Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (
pronunciation (?·i)Bârlad, November 8, 1901-Bucharest, March 19, 1965) was a Communist politician and Romanian leader. He served as secretary-general of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to his death; Prime Minister of Romania from 1952 to 1955 and President of the Republic from 1961 to 1965.
In his youth he stood out for his union militancy, for which he was imprisoned for several years until the end of World War II. During his tenure, he kept his distance from the Soviet Union in economic and international policies, endowing the state with a certain independence that was accentuated with the departure of the last Soviet troops in 1958. His replacement at the head of the General Secretariat was Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Under his rule, Romania was considered one of the Soviet Union's most loyal allies, although Gheorghiu-Dej was partially nervous about the rapid policy of de-Stalinization initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s. Gheorghiu-Dej intensified the measures that considerably increased trade relations between Romania and Western countries.
Early Years
Gheorghiu-Dej was the son of a poor worker from Bârlad, Tănase Gheorghiu and his wife Ana. He also had a younger sister named Tinca.
Poverty forced him to leave school early and start working at the age of 11. Due to his age and lack of vocational training, he often changed jobs, eventually settling on becoming an electrician. Working in a factory in Comănești, he joined the workers' union and participated in the 1920 Romanian general strike, during which all participants were dismissed.
A year later, he was hired as an electrician at the Galați tram company, where he was also fired after organizing protests against the 9-hour work day and for higher wages. He was later hired by the Căile Ferate workshops Romane (CFR) in Galati.
As the standard of living for workers was already low, the Great Depression in Romania began to erode it further. In 1930, Gheorghiu became more politically active, joining the Romanian Communist Party, he was assigned to organize agitation in the workshops of the Romanian Railways in Moldova.
On August 15, 1931, Gheorghiu was accused of "communist agitation" and transferred as punishment to Dej, a town in Transylvania, where he continued union activity.The union petitioned the CFR Railways in February 1932, demanding better working conditions and higher wages. In response, CFR closed the Dej plant and laid off all workers, including Gheorghiu, who was deprived of the opportunity to be hired by any other CFR shop in the country.
Activism
During this time, Gheorghiu gained the nickname Gheorghiu-Dej of the Siguranța (secret police), so that his name would be differentiated from other union activists named Gheorghiu. After his dismissal from the CFR shop, Gheorghiu became even more more active in organizing unions and coordinating workers from Iași, Pașcani and Galați.
On the night of July 14-15, 1932, he was arrested for placing "subversive posters on the walls and posts of Giulești", and was held in the Văcărești Prison. Defended by the lawyer Iosif Schraier, was released because the posters were meant to be related to elections, during the election campaign for the 1932 Romanian general election.
Gheorghiu-Dej was briefly arrested again on October 3, 1932, at the end of a workers' meeting in Iași, after he urged workers to "unite for the fight against the capitalist class", on alleged charges of beating up a police officer. He was released because the charges were found to be false.
In January 1933, the Romanian government announced some even stricter austerity measures including further wage cuts, which led to the radicalization of workers. Gheorghiu-Dej, along with union president Constantin Doncea, led the workers of Bucharest to the great strike that became known as the Grivița Strike of 1933.<ref
As negotiations failed, the government feared a general strike, so it declared a state of siege in Bucharest and other cities. Gheorghiu-Dej was arrested during the night of February 14/15, 1933.
Prison
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Gheorghiu-Dej was sentenced to prison in the same year by a military court, serving time in the Doftana and other facilities. In 1936 he was elected to the party's Central Committee and became leader of the prison faction of the communist party (party members who were imprisoned in Romania, a term that distinguishes them from party members living in exile, mainly in the Soviet Union: the Muscovite faction).
As a known activist, he was detained in the Târgu Jiu internment facility throughout the dictatorial regime of Ion Antonescu and most of the period of World War II, escaping alone on August 10, 1944, a few days before the fall of the regime (Romanian coup d'état of 1944). He became secretary general in 1944 after the Soviet occupation, but did not consolidate his power until 1952, after purging Ana Pauker and her comrades from power in the "Muscovite faction." Ana Pauker had been the unofficial leader of the Party since the end of the war.
While in prison, Gheorghiu-Dej met Nicolae Ceaușescu. They were jailed after a demonstration organized by the communist party, of which both Ceaușescu and Gheorghiu-Dej were members. Gheorghiu-Dej taught Ceaușescu in prison Marxist-Leninist theories and principles and kept him close as Gheorghiu-Dej steadily gained power after his release from prison in 1944. During 1946-1947, he was a member of the delegation headed by Gheorghe Tătărescu from Romania to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947.
Postwar
On December 30, 1947, Gheorghiu-Dej and Prime Minister Petru Groza forced King Michael I of Romania to abdicate. Years later, Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha alleged that Gheorghiu-Dej personally held a gun on the king and threatened to kill him unless he relinquished the throne. Hours later, Parliament, completely dominated by the communists and their allies later After the elections held a year earlier, he abolished the monarchy and declared the People's Republic of Romania. From then on, Gheorghiu-Dej was "de facto" the most powerful man in Romania.
Soviet influence in Romania under Joseph Stalin favored Gheorghiu-Dej, seen largely as a local leader with strong Marxist-Leninist principles. Moscow's economic influence was protected by the creation of the "Sov-Rom" companies, which directed Romanian trade to unprofitable markets (mainly the Soviet Union).
Until Stalin's death and even afterward, Gheorghiu-Dej did not amend repressive policies, such as works involving forced labor on the Danube-Black Sea Canal. On Gheorghiu-Dej's orders, Romania also implemented massive forced collectivization of land in rural areas.
Leader of Romania
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The first five years of the Romanian People's Republic saw a period of collective leadership, with fellow traveler Groza serving as prime minister. However, in 1952, Groza resigned as prime minister and became president of the presidium of the Grand National Assembly. Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded him, becoming the first communist to hold the position. He thus combined the two most powerful posts in Romania into his own hands, with full Soviet approval.
Gheorghiu-Dej briefly ceded the first secretariat of the Romanian Communist Party in 1954 to Gheorghe Apostol, retaining the post of prime minister. However, he was still the actual leader of Romania, and he regained the leadership of the party in 1955, at the same time handing over the post of prime minister to Chivu Stoica. In 1961, he became president of the newly created Council of State of Romania, making him de jure head of state. However, he had already been de facto head of state since 1947 under his leadership of the Communist Party.
Gheorghiu-Dej was initially uneasy about Nikita Khrushchev's reforms in the new de-Stalinization process. He then became the architect of Romania's semi-autonomous foreign and economic policy within the Warsaw Pact and COMECON, in the late 1950s, notably by initiating the creation of heavy industry in Romania that went against the Soviet instructions for the Eastern Bloc as a whole (for example, the new large-scale steel plant at Galați, which relied on imported iron resources from India and Australia). Ironically, Romania under Gheorghiu-Dej was once considered one of the most loyal among the Soviet allies and therefore there is a tendency to forget 'who first set the pattern of openness and 'liberality'; of foreign policy along with internal repression".
The ideological steps taken became clear with the expulsion of the "Sov-Rom" companies, together with the toning down of the joint Soviet-Romanian cultural enterprises. In 1958 the Red Army withdrew its last troops from Romania (a personal achievement of Gheorghiu-Dej). The Official History of Romania then made reference to a Romanian Bessarabia, as well as other issues that strained relations between the two communist countries. In addition, the last years of the Dej regime saw the publication of texts by Karl Marx, which had previously been kept secret, dealing with Russia and imperial policy in the formerly Romanian language in regions that were still part of the Soviet Union..
Nevertheless, the Securitate remained Dej's instrument of choice, and Romania joined the wave of repression by the other Warsaw Pact countries after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution - incidentally, Hungarian leader Imre Nagy he was arrested a short time later on Romanian soil.
In his later years, Gheorghiu-Dej established diplomatic relations with the First World, including the United States. Such steps were strongly encouraged by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had come to view Romania almost as a friend. Also, 1964 was the year many political prisoners were released.[citation needed]
Relations with the Western Bloc
In the early years of Gheorghiu-Dej's rule, Romania's relations with the West were strained, marked by accusations of spying on the United States and violations of human rights in Romania. There were also low levels of trade between Romania and the West, as Romania became tied to the Soviet Union and the other Eastern Bloc nations; in 1950, Romania's economic plan implied that 89% of trade was solely with the Soviet Bloc.
Later, however, Romania's willingness to trade with the West became more apparent. For example, 1952 saw the first publication of the magazine Romanian Foreign Trade, which offered opportunities for Western merchants to buy Romanian products, such as oil and grain. Western publications also recognized Romania's potential to sell its products on the world market. An article in The Times of August 29, 1953 wrote: "Romania could, for example, it is thought, command higher prices on the world market for much of what she is forced to do." to export to Russia, including food, in exchange for machinery and aid". As Gheorghiu-Dej realized, if Romania could trade with the West, the standard of living would probably rise.
Starting in 1953, the West gradually relaxed its export controls, which had limited the products the United States, the United Kingdom, and France could export to Eastern Europe. Gheorghiu-Dej, eager to establish interaction between Romania and the West, relaxed travel restrictions for Western diplomats in Bucharest and allowed Western journalists greater access to Romania. In early 1954, Romania also appealed to Britain for talks to resolve Romania's outstanding claims, to which Britain agreed in December of that year.
Romania's foreign policy towards the West was closely linked to its policy towards the Soviet Union; Romania could only develop trade with the West if it asserted its independence from the intensely anti-Western Soviet Union. Gheorghiu-Dej realized this and therefore emphasized Romania's sovereignty. At the Second Party Congress, which opened on December 23, 1955, Gheorghiu-Dej gave a five-hour speech in which he stressed the idea of national communism and Romania's right to follow its own interests, instead of being seen forced to follow those of others (referring to the Soviet Union). Gheorghiu-Dej also discussed opening trade with the West. In an attempt to increase dialogue between Romania and the West, in 1956 Gheorghiu-Dej instructed the new ambassador to the US to meet with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and later with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a result of these meetings, the State Department expressed interest in increasing interaction between the two nations, including the possible establishment of a library in Bucharest.
However, Romania's interaction with the West temporarily diminished with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Soviet Union's violent response to the uprising. Even so, Gheorghiu-Dej continued to strengthen the independence of the Soviet Union. For example, Romanian schools removed the Russian language requirement.
In fact, by 1957 Romania had substantially increased its western trade; in that year trade with the West had risen to 25% of Romania's total trade. In the early 1960s, Romania under Gheorghiu-Dej was more industrialized and productive. After World War II, 80% of the population had worked in agriculture, but by 1963, 65% did. And, despite the decline in hands working the land, agricultural productivity had actually increased. Furthermore, Gheorghiu-Dej had successfully initiated a sharp shift in trade to the West, further separating it from the Soviet Union; Romania imported much of its industrial equipment from West Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. This trade pattern followed Gheorghiu-Dej's economic plan, which he made clear to Britain and France in 1960, when he sent his foreign intelligence chief to Paris and London to clarify Romania's desire to interact with the West and ignore the Comecon orders.
In 1964, Gheorghiu-Dej had reached a trade agreement with the US that allowed Romania to buy industrial products from them. The deal came as a result of complaints from American companies that they were losing money to Western Europe. During his presidency, President John F. Kennedy, concerned about the losses of these companies, used his powers to increase trade between the US and Eastern Europe, a policy that President Lyndon Johnson also followed..
Therefore, Gheorghiu-Dej greatly increased trade with the West, making Romania the first Eastern Bloc country to trade with the West, completely independently. Through his national sovereignty policy, Gheorghiu-Dej increased Romania's popularity in the West. US national publications moved away from early 1950s reporting on human rights abuses and oppression, toward mid-1950s to early 1960s articles on Romanian de-intelligence. In the early 1960s, The Times also often reported on Gheorghiu-Dej's and Romania's increasing economic ties to the West. Gheorghiu-Dej's successful efforts to expand Romania's foreign relations, especially those with the West, were evident at his funeral in March 1965, attended by 33 foreign delegations, including a French special envoy sent by General Charles de Gaulle. Gheorghiu-Dej's policies set the stage for his successor, Nicolae Ceaușescu, to take Romania's new course even further.
Death and legacy
Gheorghiu-Dej died of lung cancer in Bucharest on 19 March 1965. Gheorghe Apostol has claimed that Gheorghiu-Dej himself appointed him party leader-in-waiting; in any case, he was perceived as such by many in 1965. But Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer, who had developed hostility towards him, ensured that Apóstol did not seize power, rallying the Party leadership around Gheorghiu-protégé. He left for a long time until Nicolae Ceaușescu came to power. Security General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, wrote that Ceaușescu had allegedly told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill"; Gheorghiu-Dej was among them.
Gheorghiu-Dej was buried in a mausoleum in Bucharest. In 1991, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, his body was exhumed and reburied in the Bellu Cemetery.Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, renamed the "Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej" Polytechnic Institute. Bucharest in his honor is now known as Bucharest Polytechnic University. In the early 1950s, one of Bucharest's Sectors (more or less, today's Sector 6) was named after him.The city of Onești was once named Gheorghe-Gheorghiu Dej. In addition, the Soviet city of Liski was, from 1965 to 1990, named Georgiu-Dezh in his honor.
Gheorghiu-Dej was married to Maria Alexe and they had two daughters, Lica Gheorghiu (1928–1987) and Constantina (1931–2000).