The identity of Ceausescu's Communist Regime and its image in the West.

Aldea, Patricia Gonzalez

1. The bloc's identity during the Cold War

In the mid-1990's, the Spanish diplomat Jorge Fuentes, said 'in Europe, the West prevails over the East and the North over the South without any reason. Europe was built by all of us, and indeed I would venture to say that certain Southern and Eastern countries have been more European than some of us' (Fuentes 1997, 41). But decades of Cold War and European division between the two blocs fostered the West's ignorance and lack of interest regarding the East. That's why the Western perception about the reality of Eastern countries has so often been wrong.

During the 1950s, a European identity was created within a supranational organization. It was the beginning of the European Community, the result of the sum of the identities of the six Western countries that freely joined. Opposing this Western European identity, the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe inevitably led to the parallel creation of its own bloc identity. The Soviet Union tried not only to blot out the national identities of its satellite states through the 'Russification' of the population and the destruction of their cultural identities, but it also aimed to destroy Europe's deepest roots, the Christian ones, by persecuting Catholicism and systematically destroying its artistic and cultural heritage.

In the international context of the two blocs, from the mid-1970s Romania forged its own specific identity, separate from the Soviet bloc. Early on, this had a positive impact on the perception of the Romanian regime in the West.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), launched in Helsinki in 1975, was the main diplomatic instrument during Cold War era. At its follow up meetings, the Western bloc gradually discovered the true nature of Ceausescu's regime.

At the start of the 1970s the peaceful coexistence between the two blocs made it possible to lay the groundwork for the CSCE. The key word was 'detente', the easing of tensions, bringing together the two blocs for the first time in one forum. The most important political representatives of 35 countries met in Helsinki. Among them were well-known heads of state like Brezhnev, Ford, Honecker, Schmidt, Moro, and Ceausescu himself.

The problem was that in the very conception of the CSCE the bipolar system persisted. As Vincent points out, there were two ways of understanding the meaning of 'detente': 'to the West it was supposed to be a new style of International relations, as a result of the easing of ideological tensions between the two blocs, and a new focus on human rights, in addition to trade and security issues. To the East 'detente' meant an easing of tensions, but between rulers, not between societies. In fact, the priority of security over human rights could be an excuse for not recognizing human rights as an aim of foreign policy' (Vincent 1986, 68).

In this connection Romania, in stark contrast to the progress in political and human rights fostered by the CSCE summits, systematically clamped down on liberties. Hiding behind the principle of non-interference in its internal affairs, Romania came down especially hard on freedom of information, freedom of expression and religious liberty.

The regression of the Romanian regime was parallel to the CSCE meetings' achievements in other Eastern countries. Nevertheless, the condemnation and political criticism from the West, particularly during the 1980s, together with the role of the dissidents' moral revolution, ultimately led to the end of the communist regime in 1989 (Gonzalez Aldea 2008, 295-300).

After the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the most repeated words by these countries were not 'European Union integration', but 'European Union reunification'. They had always considered themselves to be in Europe, albeit under another identity. It was not therefore a new European enlargement, but a return to the union after decades of bipolar division, during which European Union values such as respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom and democracy, were systematically disregarded by Eastern countries.

The ignorance of the reality inside the Central and Eastern European countries, 'homogenized' by the Soviet bloc, led the Western bloc to underestimate their cultural values and to look down on them when Eastern countries asked for 'European reunification'. As Bronislaw Geremek, historian and former Polish foreign affairs minister, pointed out on the occasion of the 2004 European enlargement: 'the simple citation of the names of these countries means an exotic accent as if it was a list of colonized countries. Western Europe has forgotten that Prague and Krakow, Budapest and Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest, are old European capitals' (Geremek 2004,13).

In March 1990, the diplomatic relations with the Vatican, in tatters since 1948, were resumed by Romania. During 1991, the new Romanian Constitution, despite its limitations, meant a new starting point with regard to the promotion and respect of human rights. In 2012, twenty-two years after the end of the Ceausescu's regime, a new generation of young people has grown up in Romania. For them, communism is a thing of the past, and despite the difficulties of the transition period to democracy, they consider the European identity, without any division into blocs, as their natural environment.

2. The CSCE's launch and the beginning of Romania's regression

The various proposals concerning security in Europe crystallized in a round of consultations at the end of 1972. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was launched in 1975 after three stages of meetings, and the final document signed was called 'the Helsinki Act'. Cooperation in human rights and the information exchange between societies of the two blocs were important commitments achieved, along with economic and military detente. The bloc's political priorities were clearly different, and the Eastern bloc was reluctant to put 'human detente' into practice.

Due to its estrangement from the USSR and its degree of political openness during the first few years of Ceausescu's regime, Romania gained a positive image in the West. In 1967, Romania was the country that inaugurated the Spanish policy of liberalization towards the Eastern bloc. After some contacts in Paris, commercial and consular delegations were opened.

The positive image of Romania in the West was reinforced during the preparations for the CSCE summit because it participated outside of the three blocs that existed within the CSCE: Eastern countries, Western countries, and Non-Aligned and Neutral countries. However, as it turned out, Romania's independent stance in the CSCE was not an indictment of communist policy and did not reflect openness in Romanian policy, it was merely an attempt to use the Conference for its own benefit.

In fact, between 1971-1975, Romanian domestic policy underwent a dangerous regression, bringing to light one of the most repressive communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The economic reforms stopped, reverting to the old soviet system of compulsory production figures ('indicatii' in Romanian) that had plunged Romania into economic chaos in the 1950s. After an official visit to North Korea in 1971, Ceausescu carried out a cultural revolution emulating the Chinese-Korean model. Atheist propaganda was strengthened. The 'Conducator' started a process of accumulation of power. The Rural Systematization Programme, which eventually led to the destruction of entire villages, was approved in 1974. The State Security Services, the feared 'Securitate', were reorganized under the control of Ceausescu himself. The 1974 Press Act signalled the beginning of regression in the sphere of information.

In short, the dictator's cult of personality based on the communist doctrine, in the style of Stalinism and Maoism, coupled with extreme nationalism, was born. Later, this system would be called 'Ceausismo'. The myth of the 'multi-competent Conducator' (Petrescu 1998, 235) was created: he was the first miner of the country, the first farmer, the first builder of Romania, etc. This 'illness' was shared with his wife Elena, an almost illiterate woman who the regime made into an academic, engineer, and chemist.

According to Fisher-Galati (1991,189) 'if the accumulation of power was ignored or not taken seriously by most Romanians and the International community it was due to Ceausescu's success in foreign policy and his early achievements in economic development'.

This first evidence, and the later crowning proof of Ceausescu's repressive policy, was clearly reflected in Romania's participation in the CSCE and its follow-up meetings.

After the Helsinki Summit (1975), in spite of the Romanian foreign affairs minister's statement in 1973 during the preparatory stages of the CSCE summit in support of the continuity of the Conference, Romania opposed this measure fearing every new meeting might become a chance to examine its compliance with the CSCE human rights commitments.

Nicolae Ceausescu in his long and propagandistic statement in the CSCE closing ceremony insisted on the principles of sovereignty, national independence, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and the need for disarmament to achieve peace and security, but any mention of principles related to the respect and promotion of human rights was strictly avoided. Particularly, he obviates principle 7 of the famous Helsinki Decalogue concerning respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. The novelty of this principle 7, compared to a similar principle in the United Nations Charter, is that countries agree to promote and foster not only 'respect' for human rights, but also 'the real practice' of these rights. In this sense, people's rights do not emanate from the State's recognition.

The heart of the disagreement on humanitarian questions that divided the two blocs was the different concept of human rights. From the socialist perspective, they are not inherent to human beings by virtue of their being human, as the capitalist view states. Rather, human rights are provided by the State according to the socio-economic structure developed. While the East referred to collective rights, granted and recognized to the individual by his own State, the West referred to individual rights.

The humanitarian issue was included in the Helsinki Final Act, despite the reticence among the Eastern countries. In Heraclide's opinion (1993, 9) 'it was considered by the West, above all by the nine members of the European Community, as the field which could seriously change the Eastern political systems and gradually lead to their transformation'.

The West, which was not initially in favour of the Conference's continuity, after the Act was signed decided to subordinate the question of continuity to progress in the human contacts area and in the humanitarian matters in general, as a way to pressure the East to make improvements. Consensus as a decision-making formula often slowed talks down and led to stagnation on certain issues. The possibility of adding 'reservations' to the documents approved within the CSCE worked more as a threat, and only on very few occasions was it equivalent to a veto. But Romania, particularly during the 1980s, used the possibility of making reservations on several occasions in order to avoid any progress on humanitarian issues.

The most important period began precisely with post-conference discussions, when, as the diplomat Javier Ruperez underlines (1975, 210), 'the forum ceases to be a gauge of room temperature and can become an influence and shaper of reality'.

The fact that the Act had no legal validity since it was not an international treaty and that its authority was only moral as a political agreement did not undermine it. It was the most that could be achieved in that era of division between blocs.

The emergence in the East of active groups in defence of human rights that began monitoring compliance with the CSCE humanitarian principles came on the heels of economic and military progress.

3. The real identity of the Romanian communist regime

The first follow-up CSCE summit was held in Belgrade in 1977 in a less favourable international context. The relations between the blocs again went through tense times, paradoxically turning the CSCE, which was launched precisely as a forum for detente, into the focus of their disputes.

At the Belgrade meeting, the Helsinki monitoring groups reported various episodes of disregard for the CSCE human rights commitments. The Moscow group was lead by Yuri Orlov, the Czech group was led by Vaclav Havel, who launched the Charter 77 movement, and the Romanian group was led by Paul Goma, whose 'Letter to Romanians' supported Charter 77. Paul Goma was arrested and released after one month thanks to the international interest in his case. The Spanish newspaper 'El Pais' (Rouco 1978) reported about the Goma case. Nevertheless, he was forced to leave Romania before the end of 1977 due to the internal pressure from the Romanian government.

From exile, Paul Goma wrote articles condemning the humanitarian situation in Romania: 'Although the Letter to the Belgrade Conference only collected 200 signatures, Romanians have shaken off the fear, the animal fear implanted in their souls during 30 years of terror, they have finally defeated the silence, the complicity (between victim and hangman). Since the spring of 1977, Romanians have begun to speak, to complain with a loud voice, to protest and to claim their human Rights. And they have begun to speak because they have finally confirmed that the West believes them, amplifies the shouts of pain and indignation (anger), and sometimes calls the Bucharest regime to account' (Goma 1999, 32).

In Romania's case, despite the presence of well-known figures such as Doina Cornea or Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, there was no real dissident movement to speak of, partly because the intelligentsia, the grass-roots of most dissident movements in Eastern countries, was repressed and persecuted during the first few decades of communism. Intellectuals like Ionescu, Cioran, Vintila Horia, and others were driven into exile. Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa was imprisoned from 1948 to 1964, spending three years in the terrible Pitesti prison. He began writing a diary of this awful experience in 1977, and decided to become priest. His defence of human liberty took him back to prison in 1979, and the diary was seized by the Securitate. Father Calciu-Dumitreasa was set free in 1984, but he was 'invited' to leave Romania.

In 1977, exiled Romanians founded the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania, based in Paris. It belonged to the International Helsinki Federation, which comprised the various national Helsinki Watch Groups, since 1982.

Nevertheless, the monitoring work of the Helsinki groups and civil movements to promote compliance with the CSCE commitments served to unmask the Romanian regime, and to reveal its true face.

Related to the Romanian internal situation, a miner's strike in the Jiu Valley broke out shortly before the start of the Belgrade summit. It was considered the first serious warning to the dictator about the growing dissatisfaction of the population. After the miners' repression, a free trade union was created in Romania in 1979 in order to fight for workers' rights.

Romanian cultural life emulated the Chinese-Korean model with festivals like 'Cintarea Romaniei', first held in October 1976. As Francisco Veiga points out, 'it was a kind of nationwide folk Olympics with a clear socio-political purpose, namely social homogenization and intellectual contempt by praising the popular genius' (Veiga 1994, 109).

The youngest Romanians were forced to participate in the event. Dragos Petrescu (1998, 239) explained how the festival closing ceremony took place: 'under the light of artificial spotlights, poems dedicated to the General Secretary of the Party were recited. The grotesque show closing the first edition unfortunately symbolized a real image of the Romania of that time'.

The atheist doctrine was strengthened, the main religious feasts were not recognized, and the systematic destruction of religious heritage began. In response, the Romanian-Christian Committee for protecting freedom of thought and freedom of religion, launched by Pavel Nicolescu and Dimitrie Ianculovici 1978, monitored the CSCE commitments in this connection.

The Romanian Orthodox Church was characterized by its collaboration with the established power. According to Lecomte (1992, 291) 'the harm of communism in Romania would have been smaller if the Romanian Orthodox Church had not been the most committed to the communist power of the entire socialist bloc'. The bonds between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Securitate reached even beyond the country's borders. The Church sent its 'priests' to the countries where exiled Romanians lived, allegedly to carry out pastoral care, but the truth was the priests were usually Securitate members responsible for keeping tabs on everything the exiles did.

The Romanian Orthodox Church minister Nicolae Stoicescu, when interviewed by Laignel-Lavastine (1990, 38), tried to justify the role of the Orthodox Church, stating that 'it has adapted to the country's new situation; it has renounced certain activities, but in doing so it has saved itself. In fact, thanks to this policy the Orthodox Church kept its 122 monasteries, 2 theological schools, and an acceptable number of seminarians.

Amnesty International (1978) denounced the persecution of neo-Protestants and Baptists during the 1970s. Among the prisoners of conscience the organization highlighted the case of Ghejan Titu, persecuted for teaching religion at school; or the Adventist Ion Mocuta, imprisoned several times accused of propaganda against the State, in fact for publicly denouncing the treatment of neo-Protestants in Romania, and the lack of religious freedom, on foreign radio stations. Dumitru Blidaru was another example, charged with 'parasitic living' under the infamous Decree 153/1970, as well as with illegal religious activities. He was locked away in a psychiatric hospital.

Amnesty International published a report titled 'Allegations of psychiatric abuses and maltreatment in the Socialist Republic of Romania' at the end of the 1970s, expressing concern about the growing practice of subjecting people exercising their freedom of speech and freedom of conscience to psychiatric treatment.

Freedom of press deteriorated sharply, after the abolition in 1977 the censorship body, ('Directia presei'), making way for something even worse: self-censorship. Communist states continued to jam the reception of messages broadcast by foreign radio stations like RFE (Radio Free Europe). RFE was funded by the US Department of State, and broadcast from Munich in 21 languages, Romanian included. At times it was able to broadcast up to 12 hours per day.

Vasile Paraschiv, one of the first active defenders of human rights and trade union liberties in Romania, was confined to a psychiatric facility in 1976 for having contacted Radio Free Europe.

In Charles Gati's view, the role played by foreign radio stations in Eastern Europe was crucial:

'More important than what West did, was what it was, prosperous and free. The sharp contrast between East and West was a powerful message to all the eastern Europeans. This message reached them due to the increasing contacts with Western Europeans through Western radio stations' (Gati 1990, 188).

The 'Conduc?tor', contrary to the internal repression, kept on building his external image as a champion of peace and disarmament (Ceausescu 1981, 92), although he was actually one of the leading arms exporters to Third World countries.

An official visit by Ceausescu to Spain to meet King Juan Carlos was planned in 1977, but was later cancelled due to the earthquake in Bucharest. Ceausescu took advantage of this moment to announce that the city would be rebuilt based on the communist architectural concept. According to Mariana Celac, the case of the 'Casa Poporului' signalled 'a degradation of the totalitarian discourse in architecture. The House is unlike other European experiences of its kind, and models must be sought elsewhere: Marcos Stroessner, Somoza, Kin Il Sung, Gadafi, Bokasa' (Celac 1998: 302).

Ceausescu's visit to Spain finally came about in May 1979, when he became the first Eastern European Head of State to visit Spain officially. Three bilateral agreements were signed relating to commercial issues, international freight transport and scientific cooperation. There was no mention of the human rights situation in Romania. In Madrid, Ceausescu was given the 'Key to the City'. The West bestowed the dictator with various other honours, like the 'Legion of Honour' in France, and similar honours in Great Britain, Italy, and Greece.

New proposals were launched in the Belgrade Summit, but they were not fruitful because the stances of the two blocs were very distant. The Eastern Bloc considered the denunciation of human rights violations as interference in their internal affairs. The outcome of the first CSCE follow-up meeting was a brief document, with little new content, merely reasserting the Helsinki Final Act.

4. The 1980s: the Western Bloc's condemnations of Romania

The second CSCE follow-up meeting took place in Madrid in 1980. This phase of the process was set to last three years, in order to avoid repeating the poor outcomes achieved at the previous meeting in Belgrade.

The Romanian regime's regression gathered pace during the 1980s. The beginning of the destruction of the historic centre of Bucharest, to be replaced by a new civil centre, involved the demolition of churches and the removal of thousands of families. The restrictions implemented to tackle payment of its foreign debt transformed Romania into one of the poorest countries of the continent by the end of the 1980s.

Radio Free Europe intensified its efforts and broadcasts to the East, and Romanian dissident voices like Doina Cornea often used this radio station to channel their condemnations of the human rights situation in Romania. This made the radio station an objective for Securitate surveillance.

Nevertheless, Doina Cornea admits it was a misunderstanding that made her a household name through RFE, turning her into persecuted figure under permanent surveillance. In 1982, Cornea used RFE to invite other professors to share certain reading materials with their students. At the time, nobody signed letters to the radio station, but she did, wanting them to know the letter was authentic. RFE's editors thought it was a pen name and they read it on air. Accordingly, she claimed her participation in the active dissident movement 'all began with an unconscious act. It was by chance that I was forced to accept this role. I was actually happy about the misunderstanding, otherwise I would not have had the courage to do it' (Combes 1990, 71-72).

Soon afterwards, she was dismissed from the University, and she stepped up her efforts to denounce the humanitarian situation in Romania.

George R. Urban (1998, 302), the former RFE executive director between the end of 1970s and the 1980s, highlights the work of three editors of the Romanian service: Noel Bernard, Vladimir Georgescu and Mihai Cismarescu. The latter died suddenly in 1983 after only a year in the post. His colleague Bernard also deceased in December 1983, from cancer. Georgescu himself died in 1988.

The Madrid final document urged states to examine religious communities' applications to practice their religion in Romania. Nevertheless, The Union of Young Baptists, which had been outlawed, in 1983 asked the Romanian Government to be reinstated and the response was a six-month prison sentence for the applicants. The Romanian Greek-Catholic Church called on the Madrid CSCE meeting to demand its rehabilitation, to no avail.

The Madrid document recognized new commitments such as respect for freedom of association, to prevent events like the repression of the trade union Solidarity in Poland. In the humanitarian sphere, it stipulated a period of six month for family reunification. As for freedom of press, the document did not outline terms, but said journalists' visa applications must be speeded up.

Three meetings of experts on humanitarian issues were convened in Madrid. Romania was the target of criticism during the human rights meeting in Ottawa (1985) due to the misuse of psychiatric hospital treatments for political purposes. Since 1948, the Romanian Law of Cults committed to psychiatric institutions members of religions who illegally organized prayer meetings. At the end of the 1970s, Amnesty International had already expressed its concern about this misuse of psychiatric treatment to people exercising their freedoms of expression and conscience.

The second half of the 1980s heralded something of an opening-up to democracy in the East, in the new International context of Perestroika and Glasnost, but Romania was the exception. On humanitarian issues some CSCE proposals were put forward by Eastern countries for the first time.

The third follow-up CSCE process began in Vienna in 1986. The main novelty was the launching of the so-called 'Human Dimension Mechanism', consisting in a specific conference and a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the commitments reached on the humanitarian question. But once again, as was the case with the Helsinki Final Act, no sanctions were imposed by the Mechanism in the event of violations of the agreements.

The Romanian regime tried by all possible means to remain immune to the changes taking place in the USSR, toughening its repressive policy (Amnesty International, 1987). After Gorbachev's visit to Romania on May 1987, even the socialist press was banned from entering the country, disregarding the CSCE free media and information commitments.

In November 1987, Ceausescu silenced the demonstrations of the Brasov's miners. The dissident Doina Cornea was arrested for five weeks charged with breaching state security after supporting the miners' protests.

In February 1988, Romania relinquished its Most favoured Nation (MFN) status, granted by United States in 1975, after the US threatened to withdraw it unless the Balkan country began to uphold human rights and the CSCE humanitarian commitments, and put a stop to the rural systematization plan, known in the West as 'Ceaushima'. Romania stopped receiving 250-300 millions dollars. This decision, coupled with the payment of its foreign debt, plunged the Romanian people into a dramatic situation.

In Cuvantul Romanesc, 'the largest Romanian newspaper in the free world', George Donev described the Romanian situation as follows: 'We live bright years but without light; we live in the time of bigger agricultural production, but we don't have bread; we are free, but we cannot move one from city to another; we have diplomatic relations with 155 countries and we can't get a passport; we live in the Golden Age, but we are not allowed to have a coin in our pocket; we read in newspapers about how happy we are, but we line up in front of supermarkets'.

Romania experienced a significant change in the concept of freedom of expression at the end of the 1980s. As 'Cuvantul Romanesc' (1989, 24), the paper of Romanians abroad, stated: 'in the past, when someone entered the country Customs officers searched their luggage to prevent them from importing subversive materials like books, magazines, or newspapers. Now they investigate you above all at the departure gate, to prevent you from taking out a letter addressed to RFE'.

The fears about the radio station's influence on the Romanian population had already been borne out at the beginning of the 1980s. RFE's office was the target of a bomb-attack concealed in correspondence addressed to Romanian dissidents.

In January 1989, the Vienna final document, the most solid text since the Helsinki conference, especially with regard to humanitarian issues, was adopted. Due to the far-reaching nature of the document, and the clear contradiction between Romanian domestic policy and CSCE commitments, the Ceausescu regime tried once again to block its implementation.

A few days earlier, the Romanian foreign affairs minister Ioan Totu made an interpretative statement of reservations concerning the acceptance as a whole of the Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting, that in fact meant the refusal of the CSCE control mechanism.

The Vienna final document stipulated the removal of all obstacles to the exercise of religious freedom, based on respect for the right to accessible places for praying, the right of religions to appoint and choose their own staff, the right to give and to receive religious education, and the right to buy and use holy books. In contrast, Romania continued with the destruction of churches, the number of students of theological education was limited by 'numerus clausus', and the mere possession of a Bible could warrant a prison sentence. Bibles sent from abroad were intercepted by the regime, which even used them to produce toilet paper.

The right to receive information in one's native tongue, another of the Vienna commitments, was also blatantly ignored. Television broadcasting hours were also reduced, and programmes in minority languages were the first to be affected. Rationalization of paper consumption also put an end to publications in minority languages. The importation of Hungarian newspapers and magazines was prohibited from 1988.

Romania was branded as the Conference 'bete noire' (Heraclides 1993, 108), because of its attitude to the CSCE. The Vienna Human Dimension Mechanism was triggered no less than 20 times against Romania, most of them related to the rural systematization plan and to the treatment of the opposition. In the course of 1989, some foreign embassies in Bucharest were closed as a result of the numerous violations of human Rights.

In March 1989, the criticisms even came from inside the country and were made for the first time by members and ex-members of the Romanian Communist Party. Radio Free Europe broadcast the content of a letter addressed to Ceausescu accusing him of the violation of the constitutional principles and a political practice that had nothing to do with socialism. The signatories were: George Apostol, Alexandru Barladeanu, Cornel Manescu, Constantin Pirvulescu, Silvis Brucan, and Ion Raceanu.

However, the Romanian Orthodox Cult continued supporting Ceausescu in an unconditional way, even in the most critic moments. Letters paying tribute and supporting him were published in the Romanian press in April 1989 (Romania Libera 1989, 4).

Several expert meetings on humanitarian issues and freedom of information were also established in Vienna, as had been arranged at the Madrid summit. In the Information Forum of London, the first disagreement among Eastern countries about a human Rights question took place. Specifically, Romania and Hungary failed to agree on the question of the Hungarian minority.

The confrontation between the two blocs that had characterized the CSCE's meetings was vanishing at the end of the 1980s, being replaced by disputes among countries of the same bloc.

While Hungary, Poland and even the USSR itself were being praised for their steps towards democracy, Romania was the target of all the criticism, especially due to its Rural Systematization Plan (Law 58/1974). Ceausescu was prepared to see the Plan through to the bitter end in 1988, envisaging the destruction of more than half of Romania's villages and some towns (more than 8.000 villages, located in Transylvania and largely inhabited by Hungarian peasants). Their inhabitants were to be moved to housing in the new agroindustrial centres, in a bid to increase control of the rural population and to secure their homogenization. But the official explanation was that it was to gain cultivable land, to raise the standard of living, and to develop rural areas.

The printed press underwent severe limitations related with the property and use of typewriters. The disappearance and alleged death of the journalist Miahi Creanga, who, with another two journalists, tried to publish a manifesto against the regime, were reported in June 1989.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHFHR) accused Ceausescu of being the 'enemy of his own people' (1989, 1-66). Despite the changing trends shaking Eastern Europe, the Conducator offered resistance until the end. But the situation in Romania was unsustainable and it ended up coming to a head in Timisoara, on 15 December 1989.

On 19 December, in the middle of the Revolution, in the closing ceremony of the seventh festival 'Cantarea Romaniei' Ceausescu ironically pointed out 'the festival must be a praise to the free man, owner of his destiny' (Scinteia 1989, 4).

On 20 December, Teoctist, the patriarch of the Orthodox Romanian Church, went so far as to send the press a letter of support to Ceausescu, congratulating him for 'having punished the hooligans and fascists of Timisoara'. But just two days later, seeing how events had unfolded, he took part in a television programme, saying 'the Church was with the people' (Lecomte 1992, 297). According to Lecomte (1992, 297) Teoctist 'was a caricature of commitment, of changing sides, and of political makeup'.

Romania's revolution was one of the most disturbing ones because of the way it was carried out: it was a people's uprising, a coup d'etat orchestrated by Moscow, probably both.

The legendary newspaper Scinteia, the Conducator's main propaganda instrument, stopped being published on 22 December, for the first time in 58 years. Nevertheless, Scinteia did not become extinct, and was published again only three days later, under the new front-page logo of Adevarul. The journal Romania Libera, also a propaganda instrument, didn't even change its name and kept on publishing, although with a new editorial line. The official news agency Agerpress changed its name to Rompres. In 2008, the agency changed its name back to Agerpress.

After the Eastern bloc broke up, the Cold War ended and the CSCE's main task was to strengthen democratic institutions.

The so-called 'Helsinki circle' was closed in March 1992 with the fourth CSCE's follow-up summit. The Finnish capital was again the Conference venue and an important final document was signed. It was titled 'The challenges of change', and it underlined the change of the Conference's role: from promoting changes to managing them.

As was pointed out in the Helsinki Summit Declaration (1992, 2), 'we have witnessed the end of the Cold War, the fall of totalitarian regimes and the demise of the ideology on which they were based. All our countries now take democracy as the basis for their political, social and economic life. The CSCE has played a key role in these positive changes'.

The Summit also official announced the creation of the institutions of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Forum for Security Cooperation and the Economic Forum.

5. Conclusions

The 'spirit of Helsinki' had a clear influence on the end of the Cold War, as it was the diplomatic forum par excellence for more than a decade. In the course of 14 years, not only was military detente and a certain rapprochement achieved, as the Eastern countries expected, but also there was progress related to political and humanitarian detente, which had been the aim of Western countries.

The Eastern Bloc's rejection of the CSCE humanitarian commitments is a testament to the extent to which these principles, binding only morally, were regarded as a political threat. Although the CSCE's impact was shaped by the various governments' political will to accept the agreements signed, even where they were breached, as was the case in Romania, the political condemnations and international pressure led to the same end: the collapse of the communist system. Political pressure, international isolation and even criticism from countries in its own bloc led the situation in Romania to be untenable.

The Ceausescu regime enjoyed a positive image in Western countries in the early years thanks to its policy of 'independence' from Moscow, its economic achievements, and certain freedom of information. The Securitate's surveillance was not so obvious, Western newspapers and books were sold and foreign radio stations were still allowed. This policy also helped to consolidate Ceausescu's leadership inside Romania. The Romanian population was hopeful about the new leader's intentions after the cruelty of communism during the 1950s.

But the regime's involution to authoritarianism and the cult of personality turned Romania into one of the most repressive regimes of all Eastern bloc countries. Freedom of information and freedom of religion and conscience, highlighted principles of the Helsinki Final Act, were systematically disregarded by the Conducator.

The Western perception of the Romanian regime changed above all during the 1980s. The West saw the true nature of the regime, and Romanian policy was the target of all the criticism at the CSCE summits.

After the revolution, Romania faced numerous difficulties on its way to democracy. Religious education had to deal with a lack of educated personnel after being outlawed for decades. Some newly legalized religions had to fight to win back their seized assets. The explosion of mass media did not necessarily mean more freedom because economic censorship replaced the censorship of content that had previously prevailed.

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Romanian Legislation:

Decret pentru organizarea Ministerului Cultelor nr.178/1948. Monitorul Oficial al Republicii Socialiste Romania nr.178, 4 August 1948.

Decret pentru stabilirea si sancCionarea unor contravenCii privind regulile de convieCuire sociala, ordinea si linistea publica nr. 153/1970. Buletinul Oficial al Republicii Socialiste Romania nr.33, 24 Martie 1970.

Lege privind sistematizarea territoriului si localitajilor urbane si rurale nr.58/1974. Buletinul Oficial al Republicii Socialiste Romania nr.135, 24 Noiembrie 1974.

Legea Presei din Republica Socialista Romania nr.3/1974. Buletinul Oficial al Republicii Socialiste Romania nr.48, 1 Aprilie 1974.

Patricia GONZaLEZ ALDEA, Ph. D.

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, UC3M

Email: [email protected]