Under Soviet directives On 30 December 1947, Gheorghiu-Dej and Prime Minister
Petru Groza forced
King Michael I to
abdicate. Years later, Albanian Communist leader
Enver Hoxha alleged that Gheorghiu-Dej personally pulled a gun on the King and threatened to kill him unless he gave up the throne. Hours later, Parliament, fully dominated by Communists and their allies after the
elections held a year earlier, abolished the monarchy and declared Romania a People's Republic. From this moment onward, Gheorghiu-Dej was the
de facto most powerful man in Romania. Soviet influence in Romania under
Joseph Stalin favoured Gheorghiu-Dej, largely seen as a local leader with strong
Marxist-Leninist principles. The economic influence of Moscow was protected by the creation of the
"Sov-Rom" companies, which directed Romania's commercial exchanges to unprofitable markets (mainly the Soviet Union). Up until Stalin's death and even afterwards, Gheorghiu-Dej did not amend repressive policies, such as the works employing
penal labour on the
Danube-Black Sea Canal. On orders from Gheorghiu-Dej, Romania implemented also the massive
forced collectivization of land in the rural areas.
Creation of heavy industry at Bucharest's
Băneasa Airport in June 1960.
Ceaușescu can be seen at Gheorghiu-Dej's right hand side Gheorghiu-Dej became the architect of a new semi-autonomous foreign and economic policy under the Warsaw Pact and CAER at the end of the sixth decade. He decided to create a heavy industry, an initiative that contradicted the Muscovite plans that had reserved for Romania the role of granary of the communist bloc. Thus, the Galați Steel Plant was created, the construction of which was to be made with funds from the IMF. Production was based on iron ore imported from India and Australia. In 1952, construction began of the Borzești Petrochemical Platform with the first combine (Refinery no. 10) and the related city of Onești, mostly with the workforce of political prisoners. Also, in 1953, the Bârlad Bearing Company was put into operation, which later developed reaching a number of approx. 9,000 employees, about 1/9 of the city's population (approx. 80,000 inhabitants in 1989). Romania became one of the world's leading steel-producing countries, the machine building industry expanded considerably, and the chemical industry was overdeveloped, with an oil refining capacity far in excess of domestic raw material production. Romania began to produce, at high cost prices but of inferior quality, civil and military aircraft, tanks, maritime vessels, helicopters, automobiles and computers. A large-scale development was achieved by three industrial branches: the steel industry, the petrochemical industry and the machine building industry. Romania, lacking sufficient sources of domestic raw materials, was forced to rely on imports, sometimes obtained at extremely high prices. In addition, the decrease in demand for steel, of machine tools and petrochemical products on the world market, in the last decade of the Gheorghiu-Dej regime, limited the possibilities of exporting Romanian industrial products and, implicitly, massively reduced the foreign exchange funds thus obtained. The lack of competitiveness of Romanian products, mainly due to their poor quality and outdated technologies, forced Romania to sell its industrial goods at prices lower than their production costs, mostly on
Third World markets and often within barter or credit exchanges.
Personal rule 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 stepped down from the premiership and became head of state as Chairman of the Presidium of the
Great National Assembly. Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded him, becoming the first Communist to hold the post. He thus combined the two most powerful posts in Romania in his own hands, with full Soviet approval. Gheorghiu-Dej briefly gave up the first secretaryship of the Communist Party in 1954 to
Gheorghe Apostol, retaining the premiership. However, he was still the actual leader of Romania, and he regained the party leadership in 1955, at the same time handing the premiership to
Chivu Stoica. In 1961, he became head of state as the president of the newly created
State Council. Gheorghiu-Dej was at first unsettled by
Nikita Khrushchev's reforms in the new process of
De-Stalinization. He then became the architect of Romania's semi-autonomous foreign and economic policy within the
Warsaw Pact and the
Comecon, in the late 1950s, notably by initiating the creation of a
heavy industry in Romania which went against Soviet directions for the
Eastern Bloc as a whole (e.g., the new large-scale steel plant in
Galați, which relied on iron resources imported from
India and
Australia). Ironically, Romania under Gheorghiu-Dej was once considered one of the most loyal among the Soviet satellites, and thus there is a tendency to forget "who first established the pattern of foreign policy openness and 'liberalness' coupled with domestic repression". The ideological steps undertaken were made clear by the ousting of the "Sov-Rom" companies, together with the toning down of Soviet-Romanian common cultural ventures. In 1958 the
Red Army withdrew its last troops from Romania (a personal achievement of Gheorghiu-Dej). The official
History of Romania made then reference to a Romanian
Bessarabia, as well as other topics which tensed relations between the two communist countries. Moreover, the final years of Dej's regime saw the publishing of
Karl Marx—newly discovered—texts dealing with
Russia's
imperial policy in previously Romanian and now Soviet regions. Yet, the
Securitate was still Dej's instrument of choice, and Romania joined the other Warsaw Pact countries' wave of repression after the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – incidentally,
Hungarian leader
Imre Nagy was shortly detained on Romanian soil. In his late years, Gheorghiu-Dej established diplomatic relations with the
First World, including the
United States. Such steps were highly encouraged by
President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had come to see Romania as an almost friendly Communist country in the
Cold War context (1963). Also, many
political prisoners were released in 1964.
Interaction with the West , President of
Czechoslovakia In the early years of Gheorghiu-Dej's rule, Romania's relations with the West were tense, marked by accusations of
United States espionage and Romanian human rights violations. There were also low levels of trade between Romania and the West, as Romania tied itself to the Soviet Union and the other satellite nations; in 1950, Romania's economic plan involved 89% of trade to be 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 journal
Romanian Foreign Trade, which offered opportunities to Western traders to buy Romanian goods, such as
petroleum and
grain. Western publications also recognized the potential for Romania to sell its products on the world market. An article from
The Times of 29 August 1953 wrote: "[Romania] could, for instance, it is thought, obtain higher prices on the world market for much of what she is forced to export to Russia, foodstuffs included, in return for machinery and aid", As Gheorghiu-Dej realized, if Romania were able to trade with the West the
standard of living would likely rise. From 1953, the West gradually relaxed their export controls, which had limited the products that the U.S., Great Britain, and France could export to
Eastern Europe. Gheorghiu-Dej, eager to establish interaction between Romania and the West, relaxed travel restraints on Western diplomats in
Bucharest and allowed Western journalists more access to Romania. In early 1954, Romania also appealed to Great Britain about having talks to resolve Romania's outstanding claims, to which Great Britain agreed in December of that year. Romania's foreign policy towards the West was closely tied to its policy toward the Soviet Union; Romania could only develop trading with the West if it asserted its independence from the intensely anti-West Soviet Union. Gheorghiu-Dej realized this, and thus emphasized Romania's sovereignty. In the Second Party Congress, which opened on 23 December 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, rather than be forced to follow another's (referring to the Soviet Union). Gheorghiu-Dej also discussed opening up trade with the West. In an attempt to increase the dialogue between Romania and the West, in 1956 Gheorghiu-Dej instructed the new ambassador to the U.S. to meet with both
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and then with
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a result of these meetings, the
U.S. Department of State expressed interest in increasing the interaction between the two nations, including possibly establishing a library in Bucharest. at left and
Anastas Mikoyan at rightRomania's interaction with the West temporarily decreased, however, with the
1956 Hungarian Revolution and the violent response of the Soviet Union to the uprising. Gheorghiu-Dej continued to strengthen the independence from the Soviet Union. For example, Romanian schools dropped the Russian language requirement. Additionally, Romania endorsed the Moscow Declaration of 1957 which stated that "Socialist countries base their relations on the principles of complete equality, respect for territorial integrity, state independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in one another's affairs… The socialist states also advocate the general expansion of economic and cultural relations with all other countries…" These statements coincided with Gheorghiu-Dej's claims to national sovereignty and independence. By 1957 Romania had substantially increased its Western trade; in that year trade with the West had increased to 25% of Romania's total trade. By 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. Despite the decrease in hands working the land, agricultural productivity had actually increased. Additionally, Gheorghiu-Dej had successfully begun a strong shift in trade towards the West, further separating it from the Soviet Union; Romania imported much of its industrial equipment from
West Germany, Great Britain, and France. This trade pattern followed Gheorghiu-Dej's economic plan, which he made clear to Great Britain and France in 1960, when he sent his head of foreign intelligence to
Paris and
London in order to clarify Romania's desire to interact with the West and disregard
Comecon orders. By 1964 Gheorghiu-Dej had made a trading agreement with the U.S. that allowed Romania to buy industrial products from them. The agreement came as a result of U.S. businesses' complaints that they were losing money to
Western Europe. During his presidency, President
John F. Kennedy, concerned with these businesses' losses, used his powers to increase trade between the U.S. and Eastern Europe, a policy which President
Lyndon Johnson also followed. Thus, Gheorghiu-Dej greatly increased trade with the West, making Romania the first Soviet Bloc country to independently trade with the West. Through his policy of national sovereignty, Gheorghiu-Dej increased the popularity of Romania in the West. National U.S. publications moved away from reports in the early 1950s of
human rights abuses and oppression, towards articles from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s of Romanian de-satellization. In the early 1960s,
The Times also reported often on Gheorghiu-Dej's and Romania's increased economic ties with the West. Gheorghiu-Dej's successful efforts to expand Romania's foreign relations, especially those with the West, were evident at his March 1965 funeral, attended by 33 foreign delegations, including a special French envoy sent by General
Charles de Gaulle. Gheorghiu-Dej's policies set the stage for his successor,
Nicolae Ceaușescu, to carry Romania's new course even further. == Death and legacy ==