Documents recently released by the Romanian National Archives shed new light on the Comintern, the Soviet-led international organization that, between 1919 and 1943, was at the forefront of Moscow’s efforts to establish hegemony over communist parties in Romania, the rest of Europe and the world, according to a published on Friday in a National Security Archive material titled “Romanian Section of the Comintern,” News.ro cited.

The National Security Archive is a nonprofit, non-governmental research and archival institution located on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC. Founded in 1985 to check the government’s increasing secrecy, the National Security Archive is a center for investigative journalism, a champion of open government, an international affairs think tank, and the largest depository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government.

The National Security Archive has driven the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents as a major nonprofit user of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In total, it has filed more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its more than 35 years of existence.

The article about the Romanian section of the Comintern was published on Friday it was compiled and edited by Dr. Corina Snitar of the University of Glasgow. The article provides new details about the missions assigned by the Comintern (Communist International) to members of the “revolutionary” states, highlighting the increasingly antagonistic relationship with the imperial powers of the West – what historian Robert Hager has called the “Cold War before the Cold War”.

The Romanian Communist Party, in particular, was built and assembled several times according to Moscow’s plans. Under constant pressure from the Romanian secret police, the Romanian section of the Comintern cared more about supporting Soviet propaganda and guaranteeing its own security than about liberating the Romanian working class. Although the Third International ended 80 years ago, understanding the role and internal dynamics of the Comintern remains an important goal, given its importance in the communist movement and world affairs during the critical years leading up to and following World War II, the article’s preamble states.

Although the Comintern ceased to exist in 1943, its legacy remained visible throughout the period when communist regimes remained in power in Central and Eastern Europe, writes Dr. Corina Snitar.

Newly discovered files collected from the Romanian National and Historical Archives expand the question of how individual members responded to these directives, revealing how the Romanian Communist Party in particular was built and restructured according to Moscow’s decree.

Romanian communists, almost non-existent in the interwar period

The Communist Party of Romania (CPRU), created on May 8, 1921 as a result of the split of the Socialist Party, was almost invisible on the Romanian political scene and remained so until 1944. Furthermore, throughout its existence, the PCDR failed to attract new members; in fact it was quite the opposite. While in 1919 the fledgling PCdR (Communist Party of Romania) inherited from the Socialist Party approximately 200,000 workers registered in several unions, by 1923 it had fewer than 500 members, according to local newspapers, according to documents cited in the article.

The situation can be explained by several factors. First, even before the creation of the PCdR, the communist groups that formed in the Socialist Party showed no intention of supporting the working class in its demands for “freedom, bread and jobs.”

Second, Romanian communists were subjected to constant surveillance and harassment by the royal secret police – Siguranța – because of their decision to form a party linked to the Comintern.

A major blow was dealt in February 1924 when Gheorghe Marzescu, Minister of Justice, well known for his anti-Communist stance, issued a new law regulating “legal persons and institutions” which de facto sanctioned the dissolution of all extremist parties and organizations. The PCdR was to be immediately outlawed for its aggressive propaganda and activities deemed to be against Romania’s national interests. The law made the PCdR even more invisible, as the party was now forced to operate underground, using code names for its members and shelters for its meetings.

Third, the frequent quarrels between the leaders of the PCdR, not only within the local branches, but also at the center in Bucharest, affected the credibility of the party.

Romanian communists quarreled among themselves and complained to Moscow

A significant loss of membership and the PKDR’s inability to recruit new members, along with frequent internal party strife, forced the Comintern to end subsidies in July 1923, despite efforts by party leaders to convince the organization of their intense activity and the prospect of leading the labor movement in Romania.

The Kremlin decided to create a new Communist Party of Romania under the same name PCdR, which would function in parallel with the Romanian Communist Party in Romania, but with headquarters in Kharkiv and Moscow. Members of the new Communist Party of Romania were Romanian emigrants in the USSR who founded communist organizations in Kharkiv and Moscow.

In 1928, the Romanian Communist Party practically ceased to exist in the database of the Comintern. The Communist Party of Romania silently replaced it under the same name PCdR.

The fourth congress of the Ukrainian Communist Party was held not in Bucharest, but in Kharkiv on June 28 – July 7, 1928, Vitaly Holostenko, a member of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, was appointed as the new general secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. .

The change in leadership caused discontent among the rank-and-file members of the party. The struggle between members of the Communist Party of Romania, led by Marcel Pauker, and members of the Communist Party of Romania, led by Vitaliy Holostenko, was serious enough to force the Comintern to intervene.

In August 1930, the CEIC issued a “special decision” entitled “Regarding the unprincipled factional struggle and the restoration of unity in the Communist Party of Romania”, emphasizing the “factional struggle, bureaucratic management methods and petty-bourgeois adventurism characteristic of both opposing parties”. groups” that “weakened the party’s influence among the masses at a time when unity is needed to fight fascism.”

Kholostenko will be replaced by Oleksandr Stefanski, a member of the Polish Communist Party, during the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in Moscow in December 1931. Stefansky was replaced in 1935 by Boris Stefanov, an ethnic Bulgarian who lived in Moscow. Stefanov will lead the PCdR until 1938.

How PCR was born and what is its purpose

Realizing that the Romanian communist movement could not develop without a strong party based in Romania, and fed up with the endless bickering within the PCdR, Stalin decided to recreate the party under the name of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). The party was filled only by young people with a “healthy background”, i.e. workers. Among the members of the new party will be the future General Secretary Gheorghe Georgiou Dei, who was then working for the Romanian Railways.

Despite its working class character and leadership, the PCR will also fail to attract many members of the working class. People quickly identified the same slogans of the Comintern calling for a “world revolution” in the PKR program. The fact that the PCR was successively led by two ethnic Hungarians, Bela Bryner and Stefan Foris, was not helpful to the party either. The poor record recorded by the PCR in attracting workers and in dealing with “opportunists” and “dodgers” in its ranks was raised by the CEIC in several meetings.

Therefore, the Romanian section of the Comintern was not particularly involved in tasks such as the creation of “united labor fronts” or branches in trade unions, but mainly in propaganda activities that promoted Soviet interests, especially in connection with the re-annexation of the former territories of the tsarist empire, such like Bessarabia.

The Communist newspaper Scânteia published articles demanding the annulment of the 1918 Act of Unification, which united Romania with Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Transylvania, and the Banat. It was solemnly promised to support “the masses of national minorities in their will to self-determination.” After the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939, and after the Soviet Union moved rapidly to annex Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Herz region, the PKR immediately published a Manifesto congratulating “happy Bessarabia” for its success in ending “the heavy yoke of the Romanian imperialists with the support of the Red Army.”

Other missions, which the DPRK diligently pursued, were chosen from among those that aimed to preserve the party’s position in relation to Moscow and, if possible, increase the visibility of its leaders. The PCdR was active, for example, in the Comintern’s campaign to recruit volunteers to support the Spanish government against the Francoist rebels in 1936. Participation in the Spanish Civil War allowed some communists to reach higher positions in the PCdR hierarchy after 1944, such as Petre Borila (future Deputy Prime Minister between 1954-1965), Gheorghe Vasilici (Minister of Education in 1948-49 and member of the Grand Assembly of Romania until 1975), Walter Roman (general and chief of staff of the Romanian army, 1947-1951) and editor-in-chief of a political publishing house until 1985) or Gheorghe Stoica (member of the Central Committee, 1948-1974).