Everything about The Socialist Party Of Romania totally explained
The
Socialist Party of Romania (
Romanian:
Partidul Socialist din România, commonly known as
Partidul Socialist, PS) was a
Romanian
socialist political party, created on
December 11,
1918 by members of the
Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSDR), after the latter emerged from clandestinity. Through its PSDR legacy, the PS maintained a close connection with the
local labor movement and was symbolically linked to the first local socialist group, the
Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. Its creation coincided with the establishment of
Greater Romania in the wake of
World War I; after May 1919, it began a process of fusion with the
social democratic groups of
ethnic Romanians in
Austria-Hungary — the
Social Democratic Party of Transylvania and Banat and the
Romanian Social Democratic Party of Bukovina. The three groups adopted a common platform in October 1920. Progressively influenced by
Leninism, the PS became divided between a
maximalist majority supporting
Bolshevik guidelines and a
reformist-minded minority: the former affiliated with the
Comintern as the
Socialist-Communist Party in May 1921 (officially known as
Communist Party of Romania from 1922), while the minority eventually reestablished the PSDR.
The PS had its headquarters in
Bucharest, at the Socialist Club on Sfântul Ionică Street No.12, near the old
National Theater (located just north of
University Square, the street is currently a section of Ion Câmpineanu Street, after the latter was rerouted). The building eventually also housed all Romanian
trade unions of the period, as well as the
General Trade Unions' Commission. The Socialists edited the newspaper
Socialismul, based on Academiei Street.
History
Context
In 1915, at a time when Romania hept its neutrality, the PSDR, led by the revolutionary-minded
Marxist Christian Rakovsky, played a prominent part inside the anti-war
Zimmerwald Movement. Throughout the following year, it organized rallies in support of non-intervention into what it deemed "an
imperialist conflict". When Romania joined the
Entente Powers in August 1916, the group came under suspicion of supporting the
Central Powers, and was outlawed soon after. While its secretary
Dumitru Marinescu was drafted and killed in action during the
Romanian Campaign, several of its prominent activists, including Rakovsky, were arrested.
Gheorghe Cristescu and others remained active in Bucharest under occupation by the
Central Powers, and maintained links with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany; the group, also including
Ecaterina Arbore,
Constantin Popovici,
Ilie Moscovici, and
Constantin Titel Petrescu, protested the
peace with the Central powers and was arrested by the
Alexandru Marghiloman government, but released through an
amnesty soon after.
The PSDR's history was decisively marked by the
Russian Revolution of 1917. Following the
February Revolution, Rakovsky was set free by Russian troops present in
Iaşi, and took refuge in
Odessa — he became active in revolutionary politics against the Romanian state, and joined the Bolsheviks. As a member of the
Rumcherod authority in
Odessa, he joined with
Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor,
Alecu Constantinescu and
Ion Dic Dicescu's short-lived
Romanian Social Democratic Action Committee in planning an insurgency, before being driven out by a German military intervention.
Creation
The PSDR itself radicalized its message, adding to its previous calls for
universal suffrage a
republican program and support for
land reform. Its program also called for an end to all forms of
exploitation, but argued that this was to be fulfilled inside the existing legislative framework.
King Ferdinand I's promise to legislate the land reform, together with
electoral reform, was embraced by PSDR's moderate wing.
After the party adopted its new name, it proclaimed its commitment to
dictatorship of the proletariat, and became involved in supporting the radicalized
labor movement, culminating in the
general strike of 1920.
On, just days after the party was founded,
typesetters at various presses in Bucharest, who had been protesting since November, rallied in front of the Sfântul Ionică building and marched on the Ministry of Industry headquarters on
Calea Victoriei, asking for the
eight-hour day, salary increases, the guarantee of
civil liberties, and more say for the
trade unions. The group quickly swelled in numbers, to about as many as 15,000 workers in a contemporary account. On orders of the
Constantin Coandă cabinet, who feared Bolshevik agitation, troops were ultimately ordered to fire on the crowd and assail it with
bayonets in as many as three successive waves. They also stormed into the Sfântul Ionică building and arrested several Socialist leaders, including the
general secretary Moscovici and
I. C. Frimu (Frimu later died in custody). Four PS members, including
Alecu Constantinescu, were each sentenced to five years in prison, while all others arrested were acquitted. Eventually, in February 1919, most demands of the Socialist group were fulfilled after the
Transylvanian Socialists
Iosif Jumanca and
Ioan Flueraş, urged by
Constantin Titel Petrescu, came to Bucharest and discussed the matter with both King Ferdinand and the new
Premier,
Ion I. C. Brătianu.
In May 1919, delegates of the Transylvanian and
Bukovinan groups began negotiations with the PS to form a single political movement, and elected representatives to the newly-created General Council of the Socialist Party. A single statute was adopted in October of 1920.
In late 1919, the main Socialist Party and the Transylvanian wing were approached by the emerging
People's Party for a fusion; the matter was discussed between, on the Socialist side, Moscovici, Flueraş, and Jumanca, and, from among the People's Party, by
Alexandru Averescu and
Constantin Argetoianu. Talks yielded no results, especially after Averescu attempted to impose his party's platform on the Socialists. During negotiations, Argetoianu observed that unease was growing between Moscovici's group and the party's
far left, rallied around Cristescu.
After the
election of 1919, the PS sent 7 representatives to the
Chamber of Deputies; it was awarded 19 seats in the latter and 3 in the
Senate following the
1920 elections. The three senatorial candidates of that year — Cristescu,
Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea and
Boris Stefanov — were not validated into
Parliament, despite having carried the popular vote. The PS' involvement in the 1920 strike caused authorities to organize a swift crackdown (50 party members were still held in prisons by early 1921).
In early 1921, the PS had 27 branches nation-wide, totaling 40,000 to 45,000 registered members and rallying support from most workers affiliated with trade unions (more than 200,000 people). Estimates place the industrial
working class of the 1920s and 1930s at between 400,000 and 820,000 people.
Notable PS activists at the time were
David Fabian,
Elena Filipescu, and
Panait Muşoiu. Among the PS' sympathizers were the artist and former
prisoner of war Nicolae Tonitza, who regularly contributed graphics to
Socialismul, and the writer
Gala Galaction.
Comintern and reformist split
The major issue splitting the party involved affiliation to the
Comintern, seen by many PS members as a successor to the
Second International, and sent representatives to the 1920 Comintern Congress in
Moscow, were they engaged in prolonged talks over the issue of affiliation with
Christian Rakovsky,
Grigory Zinoviev, and
Nikolai Bukharin. These were Cristescu, Dobrogeanu-Gherea,
David Fabian, and
Constantin Popovici; the two delegates representing the
Social Democratic Party of Transylvania and Banat were
Eugen Rozvan and Flueraş — as a former member of the
National Romanian Council in Transylvania, Flueraş was deemed a "
class enemy" by the Comintern. Specifically, Bukharin called on the PS to accept the policy changes theorized by
Vladimir Lenin (the so-called
21 points), to exclude Flueraş and others, to submit itself to supervision from the Comintern's
Balkan Communist Federation, to vote in a new
Central Committee, and to guarantee that
Socialismul would be turned into a
communist newspaper. An additional and hotly contested demand involved submitting trade unions to party control.
Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Popovici, and Cristescu met with Lenin, who urged them to adopt the resolution in this form, while allegedly making some promises to preserve a certain degree of autonomy for the Romanian group. Returned to Bucharest, Flueraş called on the party to return to a reformist stance and support for
Greater Romania; together with the similarly-minded
Iosif Jumanca, he severed all links with the PS in after its Conference of January-February 1921 (they were later followed by Popovici,
Ilie Moscovici,
George Grigorovici, and
Leon Ghelerter).
May Congress
At the same time, the maximalist wing, led by Cristescu (who renounced his reserves after first engaging in a heated polemic with Rozvan), passed the resolution to join the Comintern and accept Lenin's 21 points. The Cominternist motion was drafted with support from 18 out of 38 members of the General Council, and submitted to the Congress which took place after May 8, with the maximalist faction adopting the name of
Socialist-Communist Party (PCdR).
According to sources, during the vote on May 11, advocates of the Comintern had received 428 mandates from a total of 540, and, given the departure of the reformists, represented 51 out of 77 delegates. Commenting on the success of Leninist delegates, researchers
Adrian Cioroianu and Victor Frunză both attributed it to manipulation of inner-party electoral procedures rather than actual appeal. A third PS wing, comprising the
centrists who supported conditional affiliation and provided 111 mandates, was marginalized inside the Communist group over the following period.
The procedures were cause for much deliberation: according to his own testimony, the reformist
Şerban Voinea, who translated Lenin's 21 points, was accused of having fabricated them as a means to give the Bolsheviks bad press (a fellow delegate shouted that "It was absolutely impossible for the Third International to have voted such a text, with such conditions"), while
Boris Stefanov allegedly
heckled him, suggesting Voinea leave the PS and join the
National Liberal Party ("[he] kept shouting at me [...]: «To the Liberals! To the Liberals!»"). Voinea also left detail on the impact the Congress had on the outside:
"The matter had become a slogan with which people would greet each other throughout the city: «Long live the third [International]! Long live the third!». Children would say to one another: «Long live the third!». At the time, it took real civic courage to declare oneself against the IIIrd International."
Repression
» Main article: Dealul Spirii Trial
Romanian Army regulars headed by a Royal Commissioner stormed into the Sfântul Ionică building at 15:00 on
May 12,
1921; all 51 Socialist-Communist delegates were separated from the group, arrested, and transported to the penal facilities of
Jilava and
Văcăreşti. An additional 200 known Socialist-Communist militants were also incarcerated. Among those taken into custody, aside from Cristescu and Stefanov, were
Vitali Holostenco,
Marcel Pauker,
Elena Filipescu,
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, and
Elek Köblös, all of whom were later prominent Communists. The intervention occurred at a time when the floor was taken by Köblös, the PS delegate from
Târgu Mureş, who was much later accused of
conspiring with the authorities, based on speculation that his speech was in fact a signal.
Authorities prosecuted those arrested (as many as 300 in one account) in the
Dealul Spirii Trial, and attempted to connect them with
Max Goldstein, a
terrorist of uncertain affiliation who had detonated a bomb inside the Romanian Senate on
December 8,
1920. Charges were based on the group's rejection of Greater Romania and their advocacy of "
World revolution", which had raised suspicion that they were trying to overthrow the existing order through actions such as Goldstein's. In technical terms, this was formulated by the prosecutors as:
"Congress overstepped [its] order of the day and submitted to debate affiliation to the Third International, deciding to vote on it."
The instigator for the move was
Constantin Argetoianu,
Minister of the Interior in the
Alexandru Averescu People's Party cabinet, who latter admitted that the arrest lacked legal grounds. He also stated that he'd given Cristescu approval for the Congress as a means for the arguably illegal motion to be discussed, and evidenced that he'd planned to arrest the leaders based on his belief that, once this was accomplished, "all agitation will crumble like an edifice raised on sand". The move provoked mixed reactions inside the executive: according to Argetoianu,
Premier Averescu was hesitant, while the Minister of Justice,
Grigore Trancu-Iaşi, advised against it (reason why Argetoianu decided to order the arrest without prior knowledge from his fellow People's Party members, as a
fait accompli). Confident, Argetoianu subsequently stated that "Communism is over in Romania".
As the trial was under way, Argetoianu allowed for several Socialist-Communist defendants (including
Leonte Filipescu) to be shot while in custody — alleging that they'd attempted to flee. Several of the detainees declared they'd been beaten, and some were occasionally moved to
solitary confinement.
At the 3rd Comintern Congress in July,
Karl Radek reported that the
Russian Bolshevik government and the international group at large continued to recognize the Socialist-Communist leaders in prison as the official executive body of the Romanian party. Several refugees, mostly natives of
Bessarabia, were elected as the party's representatives in
Moscow: they included
Saul Ozias and
Gelber Moscovici. Joining them was
Alecu Constantinescu, as the only prominent socialist present. Victor Frunză credited this moment with severing ties between the PS' tradition and the new Bolshevik course; his view was disputed by
Vladimir Tismăneanu, who concluded instead that subordination to the Comintern was equally demanded from all pro-Bolshevik PS members.
Aftermath and legacy
Most of the accused were eventually
amnestied on orders
King Ferdinand. At their 1922 Congress in
Ploieşti, the Socialist-Communists officially established the
Communist Party of Romania (PCdR), of which Cristescu was the first
general secretary. It was outlawed by the
Ion I. C. Brătianu cabinet in April 1924, through the
Mârzescu Law (named after its proponent, Minister of Justice
Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu). In 1925, Cristescu himself left the Communist group after clashing with the
Balkan Communist Federation over the issue of
Greater Romania and being progressively marginalized. The PCdR survived as a marginal grouping in the underground, with much of its leadership taking refuge in the
Soviet Union; upon the close of
World War II, it was resurrected with the help of
Soviet occupation, to become the ruling party of
Communist Romania.
Reestablished in January 1922 and led by
Ilie Moscovici and
Constantin Popovici, the PS continued to have nominal existence after it merged into the newly-created
Federation of Romanian Socialist Parties or FPSR (May 1922), which reunited reformist groups throughout the country, had its own group in the
Chamber of Deputies, and was represented to the
2½ International. On
May 7,
1927, the various groups in the Federation merged to reestablish the
Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD), led by
Constantin Titel Petrescu. The Socialist Party, unlike other groups, refused to join the
Second International, and affiliated instead with the
Paris Bureau (it was joined in this by a group on the PSD's left wing). (such a view was virulently rejected by the FPSR, who credited the PCdR with no more than 500 members, while the Comintern itself eventually reduced the official claim to 2,000 members); in 1951, several years after the Communist Party came to power, its leader
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej encouraged the notion that voting on affiliation to the Comintern had occurred on May 13 instead of May 12 (and at a time when most people who voted in favor had already been taken into custody) — this version was interpreted as an attempt to depict the PCdR as a natural successor to the PS.
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