The beginning of the communist regime in Romania remains one of the most complex stages in the country’s history. How was it possible for the country that was, theoretically, the most “protected” against the spread of Bolshevik ideas—due to the peasantry accounting for 80% of its social structure—to experience one of the most brutal and memorable communist regimes in Europe? The answer, as always, is nuanced and has its origins in Romania’s situation during the Second World War.

A Turning Point Between Two Dictatorships—the War and 23 August 1944

In the summer of 1944, Romania found itself in an extremely difficult situation. Three years had passed since Marshal Ion Antonescu had tied the country’s fate to that of Nazi Germany and joined what was, at the time, the largest invasion in history: the invasion of the Soviet Union. The aim had been to recover Bessarabia and Bukovina, ceded on 28 June 1940 following an ultimatum from the USSR. Although the initial victories on the front had strengthened Antonescu’s image at home, the subsequent military disasters—which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Romanian soldiers being killed or reported missing—gradually reinforced the idea that the war could no longer be fought alongside Germany. At the beginning of 1944, Ion Antonescu had already initiated negotiations for an armistice in Stockholm and Cairo, but these produced no concrete results. Against the background of the devastating Soviet-led offensive on the front, during which Iași had been occupied and the south of the country was directly threatened, the young King Michael decided to arrest Antonescu on 23 August and publicly announced on the radio that Romania was joining the Allied cause and, implicitly, the cause of the Soviet Union.

Romania Attacked from Two Sides

The Soviet leadership viewed the course of events in Romania with suspicion. Although Romania’s withdrawal from the war had significant repercussions for Germany’s efforts to defend its front, the Soviets would have preferred Bucharest to be liberated by the Soviet army. 24 and 25 August 1944 were dark days for Bucharest, during which the German air force bombed the city, causing considerable material damage—the Royal Palace, the Romanian Athenaeum and the National Theatre were all damaged—and killing hundreds of people. At the same time, the Soviet army disarmed and took prisoner more than 150,000 Romanian soldiers, of whom only approximately 15,000 returned to the country during the 1950s. The reality was that, until the official signing of the armistice on 12 September 1944, Romania’s legal status in the war remained unregulated.

The Armistice Convention and the “Anti-Hitler” War Supported by the Communist Party

Within this political context, the Romanian Communist Party acted with the aim of gaining the USSR’s trust. By August 1944, the party leadership—recently taken over by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej—was making every effort to secure a central role in the unfolding events. Like all other communists across Europe, the Romanian communists had received a directive from Moscow in 1941 to create a “Popular Front,” namely a democratic coalition made up of political forces opposed to the Nazi war effort. The party’s small size, as well as its lack of coherent organisation, hindered this process. Ultimately, the National Democratic Bloc—comprising the Communist, Social Democratic, National Liberal and National Peasants’ parties—was formed in June 1944.

In order to negotiate Romania’s new status following the events of August 1944 with the Soviet authorities, a delegation led by Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, the intellectual face of the Communist Party, was sent to Moscow in September. The King and Constantin Sănătescu’s new military government decided to send Pătrășcanu in the hope that the Soviet authorities might be won over. Stalin, however, remained intransigent. Under the terms of the agreement, Romania committed itself to continuing the war under the military command of the USSR, paying war reparations amounting to 300 million dollars and granting Soviet occupation troops freedom of movement throughout the country.

Romanian troops therefore fought alongside Soviet forces in Transylvania, as well as in Hungary and the Tatra Mountains of Czechoslovakia. Romanian-Soviet military cooperation was, however, marked by incidents, tension and mutual distrust. For example, between September and October 1944, the Battle of Oarba de Mureș took place, during which Romanian troops were ordered to storm the fortified German defensive positions without support, suffering heavy losses of more than 11,000 soldiers. The sudden death of General Gheorghe Avramescu also occurred in March 1945. According to available sources, his death was most likely orchestrated by the Soviet NKVD.

On 25 October 1944, following the Battle of Carei, the last part of Transylvania occupied by Hungary was liberated, an event commemorated to this day as Romanian Armed Forces Day. We can therefore observe what the beginning of Romanian-Soviet cooperation looked like and how it was already displaying the disastrous consequences that would become increasingly violent. As for Northern Transylvania, it was not immediately returned to Romania, but instead became the subject of crude political blackmail.

Recommended Reading

CONSTANTINIU, Florin, O istorie sinceră a poporului român, 4th revised and expanded edition, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Gold Publishing House, 2010.

DELETANT, Dennis, România sub regimul comunist, Bucharest, Academia Civică Foundation Publishing House, 1997.

GIURESCU, Dinu C., Imposibila încercare: alegerile din 1946, Bucharest, Encyclopaedic Publishing House, 1999.

BUZATU, Gheorghe, România și Războiul Mondial din 1939–1945, Iași, Centre for European History and Civilisation, 1995.

Back to list
Older The “Red” Land: How Collectivization Was Prepared in Communist Romania (1944–1948)