TOTALITARIANISM IN ROMANIA

VII. RELAXATION

• When asked, today's Romanians almost invariably answer that they consider the last years of Dej's rule and the first years of Ceausescu's rule as a period of liberalism as compared to both the 50's and the 80's. The term which best defines the period 1965-1974 is that of relaxation.
  
  
• The internal policy of the team Maurer-Ceausescu which succeeded Dej to power started with a series of symbolic but popular measures such as the latinization of the country's name (România instead of Romînia), the adoption of a new constitution (1965) which did not attach importance to the "brother liberator", the rehabilitation of the national communist Lucretiu Patrascanu as well as of many political prisoners arrested between 1951 and 1958- communists, non-communists, monarchists, military men etc.
  
  
• The liberal character of internal relaxation was also given by some steps meant to encourage private initiative:
  
  
  • In 1967 it was allowed to open private shops, restaurants and boarding houses.
    
    
  • Also in 1967 it was allowed to have houses of personal ownership built
    
    
  • Between 1968 and 1970 there were adopted regulations with regard to passports which facilitated considerably people's journeys abroad
    
    
• Culture was the area in which the new orientation was most felt. Under the influence of bright ministers of education (1969-1979) there was a period of progress, modernization and opening:
  
  
  • The importance of Marxism decreased while the importance of scientific and technical subjects increased
    
    
  • The Russian language almost totally disappeared in schools and universities and was replaced by languages of world importance: English, French, German which were little taught before
    
    
  • High schools specializing in teaching in one of these languages were even set up
    
    
• Another factor with similar consequences was the emphasizing of the autonomous course of foreign policy
  
  
• The period 1965-1974 was a period of spectacular Romanian diplomatic initiatives which brought respectability and a special status to Bucharest before the eyes of the international community.
  
  
• Outstanding visitors such as De Gaulle (1968), Nixon (1969) came to Romania's capital bringing with them the benevolence and economic assistance of the west.
  
  
• The limits of the Soviet tolerance were often put to test and Romanians continued their neutrality towards the Russian - Chinese conflict
  
  
• Approach to Yugoslavia
  
  
• Defending the Dubcek experiment to the end while they avoided applying it. Romania was, as a matter of fact, the only member of the Warsaw Pact which did not take part in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
  
  
• Approach to Bonn and the setting up of diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany (1967) at a moment when no socialist country had such relations.
  
  
• Maintaining diplomatic relationships with Israel even after the six days war (1967)
  
  
• The Jewish community in Romania was allowed to adhere to the World Jewish Congress (1967)
  
  
• The Romanian communists consistently refused to take part in the military manoeuvres of the Warsaw Pact and did not allow such manoeuvres on Romanian territory, upholding at the same time the idea of simultaneously dissolving the military blocs.
  
  
• The diplomatic orientation towards the west was doubled by a reorganization of the external commercial links:
  
  
  • The first commercial agreements with Germany were signed in 1966 which were followed by others with the main capitalists countries;
    
    
  • Adhering to the International Monetary Fund;
    
    
  • Getting a preferential commercial regime from the Common Market.
    
    
• The economic policy, promoted by Ceausescu, could not accord with the liberal orientation started by Gheorghiu-Dej. The first expression of the new political course were the April theses, launched by Ceausescu after returning from China, a sort of cultural mini-revolution with the help of which he tried and succeeded in confronting the group of the prime-minister around Ion Gheorghe Maurer and accelerating its fall. In the thesis:
  
  
  • Cosmopolitism was incriminated
    
    
  • Ideological puritanism was exalted
    
    
  • Deprofessionalization of the leading staff was encouraged
    
    
  • There was marked the beginning of the campaigns of pseudo nationalism and patriotardism.