en tant que groupe clandestin après avoir été mis hors la loi par le gouvernement Brătianu en passant en avril 1924 la Loi Mârzescu (nommée d'après son initiateur, le ministre de la justice Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu); des sources du Komintern indiquent qu'en 1928 environ, il commença à déserrer ses liens avec ses superviseurs soviétiques^[19]. En 1925, Cristescu s'opposa à la modification des frontières de la Roumanie comme voulue par le Komintern, ce qui précipita son exclusion du parti^[20].

En 1931, lorsqu'eut lieu le cinquième congrès du parti, l'aile moscovite devint le facteur politique principal du PCdR Joseph Staline remplaça la direction du parti dans son entier, y compris son secrétaire général Vitali Holostenco, nommant à sa place Alexander Stefanski, alors membre du Parti communiste de Pologne^[21].

Depuis le gain de contrôle du Komintern, l'aile interne commença à se réorganiser pour devenir un réseau conspiratif plus efficace^[22]. Le début de la Grande Dépression en Roumanie et la série de grèves infiltrées (et parfois provoquées) par l'aile interne signifièrent des succès relatifs, mais les gains ne furent pas capitalisés surtout à cause du manque d'attrait et la suspicion envers les directives stalinistes^[23]. En parallèle, la volonté de placer la direction dans les mains de Roumains issus de la classe ouvrière provoqua d'autres changements à la tête du parti : c'est ainsi qu'avant et après la grève d'envergure de Grivița émergea, avec le soutien de Staline, un groupe autour de Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej^[24].

En 1934 la doctrine du Front populaire de Staline n'avait pas encore complètement pénétré la politique du parti local, en particulier à cause de la politique territoriale de l'Union soviétique (culminant en 1939 avec le Pacte germano-soviétique) et la suspicion très répandue que d'autres forces de gauche nourrissaient envers le Komintern^[25]. Cependant, les communistes tentèrent à plusieurs reprises de parvenir à un consensus avec d'autres groupes (en 1934-1943, ils établirent des alliances avec le Front des laboureurs, l'Union des Hongrois de Roumanie et le Parti des paysans socialistes), et de petits groupes communistes devinrent actifs dans les sections de gauche des partis du centre^[26]. Lors des élections de 1937, ils supportèrent Iuliu Maniu et le Parti national paysan contre le roi Carol II et le gouvernement de Gheorghe Tătărescu (qui avait intensifié la répression contre les groupes communistes)^[26], se retrouvant ainsi dans une situation inhabituelle après que la Garde de fer, un mouvement fasciste, a signé un pacte électoral avec Maniu^[27]; l'historiographie communiste expliqua la participation dans ce mouvement comme provoquée par le refus des sociaux-démocrates de collaboré avec le PCdR^[28].

PCdR : le déclin de la fin des années 1930

Dans les années suivant les élections, le PCdR entra dans une phase de déclin, coïncidant avec la tournure de plus en plus autoritaire (tant contre les communistes, que contre les Légionnaires) prise par le régime du roi Carol à partir du procès de 1936 contre Ana Pauker et d'autres communiste de rang élevé, à Craiova^[29]. Les journaux considérés comme associés au parti furent fermés, et toutes les personnes suspectée d'activisme du PCdR furent détenus (voir Prison de Doftana)^[30]. Siguranța Statului, la police secrète roumaine infiltra la petite aile intérieure et probablement gagna des informations de grande valeur au sujet de ses activités^[31]. The financial resources of the party, ensured by Soviet support and by various satellite organizations (collecting funds in the name of causes such as pacifisme or support for the Republican side in the guerre d'Espagne), were severely drained — by political difficulties at home, as well as, after 1939, by the severing of connections with Moscow in France and Tchécoslovaquie^[32].

Consequently, the Exective Committee of the Comintern called on Romanian Communists to infiltrate the National Renaissance Front (FRN), the newly-created sole legal party of Carol's dictatorship, and attempt to attract members of its structures to the revolutionary cause^[33].

Until 1944, the group active inside Romania became split between the "prison faction" (detainees who looked to Gheorghiu-Dej as their leader) and the one around Ștefan Foriș and Remus Koffler^[34]. The exterior faction of the party was decimated during the Great Purge: an entire generation of party activists was killed on Stalin's orders, including, among others, Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea, David Fabian, Ecaterina Arbore, Imre Aladar, Elena Filipescu, Dumitru Grofu, Ion Dic Dicescu, Eugen Rozvan, Marcel Pauker, Alexander Stefanski, Timotei Marin, and Elek Köblös^[35]. It was to be Ana Pauker's mission to take over and reshape the surviving structure^[36].

Le PCdR durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

En 1940, la Roumanie dut céder la Bessarabie et la Bucovine du nord à l'URSS et la Dobroudja du sud à la Bulgarie (voir occupation soviétique de la Bessarabie, Accords de Craiova); le PCdR approuva ces deux gestes, en conformité avec la ligne des activistes de première heure, mais tout en contradiction avec l'humeur générale^[37]. L'historiographie officielle d'après environ 1950 affirme que le PCdR avait protesté contre la cession de la Transylvanie du nord à la Hongrie encore dans la même année (le Second arbitrage de Vienne), mais les preuves ne sont pas concluantes^[38] (les documents du parti témoignant de cette politique datent d'après l'invasion de l'Union soviétique de l'Allemagne nazie)^[39]. As the border changes sparked a political crisis leading to an Iron Guard takeover — the État national légionnaire — the interior wing's confusion intensified: the upper echelon faced investigation from Georgi Dimitrov (as well as other Comintern officials) on charges of "Trotskisme"^[33], and, since the FRN had crumbled, several low-ranking party officials actually began collaborating with the new regime^[33]. At around the same period, a small section of the exterior wing remained active in France, where it eventually joined the Résistance to German occupation — it included Haia Lifschitz, Gheorghe Gaston Marin, and the Francs-tireurs' Olga Bancic^[40].

As Romania came under the rule of Ion Antonescu and, as an Axis country, joined in the German offensive against the Soviets, the Communist Party began approaching traditional parties that were engaged in semi-clandestine opposition to Antonescu: alongside the Social Democrats, it began talks with the National Peasants' and the National Liberal parties. At the time, virtually all the interior leadership was imprisoned at various locations (most of them interned near Târgu Jiu)^[41]. In June 1943, after troops were suffering major defeats on the Eastern Front, the PCdR proposed that all parties form a Blocul Național Democrat ("National Democratic Bloc"), in order to arrange for Romania to withdraw from its alliance with Nazi Germany^[42]. The ensuing talks were prolonged by various factors, most notably by the opposition of the National Peasants' Party leader Iuliu Maniu, who, alarmed by Soviet successes, was trying to reach a satisfactory compromise with the Western Allies (and, together with the National Liberals' leader Dinu Brătianu, continued to back negotiations initiated by Antonescu and Barbu Știrbei with the États-Unis d'Amérique and the Royaume-Uni)^[43].

In early 1944, as the Armée rouge reached and crossed the Prut River (see Battle of Târgul Frumos), the self-confidence and status gained by the PCdR made possible the creation of the Bloc, which was designed as the basis of a future anti-Axis government^[44]. Parallel contacts were established, through Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu and Emil Bodnăraș, between the PCdR, the Soviets, and King Michael^[45]. A seminal event also occurred during those months: Ștefan Foriș, who was still general secretary, was deposed by with Soviet approval by a the rival "prison faction" (at the time, it was headed by former inmates of the prison in Caransebeș); replaced with the troïka formed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Constantin Pîrvulescu, and Iosif Rangheț, Foriș was discreetly assassinated in 1946^[46]. Several assessments view Foriș' dismissal as the complete rupture in historical continuity between the PCdR established in 1921 and what became the ruling party of Communist Romania^[47].

Le 23 août 1944, King Michael, a number of Romanian Army officers, and armed Communist-led civilians supported by the National Democratic Bloc arrested dictator Ion Antonescu into a safe and seized control of the government^[48]. King Michael then proclaimed the old 1923 Constitution in force, ordered the Romanian Army to enter a ceasefire with the Red Army on the Moldavian front, and withdrew Romania from the Axis^[49]. Later party discourse tended to dismiss the importance of both the Soviet offensive and the dialogue with other forces (and eventually described the coup as a revolt with large popular support)^[50].

The King named General Constantin Sănătescu as Prime Minister of a coalition government which was dominated by the National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, but included Pătrășcanu as Minister of Justice - the first Communist to hold high office in Romania. The Red Army entered Bucarest on 31 août, and thereafter played a crucial role in supporting the Communist Party's rise to power as the Soviet military command virtually ruled the city and the country (see Soviet occupation of Romania)^[51].

PCdR: l'opposition entre Sănătescu et Rădescu

After having been underground for two decades, the Communists enjoyed little popular support at first, compared to the other opposition parties (however, the decrease in popularity of the National Liberals was reflected in the forming of a splinter-group around Gheorghe Tătărescu, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, who later entered an alliance with the Communist Party). Soon after August 23, the Communists also engaged in an increasingly violent campaign against Romania's main political group of the times, the National Peasants' Party, and its leaders Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalache. The conflict's first stage was centered on Communist allegations that Maniu had encouraged violence against the Hungarian community in newly-recovered Northern Transylvania^[52] — at a time when the region's status was being assessed by the Conference de la paix de Paris.

The Communist Party, engaged in a massive recruitment campaign^[53], was able to attract ethnic Romanians in large numbers — workers and intellectuals alike, as well as former members of the fascist Iron Guard^[54]. By 1947, it grew to around 710,000 members^[55]. Although the PCR was still highly disorganized and factionalized^[56], it benefited from Soviet backing (including that of Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov and other Soviet appointees to the Allied Commission)^[57]. After 1944, it was leading a paramilitary wing, the Patriotic Defense (Apărarea Patriotică, disbanded in 1948)^[58], and a cultural society, the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union^[59].

On PCdR initiative, the National Democratic Bloc was dissolved on October 8, 1944; instead, the Communists, Social Democrats, the Ploughmen's Front, Mihai Ralea's Socialist Peasants' Party (which was absorbed by the former in November)^[60], the Hungarian People's Union (MADOSZ), and Mitiță Constantinescu's Union of Patriots formed Frontul Național Democrat (the "National Democratic Front", FND) which, campaigned against the government, demanding the appointment of more Communist officials and sympathizers, while claiming democratic legitimacy and alleging that Sănătescu had dictatorial ambitions^[61]. The FND was soon joined by the Liberal group around Tătărescu, Nicolae L. Lupu's Democratic Peasants' Party (the latter claimed the legacy from the defunct Peasants' Party), and Anton Alexandrescu's faction (separated from the National Peasants' Party)^[62].

Sănătescu resigned in November, but was persuaded by King Michael to form a second government which collapsed within weeks. General Nicolae Rădescu was asked to form a government and appointed Teohari Georgescu to the Ministry of the Interior, which allowed for the introduction of Communists into the security forces^[63]. The Communist Party subsequently launched a campaign against the Rădescu government, culminating in a 13 février 1945 demonstration outside the Royal Palace, and followed a week later by street fighting between Georgescu's Communist forces and supporters of the National Peasants' Party in Bucarest^[64]. In a period of escalating chaos, Rădescu called for elections. The Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrey Vyshinsky went to Bucarest to demand to the monarch that he appoint Communist sympathizer Petru Groza as Prime Minister, offering that Romania would be given sovereignty over Transylvania if he agreed, and intimating a Soviet takeover of the country if he did not^[65]. King Michael, under pressure from Soviet troops who were disarming the Romanian military and occupying key installations^[66], agreed and dismissed Rădescu, who fled the country^[67].

PCR: Groza cabinet

On 6 mars, Groza became leader of a Communist-dominated government and named Communists to lead the Romanian Army as well as the ministries of the Interior (Georgescu), Justice (Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu), Communications (Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej), Propaganda (Petre Constantinescu-Iași) and Finance (Vasile Luca)^[68]. The non-Communist ministers came from the Social Democrats (who were falling under the control of the pro-Communists Lothar Rădăceanu and Ștefan Voitec) and the traditional Ploughmen's Front ally, as well as, nominally, from the National Peasants' and National Liberal parties (followers of the Tătărescu and Alexandrescu's dissident wings)^[69].

As a result of the Potsdam Conference, where Western Allied governments refused to recognize Groza's administration, King Michael called on Groza to resign. When he refused, the monarch went to his summer home in Sinaia and refused to sign any government decrees or bills (a period colloquially known as greva regală - "the royal strike")^[70]. Following Anglo-American mediation, Groza agreed to include politicians from outside his electoral alliance, appointing two secondary figures in their parties (the National Liberal Mihail Romaniceanu and the National Peasants' Emil Hațieganu) as Ministers without Portfolio (January 1946)^[71]. At the time, Groza's party and the PCR came to publicly disagree on several agrarian issues, before the Ploughmen's Front was eventually pressured into supporting Communist tenets^[72].

In the meantime, the first measure taken by the cabinet was a new land reform that advertised, among others, an interest into peasant issues and a respect for property (in front of common fears that a Leninist program was about to be adopted)^[73]. Although contrasted by the Communist press with its previous equivalent, the measure was in fact much less relevant — land awarded to individual farmers in 1923 was more than three times the 1945 figures, and all effects were canceled by the 1948-1962 collectivisation^[74].

It was also then that, through Pătrășcanu and Alexandru Drăghici, the Communists consecrated their control of the legal system — the process included the creation of the Romanian People's Tribunals, charged with investigating war crimes, and constantly supported by agitprop in the Communist press^[75]. During the period, government-backed Communists used various means to exercising influence over the vast majority of the press, and began infiltrating or competing with independent cultural forums^[76]. Economic dominance, partly responding to Soviet requirements, was first effected through the SovRoms (created in the summer of 1945), directing the bulk of Romanian trade towards the Soviet Union^[77].

The Communist Party held its first open conference (October 1945, at the Mihai Viteazul High School in Bucarest) and agreed to replace the Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej-Constantin Pîrvulescu-Iosif Rangheț troika with a joint leadership reflecting an uneasy balance between the external and internal wings: while Gheorghiu-Dej retained his general secretary position, Ana Pauker, Teohari Georgescu and Vasile Luca became the other main leaders^[78]. The post-1945 constant growth in membership, by far the highest of all Eastern Bloc countries^[79], was to provide a base of support for Gheorghiu-Dej. The conference also saw the first mention of the PCdR as the "Romanian Communist Party" (PCR), the new name being used as a propaganda tool suggesting a closer connexion with the national interest^[80].

Party control over the security forces was successfully used on 8 novembre 1945, when the Bucarest populace gathered in front of the Royal Palace to express solidarity with King Michael, who was still refusing to sign his name to new legislation, on the occasion of his name day^[81]. Demonstrators were faced with gunshots; around 10 people were killed, and many wounded^[82]. The official account, according to which the Groza government responded to a coup attempt^[83], was dismissed in many recent researches^[84].

The PCR and its allies won the Romanian elections of November 19, although there is evidence of widespread electoral fraud^[85]. The following months were dedicated to confronting the National Peasants' Party, which was annihilated after the Tămădău Affair and show trial of its entire leadership^[86]. On 30 décembre 1947, the Communist Party's power was consolidated when King Michael was forced to abdicate and a "People's Republic", firmly aligned with the Soviet Union, was proclaimed^[87].

PMR: creation

In February 1948, the Communists ended a long process of infiltrating the Romanian Social Democratic Party (ensuring control through electoral alliances and the two-party Frontul Unic Muncitoresc — Singular Workers' Front, the PCR had profited from the departure of Constantin Titel Petrescu's group from the Social Democrats in March 1946). The Social Democrats fused with he PCR to form the Romanian Workers' Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român, PMR) which remained the ruling party's official name until 1965 (when it returned to the designation as Romanian Communist Party)^[88]. Nevertheless, Social Democrats were excluded from most party posts and were forced to support Communist policies on the basis of democratic centralism^[89]. Capitalizing on these gains, the Communist government banned almost all other political parties after winning purely formal elections in 1948 (the Ploughmen's Front and the Hungarian People's Union dissolved themselves in 1953)^[90].

A new series of economic changes followed: the National Bank of Romania was passed into full public ownership (December 1946)^[91], and, in order to combat the Romanian leu's dévaluation, a surprise monetary reform was imposed as a stabilization measure in August 1947 (with disastrous consequences on the livelihoods of middle class citizens)^[92]; the Marshall Plan was being overtly condemned^[93], while nationalization and a planned economy were enforced beginning 11 juin 1948^[94]. The first five-year plan, conceived by Miron Constantinescu's Soviet-Romanian committee, was adopted in 1950^[95]. Of newly-enforced measures, the arguably most far-reaching was collectivisation — by 1962, when the process was considered complete, 96% of the total arable land had been enclosed in collective farming, while around 80,000 peasants faced trial for resisting and 17,000 others were uprooted or deported for being chiaburi (the Romanian equivalent of kulaks)^[96].

PMR: internal purges

During the period, the central scene of the PMR was occupied by the conflict between the "Muscovite wing", the "prison wing" led by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and the newly-emerged and weaker "Secretariat wing" led by Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. After October 1945, the two former groups had associated in neutralizing Pătrășcanu's — exposed as "bourgeois" and progressively marginalized, it was ultimately decapitated in 1948^[97]. Beginning that year, the PMR leadership officially questioned its own political support, and began a massive campaign to remove "foreign and hostile elements"^[98] from its rapidly expanded structures^[99].

In 1952, with Stalin's renewed approval^[100], Gheorghiu-Dej emerged victorious from the confrontation with Ana Pauker, his chief "Muscovite" rival, as well as purging Vasile Luca, Teohari Georgescu, and their supporters from the party — alleging that their various political attitudes were proof of "right-wing deviationism"^[101].

Out of a membership of approximately one million, between 300,000^[102] and 465,000^[103] members, almost half of the party, was removed in the successive purges.

The move against Pauker's group echoed Stalinist purges of Jews in particular from other Communist Parties in the Eastern bloc — notably, the anti-"Cosmopolite" campaign in which Joseph Stalin targeted Jews in the Soviet Union, and the Prague Trials in Czechoslovakia which removed Jews from leading positions in that country's Communist government^[104]. At the same time, a new republican constitution, replacing its 1948 precedent, legislated Stalinist tenets^[105], and proclaimed that "the people's democratic state is consistently carrying out the policy of enclosing and eliminating capitalist elements"^[106]. Gheorghiu-Dej, who remained an orthodox Stalinist^[107], took the position of Premier while moving Petru Groza to the Presidency of the People's Republic. Executive and PMR leaderships remained in Gheorghiu-Dej's charge until his death in 1965 (with the exception of 1954-1955, when his office of PMR leader was taken over by Gheorghe Apostol)^[108].

From the moment it came to power and until Stalin's death, as the Cold War erupted, the PMR endorsed Soviet requirements for the Eastern Bloc. Aligning the country with the Cominform, it officially condemned Josip Broz Tito's independent actions in Yugoslavia; Tito was routinely attacked by the official press, and the Romanian-Yugoslav Danube border became the scene of massive agitprop displays (see Tito-Stalin split and Informbiro)^[109].

PMR: Gheorghiu-Dej and de-Stalinization

Uncomfortable and possibly threatened by the reformist measures adopted by Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, Gheorghiu-Dej began to steer Romania towards a more "independent" path while remaining within the Soviet orbit during the late 1950s . Following the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in which Khurshchev initiated De-Stalinization, Gheorghiu-Dej issued propaganda accusing Pauker, Luca and Georgescu of having been an arch-Stalinists responsible for the party's excesses in the late 1940s and early 1950s (notably, in regard to collectivization) — despite the fact that they had occasionally opposed a number of radical measures advocated by the General Secretary^[110]. After that purge, Gheorghiu-Dej had begun promoting PMR activists who were perceived as more loyal to his own political views; they notably included Nicolae Ceaușescu, Gheorghe Stoica, Ghizela Vass^[111], Grigore Preoteasa^[112], Alexandru Bârlădeanu^[113], Ion Gheorghe Maurer, Paul Niculescu-Mizil, and Gheorghe Rădulescu^[114]; in parallel, citing Khrushchevite precedents, the PMR briefly reorganized its leadership on a plural basis (1954-1955)^[108], while Gheorghiu-Dej reshaped party doctrine to include ambiguous messages about Stalin's legacy (insisting on the defunct Soviet's leader contribution to Marxist thought, official documents also deplored his personality cult and encouraged Stalinists to self-criticism)^[115].

In this context, the PMR soon dismissed all the relevant conséquences of the Twentieth Soviet Congress, and Gheorghiu-Dej even argued that De-Stalinization had been imposed by his team right after 1952^[116]. At a party meeting in March 1956, two members of the Politburo who were supporters of Khruschevite reforms, Miron Constantinescu and Iosif Chișinevschi, criticized Gheorghiu-Dej's leadership and identified him with Romanian Stalinism^[117]. They were purged in 1957, themselves accused of being Stalinists and of having been plotting with Pauker^[118]. On the outside too, the PMR, leading a country that had joined the Warsaw Pact, remained an agent of political repression: it fully supported Khurshchev's invasion of Hongrie in response to the Revolution of 1956, after which Imre Nagy and other dissident Hungarian leaders were imprisoned on Romanian soil^[119]. While refusing to allow dissemination of Soviet literature exposing Stalinism (writers such as Ilya Ehrenbourg and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), Romanian leaders took active part in the campaign against Boris Pasternak^[120].

Despite Stalin's death, the massive police apparatus headed by the Securitate (created in 1949 and rapidly growing in numbers)^[121] maintained a steady pace in its suppression of "class enemies", until as late as 1962-1964 — in 1964, the party leadership approved a mass amnesty, extended to, among other prisoners, ca. 5,700 guilty of political crimes^[122]. This marked a toning down in the violence and scale of repression, after almost twenty years during which the Party had acted against political opposition and active anti-communist resistance, as well as against religious institutions (most notably, the Romanian Roman-Catholic and Greek-Catholic Churches)^[123]. Estimates for the total number of victims in the 1947/1948-1964 period vary significantly: as low as 160,000^[124] or 282,000^[125] political prisoners, and as high 600,000^[125] (a great number were killed or died in custody - according to an estimate, about 190,000 people)^[125]. Notorious penal facilities of the time included the Danube-Black Sea Canal, Sighet, Gherla, Aiud, Pitești, and Râmnicu Sărat; another method of punishment was deportation to the inhospitable Bărăgan Plain^[126].

PMR: Gheorghiu-Dej and the "national path"

Nationalisme penetrated official discourse, largely owing to Gheorghiu-Dej's call for economic independence and distancing from the Comecon^[127]. Moves to withdraw the country from Soviet overseeing were taken in quick succession after 1953. Khrushchev allowed Constantinescu to dissolve the SovRoms in 1954^[128], followed by the closing of Romanian-Soviet cultural ventures such as Editura Cartea Rusă at the end of the decade^[129]. Industrialisation along the PMR's own directives highlighted Romanian independence — one of its consequences was the massive steel-producing industrial complex in Galați, which, being dependent on imports of iron from overseas, was for long a major strain on Romanian economy^[130].

In 1957, with the support of the Parti communiste chinois, Gheorghiu-Dej persuaded the Soviets to withdraw their remaining troops from Romanian soil. As early as 1956, Romania's political apparatus reconciled with Josip Broz Tito, which led to a series of common economic projects (culminating in the Đerdap venture)^[131]. Following the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s and the Soviet-Albanian split in 1961, Romania maintained relations with both the People's Republic of China^[132] and Communist Albania^[133]. Romanian media was alone among Warsaw Pact countries to report Chinese criticism of the Soviet leadership from its source^[134]; in return, Maoist officials complimented Romanian nationalism by supporting the view that Bessarabie had been a traditional victim of Russian imperialism^[135].

The change in policies was to become obvious in 1964, when the Communist regime offered a stiff response to the Valev Plan, a Soviet project of creating trans-national economic units and of assigning Romanian areas the task of supplying agricultural products^[136] (the PMR stated: "There does not and cannot exist a «parent» party and a «son» party or «superior» party and «subordinate» parties")^[137]. Several other measures of that year also presented themselves as radical changes in tone: after Gheorghiu-Dej endorsed Andrei Oțetea's publishing of Karl Marx's Russophobic texts (uncovered by the Polish historian Stanisław Schwann)^[138], the PMR itself took a stand against Khrushchevite principles by stating, in late April, its commitment to a "national path" towards Communism^[139].

These actions gave Romania greater freedom in pursuing the "national communist" path which Gheorghiu-Dej had been committed to since 1954, one allowing Romania to defy reforms in the Eastern Bloc and to maintain a largely Stalinist course^[140]. Nevertheless, the PMR's nationalism made it increasingly popular with Romanian intellectuals, and the last stage of the Gheorghiu-Dej regime was popularly identified with libéralisation^[141].

L'ère Ceaușescu

Gheorghiu-Dej décède en mars 1965 et a pour successeur une direction collective constituée de Nicolae Ceaușescu comme secrétaire général, Chivu Stoica comme président, et Ion Gheorghe Maurer comme premier ministre. Ceaușescu écarta du gouvernement des rivaux comme Alexandru Drăghici, pour finalement les exclure du parti. Ainsi, il commença à cumuler des fonctions jusqu'à avoir le comité central entièrement sous son contrôle en 1969.

En 1965, Ceaușescu déclara que la Roumanie n'était plus une démocratie populaire mais une république socialiste et renomma le parti en parti communiste roumain – des changements qui indiquaient que la Roumanie suivait une politique strictement marxiste tout en retenant son indépendance. Il poursuivit des efforts de roumanisation et de dérussification en modifiant la propagande nationale si bien qu'on n'y indiquait plus que l'Union Soviétique avait « libéré » la Roumanie du fascisme.

Il développa autour de lui un culte de la personnalité après son voyage en Corée du Nord où il avait constaté celui développé par Kim Il-sung, et lança sa propre version de la révolution culturelle chinoise. En 1968, le gouvernement Ceaușescu s'opposa à l'invasion soviétique de la Tchécoslovaquie (Printemps de Prague) et rechercha même à s'allier à Josip Broz Tito, le dirigeant non-conformiste de la Yougoslavie. Début 1971, Ceaușescu intensifia la répression politique en Roumanie, jusqu'à ce que lui et son parti fussent tous deux renversés par la révolution roumaine de 1989. Alors, Ceaușescu fut exécuté et le parti dissous.

Membres

The party grew rapidly after World War II, and had more than one million members by 1948. This changed the ethnic composition of the party and, along with officially sanctioned anti-Semitism by Joseph Stalin and pre-existing chauvinism in the country, led to minorities and particularly Jews being sidelined - especially after 1952, when Ana Pauker was purged along with almost half of the party who were either seen as her supporters or former social democrats. Many of the party's ethnic minority members (particularly Hungarians and Jews who were predominant in the "Muscovite faction") were removed during the purge.

In 1950 the party claimed that 64% of its leadership positions were held by members of the working class. À 1962 relaxation of the conditions required for admission to the party led to a 22% rise in membership, to 1,100,000.

When the Romanian Workers' Party became the Romanian Communist Party in 1965, it was reported that the party had 1,450,000 members or 8% of the population, with 44% of the members being workers, 34% peasants, 10% intellectuals and 12% in other categories. By 1988 the percentage of workers had grown to 55%, while the percentage of peasants had fallen to 15%. By 1971, the party had 2.1 million members, and this grew to 3 million by the party's 12th Party Congress in 1979. In 1988 an estimate of 3.7 million members was given, meaning 23% of Romanian adults were party members.

In 1984 the party composition was announced as being 90% ethnic Romanian, 7% Hungarian, less than 1% German and the remaining 2% other nationalities (roughly proportional with the ethnic groups of Romania).

Organisation

Officially, as with other Communist parties, the supreme body of the Romanian Communist Party and its predecessors was the party congress held once every five years with one delegate for every 1,000 party members. The Party Congress elected a Central Committee and the general secretary and adopted the party's program and other documents.

The Central Committee would be the main party body between Congresses. In 1984, the Central Committee consisted of 265 full members and 181 candidate members. The body was responsible for implementing the decisions of the party congress and the direction of party activities, and was supposed to meet at least four times a year.

In 1974 the Presidium of the Central Committee (in effect the Politburo), which had been elected by the Central Committee, was replaced by a new body, the Political Executive Committee Permanent Bureau, which, although nominally elected by the Central Committee, was, in practice, appointed by the general secretary as was the other leading body of the party, the Secretariat (both of which generally had the same members).

In practice as well there was little differentiation between the party and the government. The Permanent Bureau was the highest body in the party and had five members when it was created in 1974 and expanded to fifteen in 1979. In 1984 it was reduced to eight members with both Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu sitting on the body. This shrank to seven members in 1988, essentially the Ceaușescus and their close allies. The Political Executive Committee which it reported to was essentially a rubber stamp acting when the Central Committee was not in session. The Secretariat was the administrative body of the party and, in effect, also took directions from the Permanent Bureau.

The basic unit of the party was local party clubs in factories, cooperatives, military and police units and other workplaces. There were 64,200 of these units existing in 1980, ranging in size from a handful of people to several hundred. These bodies reported to town or municipal party committees which had their own first secretaries, vice-chairmen and other officials and reported and, in theory, elected delegates to higher regional bodies and then the national bodies of the party. The party had direct control over the nation's economic life through national and local party commissions.

In the 1980s, the party's ideology changed somewhat, with the party no longer seen as the vanguard of the working class, but as the "centre" of the nation and the embodiment of the national interest.

Congrès du parti

Secrétaires généraux

Notes

Références

• "The Communist Party" from the US Library of Congress' Country Study of Romania, 1990
• Lucian Boia, ed., Miturile comunismului românesc ("The Myths of Romanian Communism"), Editura Nemira, Bucarest, 1998:
  • Daniel Barbu, "Destinul colectiv, servitutea involuntară, nefericirea totalitară: trei mituri ale comunismului românesc" interbelică la comunism" ("Collective Destiny, Involuntary Servitude, Totalitarian Misery: Three Myths of Romanian Communism"), p. 175-197
  • Eugen Negrici, "Mitul patriei primejduite" ("The Myth of the Fatherland in Peril"), p. 220-226
• Adrian Cioroianu,
  • (ro) "Comunismul și cel care a trăit Iluzia" ("Communism and the Man Who Lived the Illusion"), in Revista 22, June 2002
  • Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), Editura Curtea Veche, Bucarest, 2005
• (ro) Radu Colt, "80 în București și mai puțin de 1000 în toată țara" ("80 in Bucarest and Less throughout the Country"), in Magazin Istoric
• Dennis Deletant, Romania, 1948-1989: A Historical Overview
• Dennis Deletant, Mihail Ionescu, "Romania and the Warsaw Pact: 1955-1989", in Cold War International History Project, Working Paper #43, April 2004 (PDF)
• Victor Frunză, Istoria stalinismului în România ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), Humanitas, Bucarest, 1990
• Constantin Iordachi, The Anatomy of a Historical Conflict: Romanian-Hungarian Diplomatic Conflict in the 1980s
• T. A. Pokivailova, "1939-1940. Cominternul și Partidul Comunist din România" (1939-1940. The Comintern and the Communist Party of Romania"), in Magazin Istoric, March 1997
• Vladimir Tismăneanu, Gheorghiu-Dej and the Romanian Workers' Party: From De-Sovietization to the Emergence of National Communism (PDF)
• Cristian Troncotă, "Siguranța și spectrul revoluției comuniste" ("Siguranța and the Spectre of Communist Revolution"), in Dosarele Istoriei, 4(44)/2000
• Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului ("The History of the Iron Guard, 1919-1941: The Mystique of Ultra-Nationalism"), Humanitas, Bucarest, 1993

• Portail de la Roumanie
• Portail du communisme