Manuela Marin
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, România
marinmanuela2004@gmail.com
The Limits of the Romanian Communist Propaganda:
The Case of People’s Letters
Abstract: The article analyzes the limits of the Romanian propaganda as they were reflected in letters sent to Nicolae Ceausescu during the first years of his leadership (1965-1967) from two different perspectives. Firstly, the limits of the propaganda are assessed in view of Ceausescu’s popular identification with the Romanian leadership and especially with an all-powerful national paternal or godparent figure. Secondly, the boundary of propaganda is illustrated by the people’s use of the official arguments in order to demonstrate the hypocritical instrumentation of the question of Bessarabia and Bukovina by the new party and state leadership.
Keywords: Romania; Communist regime; Nicolae Ceausescu; Communist propaganda; Open letters; Bessarabia; Bukovina.
The article proposes an analysis of the limits of Communist propaganda by considering letters that people sent to Nicolae Ceausescu during his early years in power (1965-1967). In supporting their cases or expressing personal thoughts, citizens used an official language; they wanted to portray themselves as worthy citizens and/or grateful recipients of state-sponsored assistance. However, as I will demonstrate later, in most cases, using the official terminology proved a bigger challenge than one could imagine, as the intended meaning(s) were altered. In the first part of the article, I will consider those letters in which citizens dealt with their personal issues. The analytical reading of these epistles will stress that the senders actually meant what they said, despite their misuse of officially sanctioned concepts and the distortion of formal language through traditional elements. In addition, the senders’ relatively low level of education, which was evident in their substantial misuse of grammar and frequent spelling errors, raises questions regarding their competence in textual elaboration or their conscious dissimulation of hidden personal intentions. The second part of the article concentrates on letters sent to the Romanian leader in a very special context, given the decision of the Romanian leadership to reevaluate the historical issue of Bessarabia and the Northern part of Bukovina. Although a significant number of letters expressed satisfaction with the nationalist line embraced by the RCP, there were also several others denouncing the party and the state leadership as paying lip service to the issue of the former Romanian historical provinces.
The letters dealing with personal matters expressed mainly, but not exclusively, the senders’ gratitude to Nicolae Ceausescu. His intervention, they argued, could trigger a favorable solution to their problems. Although the practice of people addressing the state authorities on different issues was institutionalized,[1] turning towards the leader himself, frequently identified as a fatherly figure and the supreme repository of social justice, questioned the very valences of politically assumed propaganda. After Gheorghiu-Dej’s demise in March 1965 and until December 1967, a collective ethos characterized the Romanian leadership’s public performance, and not the activity of individual leaders. Even though Ceausescu’s status of primus inter pares was officially assumed by the Romanian propaganda in March 1965, the letters distinguished him among his colleagues and furthermore, ascribed to him almost exclusively fatherly attributes.
Despite this increasing personification of the Romanian leadership’s popular image, most of the letters writers had serious difficulty in finding the correct formula to address the RCP leader. A good number of senders failed to identify the correct designation of Ceausescu’s official position within the Romanian leadership: instead of “Comrade General Secretary”, they tended to employ the former title of the party leader, that of the “Comrade Prime Secretary”,[2] no longer in use since the 9th RCP Congress (August 1965) or even addressed Ceausescu as “Comrade Minister”[3] or “Comrade Prime Minister”.[4] Another letter contained an even more puzzling label: while expressing her gratitude towards the RCP leader for visiting her native town, an elder woman seemed to be rather confused about the political nature of the regime and referred to Ceausescu as “the king of all Romanian women”.[5] Other citizens seemed to ignore the entire propagandistic effort concerning the subject of the collective leadership as they called Ceausescu “the president of the Council of State”[6] or “the president of the Socialist Republic of Romania”.[7] Even the correct spelling of the RCP leader’s name proved challenging for some citizens: as they were elderly persons or had below-average educational background, they used archaic variations of Nicolae Ceausescu’s first name, such as “Neculaie” “Neculai” or “Nicolai”[8]. If the popular familiarity of the Romanian leader’s forename may account, to some extent, for its incorrect spelling, the different versions of his surname exemplify the Romanian propaganda’s incapacity to reach a great part of the population. Therefore, the Romanian leader’s surname was mangled as “Ciausescu”,[9] “Ciuşiscu”[10] or Ceauşăscu.[11] Besides the assimilation of the RCP leadership’s identity with Ceausescu, another major flaw in the Romanian propaganda agenda was the latter’s popular perception as a father or godfather figure. Some letters expressed this imagined familiarity with the Romanian leader by addressing him as “dear/beloved” or “our dear and beloved”[12] comrade or general secretary. Hence, this closeness was matched with Ceausescu’s enjoying some kind of reverence from those writing to him. This open reverence reflected both his popular fatherly image and his leading position within the Romanian leadership. Therefore, while apologizing for disturbing him with their small, insignificant problems, people justified their gesture by describing Ceausescu as the ultimate depositary of social justice. For instance, one of the letters said: “I apologize for wasting your so precious time, but I have heard you listen to the problems of the whole people and where needed, you right wrongs”.[13] Consequently, a significant number of letters expressed their authors’ gratitude to Ceausescu for his intervention in solving their problems. The range of problems addressed in letters included accommodation, job requests, financial or educational issues. Although the local party and state organs had dealt with the issues described in the letters and sometimes their writers even openly admitted so, the individuals attributed the favorable solution to their problems to Ceausescu’s providential intervention. For example, while mentioning that she got a job following her appeal to the Romanian leader, the woman added: “this request was solved by the local organs as you had instructed them”.[14]
A further limit of the Romanian propaganda was the public reading of official decisions as eloquent illustrations of Ceausescu’s paternalism. During its early years in power, the new regime increased the revenues of the collectivized peasants and retired people. Such letters were acknowledgements of gratitude on the part of individuals and collective groups alike; most of these pensioners showed their appreciation towards the RCP leader, while ascribing the raising of the elderly people’s average income to Ceausescu’s “paternal concern” towards this marginal category of Romanian people.[15] Another distinct group of letters concentrated on the problem of accommodation. For instance, a young female worker expressed her gratitude to the Romanian leader for her new “sunny and bright” home, where she could recover after her long suffering from tuberculosis.[16] In one letter, a woman mentioned that during Ceausescu’s visit in Cluj-Napoca, she submitted her request for a place to live. Now, she was writing to let him know that the local authorities had given her a home where she “could rest after work”.[17] Educational issues were under attention, as well. While for some individuals the new educational opportunities were a means for professional integration, for others they also meant social rehabilitation. Two examples are worth mentioning. The first was the case of an orphan and handicapped girl whose application for a special school received no answer until she wrote to Ceausescu about her situation. Therefore, she showed appreciation towards her benefactor as she had been able to learn a trade and lead a “dignified life with all family members”. The other case was that of a former Iron Guard activist, whose political past had prevented him from graduating the faculty of medicine. After writing to the RCP leader, he received approval for the state exam and, therefore, he thanked Ceausescu for his social and political rehabilitation, for “bringing him back among honest people” and for the life-saving opportunity of practising his chosen profession.[18]
A distinct category of letters contains a particular request: that Ceausescu should perform “a Christian act” of baptizing children or witnessing the marriage of young couples.[19] Consequently, the popular image of the RCP leader enriched itself with a new attribute: that of a godfather, an attribute that bore little connection with his propaganda-sponsored image. According to the Romanian popular tradition, the sponsorship institution (or of being a “naş” – ”godfather”) creates a symbolic relationship of kinship between the two families involved. Usually, the godparents assume the role of spiritual parents and also undertake certain social and economic commitments in relation with their spiritual children.[20]
Those writing to Ceausescu and asking him to be the godfather of their newly born children came mainly from very poor and large families, where one parent was usually physically incapable of supporting his/her family. One sender described his family situation as follows: “(…) we are a poor family and we have no prospect to earn so as to fulfill our basic needs (…) all the children are at home [they were 10 children] and have no job”. A father of 9, suffering from TBC and being unable to work, asked Ceausescu not only to christen his daughter, but also to financially support his family to buy clothes for his 4 school-going offspring.[21] Besides this humanitarian argument, the petitioners proved themselves to be very inventive when it came to presenting their cases and hopefully getting Ceausescu to baptize their children. One argument was the parents’ decision to name their child after the Romanian leader. For example, a father wrote to Ceausescu inviting him to baptize his twins since one of them was to be given his forename.[22] Other parents chose to put forward “communist” arguments: that one of the parents, usually the father, was a party member and a veteran worker (“I have been a worker since the year of 1939” or, as one party prime secretary wrote down, “I have always been a worker and a class fighter”)[23], that the child’s birthday/baptism coincided with different official events (the National Day or the RCP leader’s visit in their town or region)[24] or that the parents wished to organize “a communist christening as never seen before” in their native region.[25] In several letters, Ceausescu’s image as a godfather combined with his parental attributes, as those writing to him argued that his participation in a baptism ceremony would in fact replicate, on a minor scale, his major quality of being the father of his people. One peasant woman from Aiud and a party member asked the Romanian leader to be “the godfather of our child (…) as you are our father and the father of all the workers in the entire Socialist Republic of Romania”. A railroad worker wrote to Ceausescu the following lines: “Beloved father, I consider you the godfather of my child and I thank you for creating a beautiful life for all of us, a life that our children can enjoy”.[26]
Young couples or their parents might invite Ceausescu to witness their marriage or the wedding of their children. Their requests made mention not only of material difficulties, but also brought arguments that could fall into the category of what I call emotional blackmail. A future groom mentioned that the RCP leader’s attendance to his marriage ceremony would demonstrate “the preoccupation you have as a beloved leader of our people for all mankind and primarily for the contemporary youth (…) educated under the socialist sun”. Another young man mentioned that Ceausescu’s witnessing his marriage “would constitute evidence of (your) concern for the working people regardless of the social position they hold in society”.[27]
Although Ceausescu never attended any of these events, his physical absence was usually compensated by other things. The local party secretary was instructed to present congratulations, to thank for the invitation on behalf of the Romanian leader, to justify his nonattendance by invoking his busy official agenda and to offer presents or material support when needed.[28]
I have identified three main ways of expressing gratitude for Ceausescu’s intervention in solving people’s personal problems, at least two of which contradicted the spirit and the letter of the official propaganda. One way of thanking the Romanian leader was to invoke God’s protection for him. For example, an elderly woman wrote him the following lines: “Comrade Secretary Ceausescu I pray the good Lord to give you many happy years, health (…) to live and do only good”.[29] The second example of misappropriating the propaganda message refers to the inadequate use of certain contemporary slogans. In order to demonstrate that they were reliable citizens and politically worthy recipients of socialist welfare, several people employed the official language completely unrelated to the topic of their letters. For instance, after thanking Ceausescu and other party and state leaders for his increased income, one retired man ended his letters in the following way: “we fight for peace”, this probably echoing the on-going official campaign for peace in Vietnam.[30] Finally, people showed their gratitude by vowing to be model exponents of the contemporary code of socialist values. For instance, a mother thanked Ceausescu for helping her “children to get their legal right [the board allowance] (…) for not leaving them without a home”; she also mentioned her decision to raise her children so as to become worthy citizens of the socialist state.[31] The former Iron Guard militant for whom Ceausescu’s intervention meant social and political rehabilitation asked to work as a doctor in “a difficult rural health centre to show the Party that my gratefulness for the confidence I have been granted is boundless”. There, he could make up “through work, through diligence” for the political mistakes of the past while promising to contribute wholeheartedly to “the progress of socialism” in Romania.[32]
In assessing the limits of the Romanian propaganda as reflected in the letters people sent Nicolae Ceausescu at the beginning of his leadership, I will consider another issue, that of the historical problem of Bessarabia and the Northern part of Bukovina. The Romanian regime’s assumption of the conflict waged over these two former national provinces against the Soviet Union must be seen in the wider context of the way the political relations between these two states had evolved since the beginning of the 1960s. This period coincided with the public outburst of disagreement between the Romanian and the Soviet leaders concerning their divergent perspectives on their future national and regional economic development. The Soviet-endorsed plan of coordination and integration of the national economies of the socialist states proposed by Khrushchev in June 1962 would have resulted in the reinforcement of the existing pattern of development, and therefore, in the denial of the future possibility of the less developed countries to catch up with other, more advanced brotherly states. For Romania, complying with this COMECOM plan would have meant withdrawing from its long-term rapid and all-round industrialization program sanctioned by the Third Congress of the Romanian Working Party, held in June 1960. The arguments invoked by the Romanian leadership were related to both the technological solution of its problems of rapid economic growth and industrial underdevelopment, and the political and ideological significance attached to the industrial type of national modernization. Accordingly, the goal of industrialization represented the singular ideological expression of building socialism in Romania and transforming the country into an independent and developed country both economically and politically. Over-optimistically labeled as a proclamation of independence, the Romanian Working Party’s Statement of Independence of April 1964 asserted, in fact, the right of the Romanian party to decide its own domestic and foreign policy based on its immediate interests. This implied a radical reassessment of the political relations within the socialist camp; no party or other superstate authority could impose its unique and uniform patterns and recipes as mandatory requirements for the general development of the entire socialist system. Following this public assertion of political autonomy from the Soviet ally, the RWP faced a legitimacy dilemma.[33] Lacking now the Soviet sponsored legitimating force of proletarian internationalism, the Romanian leadership was forced to enter the national realm. Consequently, the RWP’s assumption of a national political line described it as a historical defender of the national values of independence, unity and sovereignty, especially against the background of the traditional Romanian anti-Russian feeling. This turnover in the official policy was epitomized by the de-Sovietization campaign of the Romanian public and cultural life, and especially by the assumption of the historical problem of Bessarabia (see, for example, the publication of Karl Marx’s “Notes about Romanians” in 1964 or of Engels’ letter sent to the Romanian socialist Ion Nadejde, also published in 1964, which mentioned and condemned the annexation of Bessarabia by the Tsarist Empire[34]). After Gheorghiu-Dej’s demise in March 1965, the new party leader, Nicolae Ceausescu continued the national political line with its previously established anti-Russian bias. In his discourse held on 7 May 1966, Ceausescu not only established the major guidelines for reinterpreting the Romanian history in order to portray the RCP as the successor, in the national pantheon, of the historical forces involved in the struggle for building the national state and the Romanian nation, but he also dropped hints to the Romanian claims on Bessarabia.[35]
In this political context, several Romanian citizens stated opinions on the newly elected leadership in respect to Bessarabia. The nature of the documents (letters sent to Ceausescu and kept in the archive of the former CC) and their small number rule out the pretence of assessing fully the popular opinion on this issue. While a significant number of letters speak highly of the national political line embraced by the RCP, and put forward the requests of Soviet ceding Bessarabia and North of Bukovina back again to Romania, there are also some letters expressing open criticism towards the authorities’ attitude in this matter. This type of epistles reveals that some citizens were fully aware of the hypocritical manipulation of these sensitive issues by the Romanian officials in general and by Nicolae Ceausescu in particular, to legitimize their newly acquired political positions. The pervading theme of all these letters was the senders’ xenophobic anti-Soviet feelings, demonstrating the failure of the Romanian pro-Soviet propaganda after 1945.
The letters exposed anti-Soviet popular feelings by mentioning the behavior of the Soviet state towards Romania in 1940, its refusal to cede back to Romania the occupied territories and its intention to use the cultural sovietization and economic integration to gain control over the entire state. A First World War veteran mentioned to Ceausescu that “our neighbors from the East curtailed again (our) country, seizing Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina, and even half of Dorohoi county and at their height of their cynicism, they still pretend to nourish everlasting friendship towards us, Romanians. I think this (situation) suits them but the people and the entire Romanian nation consider this friendship as that of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If we are really engaged in a true, honest, friendly relation with them, they should prove it (…) by ceding Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina back to us. You, Comrade Ceausescu, have direct relations with the Soviet leaders, I say, why wouldn’t you make them this proposal, from friend to friend, showing them that the whole Romanian people are asking for it?”. One sender was convinced that the Soviet expansionist plans towards Romania would continue. He argued that Moscow’s refusal to cede Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina back to Romania echoed the Soviet intention of using these lands as an advanced post in case of a final strike against the country. Thus, “A question arises: why is the treaty between Hitler and Stalin and the (Soviet) seizure of Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina still valid, if the Soviets are not aiming for territorial expansion? Why did they extend their rule over the northern part? Is it because they wanted to isolate the Romanian element and make a deal with Hungarians and use them accordingly? Bessarabia and Bukovina are Romanian territories. Certainly, the Munich (agreement) favors them and everything favoring them is right and Marxist-Leninist. The Hitlerists exterminated people in camps, but Russians are no better than them”.[36]
Besides letters expressing their senders’ belief in the new party leadership’s determination to regain the Romanian territories taken by the Soviet Union, in August 1940, there were also messages expressing personal dissatisfaction about the Romanian diplomacy’s failure to achieve this goal. Referring to different episodes in the contemporary Romanian foreign policy, the letters emphasized the inconsistency and superficiality of the official actions concerning this territorial dispute with the Soviet Union. Instead of denouncing publicly the Soviet aggression against Romania from August 1940, and initiating clear actions to rectify the existing situation, the senders mentioned that the Romanian diplomacy had chosen to sign official documents sanctioning the existing territorial status-quo or to get involved in peripheral actions from the point of view of the national interest in Bessarabia and Bukovina. Consequently, the argument was that the sanctioning of the inviolability of European frontiers created at the end of World War II was, in fact, an indirect endorsement of the Soviet territorial gains at the expense of the Romanian state. One individual, named Romanescu, wrote Ceausescu the following lines: “While reading the official statement issued on the occasion of Todor Zhivkov’s visit in our country, I was unpleasantly surprised by the excerpt referring to the German Democratic Republic, which mentions, among other things, the inviolability of the borders established in Europe at the end of the Second World War. I consider this phrase to be utterly wrong because it harms the aspirations, demands and interests of the Romanian state, because you (Nicolae Ceausescu) also recognize implicitly the frontiers (borders) with USSR and consequently, the relinquishment of Bessarabia and Bukovina”.[37] An unsigned letter criticizes the current official position regarding the restoration of the inter-war territorial integrity of the Romanian state: “As one can see, we, Romanians, are more interested in Vietnam and American imperialism than in Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina, taken by force by Soviet imperialists. When do you intend to organize marches at United Nations Organization so that Soviet imperialism will give us back the land torn off from our motherland’s body? Is Vietnam to us, Romanians, of more value than Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina? Why so much cowardice on the part of our state leadership in this regard? Why are we interested in Vietnam in Asia when we should take care of our Vietnam (Bessarabia and the North of Bukovina)? We should know that the entire Romanian people and history condemn you for your position towards this desideratum. (…) It is true that Americans are imperialists but aren’t the Soviets imperialists too? (…) Do you think we give a damn about Vietnam? No, we care (…) about Bessarabia and Bukovina. We wish to read in our newspapers that the party and government have demanded the Russians to give Bessarabia and Bukovina back to us”.[38]
The main purpose of this article has been to highlight the limits of the Romanian propaganda as they were reflected in the letters people sent to Nicolae Ceausescu during the first years of his leadership (1965-1967). The limits of the propaganda were assessed in the view of Ceausescu’s popular identification with the Romanian leadership and especially with an all-powerful national paternal or godparent figure. The citizens addressing the RCP leader on the question of Bessarabia and Bukovina used the official propaganda arguments in order to demonstrate the hypocritical official instrumentation of this sensitive issue in order to bolster the regime’s popular legitimacy.
Bibliography
Archival materials
Direcţia Arhivelor Nationale Istorice Centrale (DANIC), Fond CC al PCR -Secţia Cancelarie.
Books
Floyd, David, Rumania. Russia’s Dissident Ally, Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1965.
Ionescu, Ghita The Reluctant Ally. A Study of Communist Neo-Colonialism, An Ampersand Book, 1965.
Lévesque, Jacques, Le conflict sino-soviétique et l’ Europe de l’ Est. Les incidences sur le conflicts soviéto-polonais et soviéto-roumain, Les Presses de L’ Université de Montréal, 1970.
Marin, Manuela, Originea şi evoluţia cultului personalităţii lui Nicolae Ceauşescu 1965-1989, Editura ALTIP, Alba Iulia, 2008.
Memoires
Constantiniu, Florin, De la Răutu şi Roller la Muşat şi Ardeleanu, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 2007.
Niculescu-Mizil, Paul, O istorie trăită, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1997.
Collection of documents
Ceauşescu, Nicolae, PCR–continuator al luptei revoluţionare şi democratice a poporului român, al tradiţiilor mişcării muncitoreşti şi socialiste din România. Expunere la adunarea festivă organizată cu prilejul aniversării a 45 de ani de la crearea PCR. 7 mai 1966, Editura Politică, Bucureşti, 1966.
This work was supported by CNCSIS-UEFISCSU, project number PN II-RU code 410/2010
Notes
[1] For further details on this subject see Manuela Marin, Originea şi evoluţia cultului personalităţii lui Nicolae Ceauşescu 1965-1989, Editura ALTIP, Alba Iulia, 2008, pp. 352-361.
[2] Direcţia Arhivelor Nationale Istorice Centrale (DANIC), Fond CC (Comitetul Central) al PCR (Partidul Comunist Român)-Secţia Cancelarie, dosar 190/1966, filele 7, 8 or dosar 182/1966, filele 5,6, 50, etc.
[8] DANIC, Fond CC al PCR-Secţia Cancelarie, dosar 190/1966, filele 4, 7 fata, 165,168, 195 or dosar 203/1967, fila 60
[20] See for details, Gail Kligman, Nunta mortului. Ritual, poetică şi cultură populară în Transilvania, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 1998, pp. 32-34.
[25] Ibidem, fila 20. For more examples, also see DANIC, Fond CC al PCR-Secţia Cancelarie, dosar 189/1966; 198/1967.
[29] DANIC, Fond CC al PCR-Secţia Cancelarie, dosar190/1966, fila 24 v. For other example see filele 7 v, 189 v; dosar 182/1966, filele 53, 82, 172.
[30] DANIC, Fond CC al PCR-Secţia Cancelarie, dosar 190/1966, fila 15. Also see, dosar 182/1966, fila 70; dosar 203/1967, fila 73.
[33] For a detailed description of these developments see, Ghita Ionescu, The Reluctant Ally. A Study of Communist Neo-Colonialism, An Ampersand Book, 1965; Jacques Lévesque, Le conflict sino-soviétique et l’ Europe de l’ Est. Les incidences sur le conflicts soviéto-polonais et soviéto-roumain, Les Presses de L’ Université de Montréal, 1970; David Floyd, Rumania. Russia’s Dissident Ally, Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1965, etc.
[34] Paul Niculescu-Mizil, O istorie trăită, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1997, pp. 12, 64; Presa muncitorească şi socialistă din România, Vol. I (1865-1890), Editura Politică, Bucureşti, 1964, p. 190 apud Florin Constantiniu, De la Răutu şi Roller la Muşat şi Ardeleanu, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 2007, p. 280.
[35] Nicolae Ceauşescu, PCR–continuator al luptei revoluţionare şi democratice a poporului român, al tradiţiilor mişcării muncitoreşti şi socialiste din România. Expunere la adunarea festivă organizată cu prilejul aniversării a 45 de ani de la crearea PCR. 7 mai 1966, Editura Politică, Bucureşti, 1966.