These elections also widened the contrast between Romania and other countries of the Eastern Bloc, since the Soviet Union embraced liberalisation during the same year. Ceaușescu was by then widely unpopular due to his policy of cutting down on consumer supplies, which served his project of repaying the foreign debt. Popular discontent was contrasted by a massive PCR recruitment drive, as well as by the official approval of gender equality, which saw 30% of Assembly seats going to women. The communists' full hold on power was contested by an underground National Peasants' Party (PNȚ), with Ion Puiu trying and failing to present himself as an opposition candidate. Protests by Romanian dissidents continued over the subsequent Assembly term, reaching an early peak with the Brașov rebellion of 1987.
The 1985 parliament was the last single-party one to be held nationally in Romania. The 1985 vote was followed by an early election for the Assembly seats of Tulcea County in 1987, which produced more signals of a coming unrest. The elected parliament never completed its five-year term, as the Communist Party (PCR) was finally defeated and dissolved during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The presidential couple was tried and executed during the events, while some members of the parliament and cabinet were singled out for their crimes and all spent time in prison, where Giosan died. Other former Assembly members were recovered in post-1989 politics, including Ilie Verdeț, who established a Socialist Party of Labour (PSM).
Background
The election took place during the regime's effort to conceal its non-democratic nature by a massive recruitment into the PCR. As summarised by journalist Alexander Clapp: "The fusion of party and state came to resemble the substitution of the state by the party, which expanded beyond all proportion: by 1985 its membership was approaching some four million—one in four adults, one in three working Romanians, the largest political party per population in the world."[2] The PCR also officially endorsed a drive for more gender equality, which increased the proportion of female party members to 23%. Women were also 35% of successful candidates in 1985.[3]
Such gender quotas are dismissed by researchers as a facade. Historian Zoe Petre links them to national communism and to "Ceaușescu's personal phantasms", wherein "quantitative quotas of 'female comrades' were imposed on all party and state organs." In practice, they were assigned mainly to "propaganda work", and as such preserved stereotypes about "chatty women".[4] Similarly, political scientist Ionela Băluță finds that, among this class of female communists, "real power" could be exercised only by Elena Ceaușescu, the president's wife, and by a few other members of the Ceaușescu family. Overall, "the high percentages of women in other political structures are not indicative of their participation in decision making."[5] According to political sociologist Emanuela Simona Gârboni, all political decisions rested with PCR males. "Encouraged and sometimes even coerced", women candidates were often unsuited for the task, meaning that "women politicians were seen as the symbol of an aggressively pursued communist propaganda."[6]
Within the communist system, the FDUS was an organism tasked with vetting all candidacies; it was chaired by Ceaușescu, who was both national president and PCR general secretary.[7] Under the 1965 Constitution which established a socialist republic, electoral freedoms were nominally ensured, but "the right to nominate candidates belonged to the PCR, as well as to all labor unions, cooperatives, youth and women's leagues, cultural associations, and other mass organisations."[7] As surmised by sociologist Mircea Kivu, the leaders of the main religious organisations were also included on the ballot, being automatically awarded parliamentary seats. Created on this basis, the FDUS, described by Kivu as "something like an enlarged Communist Party", also nominated the Central Electoral Commission[8] and counted the votes.[9]
Candidates were elected in single-member constituencies, and had to receive over 50% of the vote. If no candidate passed this threshold, or if voter turnout in the constituency was less than 50%, re-runs were held until the requirements were met.[10] Under "internal democracy" laws passed in 1972–1974,[11] several candidates could compete over one seat, though some precincts still presented only one candidate. The most common formula involved two FDUS candidates running against each other.[8] Participants only had the option of voting against all or any of the candidates. This was done by crossing out the name of the candidate, or any of the names on a closed list; crossing out all names was an effective blank ballot. By contrast, leaving all names intact was interpreted as an approval of all candidates, and as such a valid vote.[8][9] As argued by Kivu, the expectation from a committed communist voter was that they never enter the voting booth, but submit a ballot upon receiving it; the same author notes that, while members of the commission were "somewhat suspicious" of those who did enter the booth, these were never reprimanded.[8] The more common form of protest from those who took the risk was writing in slogans or obscenities. According to Kivu, the counting of ballots in the preceding election of 1980 mostly meant separating valid, blank, and defaced ballots.[8]
1985 marked a slump in the regime national and international prestige. It inaugurated massive cuts in consumer supply and saw Ceaușescu's positioning as an anti-Soviet asset threatened by the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev.[12]Constantin Dăscălescu had replaced Ilie Verdeț as Prime Minister in May 1982 (and continued to head the PCR cabinet to 1989). This change of course was ordered by Ceaușescu, reportedly because Verdeț had sought to prevent the rationing of bread, or more generally because he would not immediately enforce the president's various commands.[13] Dăscălescu's loyalty was tested in 1983, when, like Ceaușescu himself, he refused to recognize that design flaws at Teleajen Refinery had caused the death of 28 employees.[13] Meanwhile, his civilian ministries were being kept in check by Romania's intelligence agency, the Securitate, which, in 1984, demoted a head of the Religious Affairs Department, Ion Roșianu, who was allegedly trafficking in influence.[14]
The communist status quo was being challenged by underground opposition forces, some of whom were grouped into the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). Engineer Ion Puiu "issued a comprehensive political platform" for the PNȚ, calling on the PCR to respect constitutional guarantees and renounce its position as the vanguard party.[15] He then attempted to present himself as a candidate in the election, which led to his arrest by authorities.[16] Other figures associated with the group had been placed under constant Securitate surveillance. In April 1985, Securitate informant Iosif Constantin Drăgan reported that Corneliu Coposu viewed the election as "masterminded and falsified", noting that FDUS candidates in Sălaj County had received only positive votes.[17] Werner Somerauer, a Saxon photographer and pipefitter, also protested the election in Brașov County by stealing ballots which he preserved as "historical documents". This involved stuffing an urn with papers marked: Dați-ne mai multă carne! ("Let us have more meat!").[18]
A list of all elected deputies was announced on 1 April.[19] Among the reconfirmed deputies was Nicolae Ceaușescu himself: he began his last term for 23 August, a Bucharest borough, where he had served since 1969.[20] This category also includes his wife Elena, who began her third-consecutive (and last) term representing Pitești.[21][22] Her and Nicolae's son, Nicu Ceaușescu, was reelected for the first and final time in Râmnicu Sărat. Upon reelection, he renounced his position as Assembly secretary.[23] Agronomist Nicolae Giosan was the Assembly chairman, having served continuously in that post since July 1974.[24][25] According to novelist and fellow deputy Dumitru Popescu-Dumnezeu, Giosan owed his political career to Ceaușescu, who "landed him at the Great National Assembly rostrum".[26]
Some party dignitaries also served renewed terms, but switched constituencies. Chairman Giosan had served in the 1980 parliament as the envoy for Căzănești, but was now sent to the Assembly by the voters of Adjud.[24] Dăscălescu moved his constituency between two neighborhoods of Brașov, while his rival Verdeț, who only returned to a ministerial position in October 1985, lost his seat at Cluj-Napoca and became instead deputy for Bacău County.[27]Tudor Postelnicu, who was leader of the Securitate, was reconfirmed as deputy in Videle, having previously held a seat at Băicoi.[28]
Protest ballot cast in the early elections of Tulcea County, November 1987. Both candidates' names are crossed out, with handwritten text added: "If an electrified country cannot ensure 10 kilowatts a month per inhabitant, then it follows that its president is either a [illegible] or driven mad by the cult of personality"
The parliament reconfirmed Nicolae Ceaușescu as president, following a motion submitted by FDUS vice president (and Timișoara deputy)[41]Manea Mănescu. Official communiques noted that support for the candidacy was "unanimous and enthusiastic", with Ceaușescu seen as "the most beloved son of the Romanian people". Propaganda also referred to his reelection as a "sure guarantee for pursuing the magnificent program of creating a multilaterally developed socialist society and of advancing Romania toward communism."[25] As noted by Coposu, voting was a show of hands, and chairman Giosan never allowed delegates to vote against the incumbent.[17] Mircea Kivu believes government recognised that there had been a relative drop in support for the FDUS, from 98.5% in 1980, to 97.7% in 1985, which allegedly prompted it to modify the 1974 electoral law, and submit new rules for the Assembly election of 1990.[8]
Dăscălescu's cabinet had an unusually long lifespan by Ceaușescu-era standards, which, historian Adrian Cioroianu believes, underscores the fact that the Prime Minister, alongside ministers Bobu and Rădulescu, was a Ceaușescu favorite.[42]Silviu Brucan, the communist-turned-dissident, viewed Dăscălescu as a prototype of the "servile politician".[13] A government reshuffle only occurred in July 1988, when Văduva was sacked from the Foreign Trade Ministry and Dăscălescu threatened with demotion. Like previous government reshuffles, this rested on Ceaușescu's dissatisfaction with his ministers. In this case, the issue was with Văduva's agreement to import and store chemical waste at Sulina.[43]
The regime continued to lose endorsements from regular Romanians, as it persisted with cutbacks, with Ceaușescu insisting on spending all available state funds on repaying the foreign debt. Upon reducing central heating in 1986, he lectured the PCR Central Committee: "there's no shame in us wearing sweaters inside the house, especially at night".[2] Interest in Soviet liberalisation, as expressed in the Soviet policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, was maintained by Radio Moscow, which expanded its news coverage in Romanian.[44] Over those months, local intellectuals became enthusiastic about the: as reported by a Securitate informant in 1985, Romanian writers hoped that Gorbachev would bring his liberalisation to Romania to reintroduce "modesty in public life" and eliminate censorship.[45]
Later in 1985, a Romanian Democratic Action was founded by 13 pseudonymous activists, who began monitoring the regime's record on ecology while also expressing full support for Perestroika.[46] At that stage, the authorities clamped down on dissent by ordering the arrest and killing of engineer Gheorghe Ursu, who was keeping a diary critical of Ceaușescu. As noted by political historians Cristina and Dragoș Petrescu: "The 'Ursu case' deepened the conviction that all those who dared to express such views would end in the same way. However, this was just an extreme case since none of the radical dissidents of the 1970s and the 1980s died in prison or during interrogation."[47] The PNȚ remained active internally and, in February 1987, Coposu obtained its recognition by, and admission into, the Christian Democrat World Union.[48] Puiu was rearrested in May 1987, after attempting to send Gorbachev a memorandum, but the Securitate was unable to prevent other protest documents from being circulated at home and abroad.[49]
The Brașov rebellion, which erupted that November, was probably caused by Dăscălescu's decision to punish workers at Steagul Roșu for design flaws attributable to poor management.[13] It resulted in large-scale repression, with the arrest of dissenting workers; hundreds were interrogated, and 62, including Somerauer,[18] were deported to various locations in Romania.[50] During the final days of that year, the Securitate detained Gabriel Andreescu, who championed human rights in opposition to the regime, and held him until January 1988.[51] Also in November, there were early elections in Tulcea County, which witnessed a resumption of critical and obscene messages on ballots. One anonymous voter suggested that Ceaușescu's approval of power cuts showed that he was mentally ill, and therefore ineligible, while another warned of a coming revolt.[25]
Revolution
Revolutionary Mircea Diaconu addressing the crowds upon the seizure of power in December 1989
Although the anti-communist movement had been suppressed during and after the election, the 1985 parliament was the last to be voted in under a single-party system.[8][52] On 12 December 1989, the PCR Central Committee set the date for new elections as 11 March 1990.[53] The Romanian Revolution, erupting five days after the resolution, began as a confrontation with the Romanian Army and Securitate, which fired on unarmed crowds. Ceaușescu threatened to resign when his orders were not fully carried out, but Premier Dăscălescu persuaded him not to leave office.[13] Dincă organised a cover-up effort at Timișoara, sending in 20,000 Patriotic Guards.[54] On 20 December, Dăscălescu joined him there and attempted to negotiate the regime's political survival by meeting with a revolutionary delegation; when his outreach effort failed, he supported renewed violence.[13]
The uprising eventually succeeded in toppling the regime on 21–22 December. Nicu Ceaușescu was captured early on and survived a stabbing.[55] His uncle Ilie, who regarded the regime's clampdown as ineffective, attempted to form an emergency cabinet with Soviet support, but was ignored.[56] Nicolae and Elena fled Bucharest during a revolutionary siege on the Central Committee. Dăscălescu was assigned by them to lead a reduced version of the Central Committee, but opted out. Upon surrendering to the revolutionaries, he decreed a political amnesty, then proclaimed his cabinet dissolved.[13] A new cabinet, headed by deputies Verdeț and Vlad, was accepted by some of the revolutionaries, but rejected by the masses, and dissolved within 20 minutes.[57]
On 25 December, marking the accession to power of the National Salvation Front (FSN), Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were swiftly tried and executed. As noted by academic Alexandra Ionescu, the FSN leadership regarded itself as a legal and symbolic legatee of the FDUS, in that it claimed to regroup "all the country's sane forces"; she views the FSN Council as having a "list of attributes that was nearly identical to that of the Great National Assembly."[58] On 27 December the FSN leader, Ion Iliescu, supported the notion of leaving future elections to be managed by the Front, in order to promote "the ideas of unity and their continued realization."[59] The FSN allowed other parties to organize—including the PNȚ, reemerging as the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party; however, as Ionescu notes, the legalistic culture encouraged by the FSN viewed them as tolerated and second-rank forces.[60] This trend was questioned by the opposition and overturned by electoral laws which established more equality between the competing groups, with the FSN emerging as a political party.[61]
Multi-party elections for the new Parliament of Romania were eventually held on 20 May 1990. As reported by three historians of the period, Iliescu's presidential campaign preserved some core elements of 1980s precedents, also developing into a "personality cult" with Iliescu as a stand-in for Ceaușescu.[62] Both Iliescu and the FSN came out as victorious. There still was a continuity between the two parliaments, in that the majority of 1990 deputies had been PCR members. As many as 15% had belonged to its nomenklatura, and 10% had been Assembly deputies at various moments; like new arrivals, these were mostly males, with women representing only 5% of Romania's post-communist parliament.[5]
Some of the major figures in the previous parliament had by then been arrested. Nicu Ceaușescu was found guilty of genocide, but appealed and only served a full term for unlawful gun possession.[55] Bobu, Dincă, Mănescu and Postelnicu were tried together, and also found guilty of genocide. While Dincă, Postelnicu and Bobu's complicity is proven,[54][63][64] the verdict as applied to Mănescu is widely regarded as spurious, including by anti-communists.[65] All defendants initially received life sentences, but had them commuted in 1993, when the genocide convictions were also replaced with aggravated murder or accessory to murder.[54][66] Also sentenced in that context, Dăscălescu was released on medical grounds in 1995.[13] Bobu and Dincă were conditionally released in the early 1990s,[64] and Postelnicu followed suit in 1999.[63]
Ilie Ceaușescu lost his position in the Army and investigated, but never tried, for instigation to first-degree murder.[56] Giosan had died in mysterious circumstances while his case was being investigated. Both Popescu-Dumnezeu and Teodor Mărieș, who were held with Giosan at Jilava Prison, argue that he was in fact murdered as punishment for his political past.[26] President Iliescu issued pardons for Vlad, in 1993,[67] and for Popescu-Dumnezeu, in 1994.[68] Another such pardon applied to Homoștean, who was serving time for having ordered an extrajudicial killing in 1981. At the time of his death in 2016, he was under investigation for his alleged role in Ursu's murder.[69]
↑ Adrian Nicolae Petcu, "Activitatea Departamentului Cultelor în atenția Securității (1970-1989)", in Caietele CNSAS, Vol. II, Issue 2, 2009, pp. 97–100
↑ Adela Șerban, "Controversial Issues Regarding Resistance and Dissidence in Romania (1945–1989)", in Romanian Journal of Sociology, Issues 1–2, 2009, p. 120
Ilie Verdeț was a Romanian communist politician who served as Romania’s Prime Minister from 1979 to 1982.
Manea Mănescu was a Romanian communist politician who served as Prime Minister for five years during Nicolae Ceaușescu's Communist regime.
Constantin Dăscălescu was a Romanian communist politician who served as Prime Minister of Romania during the communist rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu until the Romanian Revolution.
The National Salvation Front was the most important political organization formed during the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, which became the governing body of Romania in the first weeks after the collapse of the totalitarian communist regime. It subsequently became a political party, the largest post-communist party, and won the 1990 election with 66% of the national vote, under the leadership of then-President Ion Iliescu, who was elected with 85% of the vote.
Ștefan Voitec was a Romanian Marxist journalist and politician who held important positions in the state apparatus of Communist Romania. Debuting as a member of the Socialist Party of Romania in his late teens, he formed the Socialist Workers Party of Romania, then the United Socialist Party, while also engaging in human rights activism and advocating prison reform. The mid-1930s brought him into contact with the Romanian Communist Party, with whom he formed tactical alliances; however, he rejected its political line, and was for a while known as a Trotskyist. In 1939, he joined the consolidated Social Democratic Party, which reunited various socialist groups outlawed by the National Renaissance Front. During World War II, despite ostensibly withdrawing form political life to do research, Voitec served as the party's Secretary and joined the anti-fascist underground. Some reports suggest that he was also a committed anti-communist, critical of the Soviet Union to the point on endorsing war in the East. As a war correspondent, Voitec made contributions to Nazi propaganda, an issue which made him vulnerable to blackmail in later decades.
The Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977 was the largest protest movement against the Communist regime in Romania before its final days. It took place 1–3 August 1977 and was centered in the coal mining town of Lupeni, in Transylvania's Jiu Valley.
Marin Ceaușescu was a Romanian economist and diplomat, the older brother of Communist Romania's President Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Tudor Postelnicu was a Romanian Communist politician, who served as Director of the Securitate from March 1978 to October 1987, and then as Interior Minister until the 1989 Revolution.
Ioan Totu was a Romanian economist and communist politician who served as the Vice Prime Minister of Romania from 1982 to 1985 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1986 to 1989, during the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu. He briefly served as President of the State Planning Committee in late 1989.
Emil Bobu was a Romanian Communist activist and politician, who served as Interior Minister from 1973 to 1975 and as Labor Minister from 1979 to 1981. He was an influential figure in the later years of the Communist regime until his downfall during the 1989 Revolution.
Alexandru Moghioroș was a Romanian communist activist and politician.
Nicolae Militaru was a Romanian soldier and communist politician. Rising to the rank of general by the 1960s, his ties to the Soviet Union led dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu to question his loyalty and sideline Militaru in 1978. He re-emerged during the Romanian Revolution, when he was made Defense Minister, serving for nearly two months before street pressure forced his dismissal. Days after Ceaușescu’s execution, he was advanced to general of the army. His final public act came in 1996, when Militaru ran for President, barely registering any support.
Leonte Răutu was a Bessarabian-born Romanian communist activist and propagandist, who served as deputy prime minister in 1969–1972. He was chief ideologist of the Romanian Communist Party during the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and one of his country's few high-ranking communists to have studied Marxism from the source. Răutu was of Jewish origin, though he embraced atheism and anti-Zionism. His adventurous youth, with two prison terms served for illegal political activity, culminated in his self-exile to the Soviet Union, where he spent the larger part of World War II. Specializing in agitprop and becoming friends with communist militant Ana Pauker, he joined the Romanian section of Radio Moscow.
Vasile Patilineț was a Romanian communist activist, politician and diplomat. A worker and native of the industrial Jiu Valley, he joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1945 and steadily rose through its ranks, entering the central committee a decade later. Subsequently, he became a close ally of Nicolae Ceaușescu, whose rise to power in 1965 he helped facilitate. A significant player in the early years of the latter's rule, he became steadily alarmed by the dictator's excesses and began plotting against him by the late 1970s. He was sent as ambassador to Turkey in 1980, and six years later, upon finishing his service at Ankara, was killed in a suspicious car accident.
Nicolae Giosan was a Romanian agricultural engineer and communist politician.
Events from the year 2003 in Romania.
Lina Ciobanu was a Romanian communist politician.
Dumitru Petrescu, believed to have been born Gheorghe M. Dumitru, also known as Gheorghe Petrescu and Petrescu-Grivița, was a Romanian general, trade union leader, and Communist Party (PCR) activist. After training as a metalworker in Grivița, he took to left-wing politics, joining the underground communist groups at some point before the railwaymen's strike of February 1933, which he helped organise together with Constantin Doncea and Gheorghe Vasilichi. Arrested by the Romanian Kingdom authorities in its wake, he received a 15-year prison sentence. He broke out of Craiova penitentiary a few months later, together with Vasilichi and Doncea, after overpowering a guard. With support from the International Red Aid, Petrescu made his way into Czechoslovakia, and then headed for the Soviet Union, where he lived until 1944. He worked in publishing and trained as a propagandist at the International Lenin School in Moscow.
Gheorghe "Gogu" Rădulescu was a Romanian journalist, economist, and high-ranking figure of the communist regime. Of mixed Romani and Russian heritage, he began his leftist and anti-fascist militancy in the early 1930s, while a student at the Commercial Academy in Bucharest. He established a Democratic Students' Front, which embarked on a direct confrontation with the fascist Iron Guard, as well as with the conservative establishment of the Romanian Kingdom; supported by the clandestine Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and its Union of Communist Youth, Rădulescu networked with moderate leftists and independents. In 1935, he organized a training camp in Moieciu, which was nearly broken up by the Gendarmes. In 1937, he was kidnapped and tortured by Iron Guard affiliates, and then also expelled from the Communist Youth for his apparent insubordination. Taking his doctorate in 1938, Rădulescu worked as a researcher for the Institute of Economic Conjecture, under his communist friend Belu Zilber.
References
Ana-Maria Cătănuș, "Provocările Gorbaciovismului. Reacții românești la perestroika și glasnost", in Cristina Diac (ed.), Dezintegrarea U.R.S.S.: cauze și consecințe. Materialele simpozionului din 7 decembrie 2011. Bucharest: Editura Universității București, 2014. ISBN978-606-16-0585-9
Florica Dobre, Liviu Marius Bejenaru, Clara Cosmineanu-Mareș, Monica Grigore, Alina Ilinca, Oana Ionel, Nicoleta Ionescu-Gură, Elisabeta Neagoe-Pleșa, Liviu Pleșa, Membrii C.C. al P.C.R. (1945–1989). Dicționar. Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2004. ISBN973-45-0486-X
Emanuela Simona Gârboni, "Women in Politics during the Romanian Transition", in Procedia, Vol. 163, 2014, pp.247–256.
Alexandra Ionescu, Du Parti-État à l'État des parties. Changer de régime politique en Roumanie. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 2009. ISBN978-973-27-1881-0
Cristina Petrescu, Dragoș Petrescu, "The Pitești Syndrome: A Romanian Vergangenheitsbewältigung?", in Stefan Troebst, Susan Baumgartl (eds.), Postdiktatorische Geschichtskulturen im Süden und Osten Europas. Bestandsaufnahme und Forschungsperspektiven (Diktaturen und ihre Überwindung im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert, Band 5), pp.502–618. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2010. ISBN978-3-8353-0637-0
Alexandru Radu, "Reforma sistemului electoral din România. O istorie analitică (2)", in Sfera Politicii, Vol. XX, Issue 6, November–December 2012, pp.4–10.
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![Protest ballot cast in the early elections of Tulcea County, November 1987. Both candidates' names are crossed out, with handwritten text added: "If an electrified country cannot ensure 10 kilowatts a month per inhabitant, then it follows that its president is either a [illegible] or driven mad by the cult of personality" Defaced ballot (Daca intr-o tara electrificata) Tulcea MAN elections 1987.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Defaced_ballot_%28Dac%C4%83_%C3%AEntr-o_%C8%9Bar%C4%83_electrificat%C4%83%29_Tulcea_MAN_elections_1987.png/430px-Defaced_ballot_%28Dac%C4%83_%C3%AEntr-o_%C8%9Bar%C4%83_electrificat%C4%83%29_Tulcea_MAN_elections_1987.png)
