Viorel ROMAN
Romania´s Transformation 2003-08-03
inapoi
Romania´s Transformation Prof. Dr. Viorel Roman, Akademischer Rat, Universität Bremen I. In the Phanariote era (1711-1829) the concentration of power in the hands of the "Greek Mafia" at the Phanariote court pursued the policy of extracting the surpluses of Romania's economic process and transferring them to Constantinople. The Prince purchased his throne for a large price. In addition, he had to prolong his tenure on an annual basis to The Sublime Porte. There being no clear boundary between the national budget and that of the prince meant that the latter abused his privilege and diverted monies to himself and to his principal - The Porte. A further "milking" of the surplus was by means of the monopolisation of the country's foreign trade by the Turkish-Phanariot regime. Romania's social structure was divided: at the top the Greek-Phanariot aristocracy; at the bottom the Romanian peasant struggling to survive on a subsistence basis. A similar situation was to be found in the Austrian area of influence. The Romanian peasant, belonging to the Orthodox Church had no political rights; he was at best a tolerated outsider in the catholic world, "usque ad beneplacitum regis". II. During the era of "Organic Law" (1829-1856) the Phanariote regime was replaced by the "parasitic town" (cp. Stefan Zeletin). The Greek merchant colonies were replaced by Jewish ones. The Jews, as agents of the West, had played an important part in transforming Romania's political system from the Oriental regime to that of a capitalistic economy. They were the catalysts for the transition from a barter to a monetarist economy. The liberalisation of the markets led to a synchronisation of Romanian prices to those of the world markets. As a result, the country's foreign trade changed its direction. Romanian grain harvests rapidly expanded in response to the international demand. A westernised and francophile class grew up in Moldavia and Wallachia. III. The generation of 1848 exploited the transition of Moldavia and Wallachia to an occidental environment to formulate a national policy. This presupposed an independence - a goal which could not be attained without the support of the Western Powers. I.C. Bratianu writes in a Memorandum for Napoleon III - a forecast of Romania's policy up to the Second World War: "The creation of a Romanian state could be the greatest success which France has ever achieved outside her own frontiers. The Romanian army would be France's oriental bulwark; the ports of the Black Sea and the Danube would be France's commercial entrepots; our timber reserves would make them France's shipbuilding yards. The natural resources of these rich regions would benefit France's industry. In the final analysis France would enjoy all the benefits conferred by a new colony without any of the disadvantages which accompany such a conquest." IV. The union of Moldavia and Wallachia (1859) and the Independence created the conditions for Romania's new orientation towards the West. This is particularly to be seen in the economic programme of Cuza and in the trade agreement of King Carol I with Austro-Hungary in. Cuza adopted liberalism in order to gain the support of the Western Powers against his neighbours. Carol I signed the trade agreement with Austro-Hungary in order to proclaim de facto his independence from The Porte. Despite an ever-increasing emphasis on economic nationalism and protectionism, the "old" kingdom never developed beyond the stage of a neo-colony whose raison d'étre was as a supplier of raw materials - grain, timber, oil - to West Europe. The political unification of the various different territories of Romania was accomplished as a consequence of the First World War. The social and economic structure of this Balkan state was crude and elementary: the underclass, some 16 million peasants, lived in villages, while a select group of westernized Romanians, and communities of Hungarians, Jews and Germans - with populations each numbering about one million - represented the upper class. At the top of this "parasitic town" stood a german king. Democracy was a mere farce and brought little comfort to the peasantry, whose life expectancy barely exceeded the age of forty. By 1938 social unrest had become so severe that King Carol II stepped in and in a swift move proclaimed a "developmental dictatorship", and in some ways it can be said that this was to last until the Christmas Revolution 1989. V. In the Second World War (1940-1945) there were three main alternatives of a development strategy for the Romanian economy: Nazi Germany regarded Romania as a supplier of raw materials and a region for German "Lebensraum". The Anglo-American block with its colonial experience recognised Romania's problem: illiteracy, lack of infrastructure, overpopulated villages, the parasitic town etc. Their suggested remedy was a industrialisation along the Russian line - albeit without Communism. The USSR had their own ideological model to offer. It was a successful strategy and the only one feasible for Romania's situation. The Allies' victory and the partitioning of the world between Russians and Anglo-Saxons led Romania with no further complications into the Soviet fold. The externally introduced and imposed break with the past was carried out ruthlessly, as a result of the Russian presence and the proletarian dictatorship; to some extent, however, it did correspond to the social priorities and orthodox traditions of the country. VI. After the Communist's seizure of power the previous policy was no longer carried out by the Romanian workers for the benefit of the Axis powers but for the Soviets. The nationalisation of the main means of production, of foreign trade and the collectivisation of agriculture was of course a revival of the old economic weapon of the Phanariotes, directed this time not towards Constantinople, but towards Moscow, the "third Rome". When Stalin created a "cordon sanitaire" against the West, the Communists expelled first the westernized Romanians and then also the Jews, and later the German-Hungarian elite as well. Meanwhile, there was no let-up in the brutallity of repressive developmental dictatorship. The thrust towards modernization proceeded so successfully that Romania even began to aspire to an "alignment of the level of development" within the Socialist bloc. The economic successes finally led to the proclamation of the "independence" (1964). This occurred at the same time as the industrialised members of the Soviet Block were trying to stifle Romania's economic growth. Romania and her economy were now regarded as a form of "socialist colony" or supplier of raw materials for the military and industrial requirements of the (East) Berlin-Moscow axis. VII. The arguments on which the dictatorship rested have been provided by Mihail Manoilescu's theory of peripheral capitalism. According to this, the phenomenon of underdevelopment can only be explained in connection with the position assigned to third world countries on the world market. These countries fulfil the task of supplying raw materials and also act as outlets for goods manufactured in advanced industrialized countries. However, such a set-up, Manoilescu contended, is extremely disadvantageous to third world countries. To combat its adverse effects, King Carol II (and communist Nicolae Ceausescu) adopted a policy of detachment, with the aim of keeping his country separate from the world market as far as possible and developing its own resources. He hoped that Romania would thereby become able to satisfy its requirements through its own capacities, gradually building up its own investment and consumer goods industry and expanding the domestic market. The continuity and prospects of this policy of detachment and development were at first quite noteworthy. As late as the beginning of the 1980s, the World Bank ranked Romania among the "newly industrializing countries"; together with Portugal, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, Singapore etc.The Christmas Revolution 1989 brought to an end this royal (and subsequently proletarian) dictatorship, the avowed aim of which had been to raise Romania up to the level of development of the rest of Europe. VIII. Today Romania’s industrial production is half its 1989 size and the debt burden continues to grow. How it is possible to tell the Romanians constantly that the economic recovery is taking place is a mystery, when the main objective of its leaders is to do away with the communist heritage; namely the accumulation of industrial capital that occurred during the "developmental dictatorship". The true miracle of the transformation or transition is rather the ability of the ordinary Romanians to survive the endemic corruption: over 50% of economic activity takes place on the black market. The underground economy in Rumania, to which the state has only limited access, plays the par of an escape valve absorbing an important measure of the dissatisfaction and hostility nurtured by the have-nots, people who lost their jobs, their hopes for a better home, security, social welfare and medical care. IX. However, whether the new economic policy - which still places its hope in foreign aid - can truly usher in new prospects is open to doubt, in the light of previous experience both in Romania itself and in other developing countries. It would appear that Bucharest has forgotten Manoilescu's theories and/or has possibly even abandoned any strategy aimed at overcoming periphery status. The only policy adopted appears to be a form of crisis management in order to limit the consequences of the Christmas Revolution and its shock therapy, and thereby at least to avert the risk of suffering the same fate as Yugoslavia or USSR. Imperial orthodox Russia, as well as the smaller entities of Balcanic Orthodoxy - Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria must reform their social structures and work force if they don’t want to vegetate at the periphery of civilization. But is it possible to effect such a radical change – a transformation - in a orthodox society whose norms of behavior are pointing the other way? X. The latest sound of mimicked cooperation between Romania and the West started 1989 with the salvo of intense information exchange at all levels. The case of such a dialog creates the illusion that a similar exchange will surely follow in the field of economic cooperation and integration. The proof that these rituals have not brought a concrete coordination is furnished in Romania by the collapse of industrial production. The agriculture is on the way of becoming an inefficient subsistence source. The West is willing to extend Romania credits of one billion dollars per year in order to dismantle the old production structures without social explosions. At the same time, the leaders are being offered the chance to extricate their countries from centuries of isolation. The much trumpeted privatization drive, the stock market, the market economy, etc. seem to be more and more like Potemkin’s villages. All seems to be a cheap imitation that will not do at a daily income of $ 1 or 2. At this level of pay, it is a nonsense to talk about democracy, a "decent" standard of living, unpolluted waters, heat in the winter, medical care, an efficient educational system and a clean administration, in short a "transformation and transition" to a Euro-Atlantic integration. Bibliographie: Bârlea, O.: Romania and the Romanians. Los Angeles 1977 Bârlea, O.: Spre inaltimi. Deschiderea ecumenica cu ocazia vizitei Sfântului Parinte în România (7-9 Maiu 1999). München 2000 Djuvara, N.: Le Pays Roumain entre Orient et Occident. Paris 1989 Durandin, C.: Nicolae Ceausescu: Vérités et mensonges d'un roi communiste. Paris 1990 Grenzebach, W.S.: Germany's informal empire in East-Central Europe. German economic policy toward Yugoslavia and Romania, 1933-1939. Wiesbaden 1989. 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