History, An Independent Regime

After the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, Romania gradually drew away from close dependence on the USSR. Gheorgiu-Dej asserted the country’s right to develop its own variety of socialism. Throughout the 1950s the government emphasized the nationalization and development of industry. This effort proved highly successful, and in the 1960s official estimates of the national industrial growth rate averaged about 12 percent annually, ranking among the highest in Eastern Europe. The collectivization of agriculture began in July 1949, and in 1962 the government announced that all arable land had been absorbed into the socialized sector. Farmers were permitted, however, to retain small plots for private use.

In the early postwar years, under Soviet domination, Romania cooperated fully in such Communist organizations as Cominform, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and after 1955, the Warsaw Pact. From the early 1960s on, however, Romania began to exercise a considerable degree of independence. In 1963 the government rejected COMECON plans for the integration of the economies of the Communist states, chiefly because the plans restricted Romania to a role as supplier of oil, grains, and primary materials. Romanians thought these plans would hinder their rate of industrial growth, which had been higher in the several years prior than that of any other Soviet-bloc country. Romanian protests gained some concessions in the form of Soviet aid for the development of a major steel plant at Galati. The rift between the USSR and China in the 1960s gave Romania new opportunities to throw off Soviet influence. A party statement in 1964 confirmed Romania’s independent policies, including closer ties with the West.

In 1965 Gheorgiu-Dej, party chief for most of 20 years, died and was succeeded by Nicolae Ceausescu. In 1967 Ceausescu also became president of the state council. He advanced Romania’s nationalist policies and renamed the country the Socialist Republic of Romania. A new constitution in 1965 downgraded the USSR’s role in Romanian history. The country did not follow the Soviet bloc in breaking diplomatic ties with Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, or in invading Czechoslovakia in 1968.

At home, the Communist government held sole power, censored the press, and restricted personal liberties. Ceausescu promoted a personality cult around himself and his family. Improved relations with China and Western Europe brought aid and new technology, and the economy grew substantially in the 1960s and 1970s.

Romania continued to pursue an independent foreign policy, despite the disapproval of the Soviet bloc. In addition, the Romanian government actively increased its contacts with the West. After a visit from United States president Richard Nixon in 1969, Ceausescu paid several visits to the United States. In 1975 the United States granted Romania most-favored-nation status, and in 1976 a ten-year economic pact was signed by the two countries. Romania joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) in 1972 and in 1976 signed the first formal pact (on textiles) between the European Economic Community and an Eastern European nation.

As the leader of the only Eastern European country to recognize both Israel and Egypt, Ceausescu helped arrange Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat’s historic peacemaking visit to Israel in 1977. Romania signed a friendship treaty with the USSR in 1970, received Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev in 1976, and sent Ceausescu to the USSR and East Germany. Romania also signed a treaty of friendship with Hungary in 1972 and agreements on hydroelectricity with Yugoslavia in 1976 and Bulgaria in 1977. Taking an unprecedented step outside the Soviet bloc, Ceausescu visited the People’s Republic of China in 1971, subsequently signing economic and air transport agreements. In 1980 he refused to endorse the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Although diplomatic in matters of foreign policy, Ceausescu strictly enforced Communist orthodoxy in domestic affairs. In 1971 he cracked down on all deviation in party, government, and cultural leadership. He was reelected head of state in 1975, and the party and government were reorganized in 1977. Despite enormous damage caused by severe floods and an earthquake, the economy grew during the 1970s, especially heavy industry and foreign trade. However, repression, pollution, and mismanagement of agriculture gradually discredited the government. In the 1980s Ceausescu used virtually all of Romania’s foreign currency reserves to pay off the foreign debt, producing major food and fuel shortages in a country whose standard of living was already among the lowest in Europe. A forced resettlement program announced in 1988, which called for the destruction of up to 8,000 villages, was also widely unpopular.