|
Romania The Intelligentsia
Traditionally the Romanian intelligentsia--the educated
elite
of society--had been the children of the landed
aristocracy who had
moved to cities to become poets, journalists, social
critics,
doctors, or lawyers. Given the country's overall
backwardness, any
education beyond the elementary level accrued special
privileges
and high social status. The intelligentsia played a
leading role in
the life of the nation, providing a humanistic voice for
major
social problems, shaping public opinion, and setting value
criteria. After 1918, as the aristocracy declined, the
class of
intellectuals and professionals grew stronger. Throughout
the
interwar years, many of them occupied high political
positions and
were quite influential.
During the first decade of communist rule, the old
intelligentsia were all but eliminated. They lost their
jobs, and
their possessions were confiscated. Many were imprisoned,
and
thousands died or were killed. Those who survived the
purge were
blackmailed or frightened into submission and
collaboration with
the new regime. The intellectual arena was cleared of any
opposition to communist power and policies, leaving the
ruling
party free to create a new intelligentsia--one that would
be
unquestionably loyal, committed to the communist cause,
and easily
manipulated. The traditional role of the intelligentsia
had been
irreversibly changed.
The party set out to educate a new intelligentsia that
would
meet the needs of the crash program of industrialization.
The
number of people with secondary or higher education rose
dramatically. From 1956 to 1966, the total number of
Romanians with
a higher education increased by 58 percent, and the number
of
students enrolled in universities more than doubled. A
quota system
that favored the children of peasant and proletarian
families
ensured the desired social composition of this rapidly
expanding
student population. Children of middle-class families were
kept to
a minimum by a selection system that allocated more points
for
social origin than for academic qualifications. At the
same time,
the establishment of the new political system, with its
many
institutions necessary for administering the centrally
planned
economy, required an ever-increasing number of
white-collar
workers. The regime was eager to pull these workers from
the ranks
of peasantry and proletariat, regarding them as more
politically
reliable. By 1974 more than 63 percent of nonmanual
workers were
sons and daughters of proletarian families. This
prodigious social
advancement produced a highly diverse intelligentsia. The
intellectual elite was composed of two main subgroups--a
creative
elite similar to the traditional intelligentsia involved
in
scholarly and artistic pursuits, and a new technocratic
elite
involved in industrial production and management.
In contrast to the interwar period, when the
intelligentsia
shared the political stage with the ruling establishment,
the role
of intellectuals in socialist Romania became one of total
subservience to the ruling elite. This reversal was
particularly
stifling for the creative intelligentsia, whose new
mission was to
paint a picture of socialism that was pleasing,
reassuring, and
convincing to both the masses and the regime. Under such
conditions, freedom of expression and creativity
evaporated. As a
reward for conformity and demonstrated ideological
commitment, the
new members of the creative intelligentsia received social
and
material privileges. Despite reduced wage differentials
between
white- and blue-collar workers and despite the regime's
emphasis on
the more technical professions, the new intellectual elite
exhibited a marked disdain for manual labor. The
intellectuals
showed a marked preference for the same fields their
predecessors
had most highly regarded--philosophy, history, literature,
and the
arts. It was toward these endeavors that they encouraged
their
children. The interests of the intelligentsia were
strikingly at
odds with party canon, which maintained that the
intelligentsia was
not a class but a separate social stratum working in
harmony with
the proletariat and performing the leading creative,
executive, and
administrative roles.
As the technical intelligentsia grew larger and had a
more
powerful voice in management, its members too were seen as
a threat
to political authority. Although increasing the quality
and
quantity of industrial production was the goal of both the
PCR and
the technical intelligentsia, the means to that end was
common
cause for disagreement between loyal but technically
incompetent
apparatchiks (party careerists) and the younger, better
educated
technocrats. Indicative of the rancor between the two was
the
latter's undisguised contempt for General Secretary
Ceausescu.
Until the late 1960s, the PCR leadership, despite some
mistrust
and aversion toward intellectuals, acknowledged that the
cooperation and participation of skilled professionals was
critical
for the country's economic development. But with
Ceausescu's rise
to power, hostility toward the intelligentsia grew. In the
early
1970s, an anti-intellectual campaign was launched to
eradicate
"retrograde values." Ceausescu criticized the
intelligentsia for
their bourgeois and intellectualist attitudes. Members of
the
technical intelligentsia were accused of resisting party
policy,
and thousands were dismissed from research and
administrative
positions and reassigned to more overtly "productive"
work. Writers
and artists were denounced for works that did not proclaim
the
achievements and goals of socialism and aid in the
creation of the
new socialist man. The Writers' Union purged members who
did not
show renewed commitment to ideology and patriotism.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as the Ceausescu
personality
cult permeated society, cultural conditions became
increasingly
repressive. The media were reorganized to allow for more
stringent
control, and the number of correspondents sent abroad was
sharply
reduced. (By 1988 there were none in the United States.)
Western
journalists increasingly were refused entry, and those who
were
admitted had very limited access to information. Foreign
journalists who dared to be critical were kept under
police
surveillance and frequently expelled.
As nationalistic overtones grew more strident,
restraints on
scholars wanting to study in the West increased. The
length of time
permitted for research was reduced from ten months to
three months.
In later years, the regime consistently refused to allow
students
or scholars to take advantage of academic opportunities
abroad. The
number of United States lecturers in Romania under the
Fullbright
program dropped from ten to five, and the number of
Romanian
lecturers in the United States decreased from thirty-eight
in 1979
to only two in 1988.
As the anti-intellectual campaign continued into the
1980s,
intelligentsia membership in the PCR declined sharply. In
the late
1960s, before the onset of the ideological campaign,
roughly 23
percent of PCR members were from the intelligentsia. By
1976 the
figure was only 16.5 percent. At the end of the 1980s, the
intelligentsia was the least satisfied of any social
stratum.
Probably neither the technical nor the creative elite
would have
argued for the more heroic version of socialism, with its
devotion
to egalitarianism and the disappearance of class
differences. On
the contrary, members of the intelligentsia strongly
believed that
they deserved certain privileges. They were especially
unhappy with
salary levels, the party's stifling control over their
careers, and
their insecure position in society.
Despite the high level of discontent among the
intelligentsia,
there was relatively little overt dissent against the
regime. In
1977, following the Helsinki Accords, a dissident movement
involving several intellectuals under the leadership of
the
prominent writer Paul Goma did surface. After publicly
condemning
the regime's violation of human rights, many members of
the group
were arrested, interrogated, or confined to psychiatric
hospitals.
Later that year, Goma was exiled to the West. In the 1980s
there
were sporadic cases of dissent, but most intellectuals
expressed
their dissatisfaction by withdrawing into their private
lives and
avoiding, as much as possible, participation in
institutionalized
forms of public life.
Data as of July 1989
|
