Soviet occupation of Romania

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Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Petru Groza, and Gheorghe Tatarescu with Andrey Vyshinsky, Vladislav Vinogradov and Ivan Susaikov [ro], at the Soviet legation in Bucharest, 11 March 1945 GrozaTatarescuGheorghiuDejVishinski1945 (cropped).jpg
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Petru Groza, and Gheorghe Tătărescu with Andrey Vyshinsky, Vladislav Vinogradov and Ivan Susaikov  [ ro ], at the Soviet legation în Bucharest, 11 March 1945

The Soviet occupation of Romania refers [1] to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania. The fate of the territories held by Romania after 1918 that were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 is treated separately in the article on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

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During the Eastern Front offensive of 1944, the Soviet Army occupied the northwestern part of Moldavia as a result of armed combat that took place between the months of April and August of that year, while Romania was still an ally of Nazi Germany. The rest of the territory was occupied after Romania changed sides in World War II, as a result of the royal coup launched by King Michael I on August 23, 1944. On that date, the king announced that Romania had unilaterally ceased all military actions against the Allies, accepted the Allied armistice offer, [2] and joined the war against the Axis powers. As no formal armistice offer had been extended yet, the Red Army occupied most of Romania as enemy territory prior to the signing of the Moscow Armistice of September 12, 1944.

The armistice convention and eventually the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 provided a legal basis for the Soviet military presence in Romania, which lasted until 1958, reaching a peak of some 615,000 personnel in 1946. [3]

The Soviets and the Romanian communists referred to the events of August 1944 as the "liberation of Romania by the glorious Soviet Army" in the 1952 Constitution of Romania, [4] and August 23 (the day of 1944 coup) was celebrated as Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day. On the other hand, most Western and Romanian anti-communist sources use the term "Soviet occupation of Romania," some applying it to the whole period from 1944 to 1958.

Background and beginning of the occupation

After having withdrawn its troops from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in response to the June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum, Romania entered an alliance with Nazi Germany and declared war on the Soviet Union. Romanian troops entered World War II in June 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa, under the German High Command. Following the recapturing of the territory annexed by the Soviet Union in June 1940, Romanian troops occupied Southern Ukraine all the way to the Southern Bug. However, Romania's eastern campaign ended in disaster, notably at the Battle of Stalingrad.

By the end of 1943, the Red Army had regained control over most of the Soviet territory, and was advancing westward beyond the borders of USSR to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. It was in this context that the Soviet forces crossed into Romania and occupied Northern and Eastern Moldavia.

Troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front entering Bucharest on August 31, 1944 Red Army greeted in Bucharest.jpg
Troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front entering Bucharest on August 31, 1944

On August 23, 1944, King Michael, supported by all major parties, launched a coup d'état, thereby overthrowing the pro-Nazi government of Ion Antonescu, and putting Romania's Army on the side of the Allies. As a result, King Michael was the last monarch behind the Iron Curtain to lose his throne, on December 30, 1947.

The coup facilitated the advance of the Red Army into Romania at an accelerated pace, [5] and enabled the combined Romanian and Soviet armies to liberate the country from the German occupation. In the absence of an actual signed armistice, [6] the Soviet troops continued to treat the Romanians as a hostile force. The armistice was signed three weeks later, on September 12, 1944, "on terms Moscow virtually dictated." [5] The coup effectively amounted to a "capitulation", [7] an "unconditional" [8] "surrender" [5] [9] to the Soviets and the rest of the Allies. In the wake of the cease fire order given by King Michael, [10] between 114,000 [6] and 160,000 Romanian soldiers were taken prisoners of war by the Soviets without resisting, and they were forced to march to remote detention camps, located in the Soviet Union; according to survivors interviewed in a 2004 documentary, up to a third of the prisoners perished on the way. [11]

By August 30, Soviet troops had reached Bucharest; [12] by September 12, the Red Army had already gained control over much of the Romanian territory. Under the terms of its Armistice Agreement with the Allies, Romania became subject to an Allied Control Commission, composed of representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, while the Soviet military command exercised predominant, de facto authority. Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were again incorporated into the Soviet Union.

At the beginning of the occupation, pillaging and rapes of Romanian women by Soviet soldiers were recorded, [12] prefiguring the eventual epidemic of rape during the occupation of Germany. [13] To this day, this remains a sensitive subject; for instance, in late 2018, the Russian Embassy in Romania denounced "the existence in Romania of a campaign of denigration against the Red Army," by means of which the Soviet soldiers were presented as "a gang of robbers and rapists," instead of "liberators of Romania." [14] Historians Mădălin Hodor  [ ro ] and Vadim Guzun disputed these assertions, the latter noting that "the USSR occupied, dismembered and Sovietized Romania. Red Army atrocities cannot be washed away with offensive statements, which disagree with the truth." [15]

Founding documents

King Michael I of Romania was awarded the Order of Victory (the highest Soviet order) for his personal courage in overthrowing Ion Antonescu in the August 23 coup and for putting an end to Romania's war against the Allies. OrderOfVictory.jpg
King Michael I of Romania was awarded the Order of Victory (the highest Soviet order) for his personal courage in overthrowing Ion Antonescu in the August 23 coup and for putting an end to Romania's war against the Allies.

The Armistice Agreement

Article 3 of the Armistice Agreement with Romania [16] (signed in Moscow on September 12, 1944), stipulated that

The Government and High Command of Rumania will ensure to the Soviet and other Allied forces facilities for free movement on Rumanian territory in any direction if required by the military situation, the Rumanian Government and High Command of Rumania giving such movement every possible assistance with their own means of communications and at their own expense on land, on water and in the air.

Article 11 of the same agreement stipulated that Romania will compensate the Soviet Union for losses suffered in the war "to the amount of three hundred million United States dollars payable over six years in commodities (oil products, grain, timber products, seagoing and river craft, sundry machinery, et cetera)." Article 18 stipulated that

An Allied Control Commission will be established which will undertake until the conclusion of peace the regulation of and control over the execution of the present terms under the general direction and orders of the Allied (Soviet) High Command, acting on behalf of the Allied Powers.

In the Annex to Article 18, it was made clear that

The Rumanian Government and their organs shall fulfill all instructions of the Allied Control Commission arising out of the Armistice Agreement

and that The Allied Control Commission would have its seat in Bucharest.

In line with Article 14 of the Armistice Agreement, two People's Tribunals were set up for the purpose of trying suspected war criminals, one in Bucharest, and the other in Cluj.

The plenipotentiary signatories to the armistice as indicated therein were:

Paris Peace Treaties, 1947

The effect of the Armistice Agreement ceased on September 15, 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty with Romania entered into force. Article 21, paragraph 1 of the new treaty provided the legal foundation for continued and unlimited Soviet military presence in Romania:

Upon the coming into force of the present Treaty, all Allied Forces shall, within a period of 90 days, be withdrawn from Roumania, subject to the right of the Soviet Union to keep on Roumanian territory such armed forces as it may need for the maintenance of the lines of communication of the Soviet Army with the Soviet zone of occupation in Austria.

The Romanian delegation at the Paris Conference was headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Gheorghe Tătărescu. The Peace Treaty with Romania was signed on February 10, 1947, in the Salon de l'Horloge of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. On the Romanian side, the four signatories were Gheorghe Tătărescu, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, Ștefan Voitec, and Dumitru Dămăceanu. The signatories for the Allied powers included United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Ernest Bevin.

Soviet forces in Romania, 1944–1956

1948 Romanian stamp StampRomana1948Michel1127.jpg
1948 Romanian stamp
Estimated strength of Soviet forces in Romania  [17]
DateStrength
May 8, 194580,000
November 1, 1945500,000
January 4, 1946420,000
March 1, 1946615,000
June 1, 1946400,000
November 1, 1946240,000
194760,000 – 130,000
May 1 – July 1, 194835,000
October 1, 194832,000
July 1, 194928,000
October 1, 194919,000
January 1, 195032,000
April 1, 195033,000
September 1, 1950 –
September 1952
32,000

After the conclusion of the Armistice Agreement in 1944, Soviet troops occupied the entire territory of Romania. Estimates of troop levels vary between 750,000 and 1 million (estimates of British military officials), to between 1 and 1.5 million (estimates of the Romanian General Staff); many Western diplomats and experts refer to more than 1 million Soviet troops. [18]

On November 8, 1945, King Michael's name day, an anti-communist demonstration in front of the Royal Palace in Bucharest was met with force, resulting in dozens of casualties. [19] Soviet officers restrained Romanian soldiers and police from firing on civilians, and Soviet troops restored order. [20]

The estimated strength of Soviet forces stationed in Romania (including air, navy, ground, and security troops), from VE Day to 1952, is shown in the table on the right.

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Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin at a military parade, Bucharest 1949 Marshal Sovetskogo Soiuza F.I. Tolbukhin prinimaet voennyi parad.jpg
Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin at a military parade, Bucharest 1949

During the second half of 1946, more than half of the combat capabilities of the Soviet Air Forces were residing outside the USSR, with the largest portion in Poland and Romania (2,500 planes in each country). [21] The troop levels surged to a high of 615,000 in March 1946, but they were drawn down after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty in 1947. By the end of 1946, Soviet units in Romania were concentrated in four areas: CraiovaSlatina, SibiuAlba-Iulia, Constanța, and BrăilaFocșani. Troop levels reached a relatively stable level from May 1948 until October 1956: two full divisions, plus supporting units adding up to roughly a third division. [22]

Although with the signing of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955 the reason for the presence of Soviet troops as stated in the Paris Peace Treaties ceased to exist, Premier Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej announced that these troops would stay as long as foreign soldiers continue to be stationed in West Germany. [23]

Soviet troops stationed in Romania participated in the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of November 1956. Soviet troop facilities inside Romania were off limits to all Romanians at the time. [24]

Reorganization of the Romanian Army

Treaty limited Romanian forces [25]
TypeStrength
Land forces120,000 officers and troops
Anti-aircraft forces5,000 officers and troops
Naval forces5,000 officers and troops
Air forces8,000 officers and troops
Total138,000 officers and troops

The Soviet occupation of Romania led to a complete reorganization of the Romanian People's Army under the supervision of Soviet Army representatives. The manpower of the Romanian army was limited by the Paris Peace Treaty to a total of 138,000 (officers and troops); however, under the Soviet occupation it grew far beyond the limits imposed by the treaty, through increasing militarization of Romania's population. By 1953, regular army forces had grown to approximately 300,000; reserve army forces to approximately 135,000; and "interior" forces (border guards, security brigades, et al.) under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior to over 325,000. [25]

At the inception of this organizational overhaul, pro-German elements were purged from the Romanian armed forces. In 1944–45, two divisions composed of Romanian volunteers former prisoners of war, trained in the Soviet Union during the war, and also Communist activists such as Valter Roman were formed: the Tudor Vladimirescu Division, under the command of Colonel Nicolae Cambrea, and the Horea, Cloșca și Crișan Division, under the command of General Mihail Lascăr (who was to serve as Minister of Defense from 1946 to 1947). These two units were to form the nucleus of the new Romanian Army under Soviet control. Once the Romanian Communist Party took the reins of power, 30% of officers and noncommissioned officers (mostly experienced soldiers, but at the same time a potential source of opposition to the Sovietization of the Army) were purged from the military. [26]

Following the Romanian Workers' Party seizure of political power, the Sovietization of the Romanian army went into full gear, under the supervision of the new Minister of Defense, Emil Bodnăraș. This reorganization involved the adoption of the Soviet model of military and political organization, and a change of the military doctrine of combat and defense, in the context of Romania's integration into the Soviet strategic system, at the dawn of the Cold War. [27]

Soviet officers were appointed as advisers charged with supervising the thorough reorganization of the army. They held leadership and surveillance positions in the main institutions of the state, but also in areas of lesser importance. In the beginning, they only held a few positions in the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, and the political sections inside the army. With the passage of time, the number of Soviet advisers gradually increased, while at the same time their positions became permanent. In November 1952, there were 105 permanent and 17 temporary Soviet adviser positions in military schools. After 1955, their number began to decrease: 72 in 1955, 63 in 1956, 25 in 1957, and 10 in 1958. [28]

After 1945, new military regulations were developed, following the templates of the Red Army, and they were finalized in 1949–1952. [29] Consequently, a number of officers and military students were sent to the Soviet Union to complete their training. [30] Between 1949 and 1952, 717 Romanian students were being trained in the USSR, while in 1958 471 Romanian military students were pursuing education in the USSR. Their number decreased in the following years. [31]

Reorganization of the intelligence services

Immediately following the August 23, 1944, events, communists began to infiltrate the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a large scale. Starting in October 1944, the chief of NKVD operations in Romania was colonel Nikolai Petrovich Zudov. [32] The General Directorate of the Security of the People (Romanian initials: DGSP, but more commonly just called the Securitate) was officially founded on August 30, 1948, by Decree 221/30. The Securitate was set up by SMERSH, an NKVD unit charged with dismantling the existing intelligence agencies and replacing them with Soviet-style bodies in the Soviet-occupied countries of Eastern Europe. The SMERSH unit in Romania, called Brigada Mobilă, was led until 1948 by the former NKVD operative Alexandru Nicolschi. Its stated purpose was to "defend democratic conquests and guarantee the safety of the Romanian People's Republic against both internal and external enemies." The first Director of the Securitate was Soviet intelligence operative Gheorghe Pintilie. Alexandru Nicolschi (by then a general) and another Soviet officer, Major General Vladimir Mazuru  [ ro ], held the two deputy director positions.

Expulsion of Germans

The Red Army took part in the expulsion of up to 70,000 Transylvanian Saxons from Romania that was initiated in January 1945. In October 1944, the Sănătescu government, at the request of the Allied Control Commission, began arresting young Romanian citizens of German descent, who were eventually placed at the disposal of the Soviet command. At the request of the Allied Commission, the Rădescu government ordered the forced transportation by train of Transylvanian Saxons to the Soviet Union. In a protest dated January 13, 1945, the Rădescu government affirmed the Romanian government's duty to protect each of its citizens, regardless of ethnic origin, and noted the absence of a legal basis for the deportation of the Transylvanian Saxons. [33] The expellees were gradually allowed to return to Romania between late 1945 and 1949, though it is estimated that up to 10,000 perished during the expulsion or while in the Soviet Union. Such deportations would be outlawed in 1949 by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

SovRoms

A nominal 1,000 lei Sovrompetrol stock certificate, Bucharest, 1946 Aktsiia Sovrompetrol'.jpg
A nominal 1,000 lei Sovrompetrol stock certificate, Bucharest, 1946

The SovRoms were Soviet-Romanian joint ventures established on Romanian territory at the end of World War II, and lasting until 1954–1956. An agreement between the two countries regarding the establishment of these enterprises was signed in Moscow on May 8, 1945. In theory, the purpose of these ventures was to generate funding for post-war reconstruction efforts. However, their real purpose was to provide resources for the Soviet side. Generally, they were a contributing factor to the draining of Romania's resources, in addition to the war reparations demanded by the Armistice Agreement and the Paris Peace Treaties, which had been initially set at 300 million U.S. dollars. [34] At the agreement on reparations signed in Bucharest on January 16, 1945, the Soviets imposed the dollar as the reference currency at its exchange rate in 1938; due to the dollar's devaluation in the meantime, in actuality the reparations amounted to 384 million dollars. [35]

The Soviet contribution to the creation of the SovRoms consisted mostly in reselling leftover German equipment to Romania, at systematically overvalued prices. [36] The total value of goods sent from Romania to the Soviet Union was estimated at 2 billion dollars, exceeding by far the amount of war reparations demanded by the Soviets. [37] By 1952, 85% of Romanian exports were directed towards the Soviet Union. [34] The last Sovrom was dissolved in 1956.

One of these companies was Sovromcuarț, which started its operations in 1950 at the Băița mine in Bihor County, under a name that was meant to conceal the true object of its activity. [38] Its initial workforce consisted of 15,000 political prisoners; after most of them died of radiation poisoning, they were replaced by local villagers, who were completely unaware of the fact that they were working with radioactive material. [39] Romania secretly [40] delivered 17,288 tons of uranium ore to the Soviet Union between 1952 and 1960, [41] which was used, at least in part, in the Soviet atomic bomb project. [42] Uranium mining continued there until 1961. [43] All ore was shipped abroad for processing, initially to Sillamäe in the Estonian SSR; the uranium concentrate was then used exclusively by the Soviet Union. [43]

Comparison with Soviet occupation of Bulgaria

Comparing the Soviet occupation of Romania to that of Bulgaria, David Stone notes: "Unlike Bulgaria, Romania had few cultural and historical ties with Russia, and had actually waged war on the Soviet Union. As a result, Soviet occupation weighted heavier on the Romanian people, and the troops themselves were less disciplined." [20]

See also

Notes

  1. The term "occupation" is widely used by Western and post-Revolutionary Romanian historians. Examples include:
    • "Soviet forces occupied Romania in 1944 and stayed for more than a decade." Roger E. Kirk, Mircea Răceanu, Romania Versus the United States: Diplomacy of the Absurd, 1985–1989, p. 2. Palgrave Macmillan, 1994, ISBN   0-312-12059-1.
    • "Soviet occupation troops had been withdrawn in 1958." Gordon L. Rottman, Ron Volstad, Warsaw Pact Ground Forces, p. 45. Osprey, 1987, ISBN   0-85045-730-0.
    • "The country had to endure a long Soviet occupation (until 1958), and to pay the Soviets massive reparations." Lucian Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, p. 106. Reaktion Books, 2001, ISBN   1-86189-103-2.
    • "Soviet occupation forces in Romania [allowed for] unlimited interference in Romanian political life." Verona (Military Occupation and Diplomacy: Soviet Troops in Romania, 1944-1958), p. 31.
    • "In June 1958, based on complex arrangements between the Romanians, the Russians, and the Yugoslavs, the occupying Soviet Army units left Romania." Tismăneanu, p. 25. "Romanian communists remained an unappealing marginal group until the occupation of the country by the Red Army in 1944." ibid., p. 59. "The Soviet Army occupied Romanian territory and ... the Soviet-controlled political formation called the RCP was exploiting this state of affairs to establish a Stalinist regime as soon as possible, whatever the human cost." ibid., p. 91.
    • "The primary focus is the occupation of the rest of Romania from 1944 to 1958...There is little doubt that the Soviet occupation had a devastating economic, political, and social impact on Romania." Aurel Braun, review of The Red Army in Romania, in Slavic Review , Vol. 61, No. 1, 146-147, Spring 2002.
    • "The withdrawal of Soviet troops signified the end of the country's direct military occupation, which lasted 14 years." Istoria României în date, p. 553. Editura Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 2003, ISBN   973-45-0432-0
    • "Wisner (who had, as an OSS officer, witnessed the brutal Soviet occupation of Romania)", David F. Rudgers, "The origins of covert action", Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 35 , no. 2 (2000), 249–262
    • Flori Stănescu, Dragoș Zamfirescu, Ocupația sovietică în România – Documente 1944-1946 (The Soviet Occupation in Romania – Documents 1944-1946). Vremea, 1998, ISBN   973-9423-17-5.
    • "The first period of communist rule in Romania, 1944-1958 is defined by Stefan Fisher Galati as the loss of national identity by the destruction of the "bourgeois nationalist" legacy and the diminution of Romania's national sovereignty under a virtual Soviet occupation." Constantin Iordachi, "The Anatomy of a Historical Conflict: Romanian-Hungarian Diplomatic Conflict in the 1980s", MA Thesis, Central European University, 1995-1996.
  2. (in Romanian) Valeriu Râpeanu, "The Dictatorship Has Ended and along with It All Oppression" Archived 2016-02-28 at the Wayback Machine (from the Proclamation to The Nation of King Michael I on the night of August 23, 1944), Curierul Național , August 7, 2004
  3. Verona, pp. 49–51
  4. (in Romanian) Constituția Republicii Populare Române 1952 Archived 2008-06-15 at the Wayback Machine
  5. 1 2 3 Country Studies: Romania. Chap. 23. US Library of Congress
  6. 1 2 Ioan Vlad, Alexandru Baboș, Războiul României pentru reîntregirea națională (1941–1945), Ch. 3, in Istoria artei militare, Sibiu, 1996.
  7. "Hitler Resorts To 'Puppets' In Romania", The Washington Post , August 25, 1944
  8. "King Proclaims Nation's Surrender and Wish to Help Allies", The New York Times , August 24, 1944
  9. "Bulgaria – Bulgarian resistance to the Axis alliance," Encyclopædia Britannica
  10. (in Romanian) Alexandru Duțu and Florica Dobre, "Generali români in prizonierat" Archived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Vartan Arachelian "Pamfil Șeicaru despre 23 August: 'Mai multă rușine, mai puține victime' ", Ziua , August 16, 2004
  12. 1 2 Udrea, Matei (August 30, 2024). "80 de ani de la ocuparea Bucureștiului de Armata Roșie. 30 august 1944: "Prin Șoseaua Colentina au intrat în oraș hoarde de sălbatici zdrențăroși și desculți călare pe tancuri, camioane și motociclete americane"". www.aktual24.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  13. Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: a history of the Soviet Zone of occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 70. ISBN   0-674-78405-7. OCLC   32276211.
  14. Iamandi, Ionuț (March 5, 2021). "The Red Army rapes". Veridica. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  15. Constantinescu, Octavia (December 30, 2018). "Ambasada Rusiei mistifică istoria: Soldații sovietici n-au comis atrocități în România. Reacția MAE". Newsweek Romania (in Romanian). Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  16. "The Armistice Agreement with Rumania". September 12, 1944.
  17. Verona, pp. 47–51
  18. Verona, pp. 46–47
  19. Pădurean, Bianca (November 8, 2017). "Manifestația anti-comunistă din 8 noiembrie 1945, înabușită în sânge". rfi.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  20. 1 2 David R. Stone, "The 1945 Ethridge Mission to Bulgaria and Romania and the Origins of the Cold War in the Balkans", Diplomacy & Statecraft, Volume 17, no. 1, March 2006, pp. 93–112.
  21. Verona, p. 49
  22. Verona, pp. 58–59
  23. Gravitational Pull TIME September 05, 1955
  24. Verona, p. 104
  25. 1 2 Assembly of Captive European Nations, First Session, pp. 65–67
  26. "Development of the Romanian Armed Forces after World War II", from the Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook
  27. Oroian, p. 28
  28. Oroian, pp. 29–30
  29. Oroian, p. 37
  30. Oroian, pp. 38–40
  31. Oroian, pp. 40–41
  32. Aparaschivei, Sorin, "Statul sovietic paralel în România. Rețeaua colonelului Zudov", Historia (in Romanian), retrieved October 28, 2023
  33. Marga
  34. 1 2 Cioroianu
  35. Udrea, Matei (January 28, 2024). "Lista produselor luate de ruși din România, incepând cu 1944, ca despăgubiri de război. Cum au generat jaful făcut de Moscova și interdicția de a participa la Planul Marshall retardul economic sever față de Europa pe care țara noastră se chinuie și azi să-l recupereze". www.aktual24.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  36. Alexandrescu
  37. Roper
  38. Banu, pp. 28–29; Cioroianu, p. 70
  39. Khrushchev, p. 720
  40. Banu, p. 29; Cioroianu, p. 70
  41. Banu, p. 30
  42. Cioroianu, p. 70
  43. 1 2 Diehl
  44. (in Romanian) Constantin Tănase: A căzut cortina! ("Constantin Tănase: The Curtain Dropped!") Archived 2013-06-01 at the Wayback Machine , Jurnalul Național, January 15, 2007.
  45. Micu
  46. Cogs & Machines, Time , November 6, 1950
  47. The Bright Side of the Ax, Time , February 24, 1967

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Eugen Rozvan was a Hungarian-born Romanian communist activist, lawyer, and Marxist historian, who settled in the Soviet Union late in his life and was executed during the Great Purge.

Alexandru Nicolschi was a Romanian communist activist, Soviet agent and officer, and Securitate chief under the Communist regime. Active until 1961, he was one of the most recognizable leaders of violent political repression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1946 Romanian general election</span>

General elections were held in Romania on 19 November 1946, in the aftermath of World War II. The official results gave a victory to the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties, together with its associates, the Hungarian People's Union and the Democratic Peasants' Party–Lupu. The event marked a decisive step towards the disestablishment of the Romanian monarchy and the proclamation of a Communist regime at the end of the following year. Breaking with the traditional universal male suffrage confirmed by the 1923 Constitution, it was the first national election to feature women's suffrage, and the first to allow active public officials and army personnel the right to vote. The BPD, representing the incumbent leftist government formed around Prime Minister Petru Groza, was an electoral alliance comprising the PCR, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Ploughmen's Front, the National Liberal Party–Tătărescu (PNL–Tătărescu), the National Peasants' Party–Alexandrescu (PNȚ–Alexandrescu) and the National Popular Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emil Bodnăraș</span> Romanian communist politician

Emil Bodnăraș was a Romanian communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent, who had considerable influence in the Romanian People's Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1944 Romanian coup d'état</span> Coup détat led by Romanian king Michael I

The 1944 Romanian coup d'état, better known in Romanian historiography as the Act of 23 August, was a coup d'état led by King Michael I of Romania during World War II on 23 August 1944. With the support of several political parties, the king removed the government of Ion Antonescu, which had aligned Romania with Nazi Germany, after the Axis front in northeastern Romania collapsed in the face of a successful Soviet offensive. The Romanian Army declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Soviet Red Army on the Moldavian front, an event viewed as decisive in the Allied advances against the Axis powers in the European theatre of World War II. The coup was supported by the Romanian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, and the National Peasants' Party who had coalesced into the National Democratic Bloc in June 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military occupations by the Soviet Union</span> Soviet military occupations

During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland, as well as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland and eastern Romania. Apart from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and post-war division of Germany, the USSR also occupied and annexed Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hungarian–Romanian War</span> War fought from 1918 to 1919

The Hungarian–Romanian War was fought between Hungary and Romania from 13 November 1918 to 3 August 1919. The conflict had a complex background, with often contradictory motivations for the parties involved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Army of the Socialist Republic of Romania</span> Former Romanian army

The Army of the Socialist Republic of Romania was the army of the Socialist Republic of Romania, previously known as the Army of the Romanian People's Republic during the Romanian People's Republic. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, it was renamed to the Romanian Armed Forces. It consisted of the Ground Forces, the Navy and the Air Force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day</span> Historic public holiday in Romania

Liberation Day, officially known as the Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day was observed on 23 August in Communist Romania to celebrate the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, the event that caused Romania to leave the Axis in World War II and marked the beginning of the Soviet occupation of Romania. It coincides with the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

References

Further reading