Viorel ROMAN

Romania: A Social-Democratic Periphery?

2000-11-03

Romania: A Social-Democratic Periphery? The political unification of the various different territories of Romania was accomplished as a consequence of the First World War. In the early twentieth century, 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 tip of this "parasitic city" stood a king. Democracy was a mere farce and brought little comfort to the illiterate Romanian 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 December 1989. The 1989 Christmas Revolution 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. 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, Carol II. 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. During the Second World War an Anglo-American plan went as far as to propose a development strategy for Romania, more or less on the model of the Soviet system! The externally introduced and imposed break with the past was carried out ruthlessly, as a result of the Russian presence in Romania and the proletarian dictatorship; to some extent, however, it did correspond to the social priorities and orthodox traditions of the country. 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 brutally 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. As late as the beginning of the 1980s, the World Bank ranked Romania among the "newly industrializing countries"; together with Portugal, Israel, South Africa, South Korea, Brazil, Singapore, and others. Despite this, however, Communist policy and its goal of achieving a better performance than capitalism was doomed to remain hopelessly entrapped, until Gorbachev opened up his "Lager". This loosened the stranglehold of the developmental dictatorship, thereby enabling Romania to rush headlong into independence and capitalism. Since the Christmas revolution the standard of living has worsened dramatically in Romania. Industrial production has fallen to one-half of previous output, and the agricultural system is in ruins: even wheat now has to be imported. Foreign debt has risen from nil to $10 billion, and is still increasing. Half of the population lives below subsistence level and 100000 children no longer attend regular schooling. With 30% of the working population employed in agriculture and a per capita gross domestic product of $1300 (World Bank Atlas), the country now counts as one of the poorest and economically most backward countries of Europe. The planned bourgeois (and even monarchical) restoration failed after 1989 on account of the changes that had come about in the social and political structure: the old elite has all but disappeared and 50% of the population now lives in urban areas. This new state of affairs was clearly visible in the 1990, 1992 and 2000 elections. The "Democratic Alliance", which follows in the tradition of the party which was in power before the war and campaigns on a platform of restoration of the monarchy and rehabilitation of the "parasitic state". Its general orientation towards the West and untrammelled privatization have met with sharp disfavour. Country people and the roughly four million onetime Romanian peasants who had migrated to the towns during the previous decades have successfully fought against this attempted restoration. In opposition to revival of the old state of affairs, they have espoused such elements as the Republic, labour, and social welfare. State President Ion Iliescu and the government headed by Prime Minister Nicolae Vacaroiu (1992-1996) and Adrian Nastase(2000-) (PDSR/Party of Social-Democracy) are guided by a motley array of Social-Democrats, nationalists and representatives of the Orthodox Church. This government is endeavouring to stand back somewhat from the shock therapy administered in the first flourish of revolutionary euphoria, and hopes to achieve export-driven growth. However, whether the new trade 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 revolution and its shock therapy, and thereby at least to avert the risk of suffering the same fate as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia.