Leading article published in “scanteia” of june 3, 1952

In the last few days, an announcement has been published concerning the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party held on May 26-27, 1952.

The plenum heard and debated the report of the Party Commission which had examined the activity and organisation of the financial system over the period 1947 (November 8) – 1952 (March 9), as well as preliminary information on the results of the verification by the Party Commission which had made enquiries into the activity unfolded in the system of goods exchange.

During the plenum, a number of central problems of our Party’s activity were analysed. The plenum established on this occasion the complete justness of the Party line, which is based on the teaching of genius of Lenin and Stalin and the gigantic experience of the Bolshevik Party. Leading the working people in the grand work of building Socialism, our Party pursues a policy of socialist industrialisation as a basis for the development of economy as a whole; a policy of strengthening and consolidating the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry with a view to restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, and to the socialist transformation of agriculture; a policy of constantly strengthening the State of people’s democracy, as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of active participation in the struggle for safeguarding peace in close friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy. The bases of this policy are set forth in Party documents such as Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej’s reports made at the National Conference of the Party and at the Congress of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, the report and resolution of the March 3 – 5, 1949, plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, the Decisions of the Party and the Government on the Five-Year Plan and the Electrification Plan, as well as other Decisions of the Party and works of Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej.

Firmly pursuing this Marxist-Leninist line, our Party, at the head of the working people, has achieved notable successes in building and consolidating the system of people’s democracy and of laying the economic foundations of Socialism.

Our socialist industry, and, in the first place, industry producing the means of production, is growing and developing at a rapid pace. More and more masses of working peasants are taking the path of the socialist transformation of agriculture. The material and cultural level of the working people is steadily rising.

The Party’s policy is actively supported by the broad masses of the people. The experience acquired in the struggle for setting up and strengthening the system of people’s democracy – a struggle waged by the working people under the Party’s leadership during the eight years that have elapsed since Rumania’s liberation by the Soviet Army – has inculcated in the conscience of the working masses in town and countryside the conviction that the Party’s policy is the only one capable of ensuring the blossoming of our homeland and the well-being of the working people. That is why the working people regard the Party’s policy as their own policy and remove from their path anyone who rises against the Party line and thus isolates himself from the people.

As our country progresses along the road to Socialism, the exploiting classes which have been ousted from power and the capitalist elements which are continuously engendered by small-scale production, realising that their end is drawing near, are intensifying their resistance against the revolutionary policy of our Party. But the Party and the State of people’s democracy, with the enthusiastic support of the millions of workers, working peasants and advanced intellectuals, expose and crush the machinations of the enemy.

I

Debating the reports submitted to it, the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party established that in the system of the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of the Rumanian People’s Republic, the Credit and Investment Bank, as well as in the co-operative organs, there had been maintained and provided with posts a large number of hostile elements, who had rallied round V. Luca and engaged in an intensive hostile activity of undermining the people’s democratic system and sabotaging the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism in our country.

Opposing the line of the Central Committee providing for the restricting and dislodging of the capitalist elements in countryside and town, they pursued a counter-revolutionary policy of encouragement and connivance in relation to the kulaks and the exploiters in the towns.

In relation to fiscal policy, they favoured the growth of capitalist elements in countryside and town, and defended them against the blows of the dictatorship of the proletariat. A large number of kulaks were transferred into the category of “middle peasants”, thus enabling them to evade the effects of the policy of restriction pursued by the State of people’s democracy.

In relation to price policy, the enemies of the people pursued a continuous raising of the prices during the purchasing of and contracting for agricultural products, with a view to creating conditions for the enrichment of the kulaks and profiteers, establishing at the same time for certain manufactured goods earmarked for the countryside prices below cost of production. Their hostile action also found expression in the lack to accomplish the plan for State deliveries and the plan for purchase of agricultural products through the cooperatives.

As regards the financing of the national economy, the enemies of the people tried to undermine the productive activity of the socialist enterprises, by delaying appropriating them with floating capital and by establishing schedules of planned profits and losses which did not correspond to their production plan and to their actual requirements and possibilities.

As regards the socialist industrialisation of the country, they pursued a policy of withholding investments, particularly in heavy industry, seeking to hamper the development of these key branches of the country’s economy and of the great constructions of Socialism, such as the Danube – Black Sea Canal, the “Scânteia” House, etc.

In the field of socialist agriculture, they aimed at creating ever more difficult conditions of activity for the State farms by blocking the latter’s bank accounts for the largest part of the year.

The policy they carried on in the sphere of taxes and credit, in contracting and in relation to prices, by stimulating the enrichment of the well-to-do stratum of the peasantry, acted as a brake on the socialist transformation of agriculture.

As regards socialist State trade, the enemies of the people sought to disorganise and liquidate it, transferring certain units into the patrimony of co-operatives which in many places had become a shelter for exploiting and profiteering elements of town and countryside.

In the period of preparing and carrying out the currency reform, these counter-revolutionary elements pursued an intense activity with a view to hampering and undermining the putting into effect of the September 1951 Decision of the Central Committee on the carrying out of the currency reform. These hostile elements were the source of all the provocative and diversionist rumours designed to help the capitalist elements in town and countryside to evade the consequences of the reform, and to disorientate the working population, sowing distrust and panic among its ranks.

Going against the decisions of the Party and the Government, the former leadership of the finance-banking system, pursued a policy prejudicial to the State and to the working people in the sphere of currency circulation. At the same time, in order to sow discontent and undermine the confidence of the working people in the Party and the Government, they failed to fulfil the task assigned to them by the Party leadership of paying the wages for the first half of January prior to the currency reform, and did not pay the wages of a great part of the workers in the main branches of industry.

This counter-revolutionary policy was pursued by means of maintaining the old bourgeois-landlord apparatus of the finance-banking system and by means of concentrating, within the framework of this apparatus, a large number of former exploiters, former agents of the Sigurantsa and other counter-revolutionary elements removed from the State apparatus, thus enabling them to sabotage the building of Socialism.

In order to reach their objectives, these enemies constantly sought to cut off the finance plan and the State budget from the economic State plan, sought to introduce anarchy and chaos into the socialist sector at the economy, encouraged theft and the plunderers of the people’s property.

The aim pursued was to create the conditions for re-establishing capitalism in our country. This criminal action was frustrated, exposed and resolutely crushed by the Party and the Government with the support of the working masses in town and countryside. The currency reform has been fully successful, dealing a powerful blow at the capitalist elements in town and countryside and contributing toward raising the living standard of the working class.

II

The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party established that the action of these counter-revolutionary elements was closely bound up with the anti-Party and anti-State activity of Vasile Luca. It is many years, since V. Luca has lost sense of class, has isolated himself from the Party and the working class, has pursued a line of his own, contrary to the general line of the Party, as established by the Decisions and Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. He not only opposed the currency reform from the very beginning, but also sought to deal it a blow and to foil its realisation. He became the main bearer of the Right deviation from the line of the Party, the main transmitter of opportunism in the Party.

Contrary to the line of the Party which provides for the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism in our country and the strengthening of the system of people’s democracy, V. Luca introduced in his sphere of work another line, an anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist line, which consisted in:

 – putting a brake on the development of industry producing the means of production and, therefore, slowing down the rate of the socialist industrialisation of the country;

 – undermining the activity of State and collective farms, preventing the creation and development of peasant associations for joint cultivation of land (of the T.O.Z. type) and, therefore, hampering the socialist transformation of agriculture;

 – encouraging capitalist speculative trade by fixing prices of purchasing and contracting on the basis of the prices on the open market, which led to a slackening of goods exchange between town and countryside, to the undermining of the old leu – prior to the reform – and to the lowering of the purchasing power of wages;

 – undermining the fulfilment of the plan for State deliveries and for purchase of grain and other foodstuffs, which caused great harm in the sphere of supplies of foodstuffs for the working class and the working people in the towns, striking a direct blow at their vital interests.

V. Luca set forth the theses of his opportunist line in numerous articles, pamphlets and exposes. At bedrock of this opportunist line lies the anti-Marxist conception to the effect that in the conditions of transition from capitalism to Socialism the class struggle, allegedly, does not sharpen but diminishes, on the basis of the so-called peaceful growing over of the capitalist elements to Socialism, and that the key to the economic development of the country lies, allegedly, not in socialist industrialisation but in enriching the kulaks.

This line of retarding the development of the socialist sector of the national economy and of supporting the capitalist sector of the economy and the capitalist elements in town and countryside, resulted in hampering foodstuff supplies, especially for factory and office workers and intellectuals in the towns and workers’ centres; in preventing a rise in the standard of living of the working class and, generally, of the working people of our country to the extent envisaged by the Party and the Government. At the same time, this line injured also the interests of the working population in the countryside. The working peasantry is interested in cheap consumer goods; however, a swelling of the prices of agricultural products leads also to a rise in the prices of industrial consumer goods, to a deterioration of the supplies of industrial products for the villages. The working peasantry is vitally interested in the development of the socialist industry, as the development of industry is the basis of the strengthening of the entire national economy, the basis of building Socialism in our country and, therefore, also basis of a rise in the well-being of the working peasantry.

In the struggle against the Right opportunist deviation, our Party is guided by the teaching of Lenin and Stalin. Comrade Stalin teaches us that the Right deviation is extremely dangerous because it represents the penetration of the influence of capitalist elements into the working class and into the Party, because it “reflects the resistance of the chief elements of the moribund classes”,* because it “lulls the working class to sleep, undermines the mobilization preparedness of the revolutionary forces of our country, demobilizes the working class and facilitates the attack of the capitalist elements against the Soviet government”.**

The anti-Party line of V. Luca is not fortuitous. It is the continuation of old deviations and factional methods 'in which Vasile Luca indulged way back in the period of underground Party activity. V. Luca played a leading part in the factional, unprincipled struggle in our Party in the years 1929 to 1931, a struggle which seriously harmed the development of the working class movement and the Party, bringing the Party to the brink of liquidation. At the time V. Luca also drew the trade unions into the factional struggle, diverting them from their tasks and cutting them off from the masses, He likewise actively supported the drawing of the Union of Communist youth and of the Red Aid organisation into this struggle. This took place at a time when the bourgeoisie and landowners sought to emerge from the crisis by worsening still more the situation of the working class, preparing the country’s fascisation and the unleashing of the criminal anti-Soviet war; at a time when, in order to accomplish these foul designs, the exploiting classes needed the weakening of the unity in struggle of the working class and the break-up of its vanguard. For his factional activity, V. Luca was removed at the time from the leadership and assigned work at a lower level.

In 1938-1939, V. Luca contributed to the evolving and application of the mistaken line of the democratic elements’ entering into the monarcho-fascist F.R.N. organisation (the so-called “Front of National Rebirth”), which hindered the organisation by the Party of a large-scale action of struggle against fascism and anti-Soviet war preparations.

V. Luca used in our Party methods of stifling criticism and self-criticism, which harmed the healthy growth of the cadres and diminished their working élan and combativity.

III

Wayback Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej rebuffed the opportunist manifestations of V. Luca, but the latter, with the double-dealing typical of Right deviators, sought to deceive the Party, formally accepting the line and decisions of the Party, whilst in practice adhering to his own Right opportunist line.

The anti-Party character of V. Luca’s line was fully disclosed in connection with preparing and realising the currency reform, against which Luca rose directly and openly.

At its plenums of February 29 – March 1, and May 26-27 of this year, the Central Committee analysed its activity in the spirit of self-criticism, qualifying “as a great weakness of its the fact that it had only belatedly discovered the Right deviation....” (Letter of March of this year of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to Party organisations and members).

Vasile Luca was able to unfold his anti-Party activity because he received support and encouragement from Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker, who adopted all-along a conciliatory attitude and supported the Right deviation from the Party line.

The plenum established that Comrade Teohari Georgescu had adopted a conciliatory attitude in relation to the Right deviation of V. Luca. It has been proved that this stand taken by Comrade T. Georgescu concealed his own Right opportunist mistakes, his absence of militancy in struggle against the class enemy and the loss of revolutionary vigilance in his work. This had enabled hostile elements to conduct their activity inimical to the interests of the State. Comrade Teohari Georgescu had not taken measures against the profiteers, who plunder the workers in the towns and the working peasantry.

The plenum established that Comrade Ana Pauker had taken a stand of support of V. Luca’s Right deviation from the Party line and that she herself had deviated from the Party line on questions of agriculture and State deliveries, for which she was responsible to the Central Committee of the Party and to the Government. This had been expressed more particularly in the delay to organise peasant associations for joint cultivation of land (of the T.O.Z. type), in neglect with relation to setting up new collective farms, in her tolerant attitude towards kulaks who had wormed their way into the collective farms and peasant associations for joint cultivation, and in her lack of interest in questions dealing with Machine and Tractor Stations and State farms into which a large number of hostile elements had infiltrated. Comrade Ana Pauker had also made “Left” deviations from the Party line on the question of building collective farms, tolerating violations of the voluntary principle of working peasants joining collective farms. At the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party which took place on February 29 – March 1, Comrade Ana Pauker adopted an attitude of formally criticizing V. Luca and his Right deviation; after the plenum, however, she rose against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee and the Letter which the plenum had addressed to the Party organisations and Party members.

Comrade Ana Pauker cultivated unprincipled relations within the Party leadership. Between V. Luca and Comrades T. Georgescu and A. Pauker, meetings and discussions took place with a view to reaching preliminary agreement on political questions, a matter which they concealed from the Party and practised for a long time. They looked upon the sectors of activity with which they were entrusted as upon a kind of feudal estates, of personal domains, preventing the leadership of the Party from systematically checking up on the way in which these tasks were being carried out. This constitutes a grave violation of Party rules, a violation of the principle of iron Party unity and Party leadership, entirely inadmissible in a Marxist-Leninist Party.

After the plenum of February 29 – March 1 of this year, Vasile Luca rose against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party and the Letter of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party addressed in March of this year to Party organisations and Party members. Violating Party rules, he carried on separate discussions with Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker, with a view to undertaking a co-ordinated action against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. Consequently, at the meeting of March 13 of this year of the Party Commission set up by the Central Committee, V. Luca and Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker adopted the attitude they had agreed on, against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee.

The attitude of Comrades T. Georgescu and A. Pauker made it easier for V. Luca to put into practice his anti-Party line and made it more difficult for the Central Committee to wage its struggle against the Right deviation. Their conciliatory attitude and their Right deviations are closely bound up with the fact that they had slipped down the path of becoming aristocratic and had isolated themselves from the masses.

The plenum of the Central Committee of the Party took a determined attitude of struggle against the danger represented by the conciliatory attitude towards opportunism.

The conciliationist trend is a definite form of opportunism.

In this respect, Comrade Stalin teaches us: “The point is that when war is declared on the Right deviation, the Right deviationists usually disguise themselves as conciliators and place the Party in an awkward position. In order to forestall this manoeuvre of the Right deviationists we must insist on a determined fight against the conciliationist tendency”.*

This means that in order to smash opportunism, it is necessary to liquidate the conciliatory attitude towards it. Especially at the present moment, a conciliatory tendency towards the Right deviation is the most dangerous element. Whereas opportunism today stands exposed before the Party, the conciliationist attitude still tries to conceal itself behind a phraseology of outward recognition of the Party line with a view to deceiving the Party as to the real contents of the deviation and of the deviators’ activity.

The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party – after debating the reports submitted and establishing that Vasile Luca had gone back upon the acknowledgement he had made at the preceding plenum, had broken his pledge of adhering unswervingly to the Party line, had risen against the decisions of the plenum and had tried to drag also other members of the Central Committee along this path – unanimously decided to expel him from the Central Committee and to submit his case to the Party Control Commission. The Presidium of the Grand National Assembly removed him from the office of vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers which he still held after having been removed from the office of Minister of Finance.

As regards Comrade Teohari Georgescu, the plenum evaluated the self-criticism made by him as unsatisfactory and unanimously decided to remove Comrade Teohari Georgescu from the Secretariat of the Central Committee, from the Political Bureau and from the Organisational Bureau and to assign him work at a lower level. The Presidium of the Grand National Assembly released him of his office of vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers and of his office of Minister of the Interior.

Having severely criticised the mistakes of Comrade A. Pauker, the plenum unanimously decided to warn her, and did not re-elect her to the Secretariat and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party.

As a result of the criticism on the part of the plenum, Comrade A. Pauker acknowledged some of her mistakes and pledged the plenum to fight for the application of the Party line and for its decisions. The Central Committee decided to continue helping her to see the source of her deviations and mistakes and acknowledge them fully.

IV

The plenum established that the discussions of the Letter addressed by the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to the Party organisations and Party members, testified to the rise in the political level and revolutionary militancy of Party members, contributing toward strengthening the spirit of criticism and self-criticism in the Party organisations. The discussions were a sharp rejoinder given by the whole Party to those who thought they could disrupt the Party’s unity. The discussions of the Letter turned into a vigorous manifestation of the unity of the entire Party rallied round the Central Committee headed by Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej, and of the Party’s determination fully to liquidate the Right deviation.

The Decisions of the February 29 – March 1 and May 26 – 27 plenums of the Central Committee of the Party express the boundless devotion of our Party to the interests of the working class and working people, its unswerving loyalty to the cause of Socialism and its determination and staunchness in the struggle against the enemies of the people.

The defeat of the Right deviation signifies a heavy blow struck at the enemy within and beyond our boundaries, it signifies the removal of a big barrier from the path of the country’s economic, political and cultural development and of raising the working people’s standard of living, it signifies the firm application of the Party line in building Socialism in our country.

Whatever strengthens our homeland also strengthens the camp of peace, at the same time weakening the imperialist camp.

It should be borne in mind that in the conditions of the sharpening of the struggle between the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism, and the warmongers’ camp headed by the American and British imperialists, the latter see in the Communist and Workers’ Parties one of the main obstacles in the path of their sanguinary schemes and are greatly interested in all deviations which might disrupt the unity and fighting capacity of the vanguard of the working class. That is why the defeat of the Right deviation signifies for our people a great success in the struggle for safeguarding peace.

There can be no doubt that the decisions taken by the Party will raise a great hue and cry in the enemy camp. Whenever our Party or other fraternal parties have taken steps to liquidate deviations, to discover and crush hostile elements, the enemies have howled. Their howls echo their helpless fury. For whenever the Party has taken such steps, they have contributed to its being strengthened as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Party, capable of facing any danger or difficulty, capable of leading the working people successfully along the path of building Socialism.

The measures taken by the Central Committee to liquidate the Right deviation testify to the strength and soundness of our Party, to its capacity to defeat and liquidate the Right deviation and the conciliatory attitude towards it. These measures are designed to strengthen still more the unity and discipline of the Party ranks. Comrade Stalin teaches us that the Party needs true, not formal, unity; and true unity can only be based on principles: it is achieved not by glossing over differences but by disclosing and eliminating them, by ruthless struggle against deviations and conciliatory trends, which threaten the unity of the Party. The Party is strengthened by the crushing of opportunism and of conciliatory attitudes.

Our Party is founded on iron discipline, obligatory equally for all; it does not acknowledge two disciplines, two measures – one for rank-and-file Party members and another for its leaders or for those who “rendered service in the past”. Speaking of those who have rendered service in the past and who, having become “rulers”, do not consider it their duty to fulfil the decisions of the Party and of the Government, and who thus destroy the foundations of Party and Stale discipline, Comrade Stalin said: “They presume that the Soviet Government will not have the courage to touch them, because of their past services. These over-conceited aristocrats think that they are irreplaceable, and that they can violate the decisions of the leading bodies with impunity. What is to be done with executives of this kind? They must unhesitatingly be removed from their leading posts, irrespective of past services.”*

The Party now admits into its ranks the most active and most militant sans of the working class, devoted to the cause of the working people, to the cause of Socialism. The admittance of new Party members will lead to an improvement of the Party’s social composition, to its strengthening in the struggle for the complete liquidation of opportunism and conciliatory attitudes.

The new composition of the Central Committee organs, elected at the May 26 – 27 plenum, headed by Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, constitutes a guarantee for the unity of the Party, for the growth of its revolutionary militancy and for the unswerving adherence to the line and decisions of the Party.

The 12th Session of the Grand National Assembly held yesterday, June 2, unanimously and enthusiastically decided to appoint Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej to the office of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, following the election of Comrade Dr. Petru Groza to the office of President of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly.

The election of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to this State office of greatest responsibility signifies the strengthening of the system of people’s democracy and ensures a still more resolute application of the Party line in the work of our State.

V

The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party of May 26 – 27 of this year and the debates and decisions taken are a turning point in the life of our Party.

The discussions on the decisions of the plenum within the Party and the orientation of the work of the entire Party along the path mapped out by the decisions of this plenum will be an important step along the path of turning our Party into a Bolshevik Party.

The main tasks confronting our Party on the basis of the Decisions of the May plenum are:

 – struggle for the complete uprooting of opportunism and of the conciliatory attitude towards opportunism;

 – struggle against any attempt at disrupting Party unity, for the strengthening of the monolithic unity of the Party;

 – struggle against any deviation weakening the alliance of the working class with the working peasantry; struggle for strengthening this alliance – the basis of the system of people’s democracy and the guarantee of full success in building Socialism in our country;

 – courageous use of criticism and self-criticism as a reliable weapon in strengthening the activity of the Party and the State;

 – strengthening of Party discipline and struggle against any deviation from the principles and iron discipline of the Party;

 – strict application of the Decisions of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party and of the Council of Ministers, and strengthening of the control of their implementation;

 – ceaseless strengthening of the Party’s links with the masses;

 – increase in revolutionary vigilance along Party and State line; growth of the people’s vigilance against the machinations of the class enemy in and outside the country directed against State independence and the democratic rights and freedoms of the people;

 – education and promotion of new cadres of the Leninist-Stalinist type; raising of the political and ideological level of Party members and arming them with well-grounded economic knowledge;

 – strengthening of the State through firm application of all laws and the combating of any manifestation of slackening State discipline and of tendencies towards neglect and indolence in the fulfilment of State assignments;

 – mobilisation of all forces for the implementation of assignment under the Five-Year Plan and the Electrification Plan, year by year, quarter by quarter, and month by month – the safeguard of the rise in the material and cultural level of the masses of working people in town and countryside:

 – strict observance of Party and State secrets.

The fulfilment of the tasks laid down in the Decision of the Council of Ministers and of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party on the currency reform of January 26, 1952, and in the 7 March 1952 Decision of the Government and the Party on the consolidation of the success of the currency reform must occupy the central place in the entire activity of the Party organisations.

Under the leadership of our beloved Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, our Party advances with determination along the path of applying the Leninist-Stalinist teaching on steeling and bolshevizing the Party, along the line of strengthening and consolidating the friendship with the Soviet Union – safe guarantee of our national independence and State sovereignty.

By liquidating opportunism and the conciliatory attitude towards it, we shall strengthen the unity of will and action of the Party, which guides the working class and the people along the road of socialist construction and of the struggle for the safeguarding and consolidation of peace, along the road lighted by the genius of the great Stalin, the leader and teacher of the working people the world over, the glorious standard-bearer of the peace, freedom and independence of the peoples.

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Consolidation of Party of Working Class – Guarantee of Victory of Socialism in Rumania

The source of all the successes and victories of our Party since its inception, both in the underground – during the years of the ruthless landlord regime – and in the period following the liberation of the country by the Soviet Army and after the conquest of power, is the great revolutionary teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. The Marxist-Leninist line of the Party, its strategy and tactics, its indefatigable struggle for the freedom and happiness of the people, for the national independence of the homeland, for Socialism, always found and finds now a powerful response and the active support of the working class and of all working people.

In the fire of this struggle there was forged the revolutionary alliance of the working class and working peasantry, thousands of Communist fighters came forward, the best sons of the working class, boundlessly devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin, who guard as the apple of their eye unity and iron discipline in the ranks of the Party and indefatigably fight against any distortion of the Party line, for unflinchingly carrying out the line of the Party.

The strength of our Party lies in its indissoluble bonds with the popular masses. The masses regard the policy of the Party, expressing the vital interests of the working people, as their own policy. The Party lends a ready ear to the voice of the masses and endeavours not only to teach the masses but to learn from them.

Under the leadership of the Party millions of working people in our country actively participated in the struggle for agrarian reform, for the overthrow of the Radescu reactionary government, for the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment and consolidation of the people’s-democratic system, for nationalisation of industry, banks and transport. Having released and directed the creative energy of the masses, the Party is going ahead successfully with the policy of socialist industrialisation of the country as a basis for the successful development of the national economy as a whole, with the policy of strengthening the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry, of restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, with the policy of socialist transformation of agriculture. The Party pursues a policy of constantly strengthening the State of people’s democracy, as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of drawing, on the broadest possible scale, the working people into the struggle for peace, in close alliance and friendship with the great Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy. The clear, tangible proof of the vitality of this policy is the participation of hundreds of thousands of working people in running the State, in building Socialism, the wide development of socialist emulation, the appearance of the stakhanovite movement in industry and the successes of the socialist sector of agriculture. Our socialist industry and in the first place industry producing the means of production is growing and developing at a rapid pace. More and more masses of working peasants are taking to collective farming. The material and cultural level of the working people is rising.

All these successes have been won by the people and the Party by means of overcoming the difficulties arising from the growing resistance of the class enemy inside the country, in conditions of the growing struggle of the hundreds of millions of people in all countries for preserving and consolidating peace, against the U.S.-British imperialists – the instigators of war.

I

V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin repeatedly stressed that the idea of building Socialism without class struggle is but a naive dream. They warned that after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class struggle inevitably sharpens and assumes new forms, that in these circumstances high revolutionary vigilance is needed.

Explaining the reasons for the sharpening of the class struggle in the transition period from capitalism to Socialism, Comrade Stalin pointed out that in this period “Socialism is conducting a successful offensive against the capitalist elements. Socialism is growing faster than the capitalist elements, and, as a result, the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining; and for the very reason that the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining, the capitalist elements realise that they are in mortal danger and are increasing their resistance.

And they are still able to increase their resistance not only because world capitalism is supporting them, but also because, in spite of the decline in their relative importance, in spite of the decline in their growth compared with the growth of Socialism, there is still an absolute growth of the capitalist elements, and this, to a certain extent, enables them to accumulate forces to resist the growth of Socialism.”* The resistance of the capitalist elements in the transition period assumes the most diverse forms, ranging from sabotage, assassination and espionage on behalf of the imperialists to infiltration into the Party and attempts to undermine its unity.

The experience of our Party fully confirms the justness of these wise Lenin-Stalin theses.

The Central Committee of the Party has established that as a result of the anti-Party and anti-State activity of V. Luca both the finance-banking system and the cooperative organs were honeycombed with large numbers of hostile elements who rallied around Vasile Luca and engaged in active counter-revolutionary work aimed at undermining the people’s-democratic system and sabotaging the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism in our country. Former manufacturers, landlords and bankers who had wormed their way into our finance-banking and co-operative systems concentrated their undermining efforts on creating chaos and anarchy in the socialist sector of the national economy seeking in this way to undermine the alliance of the working class and working peasantry which is the base of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The enemies of the people used the most diverse methods and forms in their criminal activity. Opposing the line of the Party directed at restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, the enemies of the people pursued their counterrevolutionary policy of encouragement and connivance in relation to the capitalist elements. Thus by transferring a large number of kulaks into the category of “middle peasants” they helped them evade the state deliveries and the taxation policy of the people’s democratic state. By unlawfully raising prices during purchasing and contracting for agricultural products they created conditions for the enrichment of the kulaks and profiteers since the prices for certain manufactured goods earmarked for the countryside were below cost of production. They opposed the development of the socialist sector of agriculture and blocked hank accounts for the state farms. Their hostile policy in the sphere of taxes and credits, in contracting for agricultural products and in relation to prices acted as brake on the socialist transformation of agriculture.

In their attempts to frustrate the plan for socialist industrialisation the hostile elements deliberately withheld capital investments and particularly those for heavy industry – the key branch of the national economy – and also appropriations for the constructions of Socialism such as the Danube-Black Sea Canal, “Scânteia” House, etc.

In the period of preparing and carrying out the currency reform these counter-revolutionary elements tried to sow discontent and to undermine the confidence of the working people in the Party and the Government. They were responsible for the fact that on the eve of the reform a considerable part of the workers in the main industrial enterprises received their wages in old lei. It was they who, long before the currency reform, circulated all kinds of provocative rumours in order, on the one hand, to help the capitalist and profiteer elements to evade the consequences of the reform and, on the other hand, to disorientate the masses.

The criminal activity of the enemies of the people was exposed and cut short thanks to the vigorous struggle of the working class and the working peasantry under the leadership of our Party and its Central Committee headed by Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

II

The hostile elements who wormed their way into the finance-banking and co-operative systems were able to carry out their criminal activity as a result of the anti-Party and anti-State activity of V. Luca and with his direct support. Having lost sense of class and having isolated himself troth the Party and the working class he surrounded himself with hostile elements and, contrary to the general line of the Party, pursued his own opportunist line. V. Luca became the main bearer of the right deviation from the line of the Party, the main transmitter of opportunism.

The anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist line of V. Luca which he defended in oral and written statements over a period of years and which he pursued in practice in his sphere of work was expressed in retarding the rate of socialist industrialisation of the country and the socialist transformation of the countryside, in disrupting the exchange of goods between town and the countryside, in encouraging speculative trade, in frustrating the plan for state deliveries and for purchase of grain and other foodstuffs, a line which caused great harm in the sphere of supplies for the working class and the entire working people.

At bedrock of the opportunist line of V. Luca lay the departure from the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle, the anti-Marxist view to the effect that in the conditions of transition from capitalism to Socialism the class struggle, allegedly, does not sharpen but diminishes, that there takes place, allegedly, the peaceful growing over of the capitalist elements to Socialism and that the key to the economic development of the country lies, allegedly, not in socialist industrialisation but in enriching the kulaks.

In practice this obviously opportunist line found expression in retarding development of industry producing the means of production, in undermining the state and collective farms, in opposing the creation and development of peasant associations far joint cultivation, in fixing prices during the purchasing of and contracting for agricultural products on the basis of the prices on the open market, in undermining the purchasing power of the old lei prior to the currency reform and in lowering the purchasing power of the working class. This line prevented a rise in the standard of living of the working class and working people to the extent envisaged by the Party and the Government.

The line of the Party concerning the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry was explicitly formulated by Comrade Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej on the basis of the Lenin-Stalin teaching as far back as March 1949, when he stressed that “Our policy in relation to the peasantry must be clear: We rely on the poor peasantry, strengthen the alliance with the middle peasantry and wage constant struggle against the kulaks”.* Contrary to these Party directives, Vasile Luca who occupied responsible posts in the Party and state apparatus, strove in every way to help and encourage the capitalist elements in the countryside, and, in this way, to strike a blow at the alliance between the working class and working peasantry, at the people’s democratic State.

Way back at the time of the 1949 March plenum of the Central Committee, Comrade Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej stressed that the main significance of the co-operatives in the present conditions is that they combine the private interests of millions of poor and middle peasants with the common interests of the working class in building Socialism and in creating the pre-requisites that make it easier for the working peasantry to take the path-way to Socialism.

The anti-Leninist line of V. Luca in the peasant question, directed against the interests of the working class and working peasantry, was manifested with special force also in relation to the consumer co-operative which he regarded as an organisation whose sole aim was to transfer manufactured goods from town to countryside.

By supporting the counter-revolutionary elements V. Luca, being Minister of Finance, left intact the old bourgeois-landlord apparatus of the finance-banking system; he advanced to leading posts hostile elements, former agents of the Sigurantsa and fascists, farmer landlords and capitalists, a policy which was in keeping with his anti-Party line on the question of cadres. Contrary to the Lenin-Stalin line of our Party in selecting cadres on the basis of their political and professional qualities, V. Luca, implanted, in the guise of specialists, hostile elements in the state apparatus. At the same time V. Luca stifled criticism, crushed the creative initiative of the Party members and carried out a policy of demoralising and ill-treating cadres loyal to the cause of the Party.

The anti-Party line of V. Luca was not fortuitous. It was the continuation of old deviations and factional work in which Luca indulged way back in the period of underground Party activity when he was one of the leaders of the factional struggle against the Party.

Time and again the Party leadership fed the opportunism of Vasile Luca, but with the double-dealing typical of deviators, sought to the Party formally accepting its line and decisions but in practice adhering to his opportunist line.

The anti-Party and anti-State character Luca’s line was fully disclosed in connection with preparing and realising the currency reform against which he not only acted and openly, but sabotaged it in every way.

The plenum of the Central Committee of May 26-27 decided to expel V. Luca form the Central Committee and to submit his case to the Party Control Commission.

Our Party launched a resolute and irreconcilable struggle against the Right deviation and the conciliatory attitude towards it.

Comrade Stalin teaches us that Right deviation is extremely dangerous, since it reflects the resistance of the basic element of the dying classes. “The strength of Right opportunism lies in the strength of in bourgeois element, in the strength of sure against the Party exercised by the capitalist elements in general and by the kulaks in particular.”* Revolutionary vigilance, Party principledness and class irreconcilability in the struggle against the Right deviation, against all opportunist vacillations is a most important condition for the victorious building of Socialism.

III

V. Luca was able to unfold his anti-Party activity because he received support and encouragement from Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker who adopted a conciliatory attitude and supported the Right deviation from the Party line.

The conciliatory stand taken by Comrade T. Georgescu in relation to the Right-wing opportunism of V. Luca concealed his own Right opportunist mistakes, absence of militancy in struggle against the class enemy and loss of revolutionary vigilance in work. It enabled hostile elements to conduct their subversive activity. Comrade Georgescu, in particular, did not take resolute measures the profiteers who plundered the industrial workers and working peasants.

The conciliatory stand taken by Comrade Ana Pauker in relation to V. Luca concealed that she herself had deviated from the line on questions of agriculture and state deliveries – a deviation expressed in her neglect of questions dealing with the formation collective farms and associations for joins cultivation of land, and in her tolerant attitude towards kulaks who had worm way into the collective farms and associations for joint cultivation, in her lack interest in questions dealing with machine tractor stations and state farms into hostile elements had infiltrated. Comrade Pauker also made “Left” deviations Party line, tolerating violations of voluntary principle of working peasant collective farms.

Ana Pauker cultivated unprincipled relations within the Party leadership. There were instances of V. Luca, A. Pauker and T. Georgescu reaching preliminary agreement political questions, a matter which they concealed from the Party and practised for a long time. There was a grave violation of Party discipline, an attempt to form factions, violation of the principle of iron Party unity and Party leadership, entirely inadmissible in a Marxist-Leninist Party.

Comrade Stalin teaches:

“The point is that when war is declared on the Right deviation, the Right deviationists usually disguise themselves as conciliators and place the Party in an awkward position. In order to forestall this manoeuvre of the Right deviationists we must insist on a determined fight against the conciliationist tendency”.*

This conciliationist trend is a definite form of opportunism. This means that in order to smash opportunism completely it is necessary to liquidate the conciliatory attitude towards it. Guided by this, the Central Committee is mobilising the entire Party for struggle against the conciliatory tendency towards opportunism.

The plenum of the Central Committee held on May 26-27, evaluated the self-criticism made by Comrade Teohari Georgescu as unsatisfactory and unanimously decided to remove him from the Political Bureau, the Organisational Bureau, the Secretariat of the Committee and to assign him work at a level.

Having severely criticised the mistakes of Comrade Ana Pauker, the plenum unanimously warned her and did not elect her to political Bureau and Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party.

As a result of the criticism, Comrade Ana Pauker acknowledged some of her mistake and pledged the plenum to fight for the line and for its decisions.

IV

The decisions of the March and May (1952) plenums of the Central Committee testify the strength and firmness of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. These decisions testify that iron unity and discipline in the Party are achieved not by glossing over differences but disclosing and eliminating them, by ruthless struggle against deviations and conciliatory trends which threaten the unity of the Party. Iron Bolshevik discipline, on which the Party is founded, is obligatory equally for all Party members and for its leaders, including those who “rendered service in the past” and who, having become “rulers”, do not regard fulfilment of Party decisions as their duty.

Bold development of criticism and self-criticism is a sign of the strength and not of weakness of the Party. “A Party is invincible”, teaches Comrade Stalin, “if it does not fear criticism and self-criticism, if it does not gloss over the mistakes and defects in its work, if it teaches and educates its cadres by drawing the lessons from the mistakes in Party work, and if it knows how to correct its mistakes in time”.*

The exposure and smashing of the Right deviation in our Party are a severe blow against internal and foreign enemies, they signify removal of a big barrier to the economic prosperity of the country, to a further rise in the material and cultural level of the working people.

The experience of the Bolshevik Party teaches that a Party which is the leading detachment of the working class, its militant general staff, cannot tolerate in its midst waverers, opportunists, capitulators or traitors. It is impossible to wage a life and death struggle against class enemies with opportunists, capitulators or traitors in one’s own ranks. To achieve victory it is necessary the Party of the working class should firs all purge itself of opportunists of every shade. The Party becomes stronger by purging itself of opportunists.

Mobilisation of the entire Party for struggle against opportunism and conciliatory attitude towards opportunism helps to raise the level of the entire work of the Party organisation of the state organs and mass organisation. This leads to a further welding of the unity of will and actions of the Party to a growing sense of responsibility of the Party members and fidelity to the great cause of socialist construction in our country.

It can be said confidently that the prestige of the Party has risen higher in the eyes the masses, because the people see that Party holds the interests of the working people above all, and that it unhesitatingly adopts resolute measures against those who injure the interests of the people, irrespective of position in the Party or State.

The struggle against opportunism and conciliatory attitude towards it is indissolubly linked with the struggle for reinforcing the ranks of the Party, for the political and ideological tempering of the members, for inculcating Bolshevik methods in Party work, for strict observation of Party principles in accordance with the Party’s rules. We must and will fight for an increasingly deeper inculcation of inner-Party democracy, for ensuring activisation of all the members in the struggle for carrying out the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party. The Party strictly condemns any suppression of criticism. The leading Party organs must systematically verify the carrying out of decisions and give an account of their work to the Party members who elected them. These reports must be discussed in an atmosphere of Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism. The Party organisations and all Party members must constantly strengthen their contact with the masses – the guarantee of the invincibility of the Party.

Successful solution of the practical tasks of Party work is impossible without diligently and persistently mastering Marxist-Leninist theory. Profound knowledge of the economic and political problems of socialist construction will ensure correct orientation for the Party members in their daily work and safeguard them against mistakes and deviations.

The Central Committee demands Party devote special attention to the new, growing cadres, that it educate then spirit of lofty class consciousness, spirit of loyalty to proletarian internationalism, in the Bolshevik spirit of irreconcilability to any deviation from the Marxist-Leninist principles of the Party. This will enable us to conduct “a proletarian class policy, a firm policy of building Socialism, based on an incessant offensive against capitalism”.*

Recently, admittance of new members into the Party was resumed. The best workers and peasants – members of the agricultural co-operatives, rank and file and officers of the People’s Army, intellectuals and the best members of the Union of Working Youth seek admission to the ranks of the vanguard of the Rumanian working class in order work better and better for peace and Socialism. Adherence to the Lenin-Stalin principle of individual admittance into the Party and ensuring the correct social composition of the Party will lead to further and still greater strengthening of the Party.

All who strengthen our homeland, strengthen also the peace camp and simultaneously weaken the imperialist camp. We cannot and must not forget that the U.S.-British imperialists and their Right-wing Socialist and Titoite lackeys see in the Communist and Workers’ Parties one of the main obstacles preventing realisation of their aggressive designs, that they try to take advantage of any deviation which may weaken the unity and militancy of the Party. The smashing of the Right deviation signifies for our people also a big success in the fight for peace.

Closely rallied around its Central Committee, headed by Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej, ceaselessly learning from the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union and from Comrade Stalin, beloved leader of the working people of the world, daily reinforcing its unity and discipline, its bonds with the masses, our Party will, in the future too, wage ceaseless struggle for the further consolidation of the people’s democratic state, for fulfilment with honour of its role as organiser and leader of the great cause of building Socialism in our country.

Article published in
“For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy!”,
Nr. 23 (187) of June 6, 1952

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