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Romania MASS ORGANIZATIONS
The PCR fostered the development of a large number of
mass
organizations that functioned as its auxiliaries. These
included
traditional mass organizations (youth, labor, and women's
organizations) and new types of political mass
organizations such
as the National Council of Working People. Mass
organizations
representing major ethnic groups also emerged.
Citizens were constitutionally guaranteed the right to
join
together in organizations. At the same time, the
Constitution
defined the leading role of the party in relation to the
mass
organizations, asserting that through such organizations
the PCR
"achieves an organized link with the working class, the
peasantry,
the intelligentsia, and other categories of working people
and
mobilizes them in the struggle for the completion of the
building
of socialism."
There were two broad classes of mass organizations:
those based
on common interests and categories of persons, such as
youth and
women's associations; and those based on professions, such
as the
General Union of Trade Unions (Uniunea Generala (Generala)
a
Sindicatelor din Romānia,
UGSR--see Glossary).
Several of the
groups belonged to international organizations and
associations,
such as the World Federation of Trade Unions and the World
Federation of Democratic Youth.
In November 1968, the Council of Working People of
Hungarian
Nationality and the Council of Working People of German
Nationality
were established. The former had units in fifteen
judete,
and the latter was active in nine. In judete with
substantial Serbian or Ukrainian populations, local
councils were
established for these groups. The nationality councils
were
affiliated with the Socialist Democracy and Unity Front.
The purpose of the nationality councils, Ceausescu
declared,
was to "cultivate socialist patriotism, socialist
internationalism,
and devotion to our new order and to the common fatherland
. . .
against any backward nationalistic concepts and
manifestations."
Although the councils facilitated communication between
the PCR and
ethnic groups, they functioned primarily as transmitters
of
official nationality policies. During the 1980s, the
councils
served as a forum for expressing Romanian nationalism in
the
prolonged dispute with neighboring Hungary on the question
of
minority rights in Transylvania.
Data as of July 1989
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