Yearbook 2003
Romania. At the beginning of the year, the remains of Romania’s old King Carol II were brought to his homeland 50 years after his death in exile.
Just before the outbreak of the Iraq war in March, Romania expelled five Iraqi diplomats, whose presence was “undesirable”. According to Countryaah.com, Romania Independence Day is May 9. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase denied that the decision was made under pressure from the United States. But as a future NATO member, Romania supported the US war against the Iraqi regime and offered the Americans, among other things. to use the country’s airfields and military facilities.
In parallel with its support to the US, Romania negotiated an agreement with Russia that was considered to end the long-standing political contradictions between Bucharest and Moscow. The agreement, signed by Presidents Ion Iliescu and Vladimir Putin in Moscow in July, condemned Stalin’s and Hitler’s division of Eastern Europe as well as Romania’s participation in World War II on Nazi Germany’s side. Russia and Romania recognized each other’s borders in the agreement. Russia also agreed that a commission should treat the Romanian assets in the form of gold, jewels and art that have been in Moscow since the First World War. Romania has in vain recovered the taxes, which are estimated to be worth approximately SEK 23 billion.
In October, a referendum on constitutional changes was held ahead of a forthcoming EU entry, which is expected to be in 2007. Nearly 90% voted in favor of the amendments. Thus, the people of Romania have agreed to EU membership.
WW2
In January 1941, Jerngarden sought to seize power alone. Antonescu let the situation sail for a few days and then put the army into the garden. Germany would rather have an effective military dictatorship to the ally than an ideologically “correct” but more chaotic ironclad government. In the summer of 1941, Romania joined forces with Germany in the attack on the Soviet Union to recapture Besarabia. The Romanian troops were not satisfied with that, but continued their advance in areas that had never been Romanian.
After the Soviet troops began to oust the Germans and their allies, Antonescu was overthrown at a coup d’état on August 23, 1944, with the young King Michael, the Communists, the Social Democrats and the major bourgeois parties cooperating. At the same time, the Soviet army was in the process of bringing the country under control. The rest of the war, Romania actively participated in allies and suffered major casualties.
The Communists come to power
From 1944 to 1947 – when the Communist Party with Soviet support had taken full control and proclaimed the country to the People’s Republic (December 30, 1947) – the political situation was unclear in many respects. The country had weak democratic traditions. The transition between some bourgeois politicians and the fascists was fluid. Although large sections of the population wanted radical changes in power relations, increasing skepticism towards the Soviet Union made it difficult for the Communist Party to capture these positions. Many became anti-communists because they were against Russian interference.
Also in the interwar period, the Communist Party had a similar problem. The Comintern set the course for the party without regard to Romanian conditions and repeatedly deployed foreigners into the party’s leadership. Several leading party members were executed in Moscow during the Stalin regime in the 1930s. It was safer to sit in Romanian prison.
At the November 1946 election, the communist-dominated “Democratic Party Bloc” got 80% of the vote. It is doubtful whether this election was purer than many of the pre-war elections. Gradually, there was less room for political opposition and free exchange of views. Internally in the Communist Party, the unidirection also became tougher. In the spring of 1948, Justice L. Patrascanu was deposed – and executed. He had long been among the leaders of the party, but was now too national. Only in 1968 was he rehabilitated. In the first years of the new regime, legal certainty was minimal. Many innocents received harsh punishments.
