Social Change in Communist Romania

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Social Change in Communist RomaniaAuthor(s): Daniel ChirotSource: Social Forces, Vol. 57, No. 2, Special Issue (Dec., 1978), pp. 457-499Published by: University of North Carolina PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577678

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Social Changein Communist Romania

DANIEL CHIROT, University of Washington

ABSTRACTIt has been claimedby scholars, both within Romania and elsewhere,that Communist rule "saved"Romaniafrom the economiccrisis that existedin the 1930s. A close analysis reveals, however, that the economicachieve-ments of the regimeare comparableo thosewhich haveoccurredelsewhere nEuropeunder differentpolitical systems. It is argued that Romania'srelativepositionamong the industrial nations has remainedabout the same as it wasin the pre-socialistperiod.Moreover,thereis much evidencethat the socialistperiodrepresents ess of a breakwith the ancien regime than the Romanianleaders claim. It is suggested in this article that Romania is closer to thestructureof the "corporatist" ociety outlinedby social theorists in the 1930sthan is generally recognized.

The Communist government of Romania lays its main claim to legitimacyon the rapid economic growth and social modernization which have oc-curred in the last 30 years, and also on the supposed fact that before 1944Romania was imprisoned in a set of hopeless problems from which thereseemed to be no escape. Many distinguished foreign observers, bothbefore and since the advent of Communism, agree. Many Romanian intel-lectuals, particularly social scientists in the 1930s, also felt that there existeda major crisis which could only be resolved with difficulty, if at all. Amongthose intellectuals who have survived the war, the purges and jailings ofthe first decade of Communist rule, and simple old age, many agree todaythat the government's claim to have saved Romania has considerablemerit, even if the rescue operation might have been carried out morerationally and humanely.In retrospect, and when it is compared to the situation in a numberof Third World countries in the 1970s, Romania's situation in the 1930s wasnot, however, all that catastrophic. When Romania in the 1930s was com-pared to Western Europe, of course, and even to substantial portions ofEastern Europe, its situation was, indeed, poor. This remains as true todayas it was in the 1930s, except that all of Europe has experienced rapid eco-nomic growth. Within any one country, Romania included, comparisonswith the levels of the 1930s show impressive progress. Not only has thisprogress transformed Western Europe, but all of the poor semicircle of

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southern and eastern European countries. Thus, Portugal, Spain, Italy,Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, andeven Czechoslovakia (the western part of which was already quite pros-perous before 1938) have shared in this economic and social transformationassociated with rising literacy, urbanization, and higher levels of personalconsumption. Spain has done this under a Fascist regime, Italy under aninefficient and unstable capitalist-democratic regime, Greece under a va-riety of light-wing and moderate regimes, Yugoslavia under a liberal Com-munist regime, and the others under more orthodox Communism. OnlyPortugal has been held back, largely because of its expensive efforts tomaintain an African Empire and of the political turmoil generated by itscolonial wars. It is, therefore, difficult to isolate the particular merit of anyparticular regime or style of development.No one will ever prove that Romania was saved by Communism,any more than anyone will ever prove that Spain was saved by FranciscoFranco. Nor will anyone ever disprove these contentions, either, and in theend it remains a matter of personal opinion. But changes have occurred,and in order to study them I shall divide this paper into two parts: the firstwill deal with the history of Romania from the 1930s until 1957, a timeduring which dramatic political events set the course of rapid industrializa-tion which Romania has followed since. The second part will deal withindustrialization, the collectivization of agriculture, the population prob-lem, ethnic minorities, nationalism and international political problems,and politics in Romania since 1957.

Romania in the 1930s: A Cornered Society?How serious were Romania's troubles in the 1930s? The 1930 censusshowed that 78 percent of the labor force was in agriculture, and only 10percent was in industry (Madgearu). During the next decade, it seemedto Romania's leading economist, Virgil Madgearu, that far more surplusrural laborers appeared than could be absorbed by urban industry. Ruralareas were already overcrowded, and agriculture was apparently stagnant(Madgearu). In some respects, yields were inferior to what they had beenbefore World War I (Nulcanescu; Roberts). Even by East European stan-dards Romania's peasant agriculture was poor and backward (Warriner).Peasant plots were small and fragmented, and were becoming even smallerbecause of increase in population (Cornateanu; Cresin 1, b).Beneath these gloomy facts, however, the reality was somewhat lessdepressing. The birth rate was falling quickly, and by the late 1930s theyearly population growth rate was down to 1 percent (Roberts). The indus-trial labor force, on the other hand, grew at 3 percent per year during the1930s, and after 1932 industrial output grew at an annual rate in excess of


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10 percent (Madgearu). In time the balance would have tipped, and theproblem of rural overpopulation would have been solved. Another indi-cator that shows that the society was not stagnant is the literacy rate,which increased quickly after World War I. Thus, by 1930, 67 percent ofthose 13-19 years of age, and 72 percent of those aged 7-12 years, wereliterate. Only among older people was the majority still illiterate (Manuila).To be sure, the country was ethnically divided, and large parts of thenew territories added after World War I had non-Romanian majorities orlarge minorities. Anti-Semitism was widespread, spurred by the fact that 43percent of the urban population was Jewish (Anuarul, a), and that Jews weredisproportionately represented in certain key professions (Gheorghiu).Partly in response to this, the fascist Iron Guard posed a growing threat topolitical stability.In Romania's last more or less free election (in 1937) the Iron Guardand one other fascist party received 25 percent of the vote, while thegovernment party would probably have received no more than 20 percenthad there been no fraud (Enescu). The government was ineffective andcorrupt, and by the end of the decade it seemed to be losing its grip on thecountry (Weber). However, Romania's political problems were similar tothose found throughout Europe at that time. As such, they hardly reflecteda necessarily hopeless domestic economic situation.The Revolution from AbroadThroughout the 1920s and 1930s the Romanian Communist party (C.P.)was small and almost entirely bereft of influence or followers. It scoredminor successes among railway workers, but on the whole it failed to takeadvantage of the various crises of the period. During the 1930s moreworkers and peasants were attracted by the fascist Iron Guard than by theC.P. (Ionescu). One of the main problems was that from the very start theParty was anti-nationalist. Many of its leaders were "foreigners" (Bul-garians, Hungarians, and Jews) and the ethnic minorities found the C.Psprogram of "self-determination up to complete secession from the existingstate" more appealing than the Romanians. The Party's anti-Romanianstance was partly a function of its leadership (few of the founders wereRomanians), partly the result of the Soviet Union's claim to Bessarabia(which was Russian territory between 1812 and 1918, and Romanian from1918 to 1940), and partly because Comintem strategy for building Com-munist strength throughout the Danubian-Balkan region called for supportof discontented minorities, particularly Hungarians in the various sectionsof Hungary parcelled out to other states after 1918 (Ionescu; Jackson;Roberts).During World WarII Romania sided with the Germans, invaded the


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U.S.S.R., and reoccupied Bessarabia and parts of the Ukraine (in compen-sation for a part of Transylvania given to Hungary and a small piece of theDobrogea given to Bulgaria). But the Romanian C.P was unable to mountany partisan, anti-regime activities. Only in mid-1944, as the Soviet armyapproached Romania, did some sort of anti-German movement take shape.In the end, in August 1944, the military, pro-German regime was over-thrown by King Michael (son of Carol II) who saw this as the only way tosave the country from Soviet devastation (Ionescu; Roberts). Official Com-munist historiography now claims that this act was part of an insurrec-tionary movement organized and led by the C.P, and that it climaxed along period of resistance (Constantinescu et al.). In fact it was an attemptby the Romanian establishment to change sides before it was too late.Some Communists were even brought into the government, but it was avain effort. The Soviet army plundered Romania anyway, and because ofthe country's role as a German ally, the Western powers were hardly in aposition to protest (Wolf).In 1945 Moscow imposed a Communist government on Romania.The Party, under the guidance of cadres brought in from the U.S.S.R., hadswelled its ranks by enrolling every variety of opportunist, includingformer Iron Guardists and police officials from the old regime. After twoyears of fairly cautious maneuvering to strengthen the Communists,waiting to see if the United States would intervene in Eastern Europe, theU.S.S.R. finally imposed full Stalinist rule in 1947 (Ionescu; Roberts).There began the years of terror and repression which were thoroughly totransform Romanian society, and which destroyed all forces capable ofresisting Party rule.In 1944 the Romanian C.P had about 1,000 members, but rapid andindiscriminate recruiting raised membership to about 250,000 by late 1945,and to over 600,000 by 1948,(Ionescu; Jowitt, a).

It is important to remember that the Romanian C.P. in the 1940s wasweak, filled with opportunists, directed almost entirely from Moscow andadvised by resident Soviet officials, unpopular, inexperienced, and (oncethe anti-Titoist purges began in 1948) frightened of itself. This was more orless the case elsewhere in Eastern Europe (except in Yugoslavia, and tosome extent Albania), but it was far more the case in Romania than in anyother newly Communist country. Nowhere else had the Party been soweak and alien in the 1930s, and in no other country in Eastern Europe didit have so little genuine popular support after 1945 (Ionescu). Very rarelyhas such a pathetic movement become an overwhelmingly dominant eliteso quickly. Without the period of Stalinist terror enforced by Soviet occupa-tion, and the continued fear that such a thing might happen again, there isno question that Communist rule in Romania would have collapsed longago. Without understanding this it is impossible to comprehend socialchange since 1947.


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The Destruction of the Old Society, 1947-53The first requirement was to destroy the social and economic bases ofopposition, which meant elimination of the old elites and of the classesthat might resist Communist rule.The professional army was no longer a serious threat. Decimated inRussia, its leading generals in disgrace, disarmed, hemmed in by Soviettroops, filled with untrustworthy recruits, the old army no longer posed athreat. The king, who was a potential rallying point against Communism,was isolated, and then exiled in Decemeber 1947. Romania became arepublic (Lendvai).The first target of Communist rule, even before 1947, was the rem-nant of the old noble, landowning elite. The land reform of 1945 eliminatedlarge properties and removed the last economic base of this declining class(Roberts). A process partially carried out after World War I was now finallycompleted. An elite of several thousand families had ruled the Old Kingdomand had owned about half of its land (Chirot and Ragin). Although itsshare had fallen to no more than 15 percent of the arable land after 1918(Roberts), this class remained a social elite with disproportionate power. Inthe Parliament of the 1930s, according to Mattei Dogan, some 20 to 25percent of the deputies and senators were from large landowning families.The land reform had little effect on the agrarian overcrowding since theamounts of land confiscated were too small to raise the size of peasantholdings by very much. In 1948, over half of all peasant holdings were stillunder 3 hectares, and while these minute properties encompassed moreland than in 1930, they were still too small (Murgescu). But the politicalpurpose of the reform was met-the aristocracy was gone once and for all.Romania in the 1930s was no longer exclusively a "landowners'state," for there were also industrialists and a bourgeoisie. The few largeindustrialists and bankers (expropriated in 1948)had been, however, depen-dent on state contracts and favors from the start. In 1945, German-ownedinvestments (the most important of which were in petroleum production)had been seized by the Soviets, so that by 1948, joint Soviet-Romaniancompanies owned much of the mining and heavy industrial output of thecountry. As other large industrial properties (including foreign-ownedones) were expropriated, many of them went to these "Sovrom" enter-prises, in which the Romanians provided the capital and labor while theSoviets took a share of production. By 1950, 90 percent of industrial outputwas in state firms (Ionescu; Montias).The middle ranks of the bourgeoisie were ruined by a currencyreform in 1947, which essentially confiscated all the money (Ionescu; Rob-erts). The state gradually expropriated commerce, and the base for anindependent middle class vanished. In 1948, 90 percent of all shops were


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still private. By 1953, only 14 percent were still privately owned. (Privateshops did not totally disappear until 1959.) (Anuarul,b).The commercial and industrial bourgeoisie had not constituted anelite in the same way that the old nobility once had. A few Romanianideologues, like Stefan Zeletin had tried hard to pretend that Romaniaafter World War I was run by a capitalist, financial-industrial elite, andCommunists saw a state dominated by heavy industry, finance, and biglandowners (Patrascanu). In actual fact, the society was still too rural andthe economy too agricultural to support a strong bourgeoisie, while in thecountryside the power of the landowners had been substantially brokenlong before 1945. It was, therefore, fairly easy for the Communists todestroy these class enemies.If there was a recognizable elite gradually seizing power from thedeclining aristocracy in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a class of intellectuals,professionals, and top civil servants. Men like Iorga (historian), Cuza(political scientist), Gusti (sociologist), Madgearu (economist), and Goga(poet) occupied high political positions and possessed great influence. Ofall the members of parliament (both chambers) from 1922 to 1937, 20.6percent were school or university teachers or writers and journalists, 7.1percent were doctors, pharmacists, or engineers, and 35.5 percent werelawyers. Businessmen made up under 3 percent of the membership, andpeasants only 6 percent. (Compared to the composition of the pre-WorldWar I parliament, lawyers, teachers and professors, and professionals hadgained at the expense of landowners.) (Dogan).There is really no way of knowing how many people lost their jobsand had their goods confiscated, how many arrests there were, how manydeaths, or how many survived, more or less intact, but frightened intosubmission. Western visitors in the late 1960s and 1970s have been able tosee that the old Romanian intelligentsia was not completely eliminated.The period of severe repression lasted no more than a decade, and whilealmost all the members of this class suffered, many were jailed, andthousands died or were murdered, many others lived through the experi-ence. When the "rehabilitations" of the late 1950s began, these survivorsgradually filtered back into bureaucratic and professional positions, and bythe late 1960s, they formed a distinct strata of aging, well-educated, bitter,civil servants and teachers. Many of them, in fact, came to feel a kind oftwisted loyalty to the Party that saved them from oblivion after havingconsigned them to it in the first place.

The "technical" intelligentsia, the engineers, doctors, agronomists,scientists, etc., suffered less than the others because they were necessaryfor the industrialization and modernization efforts. Even there, however,coercion was strongly applied between 1948 and 1950 in order to insurecompliance. Those who stepped out of line were quickly punished (Ionescu;Jowitt, a).


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Another source of potential opposition to Communism was thechurch. There were actually many Romanian churches, but for variousreasons they were all weak. Unlike the Catholic Church in Poland, and to alesser extent in Hungary, the Romanian churches presented no effectiveresistance.The overwhelming majority of ethnic Romanians were Orthodox,except in Transylvania where there were about 1,600,000 Uniates (basicallyRomanians following an Orthodox ritual but with administrative links toRome). The Uniate Church was abolished in 1948 and its followers forcedinto Orthodoxy (Wolff). This was not difficult since the differences betweenthe two churches had always been a matter of politics rather than religioussubstance. Orthodoxy had been the faith of most ethnic Romanians sinceat least the twelfth century, probably much longer (Chirot, b), and itshould have represented a strong moral force; in fact, it did not. It waseasily manipulated by every government before 1945, and outside Transyl-vania (where it served to protect the Romanian peasants against the Hun-garian aristocracy) it was never a focus of political action. Sons of priestswere among the earliest literate "intellectuals" in the nineteenth century,and many village priests served as local leaders, but the church as a wholewas neither a major intellectual nor a political force. It was, consequently,rather easily subverted by the Communist regime and quickly broughtunder full control (Wolff).The ethnic minorities (Hungarians, Germans, and Jews) were notOrthodox, and there was a fairly strong Hungarian and German CatholicChurch which was vigorously persecuted because of its Western connec-tions. There were also German and Hungarian Protestant churches, butthese were isolated from Western contact and quickly brought under con-trol (Wolff).By 1949-50, then, much of the potential opposition to Communismhad been destroyed or brought under strict control. The way was open forthe replacement of old elites by new ones. But there remained one dan-gerous class that was far from being fully controlled. Itwas not an organizedclass, but it still included 70 percent of the population. Its productiveefforts were also vital to the survival of the national economy. In bringingthe peasantry under control, the Party had to be careful.In the election of 1937 the winning party probably would have beenthe National Peasant Party had there been no electoral fraud. As it was, itreceived 21 percent of the vote (Enescu). After World War II, with fascistsand the right wing in disgrace, there is no question that it was the mostpopular party, and that it would have won free elections. It was even win-ning adherents within the urban working class for the first time (Ionescu).In 1946-47 the Peasant Party was intensively persecuted. Its leaders werearrested, and thousands of its adherents "disappeared." In 1947 it was dis-solved by the government, but even though its leaders had been elimi-


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nated the peasantry as a whole had not yet been touched deeply (Ionescu).One reason the C.P had to deal with the peasants carefully was thatagricultural production was very low, and the country hovered at the edgeof severe famine. The war had caused destruction of livestock. In 1946there were 46 percent fewer horses (critical for plowing), 8 percent fewercattle, 33 percent fewer sheep, and 50 percent fewer pigs than in 1938, sothat meat production was low (Statisticaagricola). This was combined witha severe drought in 1945 and 1946, the worst in the twentieth century. Cornwas particularly devastated (Ionescu-Sisesti). Even after 1946, bad condi-tions persisted. The 1945-48 average annual wheat yields were 7.1 quintalsper hectare, about 30 percent below the average 1934-38 yields (whichwere, it will be recalled, 20 percent below 1909-1913 yields). Corn yieldsfor 1945-48 averaged 6.4 quintals per hectare, a figure 38 percent below1934-38 averages, and less than half the yields obtained before World WarI. (Anuarul, b; FAO, a; Murgescu).Between Russian plundering, massive social dislocation broughton by boundary shifts and population transfers, severe political turmoil,drought, and the virtual disappearance of the cash economy because ofinflation followed by the currency reform, and also because of the govern-ment's hostility to all private enterprise and the confiscation of assets, it is

not surprising that the economy was in a state of chaos. This hardlyenhanced the popularity of the Communist regime, and it made precipitateaction with the peasantry risky.In 1949, however, with the political situation somewhat stabilizedand other opponents under control, the Party began its attempt to subju-gate the peasantry. All holdings of over 50 hectares (about 6,000 of themwith about 6.5 percent of the land) were confiscated and given to statefarms or collectives (Ionescu; Murgescu). The Chiabur (the Romanian forKulak, or rich peasant who hired labor or had over about 15 hectares) wasdeclared a class enemy (Moldovan et al.). This meant that the most pros-perous and successful peasants were singled out for deliberate persecutionin the form of unreasonably high delivery quotas and taxes imposed by thestate (Montias).State farms had been started even before 1949 with lands taken fromformer large estates, institutional and government holdings, and royallands. These farms were to be large, advanced units, and their workerswere to be treated like industrial workers. Collectives, on the other hand,were collections of peasants working their own, expropriated lands, andliving in their old villages (Montias; Murgescu).In principle, the small (0 to 5 hectares) and middle (5 to 20, but notthose with hired labor) peasants were to be allies with the state in thisprocess of socialist transformation of agriculture and war against the kulaks(Murgescu). Actually, the combination of steep quotas and forced producedeliveries for all peasants (the kulaks had the greatest load to bear, but the


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load was not light for the others), the threat of forcible expropriation ofprivate land, and the rather loose demarcation between kulaks and othersraised active protest and resistance in whole villages. Until 1949, the onlysystematic armed resistance against Communism had been conducted byopponents who had escaped from the cities and gone into the mountains.Now, matters became more serious as uncoordinated but widespread peas-ant resistance to the regime began (Ionescu; Prost). By the later admissionof Gheorghiu-Dej, about 80,000 peasants were arrested (cited in Ionescu).In some ways, the C.P.'s policy had considerable justification. In 1948, 53percent of all holdings had included areas of less than 3 hectares (19.6percent of the land) (Murgescu), and some form of consolidation andcooperation was necessary in order to improve productivity and the peas-ants' standard of living. But it was evident to the peasants that the teamssent out to force them into production brigades were there to impose statecontrol, not to help; and persecution of the more successful villagers by thestate did not reassure their fellow peasants, especially when all they werepromised was more hard work and forced deliveries without title to newland. By the early 1950s some 180,000 people (out of a total population of16,000,000) were in jails and concentration camps, about 40,000 of them atwork on a Danube-Black Sea canal that was never completed (Ionescu). Inall fairness to the Romanian C.P., the proportionate number of arrests,deportations, and murders was far lower than that which occurred in theSoviet Union in the 1930s. But these were terrible years in Romania, and itis impossible to give the full flavor of what happened. Only personalmemoirs and novels written by those who were present can convey theenormity of a state at war with almost all of its population. (For a novelisticview of social change in Romania during the 1940s, see Dumitriu, b.)Kenneth Jowitt, the best American analyst of contemporary Roma-nian politics, has called the early period of Communist rule the "break-through" stage. This stage is somewhat analogous to the "take-off" ineconomic development. He writes:Breaking hroughmeans the decisive alterationor destructionof values, structures,and behaviors which are perceived by a revolutionary elite as comprising orcontributingto the actual or potential existence of alternative centers of politicalpower (a, 7).Such a process is the prerequisite of revolutionary transformation whichalone can enable a society to make rapid economic progress. This, at least,is the argument, and Jowitt sees the early period of Communist rule as onein which the new Party elite sought to eliminate, quite rationally, the oldelites. He wonders, however, whether or not the process may not havebeen pursued beyond purely rational considerations, and cites Romania'spresent chief, Nicolae Ceausescu, speaking in 1967 about the old days:


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In their speeches some comrades justly referred to the fact that in the course ofyears, especially at the beginning, there was sometimes a lack of political discern-ment in the activity of the security organs, no distinction being made betweenhostile activity, directed against the revolutionary gains of the people, and somemanifestations linked to the natural process of transforming the people's con-sciousness and mode of thinking. Therefore,some abuses and transgressions(sic!)of socialist legality were committed, measures were taken against some citizensthat were not justified by their acts and manifestations(a, 98).

Behind the guarded words of Nicolae Ceausescu, however, therelies a permanent fear among all Romnanians, including the present elite,that a return to such times remains possible, and that it must be avoided atall costs.It seems to me that even Jowitt overinterprets the period of terror.Destruction of the old elite and the elimination of all possible sources ofopposition were the aim of the Party, but why? The orders were comingfrom Stalin, not from the local Party elite, and the only important Com-munist who spoke up for a more humane line (Lucretiu Patrascanu) waspurged in 1948 as a Titoist, and executed in 1954 (Ionescu; Jowitt, a).Stalin's immediate goal was control of Eastern Europe in order to maintaina "cordon sanitaire" in reverse, a protective blanket shielding the U. S. S.R.from Western intervention. The fact that the same policies were uniformlyapplied throughout Eastern Europe in 1947-48, and intensified in 1949-51,shows that they were coordinated from Moscow and did not respond tolocal needs. The Soviets also wanted to use the industrial potential ofEastern Europe to help with their own rearmament. For all its relativebackwardness Romania had some major industries, and these were builtup and expanded as quickly as possible (Turnock). Was this all part of aSoviet master plan, or a series of improvisations? Even without an answerit is evident that the orders did not come from Bucharest.Who was in control in Romania during these years? GheorgheGheorghiu-Dej was the formal chief, and ruled with Anna Pauker, VasileLuca, and Teohari Georgescu. The last three were Soviet agents, and it wasPauker and Luca, Jewish and Hungarian, respectively, who were the mostpowerful. Gheorghiu-Dej, an authentic Romanian worker, was at first a"facade" secretary-general (Ionescu). The Minister of the Armed Forces,Emil Bodnaras, a half-German, half-Ukrainian, was an NKVD (Sovietsecret police) agent (Ionescu). In other words, the Romanian C.P. wasfirmly controlled by Moscow.By the early 1950s the old elites had been eliminated, and thepeasantry was increasingly subjected to state control. Industrialization andmassive infusion of new cadres were advancing quickly. Industrial produc-tion returned to pre-war levels in 1949 and passed above World War IIpeaks in 1950. Very large investments were made in heavy industry (butlittle in agriculture or consumer goods) in 1950, and a first Five-Year Planwas launched for 1951-55 (Montias). Nevertheless, the agricultural situa-


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tion remained depressed, though better than in the immediate post-waryears, and the general level of discontent rose. Resistance to the gov-ernment continued into 1951, and in 1952 there were industrial strikes(Ionescu).Something cracked, first in agricultural policy, and then in general.Perhaps the lingering partisan warfare contributed to the change. Perhapsrising urban discontent and the inability of the Party to feed and house itsworkers properly had something to do with it. The C.P. was still veryweak, and repeated purges, combined with indiscriminate Party recruit-ment had left the new elite incoherent and demoralized (Jowitt, a). In1951-52 the collectivization effort was virtually halted, and Pauker, Luca,and Georgescu were purged, presumably with Stalin's approval. Theywere blamed for all the problems, and for the first time the "Romanian"element of the party, led by Gheorghiu-Dej, came to the fore over the"Muscovites" and foreigners. Stalin's innate anti-Semitism may have beenresponsible for Pauker's fall (Jowitt, a; Lendvai). Stalin was planning mas-sive new purges himself, and it is unclear what happened (Jowitt, a). TheSoviet goal was to maintain compliance, not to provoke anarchy, and thereis little doubt that the extreme policies of the Muscovites were leading to abreakdown, not a breakthrough. In any event, it was the 1952-53 periodthat saw the start of the construction of a real and indigenous Communistsociety in Romania.The importance of the 1947-53 period cannot be underestimated.Whether one follows Jowitt's "breakthrough" interpretation or chooses toview the period as one of randomly applied terror in order to insure totalsubmission, there is no question that for the Party elite as well as forRomania this was a formative experience. In the following decade, asRomania slowly emerged from the darkness and despair of the Stalinistyears, those years were remembered. The Party cadres (including NicolaeCeasescu) who rule Romania in the 1970s, were in their late 20s and early30s during this time. What they thought of their situation, trapped be-tween a hostile population and an irresolutely harsh ally, can only remain amatter of speculation. But in later years, their continuing distrust of theirown masses and the great bitterness they expressed toward the SovietUnion combined to create a unique and distinctly Romanian pattern ofCommunist development.

Political Change and the New Elite, 1953-57The very rapid rate of industrial growth from 1948 to 1953 (an averageyearly growth of 18.2 percent) created severe problems. Urban growth(from 3,747,000 to 4,424,000) raised demand for housing and food, butvirtually no new housing was built as all investment funds went into the


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industrialization drive. As for food, production remained below the 1938levels, when urban demand was lower. To keep rising demand fromincreasing prices, the state forced peasants to make compulsory deliveries(about one-quarter of production, in the case of cereals). In 1952, a newmonetary reform again confiscated any personal reserves that might havebuilt up, and consumer goods were rationed. The average standard ofliving, whether measured by supplies of meat, housing, or general mer-chandise, remained below pre-war levels (Montias).The political struggle and purges of 1952-53 eased the situation. Theproportion of national income invested in industry was lowered, andincreased amounts went to agriculture, consumer goods, and housing.The process of forced collectivization was stopped, and forced deliveryquotas reduced. (They were virtually eliminated in 1956.) Living standardsrose markedly in 1953-55, though average food consumption still did notreturn to pre-war levels, and the merchandise trade remained below thelevel of the late 1930s until the 1960s (Montias).To make the peasants more compliant without endangering pro-duction through protest, a new type of semi-collective was devised called"intovarasiriagricole" (agricultural associations). Private ownership of land,animals, and equipment was retained, but the land was worked in common.Owners took a share of production proportionate to their investment.Machine and tractor stations run by the state were to aid these associationsin working the land with more advanced methods (Turnock). The associa-tions were certainly more bearable than the collectives, and recruitmentseems to have been voluntary. Associations were to serve as "a school forworking peasants on the road toward collectives" (Frasie and Lazar, 259).However, because force was no longer used, the rate of collectivization andthe growth of associations slowed.The relaxation of 1953-55 was not meant to be permanent, however,and in 1955 there was rendwed pressure for rapid industrialization through-out Eastern Europe. State investments were again scheduled to rise, andan ambitious Romanian Second Five-Year Plan (1956-60) was established.The confusion that set in after Khrushchev's anti-Stalin speech ofFebruary 1956, and the lesson of the Polish and Hungarian uprisings thatfollowed later in 1956, set back these plans. In 1957 state investments wereagain curtailed, and urban living standards were raised (Montias).The political turmoil in Eastern Europe had its counterpart in Roma-nia during this period. Romania remained much more quiet than Hungaryand Poland (though the Hungarians in Transylvania were agitated byevents across the border), but the political maneuvering in Romania wasvery important for its future. But by the late 1950s, internal Party politicswere no longer as rarified an affair as in the early 1950s, when there wereonly a few key individuals plotting against each other and courting Mos-cow's favor. A whole new elitehadarisen, with its own interests, its own internal


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divisions, and a greatersense of security than it had possessed a few years before.The menace of crude Soviet intervention was also reduced, both by thepower struggle going on in Moscow between Khrushchev and his variousopponents, and also by the threats to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europein 1956. Romania firmly sided with the Soviet Union's intervention inHungary, and the Soviet leadership was able to appreciate the benefits of adocile, orthodox leadership capable of keeping itself and its people undersolid control.Khrushchev eased his de-Stalinization campaign in Eastern Europe,and after the fighting in Hungary, Romania received more Soviet economicaid; also, the Romanian C.P. obtained more freedom of action for itself(Ionescu). The internal struggle that broke out at this time was resolvedinternally, and brought into play the conflicting elements in the elite thathad developed and grown since the late 1940s.In 1955 the Romanian C.P. had about 600,000 members, roughly 5percent of the population over 20 years of age (Anuarul, a; Gilberg). Forty-three percent were classified as working class, but it is not clear what werethe social origins of the membership or even what proportion of thoselisted as "workers" were actual manual workers (Ionescu). Since 34 per-cent of the C.P. in 1960 were peasants, it can be supposed that in the late1950s, that proportion was not too different (Gilberg). In 1956, 20 percentof the general population were workers, 3 percent tradesmen, 9 percent"intellectuals" (professionals, teachers, and many white collar employees),and the remainder, or 68 percent, peasants (Murgescu et al.). So the Partywas overrepresented by workers and members of the intelligentsia, andunderrepresented by peasants. About 55 percent were under 40 years ofage (Ionescu).The apparatchiks, he "New Class" of functionaries who had risen topower under Communism, were not well-educated specialists, but toughcareer bureaucrats who had survived the difficulties of the early period,pushed through massive economic and social change, and recently risen toa position of relative ease and security in a society still dominated by fearand hardship. In the late 1950s they were being challenged by another kindof new class, the technocrats and relatively better educated specialiststrained to take over key positions in the new industrial economy. The"old" new class, therefore, was being challenged by a more rational, morecapable, less dogmatic "newer" new class (Dumitriu, a; Jowitt, a).A third leg of the Romanian elite in the late 1950s was the secretpolice, a privileged, military, feared group which held the state together ata time when popular opinion was still overwhelmingly anti-Communist,and when the C.P. itself still suffered from institutional instability (Jowitt,a). This constellation of competing groups is not, of course, unique toRomania. All Communist regimes have the same groups and many have a


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fourth, the army. In Romania, however, the army does not seem to haveplayed the kind of political role it has enjoyed in the U.S.S.R., China, oreven Bulgaria.Gheorghiu-Dej ruled the C.P., and through it, Romania, as a classicparty boss, a patrimonial chief dispensing material favors to this or thatsubgroup, and always seeking to prevent the formation of permanentpersonal fiefs underneath him. This was often antithetical to rational eco-nomic planning and coordination, but it suited the professional bureau-crats in the system, as well as the secret police, which was the personalenforcing arm of the ruler (Jowitt, a; Roth).In 1956-57, Dej was challenged by Miron Constantinescu (a soci-ologist, from a middle class background, who had joined the C.P. in the1930s), whom Jowitt has compared to Malenkov in the U.S.S.R. In manyways, the challenge presented by Constantinescu was similar to that rep-resented by Malenkov against Khrushchev. He seems to have favoredmore rational planning and a more liberal treatment of the intellectuals. Hefavored the technocrats over the pure functionaries, and also the develop-ment of a consumer-oriented, rather than a heavy-industrial, economy(Jowitt, a). He represented the rising "new new class," and he seems tohave been slated for top leadership after the completion of the anti-Stalinistdrive. When that drive stalled and the struggle became purely internal, helost to Dej, the regular Party bureaucracy, and the police. The intellectualsand technocrats were not sufficiently strong to carry the day.Purged, he sank into obscurity but resurfaced as a leading intel-lectual in the 1960s. In his later days (he died in 1974), many youngerRomanian intellectuals considered him an old Stalinist and dogmatist. Butthis was a false perception. Those who knew him in the 1950s believe hewas the only leader with the vision, intellectual scope, and appreciation oftechnical skills to build a more humane, rational Communist society. Hisdefeat in 1957 was a major tragedy for Romania and, ultimately, for theclass of educated technocrats he represented.In the late 1960s, it seemed that Romania would take a relativelymore open path, like the one for which Constantinescu had stood in thelate 1950s. But the crude orthodoxy that had won in 1957 was to remainentrenched in power, and in the 1970s, faced with renewed crisis, Romaniawould turn back to a more rigid, Party-oriented line. Many of Romania'scurrent problems stem from this decision, and that, in turn, was at leastpartly a function of the struggle in 1957. If Constantinescu had won then,Romania would have become more like Poland or Hungary. As it was, theapparatchiksf the 1950s had time to consolidate their position and toremain in control at the time of the next struggle.In many respects, then, after 1957, the Romanian path towardcontinued Communist development was fixed, and everything which hasfollowed has been a logical outcome of the political settlement of that time.


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Industrialization and Its Social EffectsSince 1947-48 on, the Romanian C.P.'s main economic goal has beenindustrialization. Until 1952-53 this was part of the Soviet design forEastern Europe. Up to 1957 progress was uneven, however, and thereremained questions about the speed and direction of industrialization.After 1957, these questions were resolved, and no more doubts appearedin the ruling councils about the validity of the basic goal, or even its feasi-bility. The entire society was harnessed to industrialization, and in the1960s, when the U.S.S.R. itself questioned the rationality of Romania'seconomic goals, this pushed the Romanian leadership into a break withMoscow. Since 1958, only foreign intervention, or an unexpected andunlikely internal revolt, could have changed the direction of Romanianeconomic development. (Montias calls the 1958-65 period that of the "Take-Off.") All European Communist economies (as well as those outside Eu-rope, in differing degrees) have stressed industrial growth. But Romaniasince 1958 has done so to an extraordinary degree. Romanian industrialproduction in recent decades has grown proportionately more rapidly thanthat of any other European country. (Leaving aside Albania, perhaps,which began with a non-existent industrial base, and which does not, inany case, provide adequate statistics.) Obviously, the more developedEuropean economies, even those in Communist Europe (Czechoslovakia,East Germany) could not be expected to experience the same kind of rapidindustrial growth as economies starting at lower base lines, but even bycomparing Romania to other economies at roughly similar levels of indus-trialization before World War II, its astonishing record is clear (Table 1).Accompanying this growth, there has occurred in Romania's nationalincome (a concept similar to national product except that it excludes manyservices and includes turnover taxes-see Montias, 267-8) a dramatic shifttoward industry (Table 2). Thus, by 1969 the industrial share of Romania'snational income was higher than in Bulgaria or Hungary and closing in onthat of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland (Turnock).

Table 1. INDEXOFINDUSTRIALPRODUCTION 1953 = 100)Romania Bulgaria Yugoslavia Spain Poland Greece Hungary

1953 100 100 100 100 100 100 1001958 159 138 188 149 163 162 1331963 300 259 321 233 248 229 2111968 545 458 446 378 375 362 279

Source: Mitchell, 358.


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Table 2. NATIONAL NCOMEIN PERCENTAGESOF TOTALIndustry Construction Agriculture*

1938 30.8 4.4 38.11950 44.0 6.0 28.01958 42.7 7.7 34.81966 48.6 7.8 31.41974 56.6t 8.3 15.9

-The remainder consists mostly of transportation,communications, and circulation of goods.tin 1970-71 some definitions were changed, makingindustry a somewhat smaller percentage of the wholethan it was according to the old definition.Source: Anuarul, b:111; d:109; f:54,

Not just industry, but heavy industry was particularly emphasized.During the critical 1960-65 plan, 35 percent of all government economicinvestment went into developing fuels and electric power, 25 percent intometallurgy and machine building, and 14 percent into the chemical indus-try (which was actually supposed to receive 20 percent according to theplan). Light and food industries received only 10 percent of investment.From 1966 to 1970 electric power and fuel received 31 percent of all invest-ment, metallurgy and machine building 28 percent, and chemicals 14percent. Food and light industries received 12 percent.Naturally the fact that industrial production was growing at betterthan 12 percent per year does not mean that the entire economy wasgrowing at anything close to that. Agriculture, for one, grew much moreslowly. In 1953 net production was only 94 percent of 1938 production, andit had only grown to 123 percent of 1938 production by 1965 (Montias).From 1965 to 1974 agricultural production grew at an average of 4.25percent per year (Anuarul, f).The nearest figure to GNP per capita growth available for Romaniais the index of real (controlled for price changes) national income per capitafrom 1950 to 1974. While this figure is not calculated in the same way asGNP, percentage change in it is close enough to percentage change in percapita GNP to provide some comparisons. Thus, from 1950 to 1974 Roma-nian per capita net national income grew at the rate of 5.3 percent per year,or 68 percent per decade. (Gross national income grew at an almostidentical rate, but government figures on it are not as detailed.) (Anuarul, f;1975, Montias). This is a very good, but not surprising, rate of economicgrowth. In the 1950s and 1960s per capita GNP grew at the rate of 63percent per decade in West Germany, 60 percent per decade in Italy, andat about 40 percent per decade in most of the other advanced WesternEuropean economies (but at only about 20 percent per decade in the U.S.and Canada). Japan's economy, however, grew at a per capita rate of 128


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Romania / 473

percent per decade, Greece's at 69 percent from 1951 to 1969, and evenPortugal grew at slightly over 50 percent per capita from 1953 to 1969(Mitchell; figures corrected for population). In other words, the capitalisteconomies of southern Europe (Spain, Greece, and Italy) grew at about thesame per capita rate as Romania's economy, somewhere between 60 per-cent and 70 percent per decade. Yugoslavia's net material product percapita (a concept similar to Romania's net national income) grew at therate of 6.5 percent per year, or 88 percent per decade from 1953 to 1969(Mitchell).This is not to say that the Romanian economy has performed poorly,but only that it has not been as miraculous as one might expect fromreading the Bucharest press. What has been extraordinary has been theemphasis on industry, and the consequent neglect of other sectors. Com-pared to Yugoslavia, Romania has grown more slowly, but its industry hasexpanded quite a bit faster. Spain, Greece, and Italy, which have hadoverall growth rates similar to Romania's, have all had considerably lower(though still respectable) industrial growth.In social terms, rapid industrialization in Romania has involvedmost of the changes that have occurred in other industrializing societies,but always with an interesting twist. Labor force composition, for example,has changed markedly since 1950 (Table 3).If, following Kuznets, we group transportation and communicationswith industry, 42.3 percent of Romania's labor force in 1974 was in theindustrial sector, 40 percent in agriculture, and 17.7 percent in services.This is a peculiar breakdown compared to that found in non-socialisteconomies at similar levels of development. Economies with 40 percent oftheir labor force in agriculture could normally be expected to have 30percent in industry, and 30 percent in services. On the other hand, thosewith about 40 percent in industry could normally be expected to have only20-25 percent in agriculture, and 35-40 percent in services.Romania, even more than most Communist economies, has an over-developed industrial sector compared to its weak (because it still employstoo many people for too little production) agricultural sector. Comparedto capitalist economies, this is even more so; and, of course (as withmost Communist economies), Romania's service sector is inadequatelydeveloped.

Table 3. PERCENTOF LABORFORCE BY SECTORLower HigherIndustry, Transportation, Agriculture, Level Level

Construction Communication Forestry Commerce Services Services Other1950 14.3 2.2 74.3 2.5 0.7 5.3 0.81960 20.0 2.8 65.6 3.4 1.5 5.9 o.81970 30.8 4.3 49.3 4.3 3.0 7.2 1.11974 37.7 4.6 40.0 5.4 3.2 7.8 1.3

Source: Anuarul, f:67.


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Industrialization and changing labor force composition have beenassociated with rapid urbanization, as we can see in Table 4. Compared tomost of Southern and Eastern Europe, Romania was distinctly backward inurbanization in 1950, but by the 1970s it had greatly narrowed the gap(Davis). Bucharest, with an official 1.7 million people (actually, close to 2million probably live there, many without legal permission) has 8 percentof the country's population. Cities with over 100,000 people (not countingBucharest) contain 11 percent of the population, and those with 20,000 to100,000 contain 12 percent (Anuarul, f).Massive migration to the cities in the 1950s and 1960s created severestrains for an economy that emphasized investment in heavy industryrather than consumer goods and housing. From 1951 to 1955 about 14,000apartments were built per year to accommodate over 150,000 new urbanitesper year. From 1956 to 1960, an average of 26,000 new urban apartmentswere built per year, and in the early 1960s, about 45,000. During thoseyears, close to 200,000 new urbanites had to be housed each year. Thenumber of new apartments built annually rose to 80,000 in the late 1960s,and in the 1970s over 100,000 new urban apartments have been built eachyear. New apartments have also grown in size. In the 1950s, over 20 per-cent had only one room, and under 15 percent three or more rooms; by1974, 7 percent had one room, and over 40 percent had three or more(Anuarul, b, e, f). So it was not until the late 1960s that enough newapartments were built each year to keep up with urban growth, and notuntil the 1970s that the accumulated, unsatisfied backlog began to dimin-ish. Now, immense new blocks of apartment buildings stretch for milesinto the Bucharest suburbs, and similar projects (on a correspondinglymore modest scale) exist in every town.The housing shortage throughout the 1950s and 1960s (common inall Communist countries) set a distinctive stamp on urban life. It crowdedfamilies together and probably contributed to the rapid fall in birth rates.Quite surprisingly, the overcrowding did not produce the massive socialproblems associated with rapid urban growth in non-socialist industrial-izing countries. No evidence exists of increases in crime, prostitution,alcoholism, or other social pathologies associated with urban slums. AllTable 4. URBAN POPULATION

As %of NationalTotal Urban Population1930 3,051,253 21.41948 3,713,139 23.41966 7,305,714 38.21974 8,978,917 42.7

Source: Anuaru, f :9. 1930, 1948,and 1966 figures are from censuses. The1974 figure is an official estimate.


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Romania / 475

these things exist, but to an observer used to city life in Latin America,Africa, and much of Asia, or reading about early industrial Western Euro-pean cities, it is their relative absence which is most obvious. In part, thishas been because of the tight discipline imposed by the state. New Shantytowns were not allowed to grow around the cities (rather, people werecrowded into existing housing), and the pervasive power of the stateprevented a distinct, hostile, marginal slum subculture from developing.Another and less obvious reason for the relatively smooth process ofurbanization has been the fact that industrialization has occurred through-out the country, and investments have deliberately tried to prevent a fewmajor centers from extending their advantage in previous development.Bucharest's population, for example, has grown by 58 percent since 1948,while urban growth in general has been 141 percent. (Even if we include anextra several hundred thousand people living in Bucharest illegally, itspopulation has not quite doubled since 1948.) This is unusual for a citywhich is both the political and industrial center of a rapidly developingcountry. It is not only through balanced urban growth, but by buildingfactories accessible to large numbers of commuting villagers that Romaniahas kept its urban growth under some control, and thus prevented thedisruptions which might otherwise have occurred. The fairly uniformspread of industrialization, the widespread (if crowded) public transporta-tion system, and the fairly small size of the country have also helped byallowing new urban migrants to keep in frequent touch with their oldfamilies.That a great effort has been made to distribute industrial growthfairly evenly throughout the country can be demonstrated by looking atthe growth of industrial employment on a county by county basis. From1960 to 1974 industrial employment grew most quickly in the Wallachianand Moldavian plains (which, aside from the city of Bucharest, were themost rural, least industrial parts of the country). Industrial employmenthas grown much more slowly, below the national average, in almost all ofthe counties that were more highly industrialized to begin with. (The onlyexception is Prahova, the center of the petroleum industry.) Taking thelevel of industrialization as the percentage of the population employed byindustry in 1966 (at the time of the last census) in each county, and cor-relating this with the percentage growth of the industrial labor force ineach county from 1960 to 1974 (there are 40 counties, including Bucharest),yields an R of -.88 (Spearman's R) (Anuarul, d, f).

Not only has the relatively even distribution of investment slowedurban concentration, it has also allowed a large number of villagers tobecome commuting workers, picked up by buses or trains, employed infactories but maintaining residence in their own village. This has madethe relatively slow growth of urban housing and services less severe than ifall new workers had become permanent migrants to the cities. Commuting


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from villages to factories remains most common in the hill and mountaincounties that are the most industrialized in the country. These stretchroughly along the Carpathian mountains, from the Danube to Moldavia,and include the counties of Caras-Severin, Hunedoara, Sibiu, Arges, Bra-sov, and Prahova. But even within the most industrialized counties, in-dustry is more evenly distributed than it used to be. The pattern ofcommuting from village to new factories has spread to a significant degreethroughout other hill and mountain counties, and more recently even intothe agricultural plains. A nationwide study of rural youth in 1968 showedthat 34 percent of all males between the ages of 19 and 25 commuted out oftheir village to work, and of these, about 40 percent worked in industry orconstruction. Since commuters are disproportionately young, male, andrelatively skilled workers, agriculture is increasingly carried out in villagesby the old, the less skilled, and women. Industrial workers are consider-ably better paid than agricultural ones, so this tendency is not surprising(Cresin, c; Dragan; Stahl et al., a).The primary aim of the Communist party, the creation of a modernworking class distributed throughout the country, and the gradual elimina-tion of the peasantry as a distinct class, is very far on the road to comple-tion. But, if the relatively even spread of industry has been a boon tovillagers seeking to improve their situation, either by migrating or bycommuting, it has also given Romania a genuinely industrial physicalappearance, particularly in the hill areas that are the most highly indus-trialized. It is difficult to get away from smoke, noise, and roads crowdedwith dusty trucks and buses. All towns, even small ones, are in the midstof this industrial boom, and some of the most beautiful low mountainvalleys of Romania are now filthy with smog. The society emerging fromthis transformation is primarily one of small industrial towns. Even inthe larger cities, with a few exceptions, the rows of factories and colorlessnew apartments create a distinctive, provincial atmosphere that resemblesneither the cultured and affluent best of European urban life nor the worstof the crowded and desperate slums which are common in the poorercountries of the world.What is good for the growing working class, however, is less agree-able for the middle class, particularly for the intelligentsia. Assignment toprovincial towns or to rural industries is feared by university graduates,though they often cannot avoid it. Established bureaucrats in the largestcities, particularly in Bucharest, consider transfers to lesser towns as severeand unpleasant demotions. Cultural opportunities, stores, restaurants,and other services, including medical care and schooling for children aredistinctly inferior outside of a few big cities. The rapid rate of industrializa-tion and urbanization of the country have left neither time nor availableinvestment for such amenities. Rather, urban services throughout most ofthe country, and even in the new suburbs of the large cities, are aimed at


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Romania / 477

mass needs. Basic schooling and medical care, minimal recreation facilities,too few stores with too few goods, scattered restaurants with bad food andalmost no service-these have been provided. In Bucharest, Cluj, and tosome extent Brasov, Sibiu, Timisoara, and Iasi, older cities with well-established urban centers, amenities are available for the intelligentsia,though they tend to be badly overcrowded. In the new industrial towns,however, they are absent. As a result, members of the intelligentsia notonly try to remain in the major urban centers, but if they are transferred,they try to commute without moving their families away from the maincenters. Among the middle class, urban to rural, or big city to small citycommuting is much more common than the reverse. (This pattern isdescribed for the new industrial center of Boldesti in Herseni; the problemsof engineers living in the small town of Slatina are touched upon by StelaCernea; but on the whole, this is a problem which is almost never dis-cussed in Romanian publications even though it is obsessively discussed inprivate. See also Chirot, a.)The marked difference between the available life styles in the maincities and outside them particularly concerns university students. Scho-lastic standing determines choice of job, so that the best remain in Bucharestor Cluj, and the worst are consigned to the least desirable locations. Notonly students, but urban bureaucrats and graduates of technical schoolsbargain, bribe, and connive to get choice geographic assignments. Thesituation is particularly serious for young professional couples where bothpartners have careers, for they risk being assigned to widely differentlocations. The power to move members of the intelligentsia from one postto another is one of the strongest levers of control that the Party and theState can exercise on this class.Thus, industrialization has thoroughly transformed Romania. It hascreated a semi-urban society extending even into village areas. By spreadingindustrial investment throughout the country, and by maintaining tightsocial discipline, Romania has avoided the worst problems of rapid urban-ization. It has also physically defaced much of its area, and given largeportions of the intelligentsia grounds for discontent.

Rural Society and the Collectivization of AgricultureA corollary of the decisive victory of the orthodox "industrializing" ten-dency of the C.P. was a renewed determination to collectivize agriculture.The period of rapid change was from 1957 to 1962, and since then theoverall situation has remained stable. In 1974, the proportional breakdownof types of control of arable land was almost exactly the same as in 1967(Anuarul, f). (See Table 5.)During the collectivization drive, peasants were forced into associa-


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tions which were quickly transformed into full collectives, or, as the Roma-nians call them, cooperatives. Only mountain villages escaped. Becausethe latter have little arable land, most of it poor, and because mechaniza-tion of agriculture is out of the question in high altitude areas, they haveremained privately owned ever since. (The private plots of cooperativemembers are not really privately owned, even though they are privatelyused.) The 1955 statistics are somewhat misleading because most of thecountryside remained untouched by collectivization; almost all socialistagriculture was concentrated in the flatest lands best suited to extensivecereal cultivation and mechanization (Montias). Throughout much of therest of the country, family control (with considerable state interference)was still the rule, and the collectivization drive that began in 1957 aimed atrapid, thorough transformation of the situation, not simply an accelerationof existing trends. There was peasant opposition, as before, but in the late1950s the situation was quite different from what it had been in the early1950s. Collectivization was better planned, less brutal, more beneficial tothe peasants, and carried out more flexibly than in the earlier attempt. TheParty was also in much better control of the country as a whole. I haveheard stories about violent resistance in villages in the late 1950s, and eventhe early 1960s, but it is quite clear that whatever opposition there was, itwas neither as effective nor as bitter as it had been earlier, and there do notseem to have been either large-scale violence or mass arrests.By the time it was carried out, collectivization (or some kind ofdrastic reform) had become necessary. The years of insecurity, when it wasnot known how much land would be confiscated (or when, or under whatterms), combined with the lack of investment in agriculture, had causedsevere stagnation. Montias has calculated that net agricultural output didnot rise significantly and consistently above 1938 levels until the early1960s. It is not certain that collectivization was the best possible solution,however, since a firm commitment to private agriculture might have hadequally good or better results. But since a firm decision of some sort had tobe made, and given the political atmosphere, it was better to collectivizequickly than to continue the uncertainty.Table 5. PERCENTOF ARABLELAND BY TYPE OF CONTROL

1950 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963State units 9.2 13.7 13.3 13.3 13.5 16.4 17.2 17.5 17.6 20.2Collectives 2.8 8.2 9.7 14.5 17.5 27.3 41.8 53.5 77.4 75.1Within which,private members' 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.6 0.8 1.6 2.8 4.3 7.8 8.2plots

Associations 0 4.0 7.8 20.2 24.3 30.3 25.3 15.9 1.5 0.1Private 88.0 74.1 69.2 52.0 44.7 26.0 15.7 13.1 3.5 4.6

Source: Anuarul, d:250-53.


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Romania / 479

Agricultural backwardness is an old Romanian problem, and recentprogress shows that it cannot be blamed on collectivization. Since the1930s Romania has progressed at a rate roughly similar to that experiencedby European countries with similar geographic conditions (Table 6).Romanian cereal yields were lower in 1934-38 than in these othercomparable countries, and they remain lower today (Table 7).Cereal production statistics do not tell the whole story since Roma-nian agriculture has diversified considerably since the 1930s. Production ofindustrial crops (particularly sunflower for oil, and beet for sugar) hasgrown about tenfold since 1934-38. Potato, vegetable, and animal produc-tion have also grown significantly. In 1938, 81 percent of all the arable landwas used for cereal production, and in 1974 only 61 percent was so used. Inother words, while far from spectacular, the performance of collectivizedagriculture has not been as dismal as some of its critics believe (Anuarul, f).Changes in agriculture have transformed the peasant family from arelatively closed unit into a diversified organization that needs to sendmembers into the outside world to perform specialized tasks. In order tosurvive, families have come to rely on members' participation in varioussectors of the labor force. Those who are able migrate or commute to fac-tories (but maintain strong ties with parents, siblings, or other relatives inthe village), while some people commute to work in state agriculturalunits. Yet others work in the local collective, not only for direct remunera-tion, in cash, but also for payment in kind (normally a large portion of thepay), and (an important consideration) for the right to cultivate a small plotprivately. With this plot, some animals can be maintained, or vegetablesand fruit grown, or extra cash obtained. Because dairy products, vege-tables, fruit, and good quality meat are often difficult to purchase in towns,access to them undoubtedly strengthens ties between new urban migrantsand kin left behind in the villages. On the other hand, since most collectivemembers are short of cash (if not of produce), the money earned by outsidefamily members is a valuable addition to the village standard of living. Thisis particularly evident in the surprisingly good private housing built bypeasants in villages throughout the land. It is also responsible for a wider

Table 6. INDEXOF WHEATAND CORN Table7. INDEXOF WHEATANDYIELDS 1934-38 = 1.00) CORN YIELDSPER HECTARE1970-741970-74 (YUGOSLAVIA= 100)

Wheat Corn Wheat CornRomania 2.03 2.37 Romania 76 77Hungary 2.22 1.94 Hungary 114 118Yugoslavia 2.40 1.86 Yugoslavia 100 100Bulgaria 2.58 3.46 Bulgaria 118 119Italy 1.73 2.57 Italy 91 161

Source: FAQ, a:2, 20; b:44-45, Source: FAQ, b:44-45, 50-51.50-51.


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dispersal in villages of modern consumer goods than might otherwise bepossible. Far from having been weakened by modernization, the peasantfamily has simply become more diversified. Since, for potential rural-urban migrants, it is always an advantage to have a relative in town to helpfind a job, or to help the newcomer with bureaucratic problems, and sinceurban dwellers can enjoy holidays in the country more easily if they retainrural roots, there is great advantage in keeping family awareness high.At a routine, daily level, the diversification of rural family activitycan be seen by some time budget statistics collected by Romanian sociolo-gists in several collective villages in the county of Arges in the early 1970s.These statistics also show important facts about the division of laborbetween the sexes and the influence of various geographic settings. As wecan see in Table 8, household tasks are performed primarily by women anddo not vary significantly according to geographical setting. But in theplains, where collective agriculture is more mechanized and lucrative forpeasants, twice as much time is spent on that activity than in the hill andborder villages, and the men put a relatively greater proportion of theirtime into this activity than women. Where collective agriculture is lessremunerative, both sexes work a lot less at it, and women slightly morethan men.In Arges, as in other counties that touch the Carpathian mountains,factories tend to be concentrated at the juncture of hill and plain. Villagesnear such factories obviously send more of their labor outside the village,and serve more as "dormitories" rather than pure agricultural villages,than elsewhere. This, at least, is the case for men, though not for women. Atthe same time, villages which have many permanent outside workers havefewer temporary ones. Temporary outside work tends to be agricultural(helping at peak times in neighboring or more distant collectives and statefarms) rather than industrial.

Table 8. PERCENTOF WORKTIMEUSED FORVARIOUSACTIVITIESBorder VillagesHill Villages (part hill, part plains) Plains Villages

Male Female Male Female Male FemaleOn collective 5.9 6.4 5.5 6.2 14.2 11.2Household tasks 26.3 61.9 23.2 62.1 23.4 58.8Family plot 15.1 9.3 11.7 10.9 15.6 6.1Permanentoutside work 33.3 17.6 47.3 16.3 25.1 20.8Temporaryoutside work 19.4 4.8 12.3 4.4 21.7 3.2

100 100 100 99.9 100 100.1Source: M. Cernea, 236.


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I suspect that women work many more hours than men becausethey work outside the home but are still called upon to perform the manyhousehold tasks necessary in the villages which have very poor servicestructures. (The same is true in the cities, though possibly to a lesserextent.)Since, in fact, the less lucrative collective agricultural work tends tobe left to older people, many collectives rely heavily on the labor of oldmen and overworked peasant women. This obviously retards the growthand rationalization of agricultural production, but it is highly rational fromthe point of view of the individual family which needs a connection withthe collective in order to obtain certain produce, and access to the rewardingprivate plot. The problem is particularly severe where there are nearbyindustrial facilities. Not only do these drain away the best labor, but theyalso provide a ready market for produce from private plots, which can bebrought to nearby markets by family members. Thus, collective laborcomes third in importance, after labor in factories, and on private plots (orfor marketing private produce). The problem is nicely illustrated by acomparison carried out in the late 1960s between two villages, both poten-tially rich in agriculture, but one near an urban center, and the other rela-tively isolated (Stahl, et al., b). Whereas the village near the urban areaused to be far more advanced and productive than the isolated one, inrecent years the situation has been reversed. As of the late 1960s, theisolated village had a collective that worked very well, whereas the sup-posedly more advanced village had one which worked poorly. Moreover,since industrialization is proceeding quickly throughout the land, this typeof problem is likely to get worse.Collectives are neither small private enterprises nor large industrialor bureaucratic employers. Rather, as M. Cernea has pointed out, they aresomething quite unique and virtually unknown outside the Communistcountries. They are large state enterprises without a regular salaried laborforce. They depend on labor recruited from privately oriented micro-units(families) with outside options. One doesn't "join" a collective like afactory or office, one "lives" in a collective. But living there does not entailnecessary obligations, or even the necessity of working there. (Houses andtheir courtyards are privately owned.) The collective must therefore attractlabor from the village. To do so it offers pay, but this is often low. It alsooffers use of a private plot (which cannot, however, be inherited or sold).Wihout private plots, total agricultural output would fall dramatically, andwork on the collective would become much less attractive, so that availablevoluntary labor would decline. On the other hand, private plots also drainaway much available agricultural labor.The problem is further complicated by the fact that in order to keeptheir labor force collectives must also pay wages in kind. This means thatmost collectives try to grow some of everything to provide goods to


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distribute to members. A rational strategy from the point of view of locallabor needs and community interests is to provide as many necessaryfoods as possible. From the point of view of the general economy, however,this is not a rational strategy. Geographic diversity calls for considerablelocal specialization, but individual collectives resist this in order to satisfytheir laborers. This is especially evident with cereals, which should be con-centrated in the plains where high mechanization is possible. But cerealscontinue to be grown in areas where they do poorly, particularly in certainhill areas, simply to feed the local peasants. (M. Cernea; see also Neamtufor a case study of a Transylvanian hill village where this happens.) Theonly remedy for this kind of systematic irrationality, where micro-rationality(family interests) conflicts with local collective rationality, which in turnconflicts with national economic rationality, is the creation of an effectiveretail market network throughout the entire country. But the establishmentof an effective retail network is considered a low priority by the nationalgovernment, and the consequent irrationalities are simply logical adapta-tions to an artificially distorted market situation.Before condemning the irrationality of collective agriculture, how-ever, two points must be made. The first has already been discussed in thesection on industrialization and can be elaborated here more fully. Para-doxical as it may seem, beneath the naked political force used to carry outeconomic change, the RomanianC.P has shielded ts populationo a remarkableextent romthedisturbing ffects f thespread fmarket ressures ssociated ithrapid modernization.Force there has been, even a great deal, but the distor-tion of short-term market pressures has also produced some beneficialeffects. The very irrationality of collective agriculture, combined with thespread of factories throughout the country, have allowed a much smoothertransition to an industrial state than would otherwise have been possible.There are no depopulated villages, hopelessly poverty-stricken districts, orlarge numbers of floating, unemployed migrants. Village collectives thatshould be disbanded on strict economic grounds continue to produce foodfor their population, at a net loss for the national economy. Factories thatshould have been located near other industrial centers provide work forvillagers who do not have to migrate. Individuals who cannot adapt tomodern life continue to live and work in activities that would have disap-peared a long time ago in free market economies. All this obviously cutsdown on social overhead costs, and it also humanizes the transformation,particularly for those least adapted to it.This general leniency also extends to other spheres. It is, for example,difficult to fire factory workers under any circumstances, and managerscomplain about this. But urban intellectuals and the middle class whocomplain about the low standard of living in Romania, and about the lackof personal political freedom, rarely understand the benign aspects of asocial system that affords some protection from the impersonal market.


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They compare themselves to the middle classes in West Germany orFrance, but should, instead, look at the insecure poor in Greece, Yugo-slavia, and Southern Italy.The second important point is that sheer economic rationality hasnever been the main point of the Party's agricultural program. To be sure,production is important, but not at the cost of orthodox political principlesor the safety of Communist achievements. An agricultural planner inBucharest told me in 1970 that from a strictly economic viewpoint, collec-tivization was a disaster in certain parts of the country, while it workedwell in other parts. He gave the hill regions of Oltenia as a good example ofthe former, and the flat, dry Baragan (as well as the Dobrogea) as anexample of the latter. But the Party was adamantly opposed to any returnto private holdings in any area that had been collectivized (though itsexperience had persuaded it to leave the few privately held mountainlands alone). Even a slight change backward would engender too manyhopes for a return to private property in other parts of the country, and thiscould set off a chain reaction of false expectations throughout the society.That would create impossible political pressures and frustrations. Expertstherefore came up with a series of reforms designed to stimulate privateinterest in collective work without weakening socialist ownership or con-trol. And whatever concessions were made in order to stimulate produc-tion, the ultimate goal was, and remains, full socialism in agriculture as inevery other aspect of the economy. The backsliding Poles (who still havemostly privately owned land) and Hungarians (who have reformed theircollectives far more than the Romanians to take into account private in-terests) are definitely not viewed as potential models. (This is equally thecase in industry, and particularly in the retail trade sector of the economy.)The Yugoslav model is seen as totally irrelevant to Romania, despite theYugoslav-Romanian alliance in foreign affairs.

Yet private production remains vitally important to Romanian agri-culture. For example, while only 9.4 percent of the land in 1974 wasprivately owned, it produced 20.6 percent of the fruit, 20 percent of themilk, and 14 percent of the eggs. Land on collectives which was privatelyworked did even better, for while it was only 6.5 percent of the land itproduced 33.9 percent of the potatoes, 29.5 percent of the vegetables, 38.5percent of the fruit, 33.8 percent of the meat, 37.8 percent of the milk, 32.3percent of the wool, and 52.7 percent of the eggs (Anuarul, f). Even thesefigures, however, represent a slight decline since 1969, especially in theproduction of potatoes, fruit, meat, and eggs.In order to resolve some of the contradictions between privateinterests and socialist agriculture, a series of reforms were passed in theearly 1970s. They emphasized the right of collective members to use pri-vately worked plots, and allowed families who satisfied certain conditionsto cultivate more land privately than before. The key portions of the


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reforms were related to what Romanians call the "global contract" system.Individuals or groups sign contracts with the collective to perform a givenamount of work, yielding a certain amount of produce during the comingseason. Fulfillment of the contract (or overfulfillment) brings rewards,while underfulfillment brings financial penalties. The collective and tractorstations are held responsible for providing the necessary help, and failureson their part do not penalize the work group. Individuals, several indi-viduals, families, several families, or larger groups united as teams maysign such agreements (M. Cernea).In practice, most contracts are signed by individuals who thendivide the work tasks among family members, or they are signed by singlefamilies as wholes. Even village residents who are not normally membersof the collective may sign agreements and work part time for extra income(M. Cernea). Thus, production has been partially reprivatized, and thefamily's role has been strengthened, without allowing a formal retreatfrom socialist principle. Cernea points out that many collective officialshave resisted this tendency because it weakens their control over produc-tion; but where the new system has been allowed to function according tothe rules, it seems to have raised production significantly.In the long run, the proportion of the population involved in agri-culture will decline, and an ever growing proportion of production willcome from large mechanized collectives and state units. In the meantime,the Party has adapted somewhat to private and family interests, and thishas certainly helped. Many instances of gross inefficiency remain-fieldsplowed too late, harvests left to rot on the ground because of labor shortagesand machine breakdowns, inadequate distribution of seed and fertilizer. Itis still common to see students and members of the army in the fields atharvest time, trying to make up by mass manual labor what has been leftundone by normal procedures. Synchronization of production and trans-portation creates severe problems. But despite these flaws, the modifiedcollective system has made life far more pleasant for peasants than it hadbeen in the past. The peasantry remains poorer than the urban population,and overcentralization of agriculture will produce bottlenecks for a longtime to come, but as long as the Party remains willing to take a flexibleapproach, the situation will remain under control.

Population and MoralityRomania's industrial and agricultural development, and the associatedsocial changes that have taken place in the last thirty years, are easily tiedto the logical demands of socialism, at least as it is understood by theorthodox neo-Stalinist elite that controls the political process. The moralityimposed on the daily social behavior of the population, though it has a


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great deal in common with the puritanism, even prudery, so common inCommunist societies, is less logically connected to Marxism; and in Roma-nia it has been pushed to an extreme unique in the European Communistworld in at least one respect, demographic policy. We may one day seesimilar policies adopted in other European Communist states (though thatis far from certain), but for the time being, Romania stands out as the onlyEuropean, or even fairly industrialized, society that has pursued such aharsh pro-natalist line. Since this pro-natalism is connected to generalpublic morality, as well as to strong nationalism, it should be discussed inconjunction with these other aspects of Party ideology.First, let us consider the astonishing demographic trends of theCommunist period (Table 9). As we can see, in 1967 total births increasedby 93 percent over 1966 and divorces fell by 100 percent. Infant mortality in1967 (total numbers) was also 93 percent higher than in 1966, but in 1968 itrose by 146 percent over 1966 figures.What happened? Simply, in 1966 the law was changed. There hadbeen easy and cheap abortions before, and suddenly abortion was out-lawed except for certain very strictly defined medical reasons. Divorce wasalso outlawed, though the law has been gradually relaxed since then.Contraception was made very difficult to obtain. George Schopflin haswritten that this was produced by an extreme burst of nationalism com-bined with a perception of falling birth rates. Romanians have long fearedbeing overwhelmed by a "Slavic tide," both before 1944 and since. Theindependence and renewal of nationalism within the Romanian C.P in the

Table 9. AVERAGEYEARLYRATES PER 1,000 POPULATIONInfant Mortality(Deaths in First YearBirths Deaths Divorces Per 1,000 Live Births)

1938 28.3 18.2 0.59 179.01950-54 25.3 12.0 1.42 104.91955-59 22.9 9.7 1.79 77.11960-64 16.7 8.6 1.93 61.31965 14.6 8.6 1.94 44.11966 14.3 8.2 1.35 46.61967 27.4 9.3 0* 46.61968 26.7 9.6 0.20 59.51969 23.3 10.1 0.35 54.91970 21.1 9.5 0.39 49.41971 19.5 9.5 0.47 42.41972 18.8 9.2 0.54 40.01973 18.2 9.8 0.69 38.11974 20.3 9.1 0.85 35.0

*In 1967 there were 48, divorces in Rornania.Source: Anuarul, f:22-23.


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early 1960s combined with the puritanism of the official morality to pro-duce this change in policy. Whether or not a nation of 20,000,000 can evercompete demographically with the U.S.S.R. is a pointless question as faras the C.P. is concerned. Whether or not there was a fear that the army orthe youthful industrial labor force would be depleted by declining natalitymay be more to the point, but it is unlikely that rational calculations canever explain such a decisive break with previous laws. The only explana-tion lies in the extreme emotional reaction of a few people at the top,perhaps only Nicolae Ceausescu himself, to a host of coexisting factors.Since 1967, the government has relented somewhat, though divorceremains difficult, hedged with bureaucratic difficulties, and very expen-sive. Some mechanical contraception is available, but (except for a smallurban elite) with great difficulty. Illegal abortion rings have also grown up,but the political and medical dangers, along with the high cost of theprocedure, have created a situation radically different from that whichprevailed in the first half of the 1960s. (In 1970 an illegal abortion inBucharest cost about $100 (2,000 lei), more than a month's salary for atypical urban Romanian at that time. But obviously, for people with goodconnections, and money, there are always easy solutions.)In an urban setting where apartment space is still short, and wheremany young couples still live with relatives, the prohibition of divorce hascreated many sad situations. Throughout the country, there have beenmany unwanted babies as well, particularly among those caught unpre-pared at the time of the sudden change in laws. Since the change, how-ever, it is obvious that the population has begun to adapt, and birth ratesare again falling back to more normal levels. But this does not remove thesocial problem created by the "baby boom" of the late 60s and early 70s.The school system has been strained, and for a long time the suddendemographic spurt will produce its own overcrowding problems.

An unusual thing about birth rates is that in 1974 rural natality was20.8 per 1,000, and the urban rate 19.7 (Anuarul, f). In 1965, the rural ratewas 15.9, and the urban 12.1 (Anuarul, c). Thus, it seems that those hardesthit by the change have been the urbanites, probably because until thechange abortion and contraception we

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Social Change in Communist Romania