The condition of the intellectual élite in communist Romania. A historical perspective

The condition of the intellectual élite in communist Romania. A historical perspective Gabriel Asandului Gheorghe Asachi Technical University Iaşi asandului@yahoo.com Teodora Ghiviriga Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iaşi teoghivi@yahoo.com Laura Asandului Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iaşi asand@uaic.ro Abstract The emergence of the lay intellectual in the 17 th century was to contribute significantly to the shaping of the modern world. The same phenomenon can be traced within the Romanian area. The accession to political power by fraud of the communists during the parliamentary elections of November 1946 brought dramatic changes within the Romanian society and among the Romanian intellectuals. The initial years of the communist regime (1944-1948) were characterized by massive purging targeted mainly at the intellectual élite. However, the number of the intellectuals within the Communist Party was extremely low during all these years. Gradually, the leaders of the Communist Party were to open the party to the intellectual élite as well. Many representatives of this social category were to compromise with the new power. That is why we are trying to identify the reasons that prompted these intellectuals to fraternize with a regime that behaved as an enemy of this group. Keywords: intellectual elite, communist Romania, culture The intellectuals and their role has been a topic of great interest, considering that scientists are examining the way in which the former seek to obtain power or autonomy, their role in promoting revolution, their prospects to transform society, their contributions to the creation of the state. However, any

2 scientific approach related to intellectuals is hindered by the great number of definitions related to this social category 1. There are several definitions of the intellectual, yet the rendition of any of them can hardly be determined by the need for precision. A broad definition of the intellectual sees them as people who have graduated a form of higher education and earn their living rather through mental than manual labour. 2 According to the view of the Romanian Communist Party (R.P.C.), the intellectuals were people with a degree in higher education; however, this definition is much too general and generates many terminological disputes. That is why, in our approach, we shall content ourselves with analysing the status of the scientific and cultural élite in communist Romania (teachers, philosophers, writers and artists). The intellectuals drama began after August 23rd 1944, shortly after the valiant act of King Michael I. Romania s occupation by the Soviet troops and the force policy of the new ally resulted in the country s first communist government, headed by Dr. Petru Groza, on March 4th 1945. R.P.C. became aware that it needed an intellectual élite that could provide it with the legitimity it needed, considering that the Party did not have a tradition and an identity that could be known and acknowledged. This need for legitimity could not be achieved as long as many Romanian intellectuals originated in the bourgeois and land owner s élite or at least in the well-off strata of society. Besides, many intellectuals had integrated in the élite of the former society through their own merits, while many of them belonged to schools of thought that promoted cultural pluralism. For such reasons, they did not regard understandingly the ideological barriers that communism had set everywhere, and did not agree to militarize the Romanian culture. 3 The new order imposed by the Romanian communists meant to limit the Romanian intellectuals options, who saw themselves forced to choose between obedience to the new power or disappearance through absolute silence. The first institutions aimed at by the R.P.C. in the process of reorganizing the new ideological order and of cutting off society from the values of the previous one were the School, the Academy and the Church. The Romanian universities (of Bucureşti, Cluj, Iaşi) were subject to an ample process of administrative purification. The aims were mainly the teaching staff who had been in favour of the legionary movement, as well as those who had been involved in anti-bolshevik propaganda. Therefore, starting with the beginning of the year 1945, purification committees for academic staff were formed. The members of these purification committees often tried to take advantage of their position to settle personal spites. Thus, many professors were dismissed, such as Constantin C. Giurescu, Gheorghe Brătianu, Petre P. Panaitescu, Lucian Blaga,

Tudor Vianu, George Călinescu and others 4. There were, on the other hand, many members of the academic staff who adapted promptly to the new conditions, yielding to the regime and giving up their beliefs. Some of them actually tried to save their tenures or even their own lives and hence accepted to support the new regime 5. In this early period of communist rule, the new regime strove to gain a monopoly control over culture. Therefore, the leaders of the party decided that the teaching and academic staff should keep on being paid by the state and should be forbidden to do private tutoring, which may have limited their dependency on the state and would have secured a certain financial independence. A moment of great importance was the issuing of the new Education Act of August 8th 1948, according to which the adequate legal framework for the intense politicizing of this domain was created. Through this act, foreign schools and schools run by religious denominations were dissolved. Teaching religion in schools was also abolished through this act, and the use of certain teaching aids that had not been approved by the state was forbidden. The new act introduced in the Romanian education exclusive text-books inspired by similar ones in the Soviet Union. The Romanian educational system was subject to an intense process of alteration according to the Soviet model. The principles that from now on would lie at the basis of the selection process for higher education were the file and politically healthy origin 6. Through special regulation, starting with the same year, 1948, 30% of the places in universities and higher education institutions were to be directed to the offspring of peasants and workers. This would lead to a change in the social structure of the students, as the number of students coming from very poor social strata would increase along with a decrease of the number of students coming from the bourgeois milieu 7. This social mobility manifesting in all areas of social life, in the academic life included, would lead to the emergence of a new intellectual stratum, coming from these less favoured social categories, which thus gained access up on the social ladder. The education system will be subject to an ample alteration process in the sense that the role of humanities will be diminished in favour of technical disciplines. In order to reduce the deficit resulted from the purification process, one of the solutions adopted was that of retaining those professors who were not troublesome, while another solution was that of attracting to universities highschool teachers and specialists working in the productive branches 8. The removal of the restrictions imposed by Charles and Antonescu s regimes after August 23rd 1944 would contribute to a revival of modern 3

4 Romanian literature. Authors such as Lucian Blaga, Tudor Arghezi, George Bacovia were published and their work received wide recognition. 9 The cultural revival of the 1944-1947s was not regarded sympathetically by the R.C.P., that actually strove to diminish the liberties acquired. Thus, the premises for the development of a plural literature would be gradually eliminated by the communists. The wave of purification and reorganization would affect the professional institutions of writers, journalists and artists. On September 24th 1944 The Romanian Writers Society was reorganized. The would-be elected leaders were writers whose position was favourable to the new regime. The new leadership aimed at putting into practice a set of ideals and concepts inspired by the communist sovietic regime, meant to define the new literature: purification, a union type organization intellectual workers, a fighter on the social front, people s leader. All these topics were to become compulsory for those writers that recognized themselves as part of the intellectual proletariat 10. This, however, was not the general attitude of most of the writers. Few of them actually joined R.C.P. before August 23rd 1944. Along with certain avant-garde authors such as Geo Bogza, Ştefan Roll, Saşa Pană, Ben Corlaciu, the group of intellectuals around Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu also joined the communists, the group consisting of Lena Constante, Hary Brauner, Miron Radu Paraschivescu şi Marcel Breslaşu. Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu s removal from among the leaders of the R.C.P. resulted in an estrangement of these literati from the communist party. There were also writers whose fame was exclusively due to their political involvement with the communist party. Many of them were theoreticians of the new wave of socialist realism in literature, such as Mihai Novicov, Ion Vitner, Nicolae Mărgeanu, Victor Tulbure, Mihai Beniuc and others. There were also important representatives of the Romanian literature who, in exchange for certain material benefits, agreed to comply with the narrow dogmatic literary precepts, such as Mihail Sadoveanu, Eugen Jebeleanu, Dan Deşliu and others. There were, on the other hand, many others writers, philosophers, artists who had the courage to reject any form of collaboration with the R.C.P., preserving their right to the freedom of thought, in spite of having been threatened with being sent to prisons, work-camps or exiled, such as Vladimir Streinu, Petre Pandrea, Romulus Dianu, Sergiu Dan, Mircea Vulcănescu, Ion Petrovici, Nichifor Crainic, Radu Gyr, Edgar Papu, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş and many others 11. In their attempt to control the entire cultural environment, the communists reorganized The Romanian Academy on June 9th 1948. The

members in ordinary of this institution were to be appointed through Presidential decree. This allowed many mediocre intellectuals who were attached to the new regime to become colleagues with distinguished men of culture such as Mihail Sadoveanu or Camil Petrescu. The most intense campaign occurred in the field of linguistics, with the orthographic reform as its most important element. The spelling of the Romanian language was to be according to new rules, imposed by the communists in an attempt to downsize its Romance character and at the same time to augment the Slavic components 12. At the same time, the leaders of the R.C.P. were to conclude the process of listing the papers that were banned; their number was over 8,000. This list was completed with the works of the authors who left the country in various ways and of those who were deemed undesirable by the regime. Among the personalities who found their works on this black list were Nicolae Iorga, Titu Maiorescu, Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and many others. This period of restrictions was followed by one of slight alleviation following the new course initiated in Moscow between 1953 and 1958, after Stalin s death; during this period, an increasing number of intellectuals joined the party, as well as the culture management institutions. At the same time, the selective republishing of certain pre-war authors was initiated, whose works had previously been banned. The period following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (C.P. of S.U.) is a landmark in the beginning of the process of reducing Stalin s influence, but it also emphasized its flaws. The leaders of the Romanian Workers Party reluctantly received the changes propagating from the centre (Moscow) towards the periphery (the states in the communist camp). For this reason, the main preoccupation of the communist leaders was to reduce the effects of the new wave in order to retain their decision power. The political relaxation at an international level did not result in a complete liberalization of the Romanian culture or in a removal of all restrictions and the writers emancipation from the party s influence. There certainly were certain benefits, of which the most important one for the literary and artistic environment was increased opportunities for expression for the writers, due to new periodicals that appeared. A revision of the curricula for humanities and social sciences could also be counted among the benefits of the intellectuals of this period. A number of authors that had been banned were gradually reintegrated in the literary life, such as Octavian Goga, George Bacovia, Tudor Arghezi, Liviu Rebreanu. There were, however, intellectuals such as the philosopher Lucian Blaga, the poets Ion Barbu and Vasile Voiculescu, the painter Ion Ţuculescu who 5

6 refused to collaborate with the communist regime and did not deny their convictions. Therefore, they will be reconsidered only as late as the 60s 13. Against this background of relative relaxation, those who contested the communist regime did not fail to appear. Interestingly, they were to be influenced by the intellectuals who were closer to the new regime. On various occasions, some such writers criticized the cult of personality that had begun to emerge and penetrate Romanian cultural life. One of them was Mihai Beniuc who declared his opposition against the cult of personality of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Criticism against the regime was, however, isolated as the Romanian intellectuals did not have the capacity to organize themselves and openly fight communism. They preferred to avoid open confrontation and preferred to infiltrate criticism through Aesopic allusions and oblique diction 14. Therefore, the year 1956 will remain in history as a great disappointment of post-war culture, a moment when the monolithic unity of the totalitarian party could have been dislocated. Following this short spell of liberty of 1956, the leaders of the party moved on to an ample process of strengthening the unity and the party discipline. To this end, Gheorghiu-Dej initiated an ample campaign of removing from the R.W.P. those who were deemed to be undesirable from his point of view. This process was aimed initially at the former underground communist fighters who were charged with anarchist and revisionist views and of having tried to break the unity of the party by initiating interest groups. The plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the R.W.P. of 1958 was followed by purification waves that extended to the level of the entire society. Many professors, students, researchers, members of the creation unions were discovered not to have healthy social origin or to have shown a hostile attitude towards the regime, or to have a low ideological level or not to conform to the communist code of conduct 15. At the beginning of the 60s the communist authorities initiated a campaign to gain popular solidarity in order to ensure the regime s stability. This open attitude of the regime was aimed at: reducing pressure in the country, an increase in the living standard, a reassertion of national identity and a sovereign policy in international relations. The reconciliation between the party and the people was to end in the pardoning and release of all political prisoners. In less than two and a half years, between January 1st 1962 and July 24th 1964, more than 15,000 political prisoners would be released from the communist political prisons and work camps. This political liberalization of the first years of the 70s would result in a relaxation in the conditions for cultural creation. The artists and intellectuals were again among the members of the party and of the cultural bureaucracy, where a

certain decentralizing process was on the way. Following this state of things of 1962, the Writers Union was allowed to award prizes, which implied the party was yielding its right to set literary standards independent of its members choice. The publishing system was reorganized and decentralized, thus increasing the members opportunities of being published and decreasing the party s direct control over intellectual production. Pre-war works previously banned were republished, some of Lucian Blaga s works regained public attention. The elections at the Romanian Academy were also less heavily controlled, while some of the former research institutes were reopened and the formerly forbidden periodicals started new issues. 16 In 1962, the leaders of the R.W.P. raised again the question of attracting intellectuals to the party. Initially, only certain top representatives of the Romania intellectuals were hoped to join the party: Mihai Ralea, Horia Hulubei, Gheoghe Ionescu-Siseşti, Gheorghe Ţiţeica, Eugen Bădărău, Tudor Arghezi, George Călinescu, Ion Jalea. In order to avoid creating the impression that the party was wooing the intellectuals, the leaders decided that the above-mentioned intellectuals should be advised to apply to join the party. Their applications should be made public in order to prompt other intellectuals to follow suit. The party indeed needed the presence of top intellectuals among its members, but wished to leave the impression that it was they who needed the party and not the other way round. Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej s death and Ceauşescu s ascension to power in 1965 seemed to announce greater freedom. Thus, the process of republishing those works that had been previously banned continued. The last intellectuals who had been detained for political reasons were released. This process of liberalization could, however not be on par with the intellectuals increasing demands for cultural freedom. Thus, at the Writers Conference of 1968, the young writers sought to obtain top positions in the hierarchy of the institution, demanding the total abolition of censorship, decentralized and totally reorganized institutions of literary creation, as well as democratic access to publication 17. The intellectuals demands were not, however, approved by the party s leaders. By 1968, Ceauşescu had realized that cultural creation had gained too much independence from the party s directives. Thus, the party began limiting the intellectuals freedom. In 1970, the awarding of the literary prizes resulted in open conflict between the Writers Union and the party leaders and showed that the party intended to reaffirm the privilege to award such prizes and set the value standards needed to obtain the prizes 18. 7

8 The July 1971 documents initiated an attack against the autonomy of culture, denouncing the liberalization of 1965, recreating a list of books and authors that were banned and emphasized again the necessary social-political role of intellectual creation. The mini-cultural revolution was not totally unexpected; it actually signaled the moment when the discursive ambiguity which had previously characterized Ceauşescu s relation with the intellectuals was yielded. In the following period, the independence of cultural institutions was severely affected. The Writers Union, The Romanian Academy, domains such as sociology, psychology, history, a number of periodicals were to experience again the influence of the party. The Communist Party restored its control over the publishing system and set rules that altered the admission criteria to the elective intellectuals institutions. The number of places in the faculties teaching humanities decreased annually, while the positions in research institutes were not taken. The party s leaders also interfered with the activity of the Academy. The forced acceptance of Elena Ceauşescu as a member of the academy in 1974 reduced the credibility of this prestigious institution. No elections for new members were held at the academy until 1977. These facts emphasize that the attitude of the party regarding the management of culture and the treatment of the intellectuals altered starting with the 1970s. It moved from a form of incipient reform to one of ideological control. The party s leaders propagated various ideological forms an ethic of arduous labour, the principles of socialist ethics and equity, ideas about progress. The role of the intellectuals in humanities was to be that of spreading these concepts through their novels, research, and philosophical thought. For those who found this mission intolerable, the envisaged means of professional achievement started to dwindle. The 80s were a period of centralization and strict control of the party leaders which could not, however, totally control society. In an environment of extreme scarcity in all respects, the competition for material and symbolic resources grew. The leaders manner of control granted a certain implicit value to creators of culture, yet undermining their ability to be independent producers 19. The communist period was extremely controversial for the intellectual milieu in Romania due to a certain inconsistency in the management of the relation between the power and the intellectuals. The communist regime generally started from the premise that the intellectuals cannot constitute a class in itself and therefore cannot be a ruling class. This is the main cause that prompted the proletarian leaders of the communist party to regard the intellectuals with open hostility.

The Romanian intellectuals, even those that were counted as opposing the party, served R.C.P. by reproducing the nationalistic ideology that the party had incorporated in its regime. The Romanian intellectual milieu did not manage to create alliances with other groups positioned lower in the social hierarchy alliances that might have facilitated a social change as they did in Poland between 1968 and 1980. Also, the Romanian intellectuals failed to coalesce in a united force that could call forth a reformation of the system. Their energies were spent in the dispute among the various factions aspiring to a larger slice of the resources offered by the center. The causes that prevented the creation of a reforming group, of an intellectual élite ready to subordinate its élitist interests to the interests of the majority or to those of an active human rights movement were various. The country s situation did not allow the intellectuals to manifest themselves against the regime without the risk of self-destruction. The few attempts were ruthlessly suppressed by the Securitate, such as the Goma movement supporting the 1977 Chart. The cultural press only accepted disguised manifestations 20. The intellectual élite in communist Romania, however, managed to survive and assert itself more vigorously after the events of 1989. Those works by opposing intellectuals that had lain hidden inside drawers were published, disclosing a world where the party was ubiquitous, controlling everything, including the life of the intellectual élite. Bibliography 1. Anton, M., Progresişti versus reacţionari. Subordonarea intelectualilor. 1944-1955. Intelectualii români în arhivele comunismului, Nemira, Bucureşti, 2006, pp. 13-43. 2. Botez, M., Intelectualii din Europa de est. Fundaţia Culturală Română, Bucureşti, 1993. 3. Cătănuş, D., Regimul comunist din România şi problema intelectualităţii. 1956-1965. Intelectualii români în arhivele comunismului, Nemira, Bucureşti. 2006, pp. 45-73. 4. Cosmovici, A., Viaţa universitară în comunism. O perspectivă psihosociologică. Viaţa cotidiană în comunism, Polirom, Iaşi, 2004, 47-58. 5. Cioroianu, A., Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc. Curtea Veche, Bucureşti, 2007. 6. Gabanyi, A., Literatură şi politică în România după 1945. Fundaţia Culturală Română, Bucureşti, 2001. 9

10 7. Georgescu, V., Politică şi istorie. Cazul comuniştilor români (1944-1947). Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2001. 8. Selejan, Ana, Trădarea intelectualilor. Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 2005. 9. Tismăneanu, Vladimir, Arheologia terorii. Allfa, Bucureşti, 1996. 10. Verdery, K., Compromis şi rezistenţă. Cultura română sub Ceauşescu. Humanitas, Bucureşti,1994. 1 Verdery K., Compromis şi rezistenţă. Cultura română sub Ceauşescu, Humanitas, Bucureşti,1994, p. 35. 2 Botez M., Intelectualii din Europa de est. Fundaţia Culturală Română, Bucureşti, 1993, pp. 17-18 3 ibid., p. 25 4 Georgescu V., Politică şi istorie. Cazul comuniştilor români (1944-1947). Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2001, p. 11 5 Cosmovici A., Viaţa universitară în comunism. O perspectivă psihosociologică. Viaţa cotidiană în comunism, Polirom, Iaşi, 2004, p. 49. 6 Cioroianu A., Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc. Curtea Veche, Bucureşti, 2007, p. 289. 7 Anton M., Progresişti versus reacţionari. Subordonarea intelectualilor. 1944-1955. Intelectualii români în arhivele comunismului, Nemira, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 23. 8 Cosmovici A., op. cit., p. 50. 9 Gabanyi U.A., Literatură şi politică în România după 1945. Fundaţia Culturală Română, Bucureşti, 2001, p. 12. 10 Selejan A., 2005, p. 48 and following. 11 Gabanyi U.A., op. cit., p. 23. 12 ibid., pp. 28-29. 13 Gabanyi A. U., 2001, p. 51. 14 Tismăneanu V., Arheologia terorii. Allfa, Bucureşti, 1996, p. 100. 15 Cătănuş, D., Regimul comunist din România şi problema intelectualităţii. 1956-1965. Intelectualii români în arhivele comunismului, Nemira, Bucureşti 2006, p. 66. 16 Georgescu V., op. cit., pp. 34-35. 17 Gabanyi, op. cit., p. 150 and following. 18 ibid., p. 177. 19 Verdery K., op. cit., p. 107. 20 ibid., p. 310.