- set a complete monopoly over the means of communication (press, TV). The access to information was restricted to the party’s newspaper “Scanteia”, a couple of hours of TV emission every evening and a couple of radio programs. All of them were hardly censored as were all the materials published between 1950 and 1989;
- set a technological monopoly over the means of effective armed defense and combat. In 1950, Ceausescu was transferred minister of the Ministry of Armed Forces, with special responsibility for the “Higher Political Directorate of the Army”, the party body set up to bring into being a People's Army. It was in this capacity that Ceausescu served an invaluable apprenticeship for ensuring his complete control of the armed forces when he later acquired dictatorial power;
- set the direction of the economy through bureaucratic co-ordination of formerly independent economic actors. Following the adoption of 1948 constitution which basically was patterned from the 1936 Soviet constitution, nationalization of banking, insurance, mining, transport enterprises together with collectivization of almost 90% of agricultural land took place starting in 1948 until 1962. Simultaneously, the new institution of National Committee of Planning reporting to Council of Ministers was set up in order to co-ordinate the agriculture and industry activities at national scale.
One after the other throughout Romanian history of communism the illusions of equality, fraternity, and prosperity faded away.
Marxist-Leninists believe that what is important is not periodic elections, but the class interest represented by the political actors who are in power. In the Leninist analysis, representative democracy as seen in the West is a “joke” because the real reins of power are held by the rich class, who would simply ignore the results if an unacceptably radical leader was ever elected. Additionally, there is the idea that the party alone is able to represent the intermediate system between state and people. Strangely enough, the 1948 constitution stipulated the right to participate at “free, direct and secret elections” held every 4 years. The official image of “representative democracy” was very well concealing the fact that there was no way to build up opposition to the ruling communist party.
1.3 Mobilization
Mobilization of the masses took place through the party's control of all cultural, media, and information systems, including the educational system. A new security police, the Securitate, was set up by the Communist Party. Its role, as defined in party’s propaganda was to defend the democratic values and to ensure the security of the Romanian People's Republic against the internal and external enemies. Defense of the “democratic values” meant the maintenance of the Communists in power. The top leadership of the Securitate reported and was controlled by the Soviet security police. The agents’ role was to listen phone calls, censor newspapers’ and magazines’ articles, watch TV programs before their emission, participate in enterprises at meetings, spontaneous gatherings, etc. Additionally, the communist propaganda was present also in education system where starting from elementary school pupils were taught a “different” History and later on in high school, Socialist Political Economy and Reports of Communist Party’s Congresses. In the same time, children affiliation to “Nation’s Falcons” at kindergarten, “Pioneers” at primary and secondary school and “Communist Youth Union” was mandatory. One can easily draw the conclusion that the communist party’s mobilization was done through propaganda of an illusory, fake democracy and terror.
1.4 Leadership
Separation of powers is a key component of democratic systems of governance in that none of the three major branches of government (executive, legislative, judiciary) has control over the other branches. That is, each branch is independent of the other branches of government. The separation of power is a method of removing the amount of power in any group's hands, making it more difficult to abuse. Once the 1948 constitution was adopted the separation of power was lost in favor to “Great National Assembly”. Analyzing the chapter IV of the 1948 constitution one can realize that GNA was the unique legislative power who had also powers through its presidium to establish all the details of executive power, the government and the right to commute or reprieve the punishments therefore involvement into judicial system. Basically, without competition due to opposition’s inexistence, the ruling Communist Party had control over the three branches of government. From loss of separation of powers to instauration of dictatorship in 1965, from infrastructural power to despotic power had been just an easy step. Yet there was a strong internal competition which many times took extra-ordinary cruel forms within the party. At the time of its emergence in the politics of postwar Romania, the Communist Party leadership fell into three factions, categorized to whether they had stayed in the country, divided in two groups, one which operated in prisons, a second one which operated in secrecy, or the third one which was constituted in Moscow during the War. The recruitment of the top leaders was not so related to commitment or success but mostly on the purges of the other factions.
2. A portrait of the democratic change
The characteristic of regime change which took place in 1989 could be debated between the two concepts of “controlled” and “enforced”. The main actor at forefront was the National Salvation Front with two leaders. Ion Iliescu was member of the communist elites. He claims that he was dissident and that he emphasized many times the “wrong way the dictator was going to”. Petre Roman is the descendent of Valter Roman who was part of the communist faction who lived and studied communist ideology in Moscow during the war. Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman became leaders of left –wing Social Democratic Party respectively Democratic Party. One could assume that the elites who provoked the regime change were second-line communist elites who, under global influence , organized the regime change and the prosecution of the old elites. No matter how controlled or enforced has been, the regime change and transformation of political system had to “wear the coat of democratic change”.
Thomas Carothers (2002) considers Romania having signs of the feckless pluralist democracy. Within a “feckless pluralist” system, there are significant amounts of political freedom, regular elections, alternation of power, yet democracy remains weak, with low levels of participation. According to the Freedom House Report (2003) the adherence to the values of democracy is generally speaking good but “much work has to be done to consolidate these hard-won gains”. Rating in a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest and 7 the lowest level of democratic progress, Romania’s gains related to democratization (this concept includes free electoral process, active civil society, independent media, and efficient governance) and rule of law (consists of constitutional, legislative, judicial framework and fight against corruption) are illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Freedom House (2003) Note: The ratings and scores reflect the consensus of Freedom House, its academic advisors, and the author of the report. ↑↑and ↓↓ indicate score changes of .25 or more; ↑and ↓ for changes of less than .25.
At least from ideological point of view the universal democratic values couldn’t have been built on the leftovers of communist institutions and organizations. The Communist Party and its Executive Committee – the sole political party, Great National Assembly – the unique legislative, executive and judicial power, State Committee of Planning – centralized planning organization, Securitate – secret police that used tools of controlling citizens and oppressing dissidents had to be dissolved after the fall of communist regime. The consequence was the creation of a multi-party political system with tens of political parties, almost all of them being clientelistic and based more on personalities, seeking political, social and economic benefits. The actual ruling party is the left-wing Social Democratic Party built on the foundation of National Salvation Front, the organization composed of members of the new elites which had a driving role during the enforced regime change. The political spectrum consists also of Greater Romania Party – ultranationalist, National Liberal Party – center, Democratic Party – center-left, Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania. The legislative framework is represented by Parliament which is composed of Senate and Chamber of Deputies. Members of both chambers of Parliament are elected. The last elections took place in 2000 and OSCE characterized these elections: “the 2000 polls further demonstrated that democratic elections are firmly entrenched in Romania. Important features of the legal and administrative framework promote an election process that is accountable, transparent, free, fair and equal”. The 2000 Parliamentary Election results (sets per party) as per Freedom House Report (2003) are presented in Figure 2.
Figure 2. 2000 Parliamentary Election Results (seat per party)
The majority of both Senate and Chamber of Deputies was obtained by two political parties (Social Democratic Party and Democratic Party), both members of Socialist International and they pursue a socialist ideology. This socialist ideology claims principles (e.g. pluralism) which are new: “However, it is only possible to speak of democracy if people have a free choice between various political alternatives in the framework of free elections” or some other (e.g. reliance on state) which were already applied in Romanian political life after 1947: “There is no single or fixed model for economic democracy and there is room for bold experimentation in different countries. But the underlying principle is clear - not simply formal, legal control by the State, but substantial involvement by workers themselves and by their communities in economic decision-making. This principle must apply both nationally and internationally”. Despite the socialist ideology based on public property promoted by the Socialist International, SDP, the Romanian ruling party claims the agreement with market economy but rejects the social transformation towards the individualistic values and norms: “the society…needs the reconstruction of the economy on the principles of the capitalist market economy and a sustainable development. We favor the market social economy but we reject the market society.” Using initially the credits obtained during the 1989 enforced regime change for mobilization of population, these credits faded away after two elections (1990 and 1992). Year 1996 represented a great victory for the opposition which afterwards proved not to be yet prepared for the reins of power. After four years of economic disappointments, following the 2000 elections, SDP came to power as per Figure 2. It uses nowadays the ideological socialist principle of “social justice and equality” to mobilize a population remained partly attached to the collectivistic values and norms and, additionally, the credits related to the work done towards acquis communautaire and Romania’s integration in EU. As Linz and Stepan (1996) characterized the post-totalitarian leadership “recruitment of top leaders is restricted to official party”. SDP is represented actually by the President of Senate, the President of Chamber of Deputies and the majority of ministers. The president of the country was member of SDP (according to 2003 constitution the elected president must withdraw from the party which promoted and supported him in elections).
3. A sketch of the future
The past decade has been a time of triumph for democratic forms of governance even if sometimes hard to get, going forward and many times backwards. One has to realize that democratization is not an irreversible process, its cause can be easily lost or stolen. Although far from perfect, steady progress toward democracy has taken place in Eastern Europe, including Romania. In this society where, until 1989, only a small portion of the population had a political voice, voting privileges have become widely available, and free elections offer citizens the possibility of real choices. Free voting has become a right and a responsibility: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana, 1905).
As in a market economy where the competition is the driving force, so has to be political life, a field for permanent constructive debates, a field where the existence of pluralism, civil society, rule of law and free access to information through media is never put under question mark.
Bibliography:
(Romanian only)
(Romanian only)
(French only)
Carothers, T., 2002. The End of Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy, Volume 13. p.11
Freedom House, 2003. Nations in Transit. Democratization in East Central Europe and Eurasia. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Linz, J., and Stepan, A., 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Santayana, G.,1905. Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense. Scribner's.
