Biograpbs

NicoIae Ceausescu: Rumania’s Leader On Mar. 19, 1965, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the

leader of Rumania and the Rumanian Communist move- ment, died at the age of 63. On that very day Nicolae Ceausescu succeeded him as First Secretary of the RU- manian Workers’ Party at the age of 47. (At the party’s Ninth Congress in July 1965 the title of leader again became Secretary-General.)

Little was then known about Ceausescu in Rumania and abroad except that he had held the number-two slot in the Party for a few years before Gheorghiu-Dej’s death and that he was thus theoretically slated to SUC-

teed the defunct leader. Numerous theories and rumors, however, circulated among Sovietologists, newspaper- men, and coffee house experts concerned with Rumanian affairs, most of which proved to be erroneous or only partly true. Generally, Ceausescu’s succeeding Ghe- orghiu-Dej was attributed to political nepotism-he had been Gheorghiu’s protege, the hand-picked man most likely to carry out Gheorghiu’s policies and plans for Communist Rumania. Men more skeptical of Ghe- orghiu-Dej’s political sagacity and critical of his rule argued that Ceausescu’s success was due to his sub- servience and stupidity-he inherited the Party’s lead- ership only because of his lack of quality. Other ob- servers argued that Ceausescu placed himself in the position of heir-apparent through his having gained control of the apparatus, while a few even went so far as to claim that Gheorghiu-Dej was too ill to name a successor more compatible with his true interests. On one point alone there was agreement: Ceausescu was a staunch nationalist and tough Party man.

he was genuinely interested in the implementation of Communist principles in Rumania for Rumania’s benefit and was opposed to the domination of the Rumanian Communist movement by agents of the Kremlin. His “national Communist” views seemingly were formu- lated in those years because of a growing concern over the spread of fascism in Rumania and Moscow’s oppo- sition to meaningful counteraction by the Rumanian Communist Party. His postwar quarrel with Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca and other “Muscovites”l was ap- parently brewing in the 1930’s and must have con- tributed to the development of his nationalistic senti- ments. His guarded opposition to Moscow and overt participation in antifascist activities did not, however, alter his own dogmatism or entail rejection of Russia’s leadership of the international Communist movement.

In 1965 there was indeed very little basis for any meaningful jud,gment of the man since his career and methods were evident only to the initiated members of the Rumanian Party who were not likely to reveal Party secrets. Next to nothing was known to outsiders pri- marily because they concentrated on the activities of Gheorghiu-Dej and of leaders in public view-men like Ion Gheorghe Maurer, the Premier, or Alexandru Birladeanu, the country’s leading economic planner. Official biographies of Ceausescu were sketchy at best and the job of piecing together his past was neglected because it seemed unnecessary in view of Gheorghiu- Dej’s relatively young age and apparent indestructi- bility. Even now, two years after assumption of power, only a tentative reconstruction of the political career and evaluation of the man Ceausescu, the leader of Rumania, may be attempted.

A ‘National Communist’ Since the 1930%

Ceausescu was born in January 1918 in the village of Scornicesti in Wallachia. He was of peasant origin. Little is kn own of his early life. He is reported to have been a cobbler at the time of his joining the Communist Part, in 1936. He belonged to the Communist youth movement for some time before 1936 and he apparently was one of the leading figures therein. In the 1930’s

Ceausescu spent the war years in prison. It may be presumed that during that period he lost whatever illu- sions he had entertained about Stalin’s brand of inter- national communism. If he reconciled himself to Russia’s seizure of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in 194.0 as a political necessity in the “struggle against Hitler,” Stalin’s failure to return these provinces to Rumania at the end of the war left him bitter and resentful. He also shared the fears and suspicions of his fellow inmates-Gheorghiu-Dej, Chivu Stoica and Gheorghe Apostol-with respect to Stalin’s plans for their future. Presumably, the Kremlin was intent on ruling postwar Rumania through its hand-picked agents Foris, Pauker, Luca and other members of the so-called “Moscow Bureau”2 whose reliability and subservience

*“Muscovites” are the leaders of the Rumanian Communist Party who were trained in Moscow and spent at least the war years in the Soviet Union. They returned to Rumania at the end of the war to assume command of the Rumanian Party as faithful servants of the Kremlin.

zThe “Moscow Bureau” was a de facto branch of the CPSU, the Rumanian branch of that organization, staffed by members of the Rumanian Party residing in and working out of Moscow. Most “Muscovite? had been at one time or another members of the “Moscow Bureau.” (See Stephen Fischer-Galati, The New Ru- mania From People’s Democracy to Socialist Republic [Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 19671, pp. 7-8.)

Stephen Fischer-Galati

Stephen Fischer-Gala& Ph.D., Harvard Univer- sity, is professor of history at the University of Colorado and managing editor of the East Euro- pean Quart&y. His numerous publications in- clude Eastern Europe in the Sixties and Rumania: From Peoplds Democracy to Socialist Republic (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1967).

Communist Affairs, IV/6, Nov.-Dec. 1966, con- tained a review of Eastern European Government and Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1966)) to which Dr. Fischer-Galati contributed the chapter on Rumania.

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were reputedly greater than those of the incarcerated “Rumanian” group.

In April 1gu the incarcerated Rumanian Communist Clite, fearful of being doublecrossed by the Kremlin at the end of the war through Stalin’s packing the Ru- manian Communist Party with members of the “Mos- cow Bureau” and appointing “Muscovites” to the key positions in the Party’s upper echelons, decided to fore- stall such actions by electing Gheorghiu-Dej, a non- Muscovite, as Secretary-General, replacing Stalin’s man, Stefan Foris. In this manner the “Rumanians” hoped to confront Stalin and the “Muscovites” with a fait accom- pli-a Rumanian Communist Party headed by a “Ru- manian” who could not be ignored in postwar Rumanian and Communist politics .8 Ceausescu’s specific role in the “prison coup” is unknown. In terms of his subse- quent career, however, it may be assumed that he was at least an accomplice to that action engineered by the senior members of the Rumanian Communist hierarchy.

It is also diflicult to ascertain Ceausescu’s specific powers or functions during the turbulent years pre- ceding the emergence of Gheorghiu-Dej and his en- tourage as the dominant force in Communist Rumania in 1952. Between 1gM and 1952, a period characterized first by outright Russian domination of the Rumanian Communist movement and later by the fierce struggle for political power between Ana Pauker’s and Vasile Luca’s “Muscovites” and Gheorghiu-Dej’s “Rumanian” Stalinists, Ceausescu held successively more important posts in the Party and governmental apparatus pre- sumably because of his Stalinism and because of the stipport he extended to the ultimately victorious “Ru- manian” group. In the Party itself he became a can- didate-member of the Central Committee in 1945 and a full member of that body in 1948.

However, it would appear that the true source of his power was derived from his position in the armed forces. Shortly after the “liberation” of lgu, Ceausescu be- came a ranking member of the political directorate of the army, with the rank of brigadier general, and in March 1950 he was promoted to major general and ap- pointed deputy minister of the armed forces.

His Meteoric Rise to Party’s Upper Echelons

The exact role played by Ceausescu in the internal struggle for power is not clear, but it must have been of considerable importance as witnessed by his meteoric rise in the Party’s upper echelons beginning with his election-at the politically tender age of g+-to the Secretariat of the Central Committee in May 1952. In April 1954 he was elected to the Politburo as a candi- date-member and in the following year as a full member of that all-powerful body.

The consecration of his power in the Politburo, re- corded at the Second Congress of the Rumanian Work- ers’ Party in December 1955, would reflect at least adherence to, if not actual formulation of, the policies of national communism with which the Rumanian Party became identified in later years. It would be helpful to be able to determine the part played by Ceausescu in the formulation of these policies, par&u-

8See Stephen Fischer-Galati, op. cit., pp. x-22.

larly in the crucial years 1956 and 1957. The prevail- ing assumption that he apishly followed the anti- Khrushchev policies enunciated by Gheorghiu-Dej ap- pears to be refuted by recent evidence. It has now been suggested that Ceausescu did not always see eye-to-eye with Gheorghiu. He is known to have favored collective leadership and rigorous application of the principles of democratic centralism in the conduct of Party affairs. Moreover, judging from recent actions and statements by Ceausescu, his identification with Gheorghiu-Dej’s coterie which removed the Rumanian “Khrushchevites” Miron Constantinescu and Iosif Chisinevski from power in July 1957 appears to have been much less intimate than heretofore assumed. In fact, credence may be given to the views of apologists who have characterized Ceausescu as a “democratic” Gheorghiu-Dej rather than to those of his critics who seek to identify him complete- ly with the deceased leader of the Rumanian Commu- nist movement.

He Becomes Gheorghiu-Dej’s Heir-Apparent

It would be fair to assume that Ceausescu’s elevation to the rank of heir-apparent to Gheorghiu-Dej after the showdown of July 1957 was the price paid-not neces- sarily unwillingly-by Gheorghiu-Dej for securing the continuing support of the energetic and organization- ally powerful young nationalist Communist generation of which Ceausescu was the foremost representative. The bonds uniting the two men were stronger than the differences separating them.

Ceausescu supported Gheorghiu-Dej’s political actions after 1957 although he apparently objected to some of his methods. He definitely endorsed the growingly in- dependent policies pursued by Rumania after the Mos- cow Conference of 1957 but there is no evidence that he was a moving force in their formulation. It has been assumed that at least until 1960 Ion Gheorghe Maurer, the current Premier, was the principal architect of the Rumanian “independent course.” This assumption, however, does not exclude the possibility of Ceausescu’s playing a decisive part in the process even before his assuming the role of co-leader, with Gheorghiu-Dej, in the “Rumanian struggle for independence” in 1961. Immediately after the Soviet Party’s zznd Congress, Ceausescu joined Gheorghiu-Dej in that memorable Rumanian interpretation of KhrushchEv’s attack on Stalin, whereby Pauker, Luca and Constantinescu were branded Stalinists in lieu of Gheorghiu-Dej and his associates. Ceausescu, in his own statement on Stalin- ism, concentrated on the deviations of Pauker and Luca (not Constantinescu’s) in the context of betrayal of the Rumanian Communists’ specific national interests and the principles of Party democracy.” It would appear then that by 1961 Ceausescu was firmly committed to de pursuit of a “democratic” Rumanian independent course and it may be assumed that the subsequent poli- cies of “democratization” of the Party adopted by Gheorghiu-Dej reflected the desiderata of Ceausescu and the younger generation of Rumanian Communists. From 1962 until Gheorghiu-Dej’s death Ceausescu was conspicuously present at all important Party functions

4Stephen Fischer-Galati, op. cit., pp. 85-86.

24 COMMUNIST Amum

and presumably was a key voice in Party decisions. It would appear that during that period Ceausescu con- solidated his own power in the apparatus as the cham- pion of the principles of national communism and Party democracy. It is probable that his power in the Party as such was greater than in Gheorghiu-Dej’s innermost circle of advisers which after 1963 included others than the hard core of the Party &te.

Soviet-Rumanian Conflict an Inter-Party Struggle

The fact that after the overt Rumanian defiance of Soviet plans for the economic integration of the Bloc through COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) Gheorghiu-Dej fell more and more under the influence of technocrats, economic experts, and ad- vocates of “peaceful economic coexistence” with the West, of men like Alexandru Birladeanu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer and Gheorghe Gaston-Marin, does not neces- sarily reflect a decline in the ultimate political power of the Party elite. In the last analysis, the Soviet- Rumanian conflict was then, as it is now, an inter- Party more than an inter-state struggle focusing on Soviet interference in the affairs of the internally all- powerful Rumanian C0mmunist Party.

Thus, Ceausescu’s position in the Party provided him with whatever leverage he may have needed against the technocrats and other governmental experts who were becoming increasingly indispensable for the implemen- tation of Rumanian’s policies. It is true, however, that at least a few of Gheorghiu-Dej’s closest advisers, includ- ing Maurer and Gaston-Marin, were advocating policies which did not necessarily correspond to the interests of Party stalwarts and, in general, were gaining a greater voice in the determination of the policies than was agreeable to the appamtchiks. Whether these de- velopments would eventually have led to a reconstitu- tion of the Rumanian power elite detrimental to Ceau- sescu’s own interests is a matter of speculation.

His Power Bolstered by U.S. Escalation of Vietnam War

It is believed that after 1963 Ceausescu was not in complete accord with Gheorghiu-Dej’s increasingly greater reliance on the West, particularly the United States, and that he preferred a policy of securing Rumania’s independence through exploitation of the Sine-Soviet conflict. It is noteworthy that Ceausescu was a member of the unsuccessful Rumanian mission to Peking, which sought in vain to mediate that con- flict in 1964, and played no part whatever in the con- current and subsequent Rumanian attempts at “recon- ciliation” and expansion of relations with the United States. Should this interpretation be correct, it would be fair to assume that Ceausescu’s political position was strengthened following the United States’ failure to implement the promises made in 1964 to the Rumanian delegation headed by Gaston-Mar-in, the leader of the Pro-American wing of Gheorghiu-Dej’s advisers,6 and Padcularly after the escalation of the Vietnamese con-

.6The principal manifestation was the failure of the Firestone Tm and Rubber Company to honor a de facto agreement to con- struct a major plant in Rumania.

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Bitt. As the policy of reliance on the United States was discredited by Washington’s “aggression against a fellow Communist state” any alteration in the order of political succession which may have resulted from a genuine reconciliation between Rumania and the U.S.A. was not to be realized. Thus, Ceausescu readily suc- ceeded Gheorghiu-Dej in March 1965 only a few days after the policy of bombing North Vietnam became an integral part of American strategy.

It would be futile to speculate whether Ceausescu would have lost his seniority among possible successors to Gheorghiu-Dej had the United States not assigned priority to “containing” communism in Asia over “building bridges” to the “satellites” of the Soviet Union. Too little is known about the actual internal politics of the Party in the short months antedating Gheorghiu-Dej’s death to provide an intelligent guess. But it may be assumed that if Gheorghiu-Dej’s death had occurred at a time of consolidation of Rumanian- American relations, Ceausescu, as his successor, would have been less free to so rapidly consolidate his own power in the Party and state and impose upon them the pattern of authoritarian national communism with which he is so clearly identified.

His leadership - Authoritarian and ‘National’

The principal characteristic of Ceausescu’s leadership is political decisiveness. From the moment of his as- suming power, he sought to remedy the shortcomings associated with Gheorghiu-Dej’s rule. He immediately reshuffled the top echelons in a manner compatible with “democratic centralism” and his own interests, and as- serted the Party’s determination to assume total control over the “socialist transformation of the country.” The unequivocal assertion and implementation of the prin- ciple of Party supremacy was dramatized by the re- sumption of the name of “Rumanian Communist Party” and abandonment of that of “Rumanian Workers’ Party” adopted in 1948. The proclamation of Rumania as a “socialist republic” was a corollary elevation of the Party’s and country’s status in the “socialist camp” and declaration of equality with the Soviet Union and other “advanced socialist states.”

Because of prevailing international circumstances, and apparently also by choice, Ceausescu has concen- trated on internal problems. His greatest concern to date has been the development and implementation of policies designed to insure the further development of the economy and the socialist state in general. The revamping of technological training, modernization of the educational system, coordination of science and pro- duction are a few of the measures adopted for the reali- zation of the country’s “socialist” potential. He has also tried to eliminate excessive dogmatism and bureaucrat- ism in the production and planning processes and to promote acceptance of Western technology and indus- trial techniques. These actions do not, however, entail “westernization” of thought or the “embourgeoisement” of Rumanian society. Since militant cultural and poli- tical Communist nationalism is Ceausescu’s trademark, intellectual dogmatism and ideological isolation from the West have increased, if anything, since 1965.

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He Steers an Anti-Soviet Course in Foreign Affairs

The doctrinaire character of Ceausescu’s national communism is also evident in the conduct of foreign affairs. The anti-Soviet orientation of the Rumanian course has become more pronounced since Gheorghiu- Dej’s death largely because of Ceausescu’s search for true equality with and total independence from the Soviet Union. To attain these goals he has insistently advocated the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and frustrated Soviet attempts to find solutions to the thorny problems confronting COMECON. He has raised, pointedly, the Bessarabian problem, seeking the restitu- tion of that province to Rumania. He has defied Russian, Czech, Polish and above all East German opposition to the establishment of formal diplomatic relations with West Germany and has adamantly refused to support the U.S.S.R. in its dispute with China.

Ceausescu’s policies toward the United States and China are also characteristic. Whereas some doubts linger as to whether he is genuinely concerned over the plight of a fellow socialist state, North Vietnam, or in actual sympathy with the Chinese views on inter- national communism, the record indicates that of all East European Communist leaders, other than Enver Hoxha, he has most fully endorsed the Sino-Vietnamese positions in the Far East as well as certain aspects of Chinese Communist ideology.

Ceausescu believes that the unity of the Communist camp must be maintained at all cost since the expulsion of China from the camp would result in consolidation of Russia’s leadership of the international Communist movement and likely curtailment of Rumania’s inde- pendence. Pursuit of the present Rumanian course would then presumably become dependent on increased reliance on the capitalist West, an undesirable alterna- tive at best. For these reasons primarily Ceausescu has pursued a policy of friendship toward Communist China since 1965 despite certain objections to the rigidity of Mao Tse-tung’s dogmatism and despite the political uncertainties caused by the internal struggle for power in China. Whether, had the Chinese proved more flexible, he would have cast his lot more and more with the nationalist, anti-Soviet, dogmatic and authori- tarian Chinese regime is a matter of speculation. It is noteworthy, however, that Ceausescu has refrained

from condemning Chinese dogmatism, has supported the “hard” Chinese-North Vietnamese line toward the United States, and has echoed Peking’s views on the responsibilities of the socialist camp toward Ho Chi Minh’s “war of liberation.” It would appear that Ceausescu’s anti-American stand is based on genuine opposition to American “interference in the internal affairs” of Vietnam and “aggression” against a small independent country.

Ceausescu’s Current Policy of Europeanism

In recent months, however, as the turmoil in China and the Vietnamese conflict have become permanent facts of international political life and the possibilities of a Russo-Chinese break and Russo-American rap- prochement increased accordingly, Ceausescu has be- come more and more identified with the flexible policies characteristic of the Gheorghiu-Dej era. At this mo- ment Ceausescu is the champion of European&m, urg- ing normalization of intra-European economic and polit- ical relations and “liquidation” of the vestiges of World War II. These policies, like de Gaulle’s, are anti- American but, unlike the French, even more so anti- Russian. Ceausescu’s Europeanism calls for the ridding of Europe of the nefarious influences of the “non-Euro- pean” giants. The establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany, the constant search for European markets and trade agreements, demands for abolition of military blocs, East and West, are all part of a policy that would insure the attainment of Ceausescu’s plans for an independent and economically developed socialist Rumania.

But it is also noteworthy that Ceausescu has not neglected the consolidation of economic ties with the tiers monde in the process and, for that matter, even with the United States. Whether “economic flirtation” with the American “imperialists” has been resumed by necessity or because of political maturization is uncer- tain. Most likely Ceausescu has come to grips with the realities of political life and realizes that the attain- ment of his goals for Rumania require a modus tivendi with the world’s greatest power. A comprehensive and intelligent appraisal of the Rumanian leader, however, will become possible only upon clarification of the inter- national situation.dtephen Fischer-Galati

Lin Piao in Praise of Mao On May Day, the number-two leader of the Chinese

Communist hierarchy, Lin Piao, contributed 30 char- acters in his own handwriting which read: “Long live the great teacher, great leader, great supreme com- mander and great helmsman, Chairman Mao! A long life to him! A long, long life to him!” (Peking Review, May 5.)

26 COMMUNIST AFFAIRS