MONGOLIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: TRADITIONS, FEATURES AND TODAY 4

References: 7

ETHICS AND POLITICS. 8

ANTINOMY, INTERDEPENDENCE OR IMPOSED CO-EXISTENCE? 8

BIBLIOGRAPHY : 13

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON WOMEN'S REPRESENTATION IN THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWERS IN ROMANIA AND CROATIA 14

General remarks concerning women's representation in the decision-making process 14 The case of Romania (1996-2000) 15 The Case of Croatia 18 In lieu of conclusion 20

References 22

ON THE DISCOURSE AND PROPAGANDA OF ANTI-TERRORISM 23

Introduction 23

Context and propaganda 23

Propagandistic techniques 24

Defining propaganda 24

Theory of ideology 25

Ideology and individual 25

Theory of institution 25

Phrases 26

Ideological message of war against terrorism 26

Conclusion 27

Literature: 28

ORIGINS OF TERRORISM 30

REFERENCES 32

NATIONALISTIC TENDENCY IN COMMUNIST CAMP: THE CASES OF YUGOSLAVIA AND ROMANIA 33

Introduction 33

Analysis of the nationalist tendency in the communist “world”: Yugoslavia and Romania 34 Yugoslavia 34 Romania 39

Conclusion 44

References 46

Mongolian Constitutionalism: Traditions, Features and Today

TURTOGTOH JANAR National University of Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

The Mongols are the people that have established their own state since ancient times and who pacified the world during the certain time of history. As a result of developing traditions of the Mongolian statehood, the Constitution of Mongolia was ratified on January 13, 1992 and 10 years passed since that time. The decade after the introduction of the Democratic Political system, has been the time to perceive the prospective development trends of constitutions, which regulate basic social relations according to the laws.

The introductory part of the Mongolian Constitution, ratified in 1992, claims: ”To inherit the traditions of national statehood, history, and culture”.

Mongolia has over 2200 years of history. The first state on the territory of Mongolia was the Hunnu state which was established 209 AD. Following nomads continued the tradition of the Hunnu State and established their own united state in 1206. After the establishment, all states furnished their legal and political policy arrangements. This phenomenon was being revealed in every ancient state that emerged and developed on Mongolian territory. Chinggis Khan’s powerful empire that covered the huge land from the Baikal Lake in the North to the Great Wall in the South and from the Khingan Mountains in the East to Altai in the West, needed a unified legal system to strengthen the state and regulate various relations in society. The main primary law of the Mongolian State was Chinggis Khan’s “Great Yasa”. Many scientists and writers such as Persian scientist Makrizi, Ibn-Batuta of Arabia, Armenian historian V.Vartang, the friar Mahakia, Iranian scientist Rashid-al-Din and famous travelers like Plano Carpini, Wilhelm Rubruk and Marco Polo, scientist Ata Malik Juwaini, noted about Chinggis Khan’s Great Yasa and other teachings in their works.

The main significance of the “Great Yasa” is that it systematized and developed into laws the best moral values of the Mongols. American scientist George Vernadsky argued that: the “Great Yasa” was the complete new Constitution, based on laws and customs and containing all aspects such as state administration, military, civilians, punishment, trade and customs. The main idea of Vernadsky’s conclusion seems to be significant in illuminating the fact that during the times of Chinggis Khan the Mongols operated their political and social institutions through fundamental laws of state. After the “Great Yasa” the laws such as “Yuan Dynasty’s Law”, “The History of Ten White Virtuous Teachings”, “Khutagtai Prince’s Laws”, “Law Documents of Altan Khan”, “Noble Documents of Laws of Khalkha’s”, “Laws of Mongol Oirads”, “Khalkha Juram”(Laws of Khalkha’s), “Law Documents of Mongolian State” regulated political and social relations of that certain period of time. It is obvious that the first controlling

factor of the Mongolian state structure was the “Great Yasa’s” social, political and legal principles, reflected in all the laws mentioned above.

Soon after gaining independence from the Manchu-Chin Dynasty in 1911 and the coronation of Bogd Javzundamba, a large number of initiatives to produce legal acts along with a new Constitution and to set up a Parliament have been discussed. Because, previously, the state was perceived trough the eyes of certain figure’s only, especially the Khan’s, one major peculiarity of the traditional state at that time was the fact that the Khan’s orders and unwritten laws were dominant. New political and legal regulations were established, for the first time, in written form.

As a result of political reformations on the basis of the National Democratic Revolution victory in 1921 the first Constitution was ratified by the First State Great Khural (the Parliament) in 26 November 1924. In this way, the legal foundations of constitutional structure and political principles of Constitutionalism were established and the process of forming a new state system and legacy developed on this basis.

The second Constitution of 1940, finished by the first stage of the People’s Revolution, emphasized on the laws from the perspective of socialist ideology and values. The Constitution of 1960 adopted socialist laws and included among its articles the confirmation of the achievements in building socialism, leaving out capitalism.

Analyses of the three laws presented above, show that all of them had to implement essential principles derived from the central socio-political goals of the certain period of time. Nevertheless, all of these constitutions served to the socialist dogma neglecting the traditions of Mongolian statehood and culture.

In the end of 1989 and beginning of 1990, the former political system was replaced trough the democratic revolution and the era of development began. The Mongolians’ national convictions revived, together with the motivations to keep and inherit their statehood traditions. It has become a historical revolution in the Mongolian political history, the beginning of a new state system based on a democratic state-social structure.

The Amendment Law to the Constitution was ratified in May, 1990. This law accepted multi-party system and pluralism, and amended many provisions to the Constitution of 1960 such as renewing main characteristics and activity principles of legislative and executive branches. The Law of Amendment mentioned as the traditional supreme authority, the People’s Ikh Khural, the newly re-structured Parliament - State Baga Khural and The Head of State - the presidential institution and their mutual correlation of power; it also gave priority to principles to separate the power equally and properly. Moreover, the amendments above show the signs of the state’s transition period, until the ratification of the new Constitution. The Constitution of Mongolia from the 13th of January 1992,s ratified to strengthen the new state democratic system and to provide a legal basis and guarantees to the country’s development, replaced the former

structure and identified political and legal standards to establish the Mongolian state’s social structure and democratic principles of Constitutionalism.

Scientists and professionals such as state and party leaders, lawyers, economists, historians and linguists participated in the development of the new Constitution project. Moreover foreign representatives’ from the USA, Australia, Austria, Germany, France, Russian Federation, Poland and Japan and expert opinions from international organizations such as International Human Rights Committee, UNO, International Parliamentary Committee and International Advocacy Organization were reflected. Positive and negative sides of the Constitutions of 1924, 1940, 1960 and trends of the 1990 Law of Amendment were taken into consideration.

From this point the 1992-ratified Mongolian Constitution became modern and democratic, based on modern scientific achievements and reflecting recommendations of many professionals from various countries with long-term traditions of democracy.

The new Constitution of Mongolia is very significant and specific in comparison with the laws and constitutional periods in the history of Mongolia:

1. It replaced the totalitarian regime in Mongolia, following the requirements and principles of International Parliamentarism, transmitted into democratic and market relations. It also confirmed the aims to establish a “humane, civil and democratic society”.

2. It provided democratic state systems directed to the principles of power separation, and defined its organizations and regimes.

3. According to this Constitution, the state shall be under the control of voters and respect national independence, security, solidarity and serve its citizens. The state itself, all citizens from ordinary people to the head of state, shall be equal under the laws.

4. The citizens are the center of the social policy; the development of each side is considered to be realization of humanity, thus confirming human rights and freedom.

5. It legally confirmed a position of Mongolia in the International Community, its open foreign policy’s goals and principles.

References: Avirmed E., Dashtseden D., Sovd G. (1997). Mongol Huuli (Mongol Laws). Ulaanbaatar. Britannica, Encyclopedia 11th ed., Vol. 7, Genghis Khan. Encyclopedia Britannica Pub. Co. Constitution of Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar, 1992. Ducat, C. R. and Harold, Chase (1992). Modern Constitutional Law New York. Gadjiyev, K.S. (1995). Political Science, Moscow. Lattimore, O. "Chingis Khan and the Mongol Conquests" in Scientific American No. 209, August 1963 Vernadsky, George (1994). The Yasa of Chingis Khan: A code of honor, dignity and excellence. Columbia University Press. Vernadsky, G. (1953). The Mongols and Russia. Yale University Press. Vernadsky, G. (1938). "The Scope and Content of Chingis Khan's Yasa." in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 3. Renchin, L. (1993). New Constitution and Power, Ulaanbaatar. Riazanovsky, V. (1965). Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law Indiana University Press, Sovd, G. (1993). A newsletter “Constitution of Mongolia” Ulaanbaatar. Stephen, Holmes (1997). Comparative Constitutional Law. CEU. "The Secret History of the Mongols" translated by Cleaves, F. W. 1982. Harvard University Press. Trubetzkoy, N. S. (1991). The Legacy of Genghis Khan Michigan Slavic Publications, Ann Arbor. Tsanjid, A. (1996). Political Science, Ulaanbaatar.

ETHICS AND POLITICS. ANTINOMY, INTERDEPENDENCE OR IMPOSED CO-

EXISTENCE? by IRINA PATRINTAS

Abstract This article is centered on the idea of “concentricity”

regarding two fundamental concepts that seemed to have become indirect priorities both on the political and the philosophical stages, throughout the centuries: ethics and policy. The main dilemma is represented by an obvious discontinuity between moral principles, which were adopted and implied in the political area, and the way they are understood and respected by the individuals. Is “ethics” an empirical construction, a real term that should be reported to the real existence, not just to the “noumena” universe or is it an utopia, a construct without any appliance in the reality? It cannot be denied that modern societies have tried to adopt these principles, but just from the theoretical point of view; unfortunately, the political field always comes into contradiction with the moral items, although justice and law are founded on ethics. Consequently, a simple, superficial selection of the XXth century’s main violent events proves that no matter how we analyze these theoretical constructions, from a negative or a positive point of view, we develop different theories on major principles, that make the essence of both the political and the philosophical field: liberty, freedom, justice and equality. There also exists a striking discrepancy between the technological progress, which lately has reached incredible standards and levels, and the spontaneous evolution that should have been also requested in the individual’s inward structure, regarding consciousness and responsibility. The modern society confronts itself with another rhetorical question: what has happened to the authentic communication or has it ever existed in real terms? Rawl’s theory of justice and the ethics of communication, in the manner J. Habermas analyzed it, sustains the vital necessity of a minimal consensus among the members of any society. The article presents the hypotheses of this conceptual and empirical conflict.

How to behave towards oneself and towards other individuals is a matter of

making choices: whether to be friendly or unfriendly, whether to be generous or greedy. These and all other questions about how people act towards themselves and one another are dealt within a field of study called ethics. The major question is if this concept has

ever been “alive” not only from the theoretical point of view, but also reporting it to the very pragmatic dimension of reality. In modern developed societies the systems of law and public justice are closely related to ethics in that they determine and enforce definite rights and duties. They also attempt to regress and punish deviations from these standards. Most societies have set standards, whether by custom or by low, to enable those in a society to live together without undue disruption.

It is possible for law to be neutral in moral issues or it can be used to enforce

morality. The brought prologue to the United States Constitution says that insuring domestic tranquility is an object of government. This statement is morally neutral. Such laws as those passed to enforce civil rights, however, promote a moral as well as legal commitment.

It is obvious that ethics should be primarily concerned with attempting to define what is good for the individual and for society, but it also tries to establish the nature of obligations or duties, that people owe themselves and each other. The first dilemma appears when the relativist doctrine imposes itself as being the most appropriate one in order to define the essence of what we call ethics. Therefore, the relativists do not believe that there are self-evident moral principles that are true for everyone. They say that people’s moral judgements are determined by the customs and traditions of the society in which they live. These may have been handed down for centuries, but their age does not mean they are true standards. They are simply norms that a certain society has developed for itself.

The end of the XXth century is incredibly favorable to a deep analysis and discussion upon the inward relation between ethics and politics. The events and the theories developed on this subject can be interpreted both from a negative∗ and a positive point of view, which had as a major effect a new attitude towards concepts like liberty, justice, equality. Consequently, the western political philosophy has the tendency to perceive the truth of the Being in the experience of war, the last one destroying the moral imperatives and justifying sacrifice. Hence, Emmanuel Levinas proposes the eschatology of messianic peace, somehow related to the Kantian model. If Hegel points out the conflicts among liberties which establish the structure of those undeclared fights for the individuals and people’s legitimacy, Levinas focuses on the priority and the anteriority of the ethic relation towards any sparkle of violence. Thus, a new principle has appeared on the political and philosophical scene- the principle of Alterity, which concentrates both on the Other’s vulnerability and our responsibility for the relation we have with this Alter, who is, actually, a metaphor for any other individual in this world we could possibly come into contact with.

Taking into account Dostoievski’s statement: “We all are or we should be very responsible for every action, and I must be more responsible than all the others”, I dare say that it is essential that we should try to understand tolerance, freedom, peace and

∗ The totalitarian experience brought its contribution to the disparagement of the politic-alienation-critics, which would pretend that they established a limit between science and metaphysics while refusing the possibility of analyzing the rules of any action by reporting them to the essence of ethic values.

morality trough our own methods of reporting to the others. Therefore, tolerance and diplomacy cannot be reckoned as solutions to the social, political conflicts, unless we do not try to apply these “formulas” starting with every individual. In this case, isn’t it true that man should be given the chance to judge in the name of moral consciousness, the real and authentic history he belongs to, instead of choosing the anonymous history as the main criteria and dimension of his judgements?

While concentrating on the problem of Alterity, the modern individual denounces “the ethical void” of the traditional morality, which seems to be totally innocuous towards the unsolved problems put into discussion on account of the technical level and the individual’s capacity to manipulate his natural framework. The paradox is that this technological progress is not necessary followed by a spontaneous evolution or eruption in the individual’s inward structure, especially regarding his consciousness, the sense of responsibility. Since the idea that democracy has turned into “a moral adventure” is considered to be characteristic to the modern society, this means that evil has entered into all social and political levels trough a very simple, ”childish”, still complex structure of relations - the Game. What is really frightening is that people have experienced the effect of the totalitarian systems, that proposed serious assurances as for them being guided by the laws of science: the historical materialism and the racialist theories, and this has happened under the sight of the democratic systems. The Other is no longer seen as a subject, but as an isolated entity, while the lack of authentic communication becomes the only characteristic of the relations among individuals; all these generate conflicts - at the beginning, only among certain members of a community, followed by contradictions appearing at a higher level, which involves all the members of the society. With the conflict reaching high proportions, it is possible that more societies could get involved.

The major problem democracy must deal with is that it cannot put an end to the manipulation of violence (which is, actually, inherent to any policy) just by making use of the fragile resources the human ethics could represent. This is why Kant’s and John Rawls’ universal theories are reckoned to be so important, as they try to found the bases of all moral laws and principles, deriving from reason. The positive aspect of this fact is that every member of the social system could recognize, accept and respect these universal rules. In this way, democracy is not seen as a non-conflictual political regime, but as one structure with open, still negotiable conflicts, depending on the accepted rules.

Rawls’ theory of justice together with the theory regarding the ethics of communication, evoked by J. Habermas, also sustain the vital necessity of a minimal consensus among the members of any society. But if these theories are not susceptible of being put into practice, what would happen to the political field? Is politics, in this case, just a business of pure decision, a “struggle among powerful political forces”, after Carl Schmitt’s formula? Therefore, the program Paul Ricoeur proposes in order to make politics and morality be co-existent is focused on the Other’s understanding. One should totally assume the symbols of his autonomy and he also should let the others know that these symbols cannot be conceived and disenchanted beyond this dimension which belongs to the Alter; thus, the transcendence from the community to the political level is fulfilled.

Political correctness has become an ideology showing sensitivity, tolerance and

respect for every individual, especially if certain situations differ from one’s own, while rejecting prejudicial or stereotypical remarks directed against other people’s views. Oponents fear that such conforming ideology threatens freedom of expression and anoints to political censorship. This inability to comprehend the world is compounded by individual’s incapacity to gain a thorough understanding of other people or even of themselves. And since politics has been partially and sometimes almost totally deprived of any moral principles, of any diplomatic strategies, there is a possibility for a terrorist association or movement to appear. Every conflict and every violent form of expressing human potentials and interests has as a matrix the lack of respect and communication between one individual and another. For instance, in the late 1960’s, European cities were often the scene of terrorist attacks. Among the most notorious events of the 1970’s and 1980’s were the attack in 1972 on Israeli athletes in the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany, by the Palestinian organization, known as Black September; the assassination in Madrid in 1973 of Spain’s Premier - Luis Carrerro Blanco - by Basque militants, who demanded Basque independence from Spain and France; the kidnapping in Rome and later the murder (in 1978) of Italy’s five time’s reelected Premier Aldo Maro, by the Red Brigades, the attempted assassination in 1981 of Pope John II in the Vatican, by a member of the Turkish nationalist, etc. Terrorism, understood as the use of violence to achieve political goals, without taking into account moral concepts and believes, has long been an instrument of repression by governments as well as a tool of revolutionaries trying to overthrow government.

Political murder is as old as politics, but to understand modern terrorism, it is necessary to understand the political and social climate of the 1960’s. A generation had grown up with no memory of World War II and in the United States, Western Europe and Japan, with the majority of this generation still in college. In the US, social protest was a common result of the civil rights movement. College age young people became aware of many social and economic wrongs. After 1965, with the heavy American involvement in the Vietnam War, they found a new reason for protest. What the younger generation wanted was to change everything all at once, and this yearning led eventually to the formation of small bonds of people devoted to change by violence. Therefore, several organizations in many countries emerged almost simultaneously. The violent protest and the political inability helped spawn the international terrorist network in the democratic countries.

Subsequently, I do believe in the fact that its essential that people nowadays should reconsider Kant’s political analysis, just to understand that, despite the historical flux, which is always involved in a complex process of changing, and although the social and political conditions are different, the conclusions Kant drew in order to define the relation between policy and morality are still valid and full of authenticity. ’’Any form of politics must submit itself to moral principles and values!” The main political believe that should be “somehow refreshed” in the contemporary politicians’ and all people’s mentality is that morality and politics must co-exist, as the real policy cannot impose and improve itself unless moral values are taken into account. Morality and public justice

must also be correlated, so to enable morality to shape politics. As the tension between morality and the public justice cannot be denied, they must remain connected but they’re also distinct. The use of teleology as a linking structure between the moral realm and the political, and juridical one is not something new as Kant himself uses the ends for his work unification. The ends establish a strong relation among nature, human freedom and art, and the last three ones make the connection between the moral and the juridical one be stronger.

As a conclusion, I dare say that in order to recognize and analyze an object, people should be able to prove its possibility as attested by experience, or a priori, by means of reason. This is the same process the individual should follow in order to determine any realistic relation or interdependence between morality and the political realm. This problem remains and this vicious circle is concealed by too much subjectivity. One zenith people should strive to attain in order to establish an order in their existence is to adopt a diplomatic attitude towards the others, to understand or, at least to pretend understanding them, to act in the name of the supreme Principle of morality, because political rules can never guarantee a moral infrastructure, while the moral laws succeed in combining both the political and those priorities related to ethics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY : Hans-Klaus Keul, Mircea Flonta - Filosofia practica a lui Kant; Ed. Polirom, Iasi, 2000, page 270 Jurgen Habermas -Knowledge and Human Interests; Ed. Beacon Press, Boston, 1993; translated by Jeremy J. Shapiro; page 357 Ernest Gellner - Conditiile libertatii.Societatea civila si rivalii ei; Ed. Polirom, Iasi, 1998; translated by Andreea Poruciuc; page 212

Comparative Perspective on Women's Representation in the Executive and Legislative Powers in Romania and

Croatia Nadia-Suzana Seaptefrati

With the fall of the Communist regimes people have been faced not only with new economic and political realities but also with the possibility of having to accept new identities of defend old ones. Members of the ex-communist states are feeling insecure about the worth of their citizenship and one important group of those who feel threatened are women. They are not viewed as mature political subjects but rather as reproducers of the nation and national culture which results in their extreme invisibility on the political arena The purpose of the present paper is to investigate to what extent women are active participants in politics in two post-communist societies, namely Romania and Croatia, and what are the main causes of their under-representation, to what extent we can talk about affirmative policies for women in these two countries. We shall take into account statistical data concerning women's representation in the executive and legislative powers covering the period of the present and previous legislature. As we shall see the data shows significant differences between the two countries which we shall try to analyze with regard to possible factors responsible for these differences.

The paper will be structured as follows: we will start by making some remarks on the issue of women's representation, and then turn to the particular cases individually and chronologically by firstly considering the Romanian case and finally compare it to the Croatian case.

General remarks concerning women's representation in the decision-making process The problem of women's representation in politics has become an issue among a large number of scholars who have elaborated various theories concerning women's under-representation in politics. However it has been widely accepted that although variations may occur from one country to another there are some universally applicable factors which lead to a significantly low number of women involved in the decision-making process. Among such factors (although the prominence with which they influence women's representation may vary) we could list the highly masculinized model of both political life as well as the elected governmental bodies, the lack of party support, the low level of co-operation with other organizations besides the political ones, the lack of political

education and means for changing implementing a training system, and last but not least the nature of the electoral system. Due to the limited length of the present article we shall only take into the scope of our work the lack of party support and the low level of co-operation between the political bodies and other organizations, with particular regard to NGOs as long as the data regarding these issues is more easily comparable with respect to the two countries which will be presented. In so far as the electoral systems of the two countries are concerned we shall briefly describe them at the beginning of each section but given the similar natures of these systems we shall not make any direct reference them.

The case of Romania (1996-2000) Although women were in a large number members of different parties their number varying between 20 % and 55 % from the total number of members of the parliamentary and non-parliamentary political parties they usually hold background positions, demanding a large amount of work, thoroughness, competence; they have restricted access to the leading and decisional positions within the parties, both at the national and the regional levels. Women's access to the leading positions of the political parties by the system of the imposed percentage is practically ignored even by those parties which stipulate this clause in their statute; there are no sanctions stipulated against the non-observance of this clause (such as PD, the Democrat Party or PSDR, The Romanian Social Democrat Party). The quota system is not stipulated by any of the political parties participating in the 1996 elections. Party leaders seem to argue against the quota system by claiming what Dahlerup states: "quotas imply that politicians are elected because of their gender, not because of their qualifications, and that more qualified candidates are pushed aside". The networks of women's organizations and structures within the political parties have poor efficiency, most of them being underdeveloped (they generally concentrate within the big cities in the developed counties; in rural areas they have practically no influence at all). Moreover from among the total number of parliamentary political parties between 1996-2000 (counting 7 parties and coalitions) only 3 have organizations for women, namely PDSR, The Romanian Social Democracy Party, PD and PSDR. The electoral system for electing the members of the two houses of the parliament is proportional which is maybe one of the few legal procedures which may be favorable to women's higher representation at the legislative level since it has been argued that the proportional system presents more advantage for women to get elected as opposed to the majoritarian representation system since the political parties must compete with each other and win more than one seat per district which leads to their necessity of "going further down [...] the lists where women are usually listed".

Women's low representation at various levels of decision during the last four years can be easily noticed by examining the data below: Parliament Total average: 5.5 %

• In the Chamber of Deputies: 24 women deputies - 7 % • In the Senate: 2 women senators - 1.4 % • Permanent parliamentary commissions: 2 chairwomen • Senate - The Human Rights Commission - chairwoman, senator, from the PDSR

party. • Joint parliamentary Commission for the European Integration - The Chamber of

Deputies and the Senate - chairwoman, deputy from the Democratic Party. • There is no woman in the Permanent Offices and no woman leader of a

parliamentary group. • 1 woman vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies.

Government

• No woman minister • 5 women secretary of state • 3 women - Prime Minister's staff • 2 women - directors in the Government's General Secretariat

There is no woman in decisional positions at the following levels: The Legislative Council, The Constitutional Court, The Court of Accounts, The Council of Concurrence, The Service of External Information, The Romanian Service of Information, The Service of Special Telecommunications. In order to comment on the data we shall again refer to the already stated two factors that will be taken into account, namely the party politics and the lack of communication with women's organizations. For the sake of clarity they will be discussed each individually. Party politics before and during the elections was not favorable to women from several points of view: as already mentioned women were not recruited and placed on election lists, or in many cases when they were, they were not placed at the top of the list. Another strategy used by the parties was to have women candidates in counties were it was unlikely that the respective party would win any seat ( for instance the case of PDSR placing women in the top position of the lists in the two counties with more than 90% Hungarians where it was evident that PDSR could not win any seat given the fact that during all the elections starting from 1990 data proved that more than 90% of the Hungarians vote for UDMR, the Democratic Union of Hungarians from Romania). In so far as the impact of the civil society is concerned there seems to have been a total lack of dialogue representing two directions: on the one hand out of the 47 NGO's dealing with women's issues only 6 deal directly with the problem of women's representation at the decision-making level and there was a lack of communication and co-operation even

among those 6, while on the other there was a clear tendency before 1996 of ignoring civil society as such by the Romanian governing bodies.

Another factor responsible for the above mentioned data especially with regard to the number of women in the executive power was the political color of the ruling coalition (CDR, Romanian Democratic Convention) which was formed around the Peasants' Party which claims to maintain and reintroduce the traditional family values politics reflected in the figures of elected women belonging to the ruling coalition: none in the Senate out of 53 senators and 7 in the Chamber of Deputies. The explanation can be extended to cover also the non-representation of women in the government (no ministerial seat being held by a woman).

The figures after the 2000 elections show a slightly improved situation of women's representation especially at the government level. We shall try to compare the data and to identify the factors which may have caused the difference. Parliament Total average: 8,45

• In the Chamber of Deputies: 33 women deputies - 9,56% • In the Senate: 8 women senators - 5, 71% • Permanent parliamentary commissions: have not yet been established

Government

• 5 women ministers (Ministry of European Integration, Ministry of Justice, Ministry for Small and Medium-sized and Co-operation, Ministry of Education and Research, Ministry of Health and Family

• 5 women secretary of stat • 4 women - Prime Minister's staff • 3 women - directors in the Government's General Secretariat

The still low representation of women has been explained by taking into account the

same factors listed for the 1996 elections, namely the party politics has not witnessed any major change with regard to women. There was only one party wich has introduced quotas for women but in the text of the statute women and young were represented under the same article: "at all levels of the ANCD at least 1/3 of the members have to be women and young people. In cases when this number does not reach 1/3 of all the members their number will be increased with new members". However the text itself is ambiguous leading to various interpretations such as how many of the young and women have actually to be women? The party however did not get more that 5% of the valid votes and thus did not enter the parliament. No other party has established any quotas for women's representation.

The slight increase of women's representations can be explained by taking into account two factors: on the one hand during the 1996-2000 legislature there was an increasing tendency of co-operation with various NGOs which promote women's rights and women's equal chances to be represented in the decision-making bodies although

there is still a tendency of collaborating with the Human Rights NGOs rather than with women's organizations. The number of NGOs dealing with women's issues has raised from 43 to 60, but the number of those who deal with health, equal employment and education opportunity still constitute the large majority: only 8 deal directly with the issue of women's inclusion into politics.

On the other the parties with the greatest majority in the parliament are PDSR, PRM, PD and PNL which have all policies concerning women's role in politics as opposed to the previously ruling Peasants' Party whose statute and program did not stipulate any affirmative party policy regarding women. (16). The ruling party (PDSR) helds 155 seats in the Chamber of Deputies out of which 18 are women, which makes 11% while at the executive level one can notice a significant increase, percentage of women ministers increasing with 14%. (17). Also it is important to notice the fact that it is for the first time in post-communist Romania that women were appointed as ministers outside the social welfare posts ( Ministry of European Integration, Justice and Ministry for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises).

The Case of Croatia As we have already stated given the fact that the nature of the Croatian electoral system does not present major differences with the Romanian model (In Croatia for the House of Counties the electoral system being proportional whereas for the house of Representatives eighty are elected under a proportional system and 28 in one-member constituencies according to a simple majority system - thus the easily notice a lot of similarities but also some differences which we shall try to explain in what follows.

The total percentage of women in parliament is not very different comparing the results of the previous elections in the two countries: 5,5% in Romania versus the 6,8% of the parliamentary seats occupied by women in Croatia. However although the situation is similar in comparing the total percentage Croatian women are much better represented in the Upper House, the House of Representatives 4,4% compared to 1,4% in Romania. Also if one were to examine the situation in the government, Croatian 1997 government had 2 women ministers which was not the case of Romania. Parliament

• Total average: 6,88% • In the House of Representatives: 12 women deputies -7,8 % • In the House of Counties: 3 women senators - 4,4 % (Croatian Women's web-

page located at: http://members.tripod.com/CROWWOMEN/arhiva.htm ) Permanent Parliament Committees

• 2 chairwomen

Government • 4 women ministers (Deputy Prime Minister - Humanitarian Affairs; Deputy Prime

Minister - Social Affairs; Minister of European Integration, Minister of Science and Technology) out of a total of 29 ministries

It has been explained that the "situation in the elected political bodies reflec Åts the

situation in the political parties". It seems again that as in the Romanian case the political parties do not consider women's representation as an important issue and do not implement any positi measures concerning women.

Nevertheless as opposed to Romania where for the 1996 elections there were no

special measures for women in the potical platform of the political l parties, in Croatia due to the efforts of women's groups for the elections in 1997, several political parties have developed women's programs. But it seems as they are only meant to attract votes for after the elections ese programs are not upheld1). Similarly with Romania in the party hierarchy men still held the highest positions while the percentage of women in the governing bodies of political parties range between 0- 28,57%. Only two parties have a women's quota (for 30% women), but it is not implemented on al levels of their organization2). Yet another common aspect with the Romanian case is the fact that women's sections are still not established for most of the parties and also the fact that state mechanisms do not work into this direction either. Also the ruling coalition HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) has as stated goal the issue of family which should be in the center of all politics with particular attention given to maternity and demographic expansion which inevitably leads to the reinforcement of women's traditional role which is that of wife and mother and thus leading to her confinement to the private space and insufficient policies for advancing towards the public sphere and implicitly politics.

But unlike the Romanian case NGOs which deal with women's representation seem to be much more actively involved into the matter of representation by forming the so-called Women's Ad Hoc coalition which comprised 18 NGOs whose aim was to monitor and influence the elections by encouraging women politicians in their work.

Also at the level of the executive body Croatia enjoys a greater women representation compared to Romania although we should not neglect that two of these functions are held in the social welfare fields ( see the data above). After January 3, 2000

As the figures below show the number of women tripled in the House of Representatives after the 2000 elections while the total average of women holding seats in the parliament has raised with almost 10% (more precisely with 9,78%) but in the House of Counties the number did not increase significantly (from 5,71% to 7%) which reflects once again that although important steps have been made with regard to the party politics concerning women's inclusion in the electoral lists still the higher the level the lower the number of women who have access to power.

Parliament • Total average: 16,05% • In the House of Representatives: 31 women deputies - 20 % • In the House of Counties: 4 women senators - 6 % (Women in National

Parliaments: http://ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm ) Government

• 2 women ministers (Deputy Prime Minister - Social Affairs, Minister of Health) • 1 government secretary • 1 government spokeswoman

As an important similarity with the Romanian results we could list the fact that

elections were won by a majority formed with two parties which have paid particular attention to women's issues and thus including more women in the lists: SDP (Social Democratic Party) and HSLS (Croatian Social Liberals). Although neither of the two have introduced special quotas for women SDP's program stipulates that "SDP seeks more equal participation of women in politics [...] and it will try to achieve the inclusion of obligatory participation of women in politics by the introduction of quotas" whereas the HSLS's statute mentions that "women should equally participate in the decision-making process and that quotas should be guaranteed by the law.

Nevertheless the number of women ministers has decreased from 4 to 2 which proves to be contradictory to the above mentioned goals of the ruling parties, from this point of view Romania's situation with respect to the number of women in the executive power being considerably more desirable 5 ministries being led by women.

The role of the NGOs shows once more to have had an important impact on the

current representation of women in the Croatian politics: the number of NGOs dealing directly with matters involving women's implication and active participation in politics is much higher than in Romania, out of a total number of 25 NGOs for women 9 are mainly militating for women's becoming political actors and they have been actively involved in the pre-election process while the Ad Hoc Association was again militating for women's higher representation.

In lieu of conclusion

Although in both countries the number of women represented at the legislative and executive level has increased after the elections of 2000 as compared to the previous legislature it is still considerably low as compared to the female population of the two analyzed countries (in both cases it is above 51% and therefore it represents a majority).

Non-governmental organizations' reports concerning affirmative policies for women's taking part in the decision-making process recommend in both cases the elaboration of a governmental strategy or measures for promoting equal opportunity for women , developing programs which will obligate the governments to appoint a certain

percentage of women in leading positions and support women NGOs which promote participation of women in politics.

Adapted from paper presented for the Women in Politics course, Central European Univ, Budapest.

References Shvedova, Nadezhda (1998) - Obstacles to Women's Participation in Parliament, in Women in parliament: Beyond Numbers, International IDEA, p.20,Karan, Azza, ed. (1998) Popescu, Lilian– Women’s Representation in the Political Life in Analize, No.7, 2000, p.21 Dahlerup, D - Using Quotas to increase women's political representation in Women in parliament: Beyond Numbers, International IDEA, Karan, Azza, ed. (1998), Matland, R - Enhancing Women's Participation: Legislative recruitment and electoral systems in Women in parliament: Beyond Numbers, International IDEA p.80, Karan, Azza, ed. (1998) Index of women participation to social life (WPI) - National Human Development Report - Romania. UNDP, 1998 Elections 2000 – “Pro Democratia” Final Report Web resources Women's Political Participation -Be Active, Be Emancipated: http://www.babe.hr/en. Croatian Democratic Union's official web-page: http://hdz.hr/hr/onama/index.htm Social Democratic Party's official web-page: http://www.sdp.hr/prog.html Croatian Social Liberals' official web-page: http://hsls.hr http://members.tripod.com/~CROWWOMEN/Groups1.htm

On the discourse and propaganda of anti-terrorism

By Gal Kirn

(Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

“Bullets and missiles are perceived as cool objects prompting the frequent reaction that the early stages of the war resembled an electronic game”. (Falk, page 24, 1995)

Introduction

The subject of my inquiry will be the public discourse on terrorism, which has explicitly unfolded since the “terrorist” attack on the World Trade Centre. In the first part I will focus on some propagandistic schemes that have become apparent in the last few months, then I will continue to analyse some theoretical concepts of the ideological matrix of anti-terrorism and terrorism, which leads me to a critique of war. This article is theoretically based on the legacy of Louis Althusser (his theory on ideology and its effects, as interpreted by Rastko Močnik) and some other contemporary thinkers like Richard Falk.

Context and propaganda

To start with, the war of terrorism and counter-terrorism is a new war (Kaldor, 1995), but also it has to be taken into account that it is happening inside the Empire (Negri and Hardt, 2001), or to be precise on the borders of the Empire whose power will expand after installing a new pro-American government. War is one of the constitutive elements of the current global (dis)order (Negri and Hardt, 2001). So, we are faced with the war for re-distribution of wealth and power between global elites, where one comes from the developed North and the other comes from the South. The image of the unreal hunt for Osama bin Laden is merely a disguise for strategic interests of the USA (control of Central Asia and oil pipes).

But what is happening in front of our eyes? The public is exposed to the militant and one-sided messages from the North-based alliance (i.e. USA-led). In the centre of the message there is the old ideological pattern of division into Self - »good guys« and Others – »bad guys« (see also S.Žižek, Z.Kanduč both 2001).

Propagandistic techniques

America' s propagandistic machines (like Pentagon, and its media allies CNN and BBC, to name a few) are using various techniques to promote their ideology of anti-terrorism and the inevitability of war. There were three direct and very recognisable propagandistic operations. The first one was breaking news live about America and Americans under attack, so at the end of the day we all knew that America was going to retaliate. Also, the news and accusations against potential culprits were so strong that the “criminals” simply deserved capital punishment and were not regarded as humans (one of the consequences is the way American authorities are treating prisoners from Afghanistan in Guantanamo Bay). Another technique is a reference to higher fairness regarding the whole nation, and more, leading the entire civilized world in the war against other.

A typical example of “underground” (indirect) propaganda took place during the bombing of Afghanistan (also described by R.Močnik, 2001). All television stations were showing pictures from the global media giant CNN of pilots in technologically elaborated planes F-18 who flew from the aircraft carrier on the Mission. The main problem of journalist report here is that we do not get the real picture. We do not get to know that these planes are killing people, not just military targets but also civilians. Also, we did not see any refugees leaving their homes etc. We could associate this reports wit the old phenomenon of censorship, where American and later also British authorities hailed the media not to show much information (for example to show interview with the leader of Al-Qaeda), because Osama bin Laden could order other terrorist acts to be carried out. The only exception was the TV and radio station al-Jazeera, situated in Qatar. Their journalists critically assessed Taliban and American points of view, but the problem was they could not transmit the message to Western media, since the White House accused them of Laden's propaganda (one can find an interesting article about freedom of press regarding al-Jazeera on the web site, Michael Moran, http:// www.msnbc.com/news/643471.asp?cp1=1 ).

As a response to alternative voices from media and to the present geopolitical situation the Pentagon launched the institutional apparatus of propaganda - the Office of Strategic Influence (for further details check the on-line article of the rightist newspaper New York Times, Dao and Schmitt, 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/international/19PENT.html ). The primary role of the ideologically non-biased office will be the dissemination of “true” lies to foreign diplomats, again with the function to strengthen and exercise control on important global political issues and to set priorities in media agendas .

Defining propaganda

The organized spread of ideas, in other words propaganda, can be seen in the omnipresent »criticism« of global terrorism, without any self-reflection on military actions taken in Afghanistan. In the near future we can expect more “humanitarian

interventions” and wars against global terrorism in the rest of the rogue states, which have to be subordinated to the global hegemonic (dis) order.

As it has been implicitly suggested propaganda is intrinsically linked with strategic spread of ideology. Let us explore some ways of defining ideology. We shall focus on some phrases of the most “prominent” politicians of the era.

Theory of ideology

Having described the “real” situation we can move to theoretical analysis of ideology. At first there is a crucial need to reconstruct the theory of ideology while limiting us just to simplistic views on false consciousnesses would not be theoretically productive.

Ideology and individual

In Althuserrian' s terms, discourse is ideology. We have different kinds of discourses, like political, media, economic, legal and others. For the inquiry presented here the focus will be on media and political discourse. As already mentioned in the text, the ideological matrix is quite simple: white and black. One of the well-known theses of Louis Althusser is: “Ideology interpellates the individuals as subjects” (for detailed study on the theory of ideology see Močnik, 1991, and also 1993). In the case of anti-terrorism ideology, its protagonists try to persuade or to hail individuals in the way that they are going to identify with and believe and that gives the crucial moral and political justification for future fair deeds in the name of democracy and liberty. So, ideology presents an imaginary relation between individual, or rather subject supposed to believe and his or her institutional practices – institutions .

Theory of institution

An important dimension in understanding the theory of ideology is the theory of institution. As Althusser says ideology has its own material existence, in sociological terms, it can be perceived as a social fact (Durkheim). It exists as an institution; it establishes the structural relations between people. Today, the anti-terrorist ideology has established the way people of the North think and also make sense of their social actions. People in these countries are feeling bound and uncritical to support the waging of war against all rogue states. Also, the ideology of Other is perpetuated by the prophesies of conservative thinker Huntington' s “civilizational” conflict. To be sure this pattern is also used by the global terrorist elites that wish to appeal their people, so this process acts like a self-fulfilling prophecy – the circle is being closed.

Phrases

After having constructed the conceptual apparatus we can analyse some phrases of the U.S. president Bush and Osama bin Laden.

Right after the attack on WTC Bush concluded his speech in the words: “We are going to get these folks”. With this sentence he already began the politics of revenge and made war legitimate in the eyes of most Americans. They were perfectly “interpellated” in anti-terrorist ideology, of course with the help of some other already mentioned techniques. Maybe revenge is one of the features of human being but it is certainly not legally permissible to attack other states.

One of the greatest phrases that uniformed the worldview on terrorism is: An attack on the civilized world (for details go to: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/). It served the White House to build a coalition, to let the rest of the world identify according to the old saying that you are either with us or against us. Of course most of people did not agree with the attack on WTC, so this could be easily used in the formation of anti-terrorist coalition and its discourse. On the mentioned web site an interesting phrase of Osama bin Laden can be found: “God has blessed a group of Vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America” (page 20). Bin Laden tried to unify Muslims and strong anti-American sentiment in Arab countries, so he tried to establish (manipulate) an imaginary relation between all Muslims. That is a social fact. Here, he did not succeed. But this does not make him guilty of the attack on WTC and above all this gives no legitimate right to the USA to intervene in Afghanistan (again check page 20.)

Ideological message of war against terrorism

In the words of Z.Kanduč (2001): “The biggest danger of the civilised world is terrorism semantically and physically undefined, which can be located everywhere or nowhere…that recruits its members from the poor and fanaticised (Islamic) masses of the Third world”.

So, be ready - war against the undefined will be eternal!

Conclusion

The world after 11.9 has not changed so drastically because some forms of repression and escalation of violence has been apparent at least from Genova summit in July 2001 on. To be sure the day 11.9 acts like, in Lacan's terms “tenant-lieu” that legitimizes future violence against “terrorists”. The matrix of anti-terrorism and terrorism has to be “overthrown”, theoretically and practically. We have to think about alternative discourse from inside, make more efforts and improve political imagination that could reach beyond the Empire. But we have to be aware that this anti-terrorist ethos is overdetermined by the hegemonic ideology of neoliberalism. The Empire, in other words the system of global capitalism is sewing up the holes, which are emerging everywhere. Governments all across the world are shrinking places for manoeuvres for their people and reducing civil rights, which have been fought for over long time. One of the great dangers is well described in the work of Richard Falk. He argues that the North is dominating in all spheres of human society and “beaming its messages everywhere, but hearing few echoes… terrorism and religious extremism are the primary echoes that are heard … but widely shared forms of backlash are rarely reported” (page 13, 1995). One of the worst consequences of the terrorist attack and the escalation of the multidimensional war against it is the great shift of attention from the most important issues of humankind (in the words of Falk: widely shared forms of backlash). These issues are famine, poverty, environmental decay, alienation and others.

The war has to become outmoded and outlawed. It is a social institution, which can destroy but cannot create (Falk, 1995). We have to build hope and build global transactional democratic forces that can bring some positive norms and values with the strong non-violent behaviour. This process is a gradual one, one of bitter fight, though representing the voices of the most vulnerable and marginalized of the world. I would like to conclude with Chomsky' s statement in the interview (2001):

“It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not because of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. How the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course«.

Literature: Chomsky, Noam, 1993, Necessary Illusions: Thought control in Democratic Societies, Pluto Press, London. Falk, Richard, 1995, On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics, The Pennsylvania State University Press Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, 2001, Empire, Harvard University Press Kaldor, Mary, 1995, New and old wars: Organized warfare in the global era, Cambridge: Polity Kanduč, Zoran, 2001, Srhljiva ideološka sporočila vojne proti terorizmu Medijska preža, volume summer/autumn, on-line article can be found on: http://mediawatch.ljudmila.org/ bilten/seznam/12/uvodnik/ Močnik, Rastko, 1991, From historical Marxism to historical materialism: toward the theory of ideology, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, vol.XIV/1, New School for Social Research; Marxism and Contemporary Philosophy Močnik, Rastko, 1993, Ideology and Fantasy, zbornik The Althusserian Legacy, Verso, London – New York Močnik, Rastko, 1999, 3 Teorije: Ideologija, nacija, institucija, založba *cf.: Ljubljana Močnik, Rastko, 2001, Posredna propaganda, Medijska preža, vol. summer/autumn, on-line: http://mediawatch.ljudmila.org/bilten/seznam/12/september/ Žižek, Slavoj, 2001, Welcome to the dessert of the Real, commentary (also part of theoretical material for Conference) - Slovene translation on page http://www.mladina.si:3000/tednik /200138/clanek/slavoj/ On-line sources: Interviewing Chomsky 2001, Interviewers: (B92) Svetlana Vukovic and Svetlana Lukic on-line: http://www.zmag.org/terrorframe.htm US State department, 2001, The network of Terrorism, October 11, on-line publication http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/ Michael Moran, 2001, In defense of al-Jazeera http://www.msnbc.com/news/643471.asp

James Dao and Eric Schmitt, 2002, Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad, New York Times, February 19, on-line: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/international/19PENT.html

ORIGINS OF TERRORISM Gorazd Gavrilov,

Political Science Student, University of Ljubljana

Some of those that were forces are the same that burn crosses! (Rage Against the Machine)

It has always been very clear to me what terrorism is, who terrorists are and what

they have been doing. So I decided to take the challenge of co-ordinating a workshop1 entitled Origins of terrorism, as (of course!) I already knew everything about it. How wrong was I!

There are hundreds of definitions describing terrorism but somehow it manages to skip every one of them2. The word terror originates from Latin and it means “(great) fear” (Rošker 1998: 76). The political co-notation was added to it after the French revolution in 17893 (Čuček 1980: 17). And, as there are many definitions there are also many tries to put terrorism in a historical perspective and in a somehow chronological order, as it follows to date. Today (or better since New York and Washington happened) every (political or social) discussion on terrorism refers to the Middle East or to the Muslims. To put it in more radical terms, one has to admit that we see terrorism like America (Bush) or the media (CNN) wants us to see and understand it, as they offer nothing but the truth4.

What I would like to stress is that terrorism originates from people who are

deprivileged, from those 80% of the world’s population, which live in poverty. From those who understandably fear globalisation and are aware that the world order in which we live in is ruled by (CNN, Hollywood, MTV) capitalists5 who force us to a non-thinking way of live. The terrorism originates from those who have no power and have to use their force to prove their rights6 (Kuzmanić 2002: 162).

1 The workshop will take place on 20th March 2002 during the international conference called Good morning, terrorism in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2 This is what terrorism is all about. When we will be able to define it, it will disappear (i.e. there was no terrorism before we defined it). So, the discussion that follows is on one hand meaningless, but on the other it is essential for the deeper understanding of our field of interest. 3 There are many (American) authors who try to prove that terrorism is very old but history teaches us differently. If you search the Net you can find thousands of pages related to terrorism and every page offering different views (see references). 4 So help us God! 5 That is why the first attack was on a trade building and not on a political (ideological) institution (more about it in Kuzmanić 2002: 157-183) 6 Another view could be that terrorism originates from those who think that the world is not turning the way they think it should (i.e. their way) (Rošker 1998: 76).

The limitation of the space allows me the conclusion that terrorism originates from those who claim that they are the greatest fighters against it, and that makes them the greatest terrorists themselves (Alkalaj 2002: 19).

REFERENCES ALKALAJ, Mišo (2002): “Kdo je pravi terorist?”. Mladina 03, str. 18-22.

ČUČEK, Janez (1980): Terorizem. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva Založba.

KUZMANIĆ, Tonči A. (2002): Policija – Mediji – UZI – WTC. (in print)

ROŠKER, Jana S. (1998): “O negaciji negativne utopije ali o čudežni preobrazbi volka v

ovčje krzno: etika levičarskega terorizma”. Časopis za kritiko znanosti. 188, str. 75-84.

(1993): Oxford Wordpower Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

INTERNET

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/> (5.3.2002)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/modern.html/ (5.3.2002)

Nationalistic tendency in communist camp: The cases of Yugoslavia and Romania

Badamdash Dashdavaa (Ohio University - USA)

Introduction The purpose of the paper is to examine the nationalistic characters of socialist

regimes after the Second World War until the 1990s in the cases of Romania and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Therefore, I will attempt to examine whether the communist leaders in Romania and Yugoslavia appealed to nationalistic communism or communism with national distinction in order to demonstrate that they were not directly controlled or directed by The Soviet Union. They enjoyed sovereignty greater than other communist countries in Eastern Europe. Both Romania and Yugoslavia could receive maximum of aid and attention from Western countries, which led to maneuvering strategies between the Western countries and the socialist camp.

These supposedly distinctive characteristics of the development and historical

situation may explain how the communist leaders or parties tended to appeal to nationalism, why they inclined to nationalism, what the main factors were. Analyzing this tendency in those countries could be helpful to better understand the movement for change and its unique features in the area.

At this point, even though Yugoslavia and Romania are different, they both had

similar ways in the development of former communist regimes and similarity in their nationalistic character. This tendency of nationalism had begun earlier in Yugoslavia because its communists were largely independent compared to those of Romania. However, nationalistic tendency was initiated in certain situations. Some attempt to illuminate these certain situation will be made in the paper. Periodically criticizing the leading communist country in international affairs, Romania cancelled its membership in the Warsaw treaty organization. Yugoslavia was in the front line of the Non-Alignment Movement with Indonesia and India. Both countries’ leaders strongly attempted to retain communism.

On the other hand, these characteristics can be observed in other countries as well.

For example, in Poland, Jaruzelski could be considered a strong leader who concentrated power, and Janos Kadar in Hungary opposed repression and implemented several economic reforms that resembled to the basic elements of market economy. Yet they did not devise communism with nationalistic plea.

In the Yugoslav context, the term nationalism is understood as devising and

designing distinctive modes from the Soviet style communist model, whose justification is usually found in the explanation of the distinct situation and the advantage of their

citizens, the people. Therefore, the term nationalism does not necessarily mean the same thing as it is discussed in the academic literature.

The analysis of the nationalistic inclination of former communist countries such

as Yugoslavia and Romania, could be interesting in the sense of understanding their distinct transitions from communism to democracy - and the current development in still communist countries like China, Cuba, Vietnam or North Korea, also characterized by a certain degree of nationalistic tendency. China refused pure Marxism Leninism in the early years of the Second World War and began to develop its distinctive communism, which is sometimes considered authoritarianism. The Cuban revolution was not a communist revolution in the beginning, but, in order to survive and ensure continuing Soviet support and defense in face of the US, Castro had to accept the contract condition - communism. In the case of North Korea, it made efforts to develop a self-sufficient economy and to integrate nationalism into communism. However, it is important to consider when analyzing these communist countries, the world’s contemporary development and globalization.

Analysis of the nationalist tendency in the communist “world”: Yugoslavia and Romania

Yugoslavia

The nationalistic tendency is not only the case of a few communist countries like China, North-Korea or Yugoslavia. Especially after the Sino-Soviet tensions, socialist countries made nationalist-independent attempts in their policy towards The Soviet Union. Mosely (1965) mentions that “… nationalism, which Marx denounced as a tool of the bourgeoisie in its exploitation of the workers, remains a powerful emotion within Communist countries and quarrels among Communist states”7. The powerful emotion of nationalism more or less influenced the development of most socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Brzezinski (1967) argues that the conflicts and contradictions between particular interests of individual socialist countries and the universal interest of the so called socialist camp find their origin in the initial imposition of universal values by one major power, the Soviet Union, on other satellite socialist countries. But this was not the case in Yugoslavia and Albania because the communists came to rule by themselves without the Soviet intervention. The Yugoslavian communists were powerful enough to win the elections and control the country without Soviet military or other assistance.

In the first run, there were no essential conflicts between the Soviet Union and

other newly established communist countries which were assisted or established by

7 P.E. Mosely. (1965). Introduction in The Communist States at the Crossroads ed. by A.Bromke, New York, p. 5.

Soviet intervention. Soon, the new socialist states began to claim lost lands and national problems.

Thus Polish and East German communists were making discrepant statements about the permanence of the Oder-Neisse frontier, the Polish and Czechoslovak ones about their states’ respective border claims in the Teschen and Glatz districts, the Czechoslovak and Hungarian ones about the treatment of the Magyar ethnic minority in Slovakia, the Hungarian and Romanian ones about the rectification of the frontier in Transylvania, and the Yugoslav and Bulgarian (as well as Greek) ones about the just disposition of Macedonia8. Among them, the Yugoslav leader Tito was the most pressing in the claims of the

territory for the Trieste, which was claimed by Italy (backed by the United States and Britain). His understanding and uncontrollable character was not favorable to Stalin. For example, “following the 1947 Paris Treaty, Yugoslavia was the first to conclude formal treaties with them, thereby beating the USSR to the punch”9. It was usually expected that socialist countries had to request for the sanction on their decision in establishing diplomatic relations or other bonds with other countries, or the Soviet Union would make a precedent first for other satellites. This was not welcomed by Stalin. Through Cominform, the Eastern European countries began to criticize Tito for being revisionist although economically he had been implementing many soviet type reforms such as collectivization of the peasants and lands, nationalization of industries. Even though he was building the Stalin type system, “… Stalin was less impressed by the scenario of close and voluntary imitation than he was concerned with the autonomy of the imitator ... Tito - while treating Stalin respectfully - would convey that he had come to negotiate, not to receive orders, and that he was a partner, not an instrument”10. This personal treat of Tito and his autonomy in decision making, from Soviet advisers especially concerning Stalin, had caused the rift between the two leaders. The conflict between Tito and Stalin was the first major conflict within the Communist camp, which reached extreme forms such as terrorist actions and espionage. In the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, Tito criticized the Eastern European countries that for becoming Soviet colonies. Malenkov made a similar declaration about Yugoslavia being an American colony in his speech from the Communist party congress of the Soviet Union. As a result of this conflict with Stalin, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform in 194811.

After Stalin’s death, the relationship between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

tended to normalize; that same year, the two countries established diplomatic relations followed by the resumption of other diplomatic relations with communist countries. The

8 J.Rothschild and N.M.Wingfield. (2000). Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II. 3d edition, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 125 9 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 109. 10 J.Rothschild and N.M.Wingfield. (2000). Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II. 3d edition, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 128. 11 Encyclopedia “Yugoslavia: History”, http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/14128History.html>, accessed November 14, 2001.

leaders of the two countries exchanged The leaders of the two countries exchanged visits and the Soviet Union recognized Yugoslavia’s unique way of socialism. But this normalization was short-lived. It ended by the Soviet military intervention into Hungary in 1956. Tito was not satisfied with the event, and, indirectly, he was criticizing that some “Stalinist” mistakes in Communist countries existed. The Chinese leaders were also supportive of the Soviet Union in condemning Tito for his critique of other communist parties. Tito’s dissatisfaction about Soviet hegemony would be expressed on the occasion of the 1968 military intervention in Czechoslovakia, described as violating the sovereignty of an individual country.

Economically, Yugoslavia wanted to pursue its independent policy even though

the soviet type economic system was adopted, with the communist leaders of Yugoslavia desiring to go for a policy of intensive industrialization, contrary to the Soviet recommendation for an agricultural economy in Yugoslavia. Even Yugoslavia halted the establishment of joint companies between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which was one of the main types of economic cooperation in Eastern Europe. The main value of Tito’s Yugoslavia was to be sovereign, independent, not controlled by the Communist Party of The Soviet Union. As Rothschild argues, Tito was concerned with “ … Soviet apathy toward Yugoslavia’s industrialization plan and apparent intent to reduce its economy to extractive dependence”12.

Therefore, autonomy was the main principle for Tito not only in the country’s

foreign policy but also in its domestic policy. Compared to other Eastern European countries, Yugoslavia had become more similar with the Soviet model and Stalinist regime. As an advanced communist country, similar to the Soviet Union at least in the opinion of Yugoslavian communists, Yugoslavia began to criticize the Soviet model and to initiate reform in its economy. According to Brzezinski (1967), Yugoslavians saw the state ownership of the property, especially the means of production, tended to be state capitalism, negative features included.

After 1950, a number of Yugoslav leaders, particularly Kardelj, Djilas, and Dedijer, developed these notions into a vigorous and extensive condemnation of almost every aspect of Soviet domestic policy, ranging from Great Russian chauvinism and the introduction of large-scale social inequality and stratification, to a destruction of the solidarity of the international labor movement and a betrayal of Marxism-Leninism13.

In fact, this was not only a criticism of the Soviet system, it was rather a criticism

of the previous Yugoslavian experiment with the Soviet model which was most similar compared to other Eastern European communist countries. Industrialization policy and centralization of the administrative system in Yugoslavia, along with Soviet boycott

12 J.Rothschild and N.M.Wingfield. (2000). Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II. 3d edition, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 130 13 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 190.

because of the Stalin-Tito dispute, caused an economic downturn for Yugoslavia and it was compelled to carry out some reforms. The main reform was the establishment of the Workers’ Councils, which were supposed to have the ultimate power in running the enterprises. According to Brzezinski, although the Workers’ Councils were supervised by the director of an enterprise, by the norms of the national economic plan and communist party cells, these Councils were important in “internally improving workers’ moral and externally in emphasizing the Yugoslav claim to having established the true Marxist-Leninist method of constructing socialism”14. Other than the Workers’ Councils, some other reforms were implemented.

The economic and administrative decentralization had been undertaken especially

in the new constitution of 1953, where Yugoslavia refused previous commitments to the Stalinist Soviet type regime. The Communist Party name changed into the League of the Communists of Yugoslavia expressing its new image of a democratic character. As Brzezinski states, this change of the party name “symbolized its alleged voluntary and democratic character”15.

Yugoslavia’s willingness to recognize the right of voluntary membership, which

conflicted with the whole idea of collectivization led to another reform measure. In other words, collectivization was abolished from economic programs. In March 1953, “Decree on Property Relationship and Reorganization of Peasant Working Cooperatives” allowed the peasants to withdraw, and, in fact, ended the collectivization policy.

All these changes in the domestic economic area were explained in terms of a

unique and alternative path toward socialism. According to the official policy of the Yugoslavia even sometimes by this difference, the Yugoslavian communists often claimed that their model was an authentic reflection of the real Marxism and Leninism. Nevertheless, Yugoslavs were accused of cheating Marxism-Leninism, and serving imperialist countries like USA although even Khrushchev evaluated the economic achievement, especially the workers’ council, as innovative in socialism.

The new constitution of Yugoslavia, promulgated on February 21, 1974 as the

reaction to different economic and ethnic issues related to budget appropriations, to regions and other social problems. As a result, the country was decentralized to a high degree; it increased the autonomy of local regions, as well as, the one of Vojvodina and Kosovo; the power of federal government was significantly softened.

In addition, the independent and autonomous policy of Tito also influenced the

foreign policy to a large extent. Rothschild shows that Yugoslavs treated “the Soviet Union as but one of several pillars of their foreign policy, along with Europe, the Third World, the United States, and China.”16 In 1961, along with India and Indonesia,

14 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 191. 15 Ibid. 16 Rothschild, Joseph. and Wingfield, Nancy. M. Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3d edition, , p. 182

Yugoslavia was one of the founding states of the Non-Alignment Movement whose intention was to “…form a third world force through a policy of nonalignment with the United States and The Soviet Union…”17, which actually included many aligned third world countries. Rothschild continues to assert, “While Tito’s leadership of the nonaligned camp continued to have an anti-American edge, he never again embraced the Soviet Union as a comrade.”18

This movement gave communist Yugoslavia an opportunity to cooperate and a

possibility to receive Western aids, although this was problematic. The main problem was the contradiction between the official ideological doctrine and regime and their economic needs to receive foreign, especially Western aid, during the lonely existence among “cold” communist countries. Therefore, US administrations tended to give various economic aids to the Yugoslavian government assuming that Yugoslavia had within a different economic system, a moderate communist ideology, independent in its policy. However,

the United States congress has persistently shown, and will certainly maintain, a high degree of reluctance to extend economic benefits to a country that favors the basic tenets of Soviet foreign policy and actively supports anti-Western movements throughout the world19. As for the Western Europe, Drachkovitch described, the relationship was not

favorable although the one with Italy was in good shape compared to other Western European countries. Economically, the Common market increase of introducing common standards such as price and trade barriers, hindered the Yugoslavian exports. In 1954, Yugoslavia concluded a military defense pact (independent of NATO) with Greece and Turkey20. According to Drachkovitch, Yugoslavia was popular in the Third World until the Moscow-Peking conflicts influenced the Chinese negative attitude so that its propaganda among the member states of the third world countries led to criticism against Yugoslavia. The conflict between China and the Soviet Union was caused by many different factors including the historical development of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the middle of a civil war with the Kuomintang - the nationalist right wing party. The Kuomintang officially ruled China from 1912 to 1949 until Mao Zedong’s victory (with Soviet support) and his effective propaganda. During this earlier period of CCP, Mao Zedong had become a nationalistic communist by combining communist ideology with peasant reality and national culture. Therefore, Mao tried to receive assistance not only from the Soviet Union but also intensively from the United States. The Soviet Union had not been supportive towards the CCP assuming the low probability of success. Mao eventually, became powerful by using effective propaganda in rural areas and betraying 17 Encyclopedia “Non-Aligned Movement” http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/09317.html accessed November 14, 2001. 18 Rothschild, Joseph. and Wingfield, Nancy. M. Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3d edition, , p. 182 19 Drachkovitch, Milorad. M. “Yugoslavia”, in Adam Bromke, editor, The Communist States at the Crossroads(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1965), p.196. 20 Encyclopedia “Yugoslavia: History”, http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/14128History.html>, accessed November 14, 2001

Chan Kaishek. He did not comply with the agreement with Chan Kaishek to fight against Japanese militarists together after the formal cease-fire of civil war. Besides previous territorial claims in Outer Mongolia, China attacked India in the early 1960s, whereas the latter was an ideological ally for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not publicly support this event and was condemned by the Chinese for its passiveness and neutrality. Mosely21 sees the main reason for this as a sign of the Chinese ambition to become a nuclear power, but Khrushchev refused in 1959 to implement the program he had promised in 1957. In its attacks on Khrushchev, the CCP identified the bias of the Soviet Union as similar to the revisionist tendency in Yugoslavia. Thus, the emphasis of the Moscow-Belgrade conflict shifted to the Moscow-Peking conflict, leaving The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia more reconciliatory.

Yugoslavian socialism was significantly different compared to other Eastern

European countries: it can be said that Yugoslavia tried to build socialism like the Soviet Union but with their own will, as they wanted to be independent and friendly partners with the Soviet Union, thus contradicting the Soviet great-power-ambition to influence the domestic and foreign policies of other communist countries. One could make an analogy of Yugoslavia as playing China’s role in Eastern Europe, in terms of its position in the Socialist camp: it was relatively powerful, independent, nationalistic, it was maneuvering between the Soviet Union and Western countries to receive aids regardless of their ideologies and regime. Some ambition of becoming a regional power could be observed from the idea of a Balkan Union of Communist countries which would have included Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Albania, and from its territorial claim for Trieste against Wester-backed-Italy, assuming that the Soviet Union would have supported it. Yugoslavia had also a different economic system where the market elements of its economic system were introduced in a socialist context. As Rothschild concludes, along with the negative consequences, this model had some positive outcomes as well: “wider range of civil freedom and more supply of consumer products, and favorable approach towards cultural and educational values of its component ethnic people”22. This tendency of pluralism was the result of Yugoslav nationalism. Farkas states that domestically, “Pluralism based primarily on nationalism, had consistently pressured for policy which would functionally decentralize the system”23. The new constitutional amendments were the sober examples of this policy towards decentralization.

Romania

21 Mosely, Philip. E. “Introduction: Power and Ideology in the Communist States” in Adam Bromke, editor, The Communist States at the Crossroads (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1965), pp. 12-13. 22 Rothschild, Joseph. and Wingfield, Nancy. M. Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3d edition, , p. 190. 23 Farkas, Richard. P., Yugoslav Economic Development and Political Change (New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc. 1975), p.21.

Romania, one of the few non Slavic nations (East Germany, Hungary and Albania are also non-Slavic), allied with the Axis powers during the Second World War which contributed to nationalist and anti-Russian feelings in Romania. As Brzezinski stated that the Romanian Communist Party was initially nationalistic because one of their main goals was the “identification of Communism with nationalism through emphasis on popular national issues, typically territorial ones.”24 Assumingly, the Soviet might have played on the Romanian claim to Transylvania in convincing Romanians that the Romanian Communists would be more able to find a common language with the Soviet Union on this issue. However, this tendency was common in other Eastern European countries, most of which had some kind of territorial claims, such as the ones mentioned before in the case of Yugoslavia. After the Second World War, the communists came to power supported by the Soviet military intervention. Romania had to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina according to the Paris treaty as war reparations; meanwhile, economic exploitation started through the joint companies called Sovroms.

In the beginning of Romanian socialism, the communist leaders Ana Pauker and

Gheorgiu-Dej strictly followed the Soviet model, gradually adding some nationalistic or independent tendency. Gilbert states that “the Pauker leadership openly acknowledged the leadership of the CPSU in relations among communist parties, and the Romanians also readily accepted the notion that the USSR must be the leader of the socialist states”25. The constitution was similar to the constitution of the Soviet Union, the nationalization policy of industry and agricultural collectivization was implemented. During the short period after Stalin’s death, when some uprisings occurred, Romania was loyal to the Soviet Union. The Romanian support for the Soviet military repression in Hungary 1956, could be explained in two ways, on the one hand, as the Romanian loyalty to the leading communist country and on the other hand, as its own national interest to stop Hungarian revolution which could destabilize the Romanian society and spread over to the large Magyar minority in Romania. The Stalinist repressions were repeated in Romania and thereby Gheorgiu-Dej managed to get rid of his main opponent-Pauker.

However, Brown26 argues that Romania was the first to de-stalinize. According to

Gilberg in later years of his rule, Gheorgiu-Dej made “ … even open statements about the importance of national sovereignty and rather strong hints that certain historical events pertaining to boundaries had represented a questionable precedence in decades past (a clear reference to the Soviet incorporation of Bessarabia in the summer of 1940)”27. In the 1960s, when the Moscow-Peking conflict began, Romania was neutral whereas most Eastern European communist countries supported the Soviet Union. Rothschild wrote that Romania “reduced its participation in joint WTO military maneuvers and declined to 24 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 18. 25 Gilberg, Trond. Nationalism and Communism in Romania: The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu’s Personal Dictatorship (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1990), p. 47. 26 Brown, J.F., “Romania and Bulgaria”, in Adam Bromke, editor, The Communist States at the Crossroads (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1965), p. 108. 27 Gilberg, Trond. Nationalism and Communism in Romania: The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu’s Personal Dictatorship (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1990), p. 49.

let any be held on its own soil. In November 1963, Gheorgiu-Dej paid a state visit to Belgrade, where Tito-who had recently again been at odds with Moscow-gave him the special honor of inviting him to address the Yugoslav National Assembly”28. These measures were the beginning of the autonomy in foreign policy, which continued during Ceausescu’s era. This tendency was also reflected by the wish to pursue independent economic policy. Based on the idea of labor division in communist camp, Romania was to specialize in agricultural products and consumer industry, which was contradictory to its priority in industrialization. In April 1964, the Communist party announced its refusal to subordinate, “ … national needs to a supranational planning body in which others would dictate the form of the country’s economy”29 and demanded respect for the sovereignty of Romania as independent country. Thus, in the later years of Gheorgiu-Dej’s rule, the tendency of autonomy in choosing their path of development was increased - the reflection of the people’s overall attitude towards USSR. Brown states that “the worse his relations with Russia became, the stronger would become his popular support.”30

The succession of Ceausescu after the death of Gheorgiu-Dej in 1965 symbolized

increased nationalism in Romania. According to Verdery, Ceausescu supported not only national values but more than that, also the “idea of progress, the importance of science, an ethic of work and productivity and so forth”31. This diversity of Ceausescu’s ideology was explained by Gilberg32, emphasizing on all its other aspects: populism - the idea to valorize the people, emphasize the preferences of the masses; personal cult that is to show an image of a powerful sober leader, self-sufficiency in culture and economy.

Ceausescu implemented some reforms that improved the degree of administrative

decentralization and managerial autonomy, diminished the party’s direct oversight of intellectual production like magazines and books and increased the financial freedom of cultural industries. The name of the party and state changed into the similar version of The Soviet Union, which meant that Romania had made significant achievement towards communism.

In foreign policy, he continued and even reinforced the tendency of autonomy of

Romania. Verdery33 mentions that Romania’s trade with the communist bloc decreased from 2/3 of its total foreign trade to less than half by 1970, and the relatively active foreign policy towards the Western countries resulted in membership in the General

28 Rothschild, Joseph. and Wingfield, Nancy. M. Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3d edition, , p. 163. 29 Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), p. 105. 30 Brown, J.F., “Romania and Bulgaria”, in Adam Bromke, editor, The Communist States at the Crossroads (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1965), p. 117. 31 Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), p. 101. 32 Gilberg, Trond. Nationalism and Communism in Romania: The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu’s Personal Dictatorship (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1990), pp. 49-57. 33 Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), p. 105.

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1971, in the World Bank and in the International Monetary Fund in 1972. Also, it received trade preference from the European Community in 1973, and The Status of US Most Favored Nation in 1975, and the trade with the West even exceeded that with the communist countries. As in the case of Yugoslavia, besides the tendency toward independence in Romania’s foreign policy and its domestic reform, it also benefited and tried to benefit from Western aids. This trend sounded like the “neutral coexistence principle” of different socio-economic systems. Moreover, Romania established diplomatic relations with West Germany in 1967, maintained friendly relations with Israel after the Arab-Israeli War in 1967, while the other East European communist regimes opposed the war. Also, Romania did not participate in the military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. These actions and traits of the foreign policy showed some positive signals for Western countries and made it easier to receive Western aids also encouraged by the national anti-Russian sentiments domestically.

According to Brzezinski, this autonomy could be linked to the feature of

Romanian nationalism as the only Latin country among Slavic countries. “The Romanian Communists even unearthed the writings of Professor Nicolae Iorga, an eminent prewar Romanian nationalist ideologue, who could not have won Romanian Communist endorsement by his opposition to industrialization, but who clearly made a niche for himself by his stress on the special mission of Romania, an isolated outpost of Latin civilization in a sea of Slavic barbarity, as a link between the Byzantine east and the Latin west”34. This kind of feeling encouraged the independent stance in foreign and domestic policy among the people. Therefore, being autonomous meant being nationalistic, which was a reflection of the intensive restoration of nationalism in Romania.

Verdery noted that Ceausescu’s speeches, newspaper headlines, and slogans had

started intensive appeal to national values; for example, We must have a unitary history … in (which) the history of the Romanian people will also encompass the history of the revolutionary workers’ movement, of the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, as well as of the Romanian Communist Party. There cannot be two histories, a history of the people and a history of the Party. Our people has a single history, and the activity of the Romanian Communist Party, along with other parties in different periods, constitutes an inseparable part of the history of the homeland (Ceausescu 1983b[1982]: 67)35. This nationalist appeal became the official ideological doctrine of Romanian

communism “with the establishment of a Commission on Ideology within the Central Committee”36 and with his two speeches on July 1971 called the “July Theses”. Many scholars usually saw this tendency in Romania as the regime’s need for mass support.

34 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 439. 35 Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 118-119. 36 Ibid. p. 101.

However, Verdery gives a different explanation. She contends that the Communist “party was forced to use national values (not unwillingly) under pressure from others, especially intellectuals”37. As Verdery argues, there were contradictory intellectual stances on different problems and values but the Nation was the main universal value so that each of them could find a common language. This “catch-all” value was important in legitimizing the regime especially among the intellectuals but on the other hand, this nationalistic appeal was also to some extent shared by the rulers themselves. Brzezinski argues “The Soviet Romanian divergence in turn brought to the surface the long-suppressed Romanian national resentment of Soviet (Russian) exploitation and territorial expansion at Romania’s expense. The Romanian leadership found it convenient to identify with this resentment and it, no doubt, also at least in part shared it”38.

One the other hand, Verdery concludes that these national values served as a

source for the “quiet revolt” of party leaders from Soviet supervision simultaneously trying to make Marxism and Leninism closer to the Romanian soil, which was alien by itself in Romania. She goes on mentioning that Communism was least favored in Romania compared to Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria.

Even in some respect, one could note some chauvinistic aspects of Romanian

nationalistic tendency. “Under Ceausescu, Romanian nationalism has turned to chauvinism”39, Gilberg writes and goes on that they were highly praising the virtues of Romania’s history in many cases at the expense of others. The speech of Ceausescu in 1986 reads,”

The migration of foreign tribes and populations … checked for hundreds of years the development of the Romanian people. ...Another well-known truth is that first the more advanced Daco-Roman civilization, then that of the Romanian people, left their imprint on the existence of the migratory populations which settled in this land (1988:2). In other words, Romanians were superior to the contaminating nomadic tribes

(Hungarians and Slavs) that surrounded and debased them”40. This was reflected in the Romanian policy toward its Magyar and German minorities designed to decrease their ethnic homogeneity by mass immigration of Romanians into the areas where these minorities had settled.

In general, there are many similarities between Former Yugoslavia and Romania

in their socialism. Traditionally, Romania was not favorable toward the Soviet Union (Russia) due to many conflicts and threats from the great powers in history. Even after the Second World War, the Soviet Union annexed a part of Romania - Bessarabia - into 37 Ibid. p. 122. 38 Zbignew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Massachusets: Harvard Universiy Press, 1967), p. 444. 39 Gilberg, Trond. Nationalism and Communism in Romania: The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu’s Personal Dictatorship (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1990), p. 51. 40 Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995), p. 129.

its territory. This anti-Russian or anti-Soviet attitude in Romania made socialism difficult to implement without using strong force, which was the case in Romania in the early years of the Gheorghiu-Dej rule and in the late years of the Ceausescu rule. Their policies reflected the public desire of resistance to the Soviet domination in both foreign and domestic aspects. This nationalistic autonomous stance in politics gave both Romania and Yugoslavia credibility from Western countries and other dissident socialist countries like China, North Korea, and also from each other. Although Ceausescu was not a charismatic leader (according to T. Carabas41) as Tito was in Yugoslavia, both leaders consolidated power for themselves. However, under the pressure of the composing republics of Yugoslavia, Tito admitted significant decentralization in the 1974 Constitution. In Ceausescu’s case, he provided his relatives, families with important government offices.

Conclusion There are some similar and different features of the nationalistic tendencies in

Yugoslavia and Romania, which are determined to a large extent by their historical development, by features of the people, of the economy and of international relations.

Both Romania and Yugoslavia had adopted Stalinist policy in the early years of

socialism and pursued strict policy of industrialization and collectivization, the latter of which was rejected later. The industrialization policy was their major priority even though the The Soviet Union proposed the internal labor division of socialist camp. This relative freedom to pursue their own economic policy was a major step towards autonomy. Also, both countries inclined to pursue the cult of a leader although Ceausescu was not as charismatic as Tito was.

As a result, both countries were boycotted by many Socialist countries and had to

find other ways to improve their economic situation. Then, they shifted toward Western countries for economic aids and improved their autonomy in foreign and domestic policy, although they still adhered to the communist ideology. From this strategy of maneuvering between two camps, these countries benefited but also lost. Both countries could receive more aids from Western countries compared to other socialist countries in Eastern Europe, but also more negative policy fruits from Socialist camp. It was difficult for Yugoslavia and Romania to become active trade partners with Western countries since the communism was still the major ideology.

As far as economy is concerned, both countries implemented some reforms of

decentralization. However, Yugoslavia advanced in this direction more than Romania. Yugoslavia tried to build market socialism by introducing some elements of market economy into its socialist planned economy, which ultimately failed. Nevertheless, Romania pursued a stronger ideological policy compared to Yugoslavia, by which Romanians indoctrinated the national values along with Marxism-Leninism.

41 Teodora Carabas, (private conversation) November, 2001.

Another difference was the policy toward their ethnonational components. In this direction, Yugoslavia was more advanced in tolerating and recognizing the diversity of ethnonations and conceded significant power to regional and local governments. One of the main features of the communist ideology is to declare the equality of different nations, which was compatible or not negative for those ethnic republics. It could be argued that communism and leader’s charisma were important to keep the ethnic problems from collision even though they existed. On the contrary, Romania strongly asserted national values and it reached to chauvinism, which led to suppression and the assimilation of ethnic minorities.

One could therefore conclude that, after all, the events of Hungary in 1956,

Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1979 and 1981 might not have been only against the communist regime but also against the Soviet domination. It would be interesting to look at other nationalistic communist countries like China, as another Yugoslavia on the the Soviet Union’s South eastern direction, but also like North Korea, Cuba, Albania and Vietnam. The interesting notion is that these nationalistic socialist countries often “made friends” with each other in face of greater Soviet threat or domination.

References Bromke, Adam. Editor, The Communist States at the Crossroads. New York:

Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1965. Brzezinski, Zbignew. The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict. Massachusets: Harvard

University Press, 1967. Encyclopedia, “Romania: History”

http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/11096History.html>, accessed November 14, 2001.

Encyclopedia “Yugoslavia: History”, http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/14128History.html>, accessed November 14, 2001.

Farkas, Richard. P. Yugoslav Economic Development and Political Change New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc. 1975.

Gilberg, Trond. Nationalism and Communism in Romania: The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu’s Personal Dictatorship. Boulder: Westview Press, Inc. 1990.

Rothschild, Joseph and Wingfield, Nancy. M. Return to Diversity: A political history of East Central Europe Since World War II. 3d edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995. (electronic version)