socialist in form, national in content'. the national-international relation in the ideological...

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Valahian Journal of Historical Studies, ISSN: 1584-2525Vol. 17 (August 2012), pp. 5-42

Socialist in form, national in content? The national-

international relation in the ideological economy ofromantic Leninism

Emanuel COPILA *

Keywords: revolutionary workers democracy, socialist ethics, education, revolutionarysocialist patriotism, democratic centralism, personality cult, socialist economy

AbstractThe present paper tries to bring forward an ideological reinterpretation of the Romanian communistideology from the golden age. Romantic Leninism implies an apparently incompatible ideologicalhybridity between Leninism, Romanticism and even Fascism, endemic with reference to the othercommunist regimes from Eastern Europe and even the whole world. Without neglecting its internationalmanifestations, the accent lies here on several concepts considered to be the theoretical backbone of what Ihave named romantic Leninism. Following the analysis of the ideological structure of romantic Leninism,

this part of the paper deals with Nicolae Ceauescus personality cult and the particular type of socialisteconomy implemented during his leadership, both underlined by the heroic-romantic ideal of buildingsocialism. On the whole, I intend to prove that romantic Leninism represented, under differentappearances, a unified assault over the bourgeois conscience of Romanian society, in the attempt ofreplacing it with another type of conscience, that of the well-known new man, robotized and followingexclusively the partys goals, which he accepts as his own.

Romantic Leninism. A brief introductionadiating from Moscow, the Leninist ideology was absorbed by EastEuropean communist regimes in different forms and intensities. Somehave adopted it uncritically, without processing it, like in the case of

Eastern Germany; others have followed it integrally in foreign policy in order toobtain a certain space of maneuver in domestic policy (Hungary), while states likesocialist Romania fully obeyed its forms of manifestation and only partially its contentin domestic policy, while considerably distancing themselves from Moscows political-ideological directives in international relations. Romantic Leninism, the main topic ofthis paper, represents a unique ideological combination consisting in Leninist,Romantic, Fascist or nationalist elements. It appeared more or less with NicolaeCeau escus rise to power, but it certainly does not equate his thinking, includingsocial tendencies, mentalities, bureaucratic inertias and ideological fidelities with amuch larger application framework. The ideological components of romantic

* Assistant, University of Timisoara, e-mail: [email protected].

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Leninism, although contradictory, manage to coexist and even reciprocally potentiatethemselves, the result being a schizoid ideology in whose theoretical texture one canfind modern or ultramodern conceptualizations (Leninist ones, like the orientation

towards future as a legitimizing source for the present or exacerbated positivism, theregime considering it has the scientific mission to lead Romania on the road ofbuilding socialism, but also fascist ideas, Fascism being on its turn a modernphenomenon, and here we could include the diminishing role of the party in relationto that of the leader, xenophobic discourses or the affinities for military theories andactivities), respectively pre or antimodern conceptualizations (romanticism exemplifiedtrough the cult of heroism or the exaggerated nationalism through which the regimetried to mobilize the apathetic population, purging it in the same time of itsbourgeois or counterrevolutionary categories).1

Aspects regarding the ideological content of romantic LeninismConfronted with the danger of dismemberment for the young Soviet state

due to its centrifugal nationalist forces, Lenin advanced the formula national in form,socialist in content, a compromise through which the cultural and nationalparticularities of the Soviet republics, the former Tsarist provinces, were recognizedalong with their economic, social and political transformation according with the mainideas of the Bolshevik revolution.2 Referring to Ceau escus Romania, GeorgeSchpflin considers that the Leninist desideratum had metamorphosed so much untilit became socialist in form and national in content.3 No matter how percussive thisexpression, I argue that it does not fully reflect the ideological content of romanticLeninism. On short, Leninism, in its post-revolutionary form,4 was never inferior toFascistic nationalism, even if sometimes its visibility was lower; within romanticLeninism, nationalism and Leninism have approximately the same share. The attemptof comparing them can only provide disappointing results.

Next, we shall shortly analyze the main political concepts of romanticLeninism, respectively their international equivalents. We will start with revolutionary

1 I widely analyze romantic Leninism in my doctoral thesis entitled Geneza leninismului romantic. O perspectivteoretic asupra orientrii internaionale a comunismului romnesc, 1948-1989, defended in December 2011 at theBabe -Bolyai University.2 Emanuel Copila The Moscow centre and its peripheries: an ideological overview of the SovietsUnion difficulties as a multinational state, Political studies forum, 1 (2009): 113-146.3 George Schpflin Gorbachev, Romania and Leninist nationalit ies policiy, Background Report. Eastern

Europe, no. 96, 12 June, Arhiva 1989, 3.4 I have advanced, in the article Counter-idea of the 20th century. Varieties of Leninism in Soviet andpost-Soviet Russia, under review at Communist and Post-Communist Studies, a typology of SovietLeninism as it follows: revolutionary Leninism (classical), post-revolutionary Leninism (Stalinism),Europeanized Leninism (Khrushchevism), systemic Leninism, (Brezhnevism) and post-BolshevikLeninism (Gorbachevism). Without entering into details, I consider the first three types as revolutionary,in the sense that, in different degrees, appreciated the global revolution as unavoidable and acted, indifferent ways, for its reification, while at the last two types the revolutionary substance disappears, in thefirst case because of using strict political means and of the slow renunciation of ideology (globalrevolution) in the relations with imperialism, and in the last case due to the repudiation of the Bolshevikdimension of Leninism, of the democratic centralism which instituted the infallibility of the communistparty and its role as the unique guide of the revolutionary process.


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Socialist in form, national in content? The national-international relation in the ideological economy of romantic Leninism

working democracy or working democracy, a phrase introduced by Ceau escu at thebeginning of the 1980s in order to replace the now obsolete dictatorship of theproletariat.5 Ceau escu operated relatively late this ideological modification, withoutforgetting to criticize the communist parties which already gave up the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, like the French Communist Party (FCP). Let us see the ideologicaljustification of the new concept:

Defining the state in other way than the state of the dictatorship of theproletariat is highly legitimized by the realities of our society. Therefore, inRomania there is no longer a proletariatin the classical sense of the term, as anexploited and lacking means of production class, because, once obtainingpower and liquidating bourgeois exploitation, the working class has graduallychanged its situation in society becoming, along with other classes andcategories of working people, the owner of political power, owner of the mainmeans of production, the beneficiary of works results. Starting with the

historical moment of eliminating the exploiting classes, the state power of ourcountry does no longer have a dictatorship character, in the sense of dominationof one class over the other, because the social structure of the country includesonly classes and social categories with socialist features, between which there isa strong unity, based on the community of fundamental interests, whichdetermines their closeness and, with time, their homogenization.6

Just because the abolishment of class antagonism of the workingdemocracy has been superior to the bourgeois one: because it considered itself to betruly representative. Capitalist societies, whose politics is the result of conflictsbetween political parties which do not reflect nothing but social polarity and thesuperficial and limited character of the democracy they pretend to embody, their

electoral system being but a manipulative farce through which the attention of themasses was drowned from the most important problems would not have had, onthe long term, any other alternative but to embrace the socialist model ofdevelopment.7 In the Romanian Socialist Republic (RSR), the social model was basedon the primacy of the working class8, the most important class according to official

5 Constantin Cuciuc, Sistemul democraiei socialiste, (Bucure ti: Editura tiin ific i Enciclopedic, 1986), 20.6 Manea Bbu , Rolul i func iile statului nostru socialist stat al democra iei muncitore ti,revolu ionare, in Tematicii bibliografii pentru cercurile politico-educative(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1985), 71-72. Emphasis in original.7 Gheorghe Marinescu Problematica democra iei n cadrul confruntrilor ideologice contemporane, inConfruntri ideologice contemporane, coord. G. Marinescu, A. Tnase (Ia i: Junimea, 1981), 162-199;Programul P.C.R. despre criza democra iei n capitalismul contemporan, combaterea teoriilor burgheze

despre democra ie, in Socialismultiinifici problemele dezvoltrii economico-sociale a Romniei, (Bucure ti:Editura Politic, 1977), 117-125; Aristide Cioab, Funcia ideologic a partidelor politice din societatea capitalistactual, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1988); Marcel Negreanu, Democra ia burghez ntre apare e irealit i, in Capitalismul, ornduirea exploatriii asupririi umane, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1981), 92-97.8 Gheorghe Surpat, Clasa muncitoare: fora social conductoare n Romnia socialist, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic,1974).


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ideology, the other ones either gradually disappearing or conforming to itspretensions; however, the classes were nothing more than some ideologicalconstructs that distorted the social dynamics the Romanian Communist Party (RCP)

itself had put into practice, by simplifying it excessively. Working democracy wasintended therefore as an expression of the transformative force of the working class.

In order to understand revolutionary working democracy, we must start witha discussion about democratic centralism, an idea of Leninist extraction regarding themain principles which should guide the activity of every communist party. As only theRCP considered itself the force able to create a democratic regime for the popularmasses, the manner in which the party defined its internal functionality and the senseit attributed to democracy as an instrument of management is highly important inorder to interpret the applicability of the concept at the social level. The centralistdimension of the concept, was considered, ensured the unitary elaboration of thepartys program and policy, the unitary coordination and leadership of the activity ofparty organs and organizations from a single center, the respecting of the unique

discipline by all communists, the requirement of fulfilling the decisions of the higherorgans of the party by all communists, by all party organs and a organizations. On theother hand, the democratic dimension involved the participation of communists atleading and resolving the partys work, at debating and founding its internal andinternational policy; equal rights for all party members; the eligibility of leading partyorgans; collective leadership and work; the use of critique and self-critique, the controlof party members over the elected organs etc.9

Centralism and democracy would have made sense only together. They were,in other words, undivided, one in the absence of another could not have led but toinvalidating the historica mission the concept incorporates. Therefore, Without acentral leadership, democracy can degenerate into anarchy, which would endanger thesole revolutionary substance of working classs party, the same way as, without a

democracy to go through every fiber of party life, central leadership would risk tobureaucratize, which would paralyze the initiative spirit and the combativeness of theparty.10 Although propagandistically the original sense of democratic centralism wasmaintained, free debates followed by a decision with law value, the gesture ofdiscussing it further equating with a counterrevolutionary stance romanticLeninism kept only centralism; democracy, understood as free conversations andeven polemics, disappeared in its entirety. On the other hand, Lenins party disciplinewas highly valued by RCP, consisting in the essence of democratic centralism inromantic Leninist meaning.11

9 Centralismul democratic principiul fundamental al structurii organizatorice i a activit ii partidului,in Probleme fundamentale ale activitii de partidi de stat(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1977), 68; Ion Stnescu,Democraia internde partid(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1977), 7-28.10 Centralismul democratic..., 68-69; Iovan Gheorghe, Centralismul democratic principiulfundamental al structurii organizatorice i al activit ii partidului. Principalele direc ii ale dezvoltriicentralismului democratic n etapa actual, in Probleme fundamentale ale statutului P.C.R., ale normelor munciiivieii comunitilor, (Bucure ti: Sec ia de propagand a C.C. al P.C.R., 1980), 59-60; Perfecionarea organizriiiconducerii vieii sociale. Rolul statului socialist(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972), 17-18.11 Stnescu, 57-82.


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Outside the party, at the social level, democratic centralism was meant tointegrally elaborate and guide the directions of development, respectively ensure theactive participation of the population in this process.12 We can talk now about

revolutionary working democracy, a superior unity stage between socialism anddemocracy13, in which the people, through the party, actively contributed to buildingsocialism. However, this type of democracy is not limited to being the echo of thetransformations from economy and social life; on the contrary, it had to bring itsactive support to impelling the metamorphoses that guide the road to communism.The desideratum basically proves the apathy and indifference of the populationtowards the official ideology. Romantic Leninism could not tolerate, at least not forlong, this kind of attitude. Its revolutionary substance, which never left it, imposed aboth militant and integrative behavior: it was not sufficient for the population toresign in relation to the apparently irreversible power of the regime; it was to becomean active and conscious part of its ideological project. That is why in the wholesystem of socialist democracy revolutionary spirit must be manifested, in order not to

institute immobility, commodity in thinking, formalism, bureaucracy, the lack ofdiscipline and order, the disrespect for laws.14 Moreover, the responsibility and dutytowards the community represented the sole warranty of working democracy,through which working people contributed to overcoming necessity and stepping inthe realm of freedom.15

The RCP, through the state, at the political level, and through the Front ofSocialist Unity, renamed in the 1980s the Democratic Front of Socialist Unity at thesocial level, exercised its leadership directly and discretionary over the whole massand common organizations, on their turn part of the Front.16 In this way, we canunderstand the partys ability to thoroughly manage the form of society, arguing thatpolitical decision is not the sum of individual acts, but the collective, general will,expression of the fundamental interests of the people, of the nation17; the small

bourgeois content of society, on the other hand, remained unbeatable for the regime.Let us see what Ceau escu himself understood trough working democracyand democracy at large.

12 Constantin Popovici, Centralismul democratic principiu fundamental de organizare i de conducerea vie ii social-politice, in Introducere ntiina conducerii societii socialiste, coord. M. Constantinescu,(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1974), 54.13 Constantin Cuciuc, Sistemul democraiei socialiste, (Bucure ti: Editura tiin ific i enciclopedic), 25.14 Ibid., pp. 27; Vasile Nichita, Democra ia muncitoreasc, revolu ionar cucerire istoric a poporuluiromn condus de Partidul Comunist Romn, expresie a superiorit ii ornduirii noastre socialiste, inTematicii bibliografii pentru cercurile politico-educative(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1985) 81-91.15 Cuciuc, 65.16 Stana Buzatu, Frontul unitii socialiste, expresie a unitii ntregului popor, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1975);Cuciuc; Gheorghe Butaru, Organizaiile de masi obteti n viaa social-politic a Romniei, (Bucure ti: EdituraPolitic, 1987), 148-158; Programul Partidului Comunist Romn de furire a societii socialiste multilateral dezvoltatei naintare a Romniei spre comunism(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1975), 135-136.17 Ioan Ceterchi, Participarea maselor la conducerea societ ii esen a democra iei socialiste, in Statulsocialist romn n etapa actual (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1976), 109.


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Party democracy, the development of socialist democracy in general arehighly bound and must be conceived in close relation with the growth of thesense of responsibility for everyone, of party order and discipline. These do not

only contradict, but condition themselves: they cannot be conceived onewithout the other. Party democracy cannot be conceived without order anddiscipline, without working responsibility, as party responsibility, order anddiscipline cannot be conceived without a high political-ideological level ofunderstanding, without conscious action carried in whole sectors of activity. Itis not about blind discipline. It is about that everyone, entering the communistparty, becoming activist of a revolutionary party which proposes to transformthe world, engaged itself to be militant, a soldier of this party, to exemplarilycarry out the duties entrusted to him. This in a conscious manner!18

Internal party democracy or democratic centralism and, socially, theworking democracy, are not to be confounded with socialist democratism, although

all three of them have the same ideological source, romantic Leninism. The lastconcept refers to the socialist state which, subordinated on its turn to the RCP andprogressively indistinct with reference to it, would have been structured by a realdemocracy, understood as governing of the people by the people and expressed inour electoral system, meant to ensure election in the supreme organs of state power,as well as in local organs of state power of the best and most competent of theworking people.19

In the field of international relations, the RCP attributed in general the samesense to democracy; however, one must take into account that it had to act in anideological hostile environment, in the last years of east-European communismmanaging to turn against it the majority of brotherly countries, over which thebourgeois influence was increasingly visible. When it pled for democratizing

international relations, romantic Leninism was not at all in ideological discontinuitywith its internal orientation. On the contrary, it manifested a tireless will to emphasizethe growing role of small and medium states in global decisions, which were notmoral to reach in the absence of consensus, to equalize the political powers of statesin a way that the underdeveloped or developing ones because RSR imagined itself,along China, as a model to slowly but surely counter the hegemony of imperialism.The main international organizations, UN for example, had to be democratized andrationalized as to equitable reflect the new international realities.20

18 Nicolae Ceau escu, Democraia socialist n Romnia, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1979), 79-80; see alsoDumitru Iacob, Democra ia socialist. Adncirea democra iei legitate a furirii societ ii socialiste

multilateral dezvoltate, a naintrii Romniei spre communism, in Curs de socialismtiinific, (Bucure ti:Editura Politic, 1979), 406-426.19 Ceterchi, art. cit., p. 115.20 Ion Datcu, Organiza ia Na iunilor Unite n sistemul rela iilor interna ionale contemporane, inProbleme internaionale. Agenda 1980, coord. T. Caraiuc (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1980), 96-116; RomulusNeagu, O.N.U. Adaptare la cerinele lumii contemporane(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1983).


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President Nicolae Ceau escu conceives the democratization ofinternational relations as a process with ethical valences that claim the actionstook within its framework not to be orientated against anyone, but to equallyserve the interests of all states. Therefore it demonstrates the repudiation frominternational life of equalities, hegemonism and of the whole system ofinstitutions, norms and methods created on this basis, which offer advantagesto some and disadvantages to many. This presupposes, as our partys generalsecretary repeatedly underlined, the making of structural mutations in theinternational field, in the sense of a full accordance between the principalaffirmation of the adhesion to humanitys great ideals pace, security,cooperation and the action of transposing them into practice. 21

Of course Romanias permanent aims were rather propagandistic thatpractical, aiming to discriminate the politics of imperialism, which was not eager at allto fulfill its objectives. But their recurrence indicates Ceau escus firm conviction in

the process of internationally expanding socialism in the absence of a ruling center(like Moscow used to be), and in the possibility of speculating new tendencies, real orimagined, for its own political-ideological purposes.

The conception that the fate of humanity lays exclusively in the hands ofgreat powers corresponds no more to the new conditions of social developments,Gheorghe Dolgu writes, therefore the edification of relations between states shouldhave been envisioned on the foundation of principles, norms, policies and decisionalmechanisms which to guarantee and factually ensure full equality in rights for nations,respect of independence and national sovereignty, noninterference in domestic affairs,mutual advantage. Dolgu goes on: The world force ratio is favorable to innovatingchanges. Socialist countries, with their growing weight on the world arena, developingcountries, strong trough the processes taking place both within them, and in the world

economy, to the consciousness of their specific interests and the force of their front,national liberation movements, the movement of nonaligned countries, the activity ofsmall and medium countries, the ascension of left forces, of democratic andprogressive movements in Western countries, are all potential or real forces ofchange.22 Romantic Leninism was convinced of its international perseverance powerand its persuasive capacities. But between its militancy, on one hand, and its politicalweight, on the other, existed an outphasing that, instead of diminishing or at leastremaining constant, it will gradually increase.

In terms ofsocialist morals or ethics, RCPs propagandistic activity offered thema central place in the process of creating the socialist consciousness of masses. InLeninist regimes, morality was permanently subsumed to the political objectives of thegoverning party. Ethics as well, meaning the moral progress of society in accepting theLeninist Weltanschauung. In other words, the distinction between good and evil,

21Mic enciclopedie de relaii internaionale pentru tineret(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1984), 62.22 Gheorghe Dolgu, Independen i interdependen , obietive i ci ale edificrii unei noi ordinieconomice interna ionale, in Concepia preedintelui Nicolae Ceauescu despre noua ordine economic internaional,(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1976), 70-106.


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between values and non or anti-values could be understood only in relation withpolitical power, whose projective finality constituted the global revolution. Overmorale and ethical thinking exercise a strong influence political and ideological

conscience, writes I. Bonis. Consequently, communist morale forms under theinfluence of the political conscience of the proletariat, weighting and valuing moralacts, in any society, being made, actually, from the point of view of politicalaspirations and interests.23 Without their own means of evaluation, counting only aspolitical efficiency, morale and ethics are semantically embezzled and became part ofthe Leninist arsenal against bourgeois reality. Communism gave man not only thehighest ideal from the history of mankind, we can read in a RCPs propagandisticbrochures, the full emancipation of all oppression and exploitation, conqueringhuman dignity, opening the road to happiness, but it laid the basis of a morale inaccordance with this ideal.24

Socialist ethics, on the other hand, understood as socially extended morality,would have differentiate from previous types of ethics by its new social content and

trough liquidating the social relations based on private property, on the exploitationof man by man, on inequitable relations between men, on national and racialdiscriminations; the new etic had as central objective building new social relations,based on equality among humans, on peoples collaboration in the working process,creating a new social-political, juridical and economic order.25 On the whole, themorale and ethics of Leninist regimes aimed at the dismantling of the old bourgeoismentality and its replacement with a socialist conscience, which to guarantee theactive integration of its subjects in the Leninist ideological project. While during the1970s and 80s, the Soviet Union and most of the east-European states stoppedbelieving in the validity of Leninist norms and lowered to a great extent the ideologicalguard, an imprudence which will prove, corroborated with other factors, fatal therevolutionary combativeness of RSR was maintained at high quotas, even radicalized.

According to the romantic-Leninist meaning of socialist morality, thecommunist truth must prove principledness permanently advocating the affirmationand imposition of the political priorities and ideological orientation of RCP.

Our party cannot admit within its rank partisans of doubleaccountability principled at work, unprincipled after work. Principlednessmust belong to the whole activity of a party member. The principles ofcommunist morale must not be abandoned after work, as an overall; shamefulbehavior in family life, in social relations discredits in the same extent as abusesin exercising do. The communist does not have two lives a public and apersonal life; he is not and cannot be principled only in working hours ormeetings; he does not know morale at work and another at home. 26

23 I. Bonis,Morala socialist (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972), 15.24Etici echitate socialist (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972), 402.25 Ioan Grigora , Principii de etic socialist (Bucure ti: Editura tiin ific, 1974), 138.26Etici echitate socialist, 403.


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Besides principledness, the communist must have proved intransigency,relentlessly unmasking the enemies of the people. Although it argues that itstrengthens the community bound, romantic Leninism has only worked against it and

create the exact duplicitous mentality which it accused in the above lines. Where laysthen the inadvertency? In understanding the fact that romantic Leninism advocated infavor of a community made of members with an already formed revolutionaryconscience, ideologically mature and faithful to party discipline. Collectivityaggregated around bourgeois values and principles abhorred romantic Leninism. But,as any society, the Romanian one was founded too on the same non-Leninistaxiological bases. The struggle for transforming it into a party consisting in idealizedmembers, militants, disciplined, consequents and intransigent will represent one ofthe main objectives of romantic-Leninism. Not being able to reach it, it will becomemore and more hostile to the bourgeois tendencies existent at the social level, bywhich it will be overwhelmed in a not so distant future.

Most of the times, allowance and tolerance regarding the violation ofthe norms of our ethic is justified trough humanly considerations, trough helpoffered for the moral recuperation of some people. Undoubtedly, when itcomes to mistakes, random, minor deviations, unimportant for the moralprofile of the person in question, tact and measure is imposed in the way weintervene. But one must never forget that, by deceiving the thrust offered tothem, exploiting the moral credit they received, some specialize themselves incommitting recurrent mistakes, which they regret every time, only to resumethem once they consider themselves free of control.

No abuse, no injustice, no violation of social norms can let a partymember indifferent; he must decisively combat the tolerance mentality forabuses and illegalities, a mentality which contributes, in fact, to their

perpetuation an encouragement. It is the duty of every communist not toexpect the appearance of unpleasant situations in order to intervene, but tocreate everywhere an atmosphere of exigency and party-like combativeness.Sadly, there still are party members which neglect the activity of systematicallycommunist education of people, limiting themselves to intervene whenviolations that require severe measures are signaled. It is clear that, through thiskind of campaign character, the efficacy of the communist education work ishighly diminished. In many cases, the negative evolution of some partymembers could have been avoided if it would have been understood in goodtime that exigencyand not the attitude of allowance means, in fact, solicitude andparty-like spirit.27

Behind personal and inter-personal aspects, the corner-stone of socialist

ethics remained the fidelity towards the motherland. Therefore, the nationalismromantic Leninism contained is fully making its ideological presence felt, becoming,paradoxically, if we take into account the internationalist principles of revolutionary

27 Ibid., 410-411.


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Leninism a defining criteria in appreciating the quality of a communist. Nothingseems to attract preciousness and esteem more sacredfor man, Ioan Grigora writesemphatically, as its infinite devotion for the motherland, its patriotic heroism, its spirit ofsacrifice which can go to the supreme sacrifice for the defense and good of themotherland.28 Or, as Paul Popescu-Neveanu argues, The supreme moral law ofcommunists, al all new men, is serving with a selflessness carried on to sacrifice of thelife interests of the people, of the socialist Motherland.29

The communist, a disciplined member of the party, was either a member ofthe working class, either it made everything possible to ideologically connect theworkers, along with the class they were part of, to the RCPs imperatives. Generally,the working class; was imagined as consisting in devoted communists, with acorresponding moral and political profile. Vanguard of building socialism in the RSR,the working class would have possessed a social ideal that through its specificfeatures and values, exercises a considerable influence over the numerous aspects ofhuman activity and consciousness. But, in classical Marxism, social existence

determines social consciousnesses. Within Leninist regimes, especially when theyenter a period of stagnation followed most of the time by decline, the ratio is reversed,social conscience, never fully established, being called for to create a imagined socialreality, normative-Leninist, in established to counter their societies expansivebourgeois tendencies. The process was fully experienced by romantic Leninism. Theideal determines and modifies attitudes, concentrates the superior initiatives and attitudes,which orient appreciation and determine the critique and negation of everythingproven inefficient or worthless in the real process and in the future perspectives.30The ideal becomes therefore more important than reality, which obstinately remainsbourgeois, and romantic Leninism, sieged both internally and externally by thebourgeois ideological counteroffensive, resists by progressively amplifying itsrevolutionary intransigence.

Behind socialist ethic and morale was the revolutionary spirit, meaning theidealfollowed by the proletariat and the causefor which it and the masses following itfight. Inherent to the revolutionary spirit were the dedication, devotion and totalengagement, even to sacrifice, for the cause of the revolution.31 Another proofsupporting the hypothesis that for Leninist regimes, social conscience becomes moreimportant than social existence can be found in the next quote: Socialism ()requests more and more a perspective over what must to be done, a prospectiveconscience, supported by scientific knowledge of present and future existence and bya just relation between individual and social interests.32 Or, in the words of E.Damian, as the tasks become more complex, the request of strengthening the

28 Grigora , 254. Emphasis mine.29 Paul Popescu-Neveanu,Amgirei adevr n moral, (Bucure ti: Editura tiin ific, 1968), 101.30 Gheorghe Berescu, Responsabilitate i competen n exercitatea activit ii profesionale; idealurilesociale i etice ale casei muncitoare, in Gheorghe Surpat, op. cit., 198. Emphasis mine.31 Grigore Zanc,Etica spiritului revoluionar, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1975) 18. Emphasis in original.32 Ibid., p. 38; see also Ion Berceanu, Spiritul revolu ionar, inA trii a munci n chip comunist, ed. M.Iordnescu, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1976), 52-62.


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revolutionary character of the whole party work becomes more stringent.33 RomanticLeninism always subordinated the real to the ideal, to which the first wouldunavoidably tend. That is why, within revolutionary, non-bourgeoised Leninist

regimes, the social and implicitly the economic are permanently subsumed to theideologically determined political. Using a counter factualist, but scientifically fertileargument, despite the methodological limit it encounters, we can affirm that KarlMarx would have condemned the 20th century Leninist regimes as forms of a newkind of despotism, legitimated on the basis of distorting the emancipator and morallyliving ideas extracted from his and Engelss work.

Internationally, socialist morality and ethics consisted not in opennesstowards values or general behavior or even universally accepted norms, but instrategic alliances with progressive forces and communist parties. In this case aswell, relations had to be concluded exclusively through the party, meaning under thedirect surveillance of Ceau escu himself, because the danger of bourgeois ideologicalintrusion was ubiquitous, both externally and internally. The above quotes fully

demonstrate this. And this is why, without a sufficiently developed socialistconsciousness, neither the great majority of party members was not considered ableto manage such a task.34 In Kenneth Jowitts terms, the RCP was a real ideologicalfortress, penetrated on its turn by counter-revolutionary ideas and orientations, andwhich made everything possible to isolate itself with ratio to the society it governedand the outside world, trying in the same time, trough different means, to imprintthem its own ideological mould.35

Education represents another major component of the romantic Leninistproject. Conceived as to structure the thinking, attitudes and behavior of childrenaccording to the ideological requests of the RCP, education extended also over adults.For the transformative ambitions of romantic Leninism, education could only bepermanent.36 We are not talking about classic education in this case, but Leninist

education, its central objective being just the narrowing of thinking capacities and freedevelopment, their confiscation and instrumentation for achieving the impossiblerevolutionary ideal. Not surprisingly, the functions of education must be redefined inorder to correspond to the bold but realist projects of connecting the actualpossibilities to the future alternatives. The learning process becomes synonymouswith an unchaining of human potential, a stimulation of intellectual and affectiveforces, a development of capacity that is not founded on past or present (bourgeois, m.n.)experience, having as characteristics the cultivation of self-trust, self-renewal,independence, responsibility, transformative spirit and, maybe the most importantaspect, the sense for future.37

33 E. Damian, Stili metod n munca de partid(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1975), 37.34Politica internaionalist a Partidului Comunist Romn(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972).35 See Kenneth Jowitt,New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:University of California Press, 1993).36 E. Dimitriu,Educaia permanent educaie a ntregului popor(Bucure ti: Editura tiin ific iEnciclopedic, 1978).37 Ibid., 28. Emphasis mine.


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As a future flag carrier of romantic Leninism, youth represented a specificsocial category for RCPs propagandistic activity, whose ideological enrolling wasconsidered vital for ensuring the continuity of building socialism. As in the case of

socialist ethics and morality, from which it was inseparable, permanent education ofthe whole people was centered on safeguarding the socialist homeland on whosealtar nothing was too precious to be sacrificed. We must raise he young, Dimitriuwrites, to form generations of working people which will be ready anytime for anysacrifice and even give their life to protect the sovereignty and independence of thesocialist homeland.38 As the educative ambitions of the regime towards the youngsuffered growing deceptions, these opting in their majority for the Western culturalmodel as a prophylaxis against the attempts to turn them into new men39, the RCPpropaganda amplified the presumptive miserable, lowering and degrading condition ofcapitalist societies immigrants, most of them young. These would have had onlyephemeral and low paid jobs, marked by the chronically social and economicinsecurity the West would have experienced.40 It was hoped that the nostalgy of the

socialist homeland will determine the young to return to the country. In th end, thearticulation of socialist consciousness, where the bourgeois reality was replaced bythe fluid by means but teleologically determined reality of romantic Leninism, andwhere the West was on the verge of collapse and the RSR obtained amazing progresson every domain did not require such an outstanding effort

Reflecting on the role of education in the problems of contemporary world,Mircea Du u argued that

The objectives and dimensions of a new world order, the obsoletecharacter and highly negative, multifaceted consequences of underdevelopment,the multiple and profound gaps which characterize the present world and thenecessity to overcome them reflect themselves, under specific forms, in the

education disciplines, in other school and extra-school activities. Numerouspublications, the press, radio and television shows offer special attention to thepresentation of new world order, to the actions took on different meridians inthe direction of its expected settlement, o the initiatives and steps of socialistRomania, of president Nicolae Ceau escu regarding the settlement, in theinterest of the peoples, of the great problems to which, in the present days, thewhole world is confronted.41

Internationally, permanent education would have contributed to theunderstanding, accepting and promoting the regimes objectives: the democratization

38 Ibid., 52; see also, G. Videanu and A. Neculau, eds. Tineretuli lumea contemporan (Ia i: Junimea, 1985)andMic Enciclopedie, 92-104.39 Bogdan Barbu, Vin americanii! Prezena simbolica Statelor Unite n Romnia Rzboiului Rece(Bucure ti:Humanitas, 2006), 15.40Occident 80. Destinul dramatic al tinerei generaii, ed. R. Nd an, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1989).41 Mircea Du u,Educaiai problemele lumii contemporane(Bucure ti: Albatros, 1989), 213.


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of international relations, the building of the new world order and, especially in the1980s, the legitimation of RCPs general secretary as a first hand international figure.

Working democracy, socialist morality and ethics and permanent education

were synergistically orientated towards the creation of the new man, completelyideological and capable, at the partys request, of anything. The phrase can also befound in the discourses of Fascist regimes, having basically the same sense. Educatedor formed as an integral part of the opera of edification of multilateral developedsocialist society and advance to communism, the new man constituted withinromantic Leninist imaginary, the hero (not the Hero, that could only be Ceau escu)armed with revolutionary vigilance and possessing socialist consciousness and nothesitating to place itself at the partys disposition, implicitly to Ceau escus, anytime,anyhow, anywhere, both in the country and outside it.42

In Octavian Fodors reading, Self-forging and internal buildingrepresented the main coordinates of the new mans spirituality. Internal building hasthe role of isolating the subject from the typically bourgeois ideas and temptations,

the process taking place within a tremendous revolutionary impetus. Nothing exaltsthe will for better, the fervor, the spiritual powers of man than the vigorousaffirmation of a personality purified trough intransigence, Fodor continues. The newman is, just like in the ideological program of the Iron Guard, a hero43 capable ofenduring the worst deprivations in the name of the revolutionary ideal andpermanently willing to resort to the ultimate sacrifice in this sense. And his heroismhas nothing in common with a rational, quiet, calm way of living. No. Only thebourgeois spirit is complacent in these cheap satisfactions and aims obtaining facilesuccesses, being therefore followed by the risk of infatuation and softness. The newman succeeds in disciplining itself when the situation calls for it, also manifesting anoverflowing enthusiasm regarding the partys directives.44 If it would have succeededin creating new men, Leninist regimes would have probably survived, no matter hw

harsh the economic conditions, because the latter would have been completelyimmune to the bourgeois realitys temptations.Revolutionary socialist patriotism expresses another way of combining Leninism

and romanticism in post 1965 Romania. Understood as the complex, concrete-historical reflection of the motherland, the sole patriotic consciousness objectivated inthe thinking, conception, attitude and sense of men45, the romantic Leninist versionof patriotism meant, along with the above analyzed concepts, another form of socialmobilization trough ideological coordinates. Furthermore, revolutionary socialistpatriotism aimed to contribute to the development of socialist consciousnesses by

42 See Cre terea rolului tiin elor sociale n procesul de educare i formare a omului nou, constructorcon tient i devotat al socialismului i comunismului n Romnia, in Probleme ale materialismului dialecticiistorici ale roluluitiineii tehnicii n progresul economico-social alrii, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1977), 368-

375.43 Emanuel Copila , Confiscarea lui Dumnezeu i mecanismul inevitabilit ii istorice. O compara ie ntremitologia legionar i cea a comunismului romnesc, (I), Sfera Politicii, 135 (2009): 92-103.44 Octavian Fodor, Autozidirea con tient, in M. Iordnescu, op. cit, 31-38.45 Constantin Rducu; Ecaterina Deliman, Dimensiunea contemporan a patriotismului revoluionar socialist,(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1983), 38. Emphasis in original.


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complementing it with a patriotic dimension. Two specifications are required. First ofall, revolutionary socialist patriotism is not to be confounded with bourgeoisnationalism which it attacked; expressing the interests and position of the working

class, revolutionary socialist patriotism would have had nothing in common with thetype of nationalism met in capitalist societies, based on the embezzlement of nationalsentiments by the oppressive bourgeoisie.46 In romantic Leninist terms, nationalistmeant chauvinistic nationalist incensing or national discord policy. The RCP did notneed something like this in order to pursue its own ideological utopia even if,eventually, it brought up just those effects of nationalism - but peace andcollaboration between ethnic minorities, both translated trough an increased yield inbuilding socialism. And the working class, forcibly integrating from the point ofview of means and illusory from the perspective of its success all ethnic and nationalgroups from RSR, was credited as being able to put this desideratum into practice. AsCeau escu ranted at the Congress of Unions from 1976,

Becoming a leading class in society, the working class has the high dutyof protecting the freedom of the homeland, the independence and sovereigntyof the people, to do everything for the nations prosperity and wellbeing, toensure the building of the new social order according to specific historicalconditions and will of the entire people. Ignoring the safeguarding of nationalindependence, accepting the violation of the sovereignty of the people to whichthe working class belongs to, the communist party, are synonymous, in the lastinstance, with the abdication from Marxist-Leninist revolutionary principles,from the mission entrusted by history to communists, with slipping on theslope of cosmopolitism and national nihilism.

This is why, despite the new bourgeois theories of mondialization47 which

relativized the importance of the national factor in the more and more complex andinterdependent processes taking place in the world, the nation, the strengthening ofnational independence are determinant factors of progress, of communism itself onour planet!48, the general secretary of RCP argued.

Second, revolutionary socialist patriotism was considered to be fullyinternationalist. But what romantic Leninism understood trough internationalism hadalmost nothing in common whit the sense of proletarian internationalism theorizedby systemic Leninism (see note 4). For Brezhnev, the principled importance ofinternationalizing the revolutionary experience resided, ritualistically invoking Lenin,in being aware of the fact that every separate attempt to build a new (socialist, m.n.)society can suffer from an a form of unilateralism or another, from imperfection, thatintegral socialism is forged on the basis of international cooperation of the

46Naiunea socialist (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972). 179.47 Constantin Rducu; Ecaterina Deliman, op. cit., p. 54.48 Nicolae Ceau escu, Cuvntare la Congresul uniunii..., inAprarea patriei..., 343-344.


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proletariat from all countries.49 Under the legitimate guidance of the Soviet Union,one could add. Internationalism, in systemic Leninisms vocabulary, has an almostidentical sense when referred to the general semantics of the term.

But for romantic Leninism, internationalism could only begin from thenational. Therefore, revolutionary socialist patriotism represented the guarantee ofinternational solidarity, and it could not be interpreted as narrow nationalism or as apolicy of national isolation, as, of course, internationalism remains incompatible withcosmopolitanism, hegemonism and great power chauvinism, with the denial orunderestimation of the role of nation or of the national state.50 The Soviet meaning ofthe term was therefore rejected as great power chauvinism or hegemonism. In thesame time, cultural and economic globalization, which gradually made its presence feltin the West, was labeled as cosmopolitanism, an artificial theoretical construct due tothe absence of its anchoring in a national soil, the only measure unit accepted byromantic Leninism at the international level.

Internationalism unconditionally presupposes the free and equal inrights existence of nations, the development of independent communist partiesas a fundamental and decisive premise of their ties of brotherly solidarity. Theduty of communists consists first of all in preoccupying themselves with theorganization of the revolutionary struggle in their own country, and whey theyare government parties in ensuring the building of socialist society. In no casethe care for the progress and prosperity of their country is realized on theexpense of other peoples, against or denying the interests of others, can bepresented as an expression of nationalism. On the contrary, only in this waycommunists fulfill their role of vanguard and ruling force of their own people,they contribute to creating relations of respect and trust between all peoples the basis of a real solidarity with revolutionary movements from all countries. 51

Or, on an intellectual wannabe tone, Ceau escu continued: the origin of theword internationalism is Latin, it is composed from the particles inter and natioand it etymologically means collaboration between nations. It is normal to conceivenationalism as relations between brotherly socialist nations, free, equal andindependent. Only between free and independent nations we can speak of acollaboration equal in rights, of true socialist internationalism.52 Romantic Leninistinternationalism was intelligible exclusively through the prism of nationalism; in fact, itwas nothing more than romantic nationalism projected internationally. Reversely,systemic Leninist internationalism, even if it synthesized Moscows external interests,it had nevertheless a different ideological content, much closer to that of revolutionaryLeninism even if, by that time, its revolutionary substance was pretty much gone.

49 Leonid Brejnev, Scopul nostru este paceai socialismul, (Moscova: Editura Agen iei de Pres Novosti, 1978),207. Emphasis in original.50 Rducu and Deliman, 52. Emphasis mine.51Naiunea socialist, 179-180.52 Ibid.,163.


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In an article published in 1970, Kenneth Jowitt convincingly proves how theRCP redefined internationalism. If in the period of post-revolutionary Leninisminternationalism derived from Moscows power as indisputable and even legitimate

center of the communist world, starting with the second half of the 1960s, Romaniancommunists reversed its meaning, transforming it into a national particularity:collective power would have begun from now on with the power of unities. In thisway, Jowitt continues, preferring an approach based on cooperation, where theprotagonists constructively interact in spite the differences separating them to aconsensus based on voluntary and unconditional obedience towards the Moscowcenter, the RCP replaced the notion of monolithic unity with a concept very similarto Adam Smiths invisible hand.53 The idea is fertile, being probably influenced byfunctionalism, an important current in international relations theory in the 1960s.Beyond theoretical details, the point is that romantic Leninism radically altered theSoviet sense of internationalism, another proof of its ideological independence inrelation with the Moscow center.

As in the 1980s the population furthered away from the regime while thelatter consequently radicalized, revolutionary socialist patriotism will bepreponderantly orientated towards defending the revolutionary conquests of theRomanian people (their expansion became less probable), whose revolutionaryconsciousness was not in sight. The young, so much appreciated in officialpropaganda, became a Trojan horse for the pernicious bourgeois ideas. Assumingand living the revolutionary conception about world and life, of the policy of our partyhas a decisive role in overcoming pressures and reactionary national-chauvinisticbourgeois propaganda, in eliminating the old habits and prejudices which can touchcertain members of our society, but especially the young, to which beside lack ofexperience, the predisposition of erroneous superficial, unselective appreciation ofsome realities is added.54

All concepts discussed above revolutionary working democracy, socialistethics and morality, permanent education, the new man, revolutionary socialistpatriotism express the desideratum of romantic Leninism to maximize its domesticand international power. Within them nationalism prevails, but not in the detriment ofLeninism. Social militancy, revolutionary intransigence, and the obsession ofindustrialization, about to be analyzed all these are intrinsically Leninist categories.Furthermore, the nationalism found within romantic Leninism cannot be ideologicallyequated with bourgeois nationalism, although their social effects are the same.Revolutionary socialist patriotism is always oriented, in the virtue of its underlyingLeninism towards the future, and its ideological attitude is much more totalizing andintransigent than in the case of usual nationalisms from which, at its turn, is inspiredby. But it does it in order to overcome them, to create, in time, a nationalism free ofthe strait-lecas of any bourgeois reference. In a bourgeois to a great extent world, in

which event most of the Leninist regimes were retreating and therefore involuntarily,

53 Kenneth Jowitt, The Romanian Communist Party and the world socialist system: a redefinition ofunity, document of the Institute of international studies(Berkeley, University of California, 1970), 43.54 Dumitru Popa,Aprarea cuceririlor revoluionare ale poporului romn, (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1987), 153.


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but surely, embourgeoised themselves, romantic Leninisms ambition to create anideologically sterilized form of nationalism which would have confirmed its internalsovereignty and the much desired international independence could not have been

more than an utopia. Maybe that is why it was persuaded, until the end, with irrationalfervor.

Last, but not least, RCP tried, as all Leninist parties did, to impose its ownunderstanding of nationalism, respectively internationalism, as deriving directly fromthe works of Marx and Engels and Lenin. All three of them are integrated in theMarxist-Leninist category, despite the fact that between the first two and the last thereis a philosophical difference of nature, while also between Marx and Engels there is adegree difference, one could say, the Moor (Marxs nickname) being much moreintransigent and exigent than the General (Engelss nickname), which had in return amuch more accessible style of writing.55

A useful theoretical tool for understanding the whole romantic Leninist andLeninist in general vocabulary was what the French scholar Franoise Thom named

the wooden language.56 The wooden language, as permanent propaganda troughwhich Leninist regimes perceive and attack bourgeois reality, is designed not toexpand thinking and expressing, as any other language, but to reduce them,minimizing in this way the references to bourgeois categories of thinking, even if itterminologically instruments them. Gradually, even if the population resists officialpropaganda, it will involuntarily absorb, it was hoped, terms, ideas and attitudes withLeninist content, its immunity towards propaganda therefore decreasing.57

The personality cultThe ideological program of romantic Leninism cannot be approached in the

absence of understanding the personality cult that enveloped Ceau escu and whoseimplications exceeded by far the individuality of the general secretary of the RCP. As a

short preamble of the domestic, respective external dimension of the personality cult,one should start with some psychological features of the character. Some of the mostsuggestive analyses of Ceau escu the man come from former communist officials whoknew him in different extents. Let us start with Alexandru Brldeanu. Ceau escu wasnot happy at all, he confesses, seeming dry as tinder. Discording is that he likedromances, which denotes sentimentalism. Furthermore, the Romanian leader Hadanother odd characteristic: he could not stand happy people. Another ones wellbeingmade him physically sick. If you wanted to indispose him with something, you shouldonly how good you felt at a dinner in the eve or how pleasant a certain woman is. Ineveryday life, he could not stand happy people. Only generally he continually spoke of

55 Marx, Engels, Lenin, Dialectica raportului naional-internaional n dezvoltarea istoric, (Bucure ti: EdituraPolitic, 1987).56 Franoise Thom, Limba de lemn, (Bucure ti: Humanitas, 2005).57 Lavinia Betea, Psihologie politic. Individ,lider, mulime n regimul comunist, (Ia i: Polirom, 2002); EmanuelCopila , Confiscarea lui Dumnezeu i mecanismul inevitabilit ii istorice. O compara ie ntre mitologialegionar i cea a comunismului romnesc (II), Sfera Politicii, 39 (2009): 82-93.


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the good of the people.58 Without taking into account the unavoidable resentmentsBrldeanu held Ceau escu for being forcibly retired in 1967, this portrait contributesto understanding the fanatical, Leninist motivations underlying the political thinkingand decisions of Gheorghiu-Dejs successor. Another feature of Ceau escu wasimposing an extremely austere working style. On the meetings where he participatedsmoking was forbidden. Even the ministers, in their own offices, had not beenallowed to smoke. It is said that they smoked like high school teenagers in the WCsof their own offices.59

In order to convince ourselves of these features, we should give the floor toAlexandru Budi teanu, Bucharests chief architect between 1977 and 1983, the periodwhen the dictator was filled with urbanistic enthusiasms. Once he got to the yard,according to the already ritualistic working visits, Ceau escu and his wife startedtalking technical and esthetical enormities, asking for oversizing the projects already inwork. No one had the courage to contradict them, to tell them they talk nonsense.Moreover, the activists surrounding Ceau escu started thanking him for every

nonsense, even told him that his words had abruptly enlightened them. I wasexasperated, Budi teanu admits, but I have found a tactic. I also said, yes, yes,but I completed: Is it not good to present you with another variant? He becamecurios and asked what was it about and we started some kind of trickery, from whichto result that the technically feasible idea was actually his. I had to induce him thatbecause the general secretary of the RCP, who became president of RSR in 1974,could not accept good ideas from other people. The fact that he and only herepresents the unique source of a good idea was imperative. Budi teanu goes on: Ifyou told him that it was about futile financial and human sacrifices, that monuments,old buildings are being demolished, he became suddenly suspicious: Comrades, whohas the interest for this building not to be demolished?. About Ceau escus allegedbelief in God, deriving from the rural superstitions that he could not get ride of in

spite its Leninist education, Budi teanu offers a concise, simple and judiciousdiagnosis: Some pretend that he would have believed in God. I say he believedhimself in rivalry with him.60

Also, conceiving Ceau escu speeches was an entire adventure. They werestructured along his indications, respective dates the ministries supplied according tothe theme of the speech. Dumitru Popescu, chairman of the Culture Council, assistedby vice-president Ion Dodu Blan and Ion Brad, were responsible, at least in the1970s, for the final form of the speech. Once typed, Ceau escu read the manuscriptseveral times, having sometimes last minute interventions that required themobilization of a full army of activists. In order to avoid the interruptions, babblesand blunders of the general secretary of RCP, which entailed severe repercussions, thelatter tried to put up phrases which do not pose big reading and pronouncing

58 Lavinia Betea,Alexandru Brldeanu despre Dej, Ceauescui Iliescu(Bucure ti: Evenimentul Romnesc,1997), 203.59 Despre stilul de munc al pre edin ilor RSR de la Gheorghiu-Dej la Ceau escu, confidential report,Radio Free Europe, undated, probably 1972, 2.60 Toma Roman Jr., Ceauescu vzut de aproape(Bucure ti: Curtea Veche, 2008), 46-47.


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problems. Furthermore, in order to avoid his reproaches, the ones who wrote thespeeches deliberately pumped up the numbers. The RCP leader is thereforealarmingly lied to and it can be affirmed that in many times he makes good faith

statements in his speeches.61 I am not trying to present the thesis of an innocent, wellintended and manipulated by his subordinates Ceau escu, but the consequences of abehavior typical to Leninist regimes.

An interesting image of Ceau escus intimacy is offered by its former maid,Suzana Andreia . She remembers that, in family life, Ceau escu was extremely orderedand polite when he was not worrying about political problems and, in general, carefulwith Nicu, Zoia and Valentin, the dictatorial couples children. It seems thatCeau escu did not renounce the ambition of independence even in its personal life:He washed himself alone, dressed alone, undressed alone, he did not need anyone. Heplaced his things in perfect order, did not threw them on stools or other places.Never.62 Even if the former maid has an almost explicit admiration for Ceau escu,she also paradoxically express an open fear induced by almost thirty years of work in

the villas of the Ceau escu couple. Missis Maria, she confesses to the interviewee, Iwas rather forced to stay in the house of the Ceau escus. If I left, no one was allowedto hire me, nowhere. I had to stand always straight as a candle, not to bend over to theleft or to the right.63 Camil Roguski, an architect that has worked with Ceau escu,specialized in internal decorations, sustains that he and his wife were the followers ofthe extreme rigged out baroque style: what was most rigged out or thoroughly workedwas more beautiful. You will never see in his house a simple thing. Work meant forhim beauty. The more sculpted, painted, marquetry, the smaller the flowers from acarpet, the more that art, furniture, setting object was interesting. Regarding theresidences build for the Ceau escu couple, he liked what was bigger. He thought thatis more beautiful. Surely, more heroic too.

From the testimonies of those who knew Ceau escu personally one can

conclude that between his private and public life there is an undeniable continuity.Ceau escu lived as he thought: simple, rigid, dogmatic and pretended that everyonelived the same. Although in intimacy he would have been very natural64, it wasprobably a calculated attitude of the general secretary of RCP. Culinary and medically,he used only products that he got accustomed during his Scornice ti childhood.65Probably that is where he learnt an atavistic, basic nationalism, too little ideologicallyunderstood or approached. Post-revolutionary Leninism constituted the ideologicalmatrix, the structuring structure in Anthony Giddenss terms, which circumscribedCeau escus nationalist attachment during a process that led, combined withnumerous other factors like Romanian traditional nationalism Ceau escus capacity to

61 I.B., Q-124, Cum sunt pregtite discursurile lui Ceau escu, confidential report, Radio Free Europe,March 22, 1973, 1-3.62 Maria Dobrescu La curtea lui Ceauescu. Dezvluirile Suzanei Andreia despre viaa de familie a cuplului

prezidenial(Bucure ti: Amaltea, 2004), 80.63 Ibid., 170-171.64 Dobrescu, 80.65 Ibid.; Camil Roguski and Florentina Chivu, Ceauescu. Adevruri interzise(Bucure ti: Lucman, 2005).


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construe its political position in time, with patience and meticulousness, and to namein very important administrative positions persons who owed him their career andwere therefore, willingly or not, true to him, because their powers and privilege were

proportional with those of Ceau escu himself to the appearance, development andconsolidation of romantic Leninism. As mentioned, romantic Leninism cannot belimited to Ceau escus thinking, although it finds in it one of its most importantsources. Romantic Leninism represented an ideology from above, but whichmassively incorporated from below prejudices, reflexes or attitudes. It cannot beexactly said which dimension is the most important, the Leninist from above one, orthe romantic-nationalist, from below one, also found in the upper spheres of power.Such a question is pointless in the end, because romantic Leninism means an osmosisso profound between Leninism and romantic and also fascistic nationalism that anyattempt to accentuate the importance of one over the other is useless.

Returning to Ceau escus cult, the most plastic descriptions of Ceau escupsychology come probably from his former secretary, Silviu Curticeanu. I do not

believe that anyone from his entourage really loved him, he writes. It did not interesthim! He loved only his heroic image in the perspective of history that he himselfcreated, forgetting that the image is a fake. He was hated by many, but I cannot figureout if he knew and, especially, if it mattered to him. The revolutionary romanticismthrough which Ceau escu himself described the mobilizing attitude and fidelitytowards the regime which he wanted to inoculate the population at any cost isconfirmed once more. Regarding the dominant feature of its character, that was, inCurticeanus reading, cunningness; he always appears in my image with a thousandfaces and I cannot distinguish, even now, the mask from the true face. Hiscunningness was not that of a peasant, even if from the Olt region, but one almostdiabolical, which exceeded, many times, even Machiavellis imagination; clever andcunning in every circumstance, he frequently became perfidious, meretricious and

hypocritical.66 About his intelligence, Curticeanu has no doubt. For him, Ceau escuwas equipped with a native intelligence, the affirmations regarding his stupiditybeing gratuitous. I have talked much with him in private and never, regardless of thefield approached, did he leave me the impression of a man lacking intelligence.Without intending to contradict Curticeanu, I believe certain confusion has arisen inthis point. Ceau escu was cunning, skillful, shrewd, having an impressive political flair,I admit, but he was not capable to see and understand beyond the romantic veil whichlimited and ossified its thinking. From this point of view, his intelligence was in theservice of the fanaticism with which it pursued its romantic and absurd ideal ofimplementing its own type of communism in Romania And the measure to which afanatical is an intelligent person is another discussion. Furthermore, we can askourselves if Ceau escus pragmatism and ability were not contradicting its open

romanticism. I would say no, because his pragmatism could not exist independentfrom romanticism, but on the contrary was instrumented from a romantic-Leninistdirection, as were otherwise all Ceau escus energies.

66 Silviu Curticeanu, Mrturia unei istorii trite. Imagini suprapuse(Bucure ti: Historia, 2008), 117.


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Another dominant feature of his character was harshness. Severe and

austere, totally lacking sense of humor, Ceau escu used harshness to impose hispoints of view, whenever he appreciated that principles and cunningness arenot enough. His harshness was not a simple nervous relaxation, common tomany people, but a mean, many times simulated, to realize the same goal: theensuring of an absolute personal authority. Harshness manifested itself throughthe heaviness of words used: you have put down industry, you have sold thecountry to strangers, you have disorganized party work, you have introducedturmoil at the chancellery etc. etc., the nuances being determined only by theconcrete responsibilities of the particular victim. Other times, in more intimatecircles, harshness was accompanied by true scenes of hysteria: then, his facecontorted, his babbling accentuated until it made him unintelligible, hescreamed like a madman, threw files on the floor, broke papers, punched hisfist against the table, ready to break it. My God! I have assisted numerous such

scenes, but I could not tell how many of them were real and how manysimulated, because I have heard him screaming and cursing, just to see him, inthe next second, laughing and cheerful.67

Maximizing its own power was not necessarily seen as a goal in itself, but as avehicle for building socialism. Ceau escu was not, as Curticeanu observes,68motivated only by sheer will of power; the logic of realpolitik is therefore insufficientfor deciphering his political behavior and decisions, even if he nevertheless masteredit; his supreme objective was, as I have tried to prove so far, a teleological one:building the foundation for tomorrows communism.

Domestically, Ceau escus personality cult reflected his megalomania,immense ambitions and his total will of power over the past, present and future of

Romania. Ceau escus portrayal as a hero in direct continuity with legendary voievodesof Romanian participalities, armies of people organized in epic choreographicspectacles with the occasion of the main events the regime celebrated: 23 of August, 1of December, 26 of January, 7 of January (the last two representing the birthdays ofCeau escu and his wife). Last but not least, Ceau escu was sometimes met, in citieswith historical tradition, by propagandists dressed up in vintage uniforms. The presentleader was therefore taking over from Mircea the Old or Vlad the Impeller, whichsolemnly saluted him.69 Within the country, Ceau escus cult had a mobilizingfunction, both social and ideological; however, progressively, this mobilizing function

67 Ibid., 119-120.68 Ibid., 122.69 Vlad Georgescu, Politici cultur. Cazul comunitilor romni, 1944-1977, (Bucure ti: Humanitas, 2008);

erban Orescu, Ceauismul. Romnia ntre anii 1965i 1989(Bucure ti: Albatros Corporation, 2006), 126-127; Anneli Ute Gabanyi, Cultul lui Ceauescu(Ia i: Polirom, 2003); Danile Masson, La Roumanie etlepoque Ceausescu: edification dun culte, International Journal of Romanian Studies, 1 (1987), 53-59; AdrianCioroianu Ce Ceauescu qui hante les Roumains. Le mythe, les reprsentations et le culte du Dirigeant dans la Roumaniecommuniste(Bucure ti: Curtea Veche, 2005).


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will regress due to Ceau escus growing insecurity in relation to the outside world,Romanian society and even his own party.70 Confronted with the gradualembourgement of the socialist camp starting with the end of the 1960s, going to the1970s and becoming more and more visible in the second half of the 1980s romantic Leninism narrowed its scaffolding, even if not its militancy, restraining itselfaround the thinking of Ceau escu himself, its origin and simultaneously mostimportant dimension.

Externally, Ceau escus personality cult had the same romantic content,presented however in a less strident propagandistic wrapper. The RCPs leader wassold as a very important figure in contemporary international problems and an idealpartner for great power leaders in managing tensioned situations around the globe. Itis often said that the nave West would have been constantly manipulated by aduplicitous Ceau escu which endorsed his good communist image very successfully.But the nature of the relations between the West and a Ceau escu who permanentlytried to win its financial goodwill is a little bit more complicated. Western leaders

used on their turn the genius of the Carpathians as a pressure tool against the SovietUnion. Generally, the image of a credulous and nave West in relation to theRomanian leader is unlikely. But formally, polite remarks made o different diplomaticoccasions were carefully compiled and offered to the public as irrefutable proofs ofCeau escus international reputation.71

In the politic, political economy and diplomatic dictionaries published in the1970s in RSR, at least several pages are dedicated to Ceau escu. But there arehowever nuance differences, interpretable through the prism of ongoing events andthe regimes ideological radicalization. Therefore, in the Political economy dictionary, theentrance for Ceau escu begins with the phrase: eminent political man, RomanianMarxist-Leninist revolutionary thinker, outstanding militant of the internationalworking and communist movement, personality of great prestige of international

political life.72 Not many differences when compared to the presentation from thePolitical Dictionary: eminent Romanian political figure, outstanding militant of theworking and communist movement, prestigious personality of the politicalinternational life. However, the Diplomatic dictionary published in 1979 begins byenumerating Ceau escus personal positions: general secretary of the RomanianCommunist Party, president of the Socialist Republic of Romania, supremecommander of the armed forces. Only afterwards the above formulas areenumerated, encomiastically continuing: comrade Nicolae Ceau escu consecrated hisenergy and revolutionary passion to serving the fundamental interests of theRomanian nation, his life organically intertwining with the party and the homelandshistory, with the heroic path took by the Romanian people in the years of struggleagainst social injustice until the years of great victories in building the multilaterally

70 Mary Ellen Fischer,Nicolae Ceauescu. A study in political leadership, (Boulder & London: Lynne RienerPublishers, 1989); Ronald Linden, Romanian foreign policy in the 1980s, in Romania in the 80s,ed. D.Nelson, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981), 225.71 Gabanyi, 63-66.72Dicionar de economie politic (Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1974), 106.


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developed socialist society.73 Also, one should take into account that in the SmallRomanian diplomatical dictionary, Ceau escus name is no even mentioned.74 Thepersonality cult, at least the extreme form we are used to, was not yet in the open.

What could explain the partial deviation, in the Diplomatic dictionary, from theritualistic formulas through which the political becoming of RCPs general secretarywas apotheotically described? I believe that internal dissidence movement, howeverfragile they were, and Ion Pacepas political asylum in the United States, the leader ofRomanian espionage thus entailing an immense blow not only to Romanianespionage, but the prestige of Securitate and, most of all, to Ceau escus vanity andprestige - made the difference. Internationally, these events, corroborated with thegrowing oppressive character of social policies, led to the diminishing of Ceau escusWestern reputation and his capacity to obtain credits from this part of the world.Correlative, the fascistic character of romantic Leninism, the centering on the leaderagainst the party and the promotion af an aggressive form of nationalism, wasgrowing.

For Nicu Ceau escu, one of the Romanian dictators sons, his father hadlaunched a true international theory bearing his name: the Ceau escu doctrine:

The immense prestige Romanian foreign policy obtained, especiallyafter the ninth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party (the foundingmoment of Ceau escuist mythology, m.n.), represents a concretization of thetireless activity of the general secretary of our party, the president of theRepublic, comrade Nicolae Ceau escu, activity crossed by creative spirit,purposefulness and revolutionary firmness, by wisdom and courage. Eminentpolitical figure, great personality of international life, president NicolaeCeau escu, deciphers with farsightedness the goals to which humanity mustaspire to, actively and decisively militates for carrying out the noble ideals of

liberty, independence and social progress, of peace, friendship andcollaboration among nations. The central shaft of his conceptions regarding theproblems of international life, of the whole foreign policy activity of socialistRomania is constituted by the conscience of the high responsibility regardingthe protection of sovereignty and national independence, over theestablishment in the world of a climate of peace and security, of goodunderstanding and cooperation.75

The conclusion? Romnia Ceau escu Peace, a natural and brillianttwinning.76 In the romantic Leninist vocabulary Ceau escu meant Romaniadomestically and peace internationally. Unfortunately, neither the small bourgeois

73Dicionar diplomatic(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1979), 176.74Mic dicionar diplomatic romn(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1967).75Mic enciclopedie de relaii internaionale pentru tineret(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1984), 56-57.76 Ibid., 63.


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spirit of the Romanian society or the Western bourgeoisie adopted the romantic-Leninist semantics of the self-image in which Ceau escu relentlessly believed.

Finally, before briefly taking into account the economical orientation ofromantic Leninism, I cannot finish without quoting a fragment emblematic for theparoxysm to which the personality cult arouse during the 1980s. Author: IonBodunescu.

Yes, we, Romanians, () had many brilliant men, founders of countryand history, which took our fame everywhere. But none has lifted the name ofthe people from the Danube and Carpathians to such brightness. For thedestiny of this people and its reflection in the world, president NicolaeCeau escu represents we are not the only ones telling it what for Americansrepresented a Lincoln, for French a Napoeon, for Chinese a Mao Tse Tung, forItalians a Garibaldi, for Turks a Attatrk, for Indians a Ghandi. He represents,in other words, that providential man which, giving a new course to the history

of its people, got involved, along with its people, in the great course ofhumanity, prompting it new increases or new patterns.77

Socialist economyEconomy held a special place in the romantic-Leninist project of

transforming society; its analysis, even sketched, being indispensable for an overallunderstanding of the Ceau escuist variant of Leninism. Starting from Marxistpremises, Gheorghe Cre oiu and Ioan Zahiu argue that the economic factor is themost important in the constitution of any society. But, On its turn, the authorsquickly complete, the political does not passively reflect the economical, objectiveeconomic interests, but exercise an active influence over economic life, accelerating,or, on the contrary, hampering, totally or partially, its ascendant revolution Until here,

nothing special. But, a few pages later, we find out that In the present stage,simultaneously with the growing affirmation of the determinant role of the economicin the development of society, the decisive role of the political in the settlement anddirecting the economical is coming more and more to the forefront. The deadlock iscoined in the next phrase: This objectively claims the leading role of the party,perfecting the whole political system at all levels, the deepening of socialistdemocracy.78 We have subtlety arrived on Leninist grounds: the political becomesmore important than the economical and, furthermore, than the social, which waspriority to Marx. And political, in the RSR, meant party, homeland, people and, on topof the pyramid, who else but Ceau escu himself. Between existence and nationalconsciousness there is no longer the same reciprocal relation, in which themetamorphoses of the former generated changes in the structure of the second, as it

did on Marxs works. Through a typical Leninist operation, presented however as thepurest Marxism, the relation is inversed, socialist consciousness, the normative-

77 Ion Bodunescu, Diplomaia romneasc n slujba independenei, vol. I and II, (Ia i: Junimea, 1988), 23-24.78 Gheorghe Cre oiu and Ioan Zahiu, Principiile politicii economice a Partidului Comunist Romn(Bucure ti:Editura Politic, 1974), 12-13.


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Leninist ideal being therefore ascendant with reference to the existence, whichstubbornly resisted the Leninist tasks attributed to her. Ceau escu proves it clearly:

Often, existent deficiencies in our ideological, political and cultural-educative activity, the negative phenomena which appear in social life, in thebehavior of some people, it is tried to be justified trough the thesis over theconsciousness being left behind by the development of material life. To acceptssuch a justification for our shortcomings means to encourage a passive,defeatist attitude, with profound negative repercussions over the developmentof society. We, the communists, study objective social laws not to adopt afatalist position regarding them, but, on the contrary, because understandingtheir sense, to act in the interest of social progress, I the interest of the people,of the victory of socialism and communism. Without denying the least theessential role of production forces in the development of society, we start fromthe thesis, also Marxist, that on its turn conscience can exercise a strong

influence over the advance of society, that advanced ideas, conquering themasses, become a huge material force of progress. Animated by this convictionwe wish to intensify the ideological, political and cultural activity, the efforts forraising the socialist consciousness of the working people.79

According to the eleventh Congress of the RCP, Romania already entered thestage of multilateral developed socialist society, advancing towards communism.Here resides The epochal historical meaning, emphatically stated the RCPs generalsecretary.80

The (RCPs, m.n.) program scientifically fundaments the basicprinciples of multilateral developed socialist society, as a superior phase of

socialism, in the process of gradual passing towards communism. () In thisphase is ensured the harmonious, unitary and multilateral development ofproduction forces, of all domains of economic-social life, a growingconcordance between forces and relations of production and social is realized.In the multilateral developed socialist society material and spiritual conditionsfor the complete fulfillment of socialist principles of property and repartitionare created. Work becomes more and more a necessity and a duty of hour. Onthis basis is ensured the growing satisfaction of material and spiritual requests scientifically determined of the entire people. In this phase the principles ofsocialist ethics and equity will be affirmed, the practical interpenetration ofthese with the principles of socialism will be realized.

The passing from the multilateral developed society to communismwill be realized within a unitary dialectical process, through the conscious

activity of popular masses for removing the old, of that which no longercorresponds to the new production forces, by applying the conquests of science

79Roluli atribuiile sindicatelor(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1972), 130-131.80Congresul al XI-lea al Partidului Comunist Romn(Bucure ti: Editura Politic, 1975), 15.


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and advanced technology, through perfecting the new social relations, throughthe revolutionary transformation of society. The role of the communist party,as leading political force, is to consciously rule this complex pro

socialist in form, national in content'. the national-international relation in the ideological...

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