Rumania’s New Policy NATIONAL INTEREST BEFORE MERE IDEOLOGICAL LOYALTY

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 12

Rumania’s New Policy NATIONAL INTEREST BEFORE MERE IDEOLOGICAL LOYALTY

IBy a Special Correspondent of “The Times" —lately in Bucharest!

(Reprinted from “The Timas")

Hundreds of red posters were advertising Rumania’s achievements in the two decades of Communist rule. Portraits of Rumanian leaders beamed with an air of pride and self-confidence from every village square. Large white letters proclaimed that all credit for the country’s past and present, for its national liberation as well as for its economic successes, went to the glorious Rumanian Communist Party, the guide and the inspiration of all victories.

As I drove to Bucharest, passing villages and towns, I searched in vain for those once familiar slogans pledging eternal friendship with Russia and acknowledging its great assistance in the construction of socialism in Rumania. The word "friendship” may still have a Slavonic ring about it: it is one of the many Slav words that found their way into the Rumanian language. But over the last two years and as Rumania was readjusting her relationship to Russia, national self-interest became more important than international loyalty. In Rumania today one is struck not as much by internal changes—slow and unspectacular by comparison—as by an exuberance of national confidence, by the regime’s appeal to popular sentiment through a policy whose main ingredient is nationalism. Old anti-Russian feelings, resentments over the annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina and over Stalin’s economic exploitation are being reawakened. No matter what hardships were endured in the past or what sufferings inflicted upon individuals, many Rumanians argue, the fact remains that the country is now independent. By its spectacular and hitherto unthinkable refusal to sacrifice what it considers are national interests, the regime has obtained popular absolution and confidence. Nation-wide briefings which followed last April’s central committee meeting were a sign of the regime’s reliance upon internal support. The release of some 10,000 political prisoners, the easing of internal tensions were the first and significant concessions. They were an indication that the trend is at last moving away from rigid orthodoxy and that the regime is substituting pressure for coercion. It is relaxing the grip and applying more subtle forms of control. There is greater tolerance, more grumbling and criticism, less interference with the arts and literature, more cultural and scientific contact with the west. A recent reappraisal of official attitude to contemporary western literature opened the gates to Proust, Joyce, Kafka and lonesco, but it warned the Rumanian writers that foreign forms and patterns were still unsuitable for socialist realism. Significant as the new trend may be, internal relaxation still has a long way to go

before one can speak of fundamental changes and reforms. Rumania has not yet attained the relatively free atmosphere of some of its neighbours. Promotion of tourism as a quick way of earning hard currency brought more visitors to the country, but while border restrictions re now greatly relaxed for the incoming traffic, passports for Rumanian nationals are still a privilege enjoyed by a few. Watch towers, ploughed strips, barbed wire, searchlights and police dogs still guard the Rumanian border with Jugoslavia as if Belgrade and Bucharest had not established a special relationship. Armed Guards The newly built asphalt road which leads from Temiscara to the border is still deserted. In the tiny port of Orsova on the Danube people sat in the open-air restaurant under the watchful eye of heavily armed frontier guards who strolled up and down the embankment. True, more people have travelled to the west than in any year since the war; more have joined their families abroad but compared with the thousands of Czechs, Poles and Hungarians who came to the west last summer their numbers are indeed small. Yet, also in this respect, things are beginning to stir. It may not take long before the Rumanians, cut off from the western Europe for two decades, will travel abroad in greater numbers. At this particular stage Rumania’s evolution presents itself as a contradictory mixture of internal orthodoxy and external revisionism. With its safe hard currency income from oil, timber, and agricultural produce Rumania can more easily afford to push her economic independence farther than other members of the block. But eastern Europe constitutes its natural market, which would be difficult to replace elsewhere. In domestic affairs, scars of the past rigid dictatorship have left a deep mark both on the regime and on the people it rules. Nowhere except perhaps in Russia are people more conditioned, more cautious in conversation, and nowhere are intellectuals as readily adjustable to the political requirements of the party. Rival Movements The Sino-Soviet rift and the existence of two rival Communist movements have altered the whole relationship within the once monolithic block. Through skilful exploitation of dissensions Rumania is gradually establishing itself as an independent Communist country. It is aligned neither to Moscow nor to Peking, paying lip service to internationalism and unity yet pursuing its own national interests; while formally a member of the block it is not only beginning to act increasingly on its own but is also actively preaching its disintegration. After a long debate in the central committee last spring the Rumanian leaders came out into the open with a declaration which has since become the ideological basis of Rumania’s national communism. In it they have rejected the Soviet plan for

I economic integration, declar’ed neutrality in the SinoSoviet dispute, and. by challenging the right of any party to judge others and by asserting that no parly could claim a privileged place or impose its opinions upon others, they have confronted Russia with a “fait accompli.” Moscow could not have been surprised by this formal declaration of independence. But Rumania began to apply in practice what it had preached in theory. Its selfconfidence grew and its opposition stiffened. Relations were brought to the point where Mr Khrushchev felt compelled to seek President Tito’s services to issue what was no doubt a serious warning. An old rebel was asked to impress upon a new rebel the risks involved in going too fast and too far. News of Mr Khrushchev’s dismissal could therefore hardly have provoked in Bucharest that same concern and indignation as it had done in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, and Belgrade. Yet, instead of showing their hand the Rumanian leaders adopted a poker-faced attitude and in order to make quite certain that everybody understood that with or without Khrushchev they were determined to keep a safe distance from Moscow they went on behaving as if the matter did not concern them. Mr Gheorghiu-Dej did not rush to Moscow to rejoin the group of party secretaries. If it is true that personal animosity as well as political disagreement was the reason why for two years he kept on declining Mr Khrushchev’s invitations, he was prudent enough now to avoid any gesture that might commit him to the new Soviet leaders. If it is true that Mr Khrushchev was criticised also for having alienated Rumania, Bucharest appeared quite unmoved by it. What happened in Russia was an internal matter, officials argued, and “we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.” As self-appointed mediators in the Sino-Soviet dispute the Rumanians have skilfully manoeuvred between the two poles realising that neither a find rupture nor a “rapprochement” is desirable. They have been pushing their independence faster and farther than other countries of the block, but they have alsj been conducting their battle in vastly different circumstances in a world whose members are beginning to display an increasing measure of independence and where national interest and tradition is becoming more important than ideological loyalty.