Romanian Communist PartyW
Romanian Communist Party

The Romanian Communist Party was a communist party in Romania. Successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that would replace the social system of the Kingdom of Romania. After being outlawed in 1924, the PCR remained a minor and illegal grouping for much of the interwar period, and submitted to direct Comintern control. During the 1920s and 1930s, most of its activists were imprisoned or took refuge in the Soviet Union, which led to the creation of competing factions which at times came in open conflict. This did not prevent the party from participating in the political life of the country through various front organizations, most notably the Peasant Workers' Bloc. The Communist Party emerged as a powerful actor on the Romanian political scene in August 1944, when it became involved in the royal coup that toppled the pro-Nazi government of Ion Antonescu. With support from Soviet occupational forces, the PCR was able to pressure King Michael I into abdicating, and establish the Romanian People's Republic in December 1947.

Amicii URSSW
Amicii URSS

Amicii URSS was a cultural association in interwar Romania, uniting left-wing and anti-fascist intellectuals who advocated a détente between their country and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. Created in the spring of 1934 by Petre Constantinescu-Iași, an activist of the previously outlawed Romanian Communist Party, the society took its inspiration from the French Amis de l'URSS and from the worldwide network. Actively encouraged and financed by the Comintern, Amicii URSS was viewed with suspicion by authorities — never officially registered, it was eventually banned on the orders of Premier Gheorghe Tătărescu on November 25, 1934. It ceased its activity after that point, but constituted a precedent for the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS).

DacianismW
Dacianism

Dacianism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretation, an idealized past to the country as a whole. While particularly prevalent during the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, its origin in Romanian scholarship dates back more than a century.

De-Stalinization in RomaniaW
De-Stalinization in Romania

The De-Stalinization in Romania was a process of removing Stalinist policies and Stalin's cult of personality between 1959 and 1965. Implemented by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, it included the marginalization of Stalinists, such as Ana Pauker and a large-scale amnesty of thousands of political prisoners. A number of political and cultural figures from the 19th century fight for independence were rehabilitated and writers formerly considered "bourgeois decadent" were allowed to publish again. It marked the beginning of a period of liberalization in Communist Romania, which ended in 1971 with the July Theses returning the country to the Totalitarian side which was renamed Ceauşism.

Front of Socialist Unity and DemocracyW
Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy

The Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy was a political alliance in Romania from 1966 to 1989, dominated by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR).

Grivița strike of 1933W
Grivița strike of 1933

The Grivița strike of 1933 was a railway strike which was started at the Grivița Workshops, Bucharest, the Kingdom of Romania in February 1933 by workers of Căile Ferate Române. The strike was brought about by the increasingly poor working conditions of railway employees in the context of the worldwide Great Depression, which affected Romania significantly. As the workers occupied the workshops, the Romanian Army surrounded and sieged them. The fighting resulted in the death of 7 workers, including Vasile Roaită, a 19-year-old worker whose image was used by the early Communist regime.

July ThesesW
July Theses

The July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu on July 6, 1971, before the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). Its full name was Propuneri de măsuri pentru îmbunătățirea activității politico-ideologice, de educare marxist-leninistă a membrilor de partid, a tuturor oamenilor muncii. This quasi-Maoist speech marked the beginning of a "mini cultural revolution" in the Socialist Republic of Romania, launching a Neo-Stalinist offensive against cultural autonomy, a return to the strict guidelines of socialist realism and attacks on non-compliant intellectuals. Strict ideological conformity in the humanities and social sciences was demanded. Competence and aesthetics were to be replaced by ideology; professionals were to be replaced by agitators; and culture was once again to become an instrument for communist propaganda.

Letter of the SixW
Letter of the Six

The Letter of the Six was an open letter signed in March 1989 by six former high-ranking Romanian Communist Party dignitaries: Gheorghe Apostol, Alexandru Bârlădeanu,Silviu Brucan, Corneliu Mănescu, Constantin Pîrvulescu and Grigore Răceanu.

National communism in RomaniaW
National communism in Romania

National communism in Romania is a term referring to a form of nationalism promoted in Socialist Republic of Romania between the early 1960s and 1989; the term itself was not used by the Communist regime. Having its origins in Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's political emancipation from the Soviet Union, it was greatly developed by Nicolae Ceaușescu, who began in 1971, through his July Theses manifesto, a national cultural revolution. Part of the national mythology was Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality and the idealization of Romanian history, known in Romanian historiography as protochronism.

National Popular Party (Romania)W
National Popular Party (Romania)

The National Popular Party was an antifascist political party in Romania, founded during World War II as the underground Union of Patriots. The latter had defined itself as a spontaneous movement of resistance to the dictatorial regime of Ion Antonescu, but was largely known as a front for the illegal Romanian Communist Party. Its founders—Dumitru Bagdasar, Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa, Simion Stoilow—were closely cooperating with PCdR men, but also with liberal opposition forces. Repressed by the authorities, the UP made a comeback after the pro-Allied August 23 Coup of 1944, when it endured as a small ally of the communists—mostly controlled directly by them, but sometimes rebellious.

Patriotic Guards (Romania)W
Patriotic Guards (Romania)

The Patriotic Guards were Romanian paramilitary formations formed during the Communist era, designed to provide additional defence in case of a foreign attack.

People's Democratic Front (Romania)W
People's Democratic Front (Romania)

The People's Democratic Front was a political alliance in Romania from 1944 to 1966, dominated by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). It formed the government of Romania from 1946 to 1966.

Pioneer OrganizationW
Pioneer Organization

The Pioneer Organization was a pioneer movement in Communist Romania, founded on April 30, 1949.

Repression of communists in the Kingdom of RomaniaW
Repression of communists in the Kingdom of Romania

The Repression of communists in the Kingdom of Romania was political repression against people who held communist views in the Kingdom of Romania between 1921 and 1944. In 1921, a number of 271 members of the Socialist-Communist Party who voted for the affiliation of the party into the Third International were arrested and the following year they were tried and convicted by a military court to various terms of forced labour.

ScînteiaW
Scînteia

Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper Iskra. It was known as Scânteia until the 1953 spelling reform, which replaced the letter  with the phonologically identical Î in all cases.

Ștefan Gheorghiu AcademyW
Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy

The Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy was a university created and used by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) for training its cadres for executive and agitprop-related functions.

Union of Communist YouthW
Union of Communist Youth

The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation. Like many Young Communist organisations, it was modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.