Mihai Roller

Mihail Roller (, first name also Mihai, also known as Rolea or Rollea; Mihai Stoian
"Mihail Roller între 'nemuritorii' de ieri și de azi"
''România Literară'', 32/1999 6 May 1908 – 21 June 1958) was a Romanian communist activist, historian and propagandist, who held a rigid ideological control over Romanian historiography and culture in the early years of the communist regime. During his training in engineering, he rallied with the communist cells in Romania and abroad, joining the Romanian Communist Party while it was still an underground group. He collaborated with the Agitprop leaders Leonte Răutu and Iosif Chișinevschi, spent time in prison for his communist activity, and ultimately exiled himself to the Soviet Union, where he trained in Marxist historiography.

Returning to Romania upon the close of World War II, Roller carried out communist assignments in the field of culture. Under Răutu, he helped draft the official history textbook, monopolizing the historical narrative for over a decade. Turning the focus away from nationality and on class struggle, Roller's work sought to reeducate the traditionalist public, and depicted Romania as strongly linked to Slavic Europe. In advancing such theses, Roller censored out historical events, and, in one instance, recounted events that never took place in real life.

In the later 1950s, Roller found himself shut out by his communist peers. He was branded a deviationist by the party leadership members, probably because he had unwittingly exposed their secondary roles in early communist history. Roller died in mysterious circumstances, which do not exclude the possibility of suicide.

Biography

Early life and activity

Roller was born in Buhuși, then a commune in Neamț County, to a Jewish family; as reported by Roller himself, his father was a rabbi,Văratic ''et al.'', p.450 though some sources identify him as a functionary.Pleșa, p.166 The boy completed his secondary education in Bacău, and soon became a sympathizer of far left causes. The date of his affiliation with the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), later Workers' Party (PMR), remains disputed. The formerly communist writer Mihai Stoian gives 1926, noting that it coincided with a strike action in Buhuși. Other sources suggest that he only joined in 1931."Mihail Roller, 'fantoma roșie' a istoriografiei românești"
''Evenimentul Zilei'', 18 March 2011 Historian Lucian Boia writes that Roller, like other communist men of his generation, could not have been a card-carrying member at that stage, since that would have formed material proof of conspiratorial activity. More likely, Roller was inducted through a verbal statement.

A student at Berlin Institute of Technology and ParisTech between 1925 and 1931, Roller became a member of the ''Roter Frontkämpferbund''. He also joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1926 and the French Communist Party in 1928, working on their publications. According to his autobiographical notes, he also served as leader of the Romanian Communist Group in France. Professionally, he qualified as a road and highway superintendent.Vasile, p.136 After returning to the country in 1931, Roller was made editor of the PCdR's main gazette, '. Roller described his beginnings with the party's Agitprop section (1931–1933) as the start of his life as a "professional revolutionary".

As later noted by researcher Victor Frunză, the PCdR's clandestine nature and inner struggles make it impossible to know for sure who was in charge of ' by that moment in time. Frunză believes that Roller was one of the young men working under senior activist Ana Pauker; the others were Răutu, Chișinevschi, Vasile Luca, Gheorghe Stoica, Sorin Toma, Gheorghe Vasilichi and Ștefan Voicu. Another fellow communist, Belu Zilber, later noted that Roller was already designated the PCdR historian, and promised an official post in the event of a communist takeover. Such historiographic ambitions prompt historian Adrian Cioroianu to call Roller a "fantasizer" in the field. According to political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu, Roller was also one of the Jewish and Bessarabian "déclassés" who gained top PCdR positions in the Chișinevschi–Răutu faction, and in fact a staunch anti-intellectual.

Arrests and declining health

Known as "engineer Roller" or "Rolea" in files kept by the Kingdom of Romania's secret police, he first attracted the authorities' attention following the discovery of a secret printing press in Bucharest. In the early months of 1933, Roller was an ideological instructor in the Green Sector, and worked there until October, when he was arrested. Released by November, he was dispatched to his native region of Western Moldavia. Roller himself recalled having then served as regional secretary for Oltenia in March–April 1934 and July 1934–May 1935. He was again arrested in 1934 and 1938, although never sentenced due to lack of evidence. According to PCdR documents, between his arrests Roller negotiated popular front alliances with other socialist groups: in 1934, he was one of several "antifascist committee" members who carried out fusion talks with the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) of Constantin Popovici.

Roller, who also supervised the creation of workers' antifascist sections in Bucharest in September 1934, is mentioned as one of the PCdR and PSU activists who signed a formal protest against "the numerous abusive and illegal acts perpetrated by the organs of repression". In May–October 1935, he served as chief ideological instructor for the communist party.Văratic ''et al.'', p.451 He was them moved to another position, serving as the party secretary for the Lower Danube committee (Galați), following which he served on the Committee of Defense for Antifascist Prisoners, part of the International Red Aid (MOPR) network. In this capacity, Roller mobilized support for Pauker, at a time when she was facing trial for sedition.

His works of the time included political articles such as ''Fascismul și baza sa socială'' ("Fascism and Its Social Basis"). A note of May 1937 mentions the publication of his first standalone brochure, titled ' ("From the History of the Rights of Man") and prefaced by philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru. It was largely a posthumous homage to activist Constantin Costa-Foru. Police mentioned that it was already being sold in bookstores and by distributors of PCdR publications, and believed it was partly financed by the city's Baptist community, to whom a chapter was dedicated. As Roller himself explained, the brochure was meant to test the limits of Romanian censorship, and was part of his work for the MOPR. ''Din istoria'' was still found by the police to contain "extremist" passages, and only being purchased by persons "suspected of communism". Once they found that it had not been approved by the state censorship apparatus, it was banned and all copies on sale ordered confiscated. A note from that October indicates that Roller was planning a new work about the 1920 general strike, to be financed by the party. As Roller reports, the work was published, albeit "massacred by censorship", then taken out of circulation entirely. The same year, he issued another concise tract, ' ("A Contribution to the Social History of Romania").

Having attended MOPR summits in Paris and Prague during 1937 and 1938, Roller served for just three days as head of the Romanian branch. In 1938, he spent a brief term at Jilava prison. In his autobiography, Sorin Toma notes that conditions there were not as bad as at Doftana, but that 26 prisoners were given two buckets per day of drinking water and two to use as chamber pots. Roller, suffering from a chronic disease later diagnosed as diabetes insipidus, would drain one of the buckets himself and fill the other. Roller himself claimed to have spent 1938–1940 mostly in specialized hospitals, "completely inactive". His only works in agitprop were occasional articles in ' and a ''feuilleton'' on labor history, taken up by ''Deșteptarea'', the Romanian American newspaper. He finally checked himself out of hospital and resumed clandestine work against his colleagues' advice. He returned to campaigning among the workers of the Green Sector, and was also appointed co-editor of an illegal newspaper, ''Viața Muncitoare''.

Soviet exile and return

In July 1940, Roller, having narrowly escaped re-arrest by the Romanian authorities, left for Bessarabia, which had been recently occupied by the Soviets. He was for a while at Reni, in the Ukrainian SSR.Văratic ''et al.'', p.452 Roller subsequently moved to the Moldavian SSR, at Chișinău, where he began working for the city's Tobacco Plant. In June 1941, just days before the start of Operation Barbarossa, he sent his résumé to Boris Stefanov, asking to be considered for membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Drawn into the PCdR group in Moscow, Roller continued working under Pauker, who had also joined the Romanian exile community. He also attended the History faculty of Moscow State University. Little is known about Roller's activity in early 1944, when the change of fortunes on the Eastern Front signaled a Soviet victory over the Axis Powers. Reputedly, he stopped paying his PCdR membership fee, which may indicate that he was busy with party work, and prepared for a career in communized Romania. After spending some time at Institute No. 205 (formerly a Comintern school), in December 1944 he was the only Romanian native teaching prisoners of war at Krasnogorsk's Central Antifascist School. While here, he suggested employing Alexandru Bârlădeanu and Haia Grinberg to assist him with specialized classes.

Following the coup of summer 1944, Roller, using his Soviet ideological training to his advantage, could join the party's propaganda structures. In 1945 he became deputy head of science and education at the central committee's Agitprop directorate, led by Leonte Răutu, remaining in that post until 1955. The team comprising Roller, Răutu, Chișinevschi, Toma, Nicolae Moraru and Ofelia Manole was effectively in control of the entire directorate until 1953, and helped reconfigure Romanian culture in conformity with the Zhdanov Doctrine. According to Tismăneanu, Roller had become a "scribe" of Romanian communism, one of several "fanatics" and "dilettantes" pushed up through PCdR promotions.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p.17

Mihail Roller signaled his return to Romanian historiography with the 1945 essay ' ("Pages Ignored from the History of Modern Romania"). It announced that the communist effort to reinterpret history had gained momentum: "The outlook of dialectical and historical materialism also arms us with the basic principles of scientific historical research." Roller went on to state that the capitalist historians had turned history into an occult science, since "it was in the interest of imperialism abroad, and of the exploiting classes within, that the history of the people and its struggles become public." This process, he proposed, was reversible.

However, political propaganda was still Roller's main task at that early a stage; for instance, he authored a series of articles in ' meant to combat the National Peasants' Party prior to the 1946 election. His editorials in the communist press made successive returns into the realm of Marxist-Leninist historiography. At ''Contemporanul'', he outlined his suggestions about changing the chronology of Romanian history, and reinterpreted seminal events, such as the 1859 union of Romania, through a Marxist lens. Other such texts helped enshrine the myth of "illegalists" (clandestine communists of the 1930s and '40s) as freedom fighters. Also then, Frunză notes, Roller took part in the semi-compulsory Russification campaign, launching the agitprop slogan ' ("Let's learn the language of Lenin and Stalin!"). The pro-Soviet enterprise Editura Cartea Rusă published his tract ''Pedagogia în URSS'' ("Pedagogy in the USSR"), recommending the imitation of Soviet schooling.Vasile, p.269

By the summer of 1947, Roller's other party work involved exercising direct communist control over a left-wing student movement (the Democratic University Front) and instigating a purge of the "reactionary" professors. Reputedly, Roller is also responsible for the refusal to accept a gift of Constantin Brâncuși's modernist sculptures, thus depriving the Romanian state of a major art collection. He also made a controversial contribution to the field of communist censorship, joining up with Chișinevschi in the task of supervising Romanian cinema.

In November 1948, following the establishment of a Communist regime, he was elected to the Romanian Academy subsequent to the purge of a large number of members. Roller was part of a wave of new academicians; as noted by various authors, most of these were of peripheral importance in their fields, but were staunch adherents of communism and ready to act as ideological enforcers. Elected the Academy's Vice President (seconding Traian Săvulescu), he also headed the Section for History, Philosophy, Economics and Law from 1949 to 1955. Roller believed the academy should shift from its former position of "a feudal caste, a closed circle, isolated from the masses and the people's needs" into "a living and active factor in the development of our science and culture". Moreover, he exhorted members, regardless of their specialty, to apply Marxist-Leninist teaching on society and its development, proletarian revolutions, the building of socialism and the victory of communism.

By March 1952, Roller was directly involved in vetting new members of the Academy, personally handling the reception of Matei Socor and the promotion of Ștefan Vencov. As he reported to Soviet diplomat Golichenkov, the reshuffling could ensure that Roller was "no longer alone among old reactionaries" such as Săvulescu (although he still approved induction for the latter's wife, Alice Aronescu-Săvulescu). When Săvulescu suggested that Academy publications should go uncensored, Roller intervened and reimposed "control", noting: "I am here to supervise and cut out those bits that catch my eye." Even the more traditionalist members of the communist academic establishment were irritated by Roller's interventions. Scholar Mihai Ralea allegedly called him "an incompetent, evil rube".

Early program

Reviewing the impact of such directives, Lucian Boia calls Roller "the little dictator" of Romanian historiography, unchallenged after the "earthquake" of 1948 had invented a Romanian Marxist tradition. From 1948 to 1955, Roller was professor as well as chairman of the Romanian History department at the Political Military Academy. In 1948, he published his own synthesis on the Revolutions of 1848 among the Romanians: ''Anul revoluționar 1848'' ("1848, the Revolutionary Year"). That historical period was to be the main focus of his articles and exposes, well into the 1950s. Roller was also a "historical reviewer" for a propaganda film retelling the 1848 events, with Geo Bogza as the screenwriter.

Following the 1948 election, Roller became a member of the Great National Assembly. In April 1949, he and Răutu were delegates to the Congress of Advocates of Peace under Mihail Sadoveanu (who reputedly eclipsed them both). That year, Roller rose to head the Agitprop section's education committee. This body was charged with writing school textbooks for use throughout the educational system, most of them translated from Russian. Under his direct tutelage, primary school pupils began learning about the "new teachers of the working class" (Marx, Engels