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Leonte Răutu (until 1945 Lev Nikolayevich (Nicolaievici) Oigenstein; February 28, 1910 – September 1993) was a
Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...
n-born Romanian communist activist and propagandist, who served as
deputy prime minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...
in 1969–1972. He was chief ideologist of the
Romanian Communist Party The Romanian Communist Party ( ; PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave an ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that would replace the social system ...
("Workers' Party") during the rule of
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (; 8 November 1901 – 19 March 1965) was a Romanian politician. He was the first Socialist Republic of Romania, Communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party ...
, and one of his country's few high-ranking communists to have studied
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
from the source. Răutu was of Jewish origin, though he embraced
atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
and
anti-Zionism Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...
. His adventurous youth, with two prison terms served for illegal political activity, culminated in his self-exile to the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, where he spent the larger part of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Specializing in
agitprop Agitprop (; from , portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in the Soviet Union where it referred to popular media, such as literatu ...
and becoming friends with communist militant
Ana Pauker Ana Pauker (born Hannah Rabinsohn; 13 February 1893 – 3 June 1960) was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's List of Romanian Foreign Ministers, foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ana Pauker became the world' ...
, he joined the Romanian section of
Radio Moscow Radio Moscow (), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993, when it was reorganized into Voice of Russia, which was subsequently reorga ...
. Răutu made his way back to Romania during the
communization Communization theory (or communisation theory in British English) refers to a tendency on the ultra-left that understands communism as a process that, in a social revolution, immediately begins to replace all capitalist social relations with ...
process of the late 1940s, and, after establishing cultural and political guidelines with his articles in ''
Scînteia ''Scînteia'' ( Romanian for "The Spark") was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper '' Iskra''. It was known as ''Scânteia'' until ...
'' and ''
Contemporanul ''Contemporanul'' (''The Contemporary'') was a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukrain ...
'', became a feared potentate of the Romanian communist regime. As head of the Communist Party's new Agitprop Section, he devised some of the most controversial cultural policies, and expanded the scope of ideological censorship, introducing practices such as "processing" and "unmasking". He managed to survive Pauker's downfall in 1952, and supervised a clampdown on her alleged followers. As Gheorghiu-Dej's assistant, he played a leading part in all the successive avatars of Romanian communism: he was a
Stalinist Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism in ...
and Zhdanovist before 1955, an anti-revisionist until 1958, and a
national communist National communism is a term describing various forms in which Marxism–Leninism and socialism has been adopted and/or implemented by leaders in different countries using aspects of nationalism or national identity to form a policy independent ...
since. During this long transition, he instigated (and gave a Marxist backing to) the successive campaigns against Gheorghiu-Dej's political adversaries, selectively purged academia of suspected anti-communists, and deposed some of his own supporters. He became widely hated for his perceived lack of scruples, depicted by disgraced communist writers as "the perfect acrobat" or "
Malvolio Malvolio is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's comedy '' Twelfth Night, or What You Will''. His name means "ill will" in Italian, referencing his disagreeable nature. He is the vain, pompous, authoritarian steward of Olivia's househ ...
". While maintaining influence during the late stages of Gheorghiu-Dej's rule, Răutu backed the party's "
Romanianization Romanianization is the series of policies aimed toward ethnic assimilation implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th and 21st century. The most noteworthy policies were those aimed at the Hungarian minority in Romania, Jews and as ...
" and came to be seen as a
self-hating Jew The terms "self-hating Jew", "self-loathing Jew", and "auto-antisemite" (, ) are pejorative terms used to describe Jews that oppose certain characteristics that the claimant considers core to Jewish identity. Early claims of self-hate were used ...
. He preserved some of his prestige after his national-communist friend
Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( ; ;  – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last Communism, communist leader of Socialist Romania, Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 u ...
took over the party leadership, continuing and accelerating Romanianization. Răutu finally lost his Agitprop prerogatives, but remained directly involved in the supervision of cultural affairs, and received high distinctions from Ceaușescu's own hand. After his stint as Deputy Prime Minister, he became rector of the party's own
Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy The Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy (Romanian: ''Academia Ștefan Gheorghiu'', in full: ''Academia de învățămînt social-politic Ștefan Gheorghiu de pe lîngă CC al PCR'' — roughly, ''Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy for Socio-Political Education ...
, and still played a part in defining the official dogmas; however, he also tolerated dissenting intellectuals, who criticized national communism from Marxist-Leninist and
Neo-Marxist Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, ps ...
positions. He returned to favor in the earliest 1980s, as Ceaușescu himself fell back on a stricter interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, but was eventually deposed in 1981, as punishment for his daughter's decision to emigrate. He was kept under watch for his alleged contacts with the
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
and spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity, witnessing the fall of communism in 1989.


Biography


Early activities

Rătu's birthplace was
Bălți Bălți () is a city in Moldova. It is the second-largest city in terms of population, area and economic importance, after Chișinău. The city holds the status of municipiu. Sometimes called "the northern capital", it is a major industrial, cu ...
(''Byeltsi''), a city in the
Bessarabia Governorate The Bessarabia Governorate was a province (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its administrative centre in Kishinev (Chișinău). It consisted of an area of and a population of 1,935,412 inhabitants. The Bessarabia Governorate bordered t ...
,
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
, where his father, Nikolai Ivanovich Oigenstein (or ''Nicolai Ivanovici Oighenstein''), worked as a pharmacist. The Oigensteins were Russian-educated
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, and did not speak
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
until ca. 1920. Some communist sources suggest that Răutu was born in the
Kingdom of Romania The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...
, at
Fălticeni Fălticeni (; ''; ;'' ) is a town in Suceava County, northeastern Romania. It is situated in the historical region of Western Moldavia. According to the 2021 census, Fălticeni is the third largest urban settlement in the county. It was declared ...
, but this account is either misled or misleading. Lev Nikolayevich (later ''Leonte'' or ''Leonea'') was the eldest of three brothers; Dan (later Dan Răutu) was the second-born; the third brother, Mikhail, would later take the name of Mihail "Mișa" Oișteanu. Lev witnessed the birth of
Greater Romania Greater Romania () is the Kingdom of Romania in the interwar period, achieved after the Great Union or the related pan-nationalist ideal of a nation-state which would incorporate all Romanian speakers.Irina LivezeanuCultural Politics in Greate ...
from Bălți, where he remained until his high-school graduation. He later relocated to the
Bukovina Bukovina or ; ; ; ; , ; see also other languages. is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided betwe ...
region, and, in 1928, was in
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
, the national capital. The future ideologist entered the
University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...
to study mathematics, but never graduated.Biografiile nomenklaturii
at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile site; accessed 12 May 2012
(He may also have spent a while at the Bucharest Medical School.) From 1925 to 1934, young Oigenstein made his living as a private tutor, active in Bălți,
Cernăuți Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...
, and finally Bucharest.Dobre ''et al.'', p. 508 He entered the Communist Youth in December 1929 and the party itself in 1931; his brother Dan headed the Communist Students Organization from 1932, and was accepted into the party in 1933.Burcea, p. 61 In the years when the Romanian Communist Party (PCR, later "Workers' Party", or PMR) was banned, Lev was editor of the party organ ''
Scînteia ''Scînteia'' ( Romanian for "The Spark") was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper '' Iskra''. It was known as ''Scânteia'' until ...
'' and worked with
Ștefan Foriș Ștefan Foriș (; born István Fóris, also known as Marius; 9 May 1892 – summer 1946) was a Hungarian and Romanian communist journalist who served as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR or PCdR) between December 1940 and Ap ...
,
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (; 4 November 1900 – 17 April 1954) was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he ...
,
Valter Roman Valter or Walter Roman (October 9, 1913 – November 11, 1983), born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish ...
,
Sorin Toma Sorin may refer to any one of the following: People *Sorin (given name), a Romanian masculine name *Edward Sorin (1814–1893), American priest, founder of the University of Notre Dame and St. Edwards University * Herbert I. Sorin (1900–1994), Ne ...
, Mircea Bălănescu and Tatiana Leapis (later Bulan). Leapis was Răutu's first wife, but left him for Foriș. Characterized as intelligent, ironic and well-informed, Răutu preferred to read Russian and Soviet literature. Although lacking a thorough training in philosophy, he was one of the few PCR activists with a certain knowledge of Marxist and even non-Marxist theory, but despised most forms of
continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...
and
modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
. Political scientist
Vladimir Tismăneanu Vladimir Tismăneanu (; born July 4, 1951) is a Romanian American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A specialist in political systems and comparative politics, he is d ...
describes Răutu as comparable with some other Eastern European dogmatic
Stalinists Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism inc ...
, from
Jakub Berman Jakub Berman (23 December 1901 – 10 April 1984) was a Polish communist politician. An activist during the Second Polish Republic, in post-war communist Poland he was a member of the Politburo of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and then of the ...
and József Révai to Kurt Hager. In this definition, Răutu was a "self-hating intellectual". Historian
Lucian Boia Lucian Boia (born 1 February 1944) is a Romanian historian. He is mostly known for his debunking of historical myths about Romania, for purging mainstream Romanian history of deformations arising from ideological propaganda, and as a fighter ag ...
believes that, in adopting communism, Răutu forfeited his Jewishness and "became abstract", an "ideological soldier". Tismăneanu also notes that Răutu separated from his Jewish roots very early in life, growing up into
Russian culture Russian culture ( rus, Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii, kʊlʲˈturə rɐˈsʲiɪ) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and both Eastern cultu ...
, condemning all expression of Jewish nationalism, and becoming classifiable as a " non-Jewish Jew". Likewise, historian Lucian Nastasă describes Răutu as one of the Romanian communists who were "less dominated by the obsession of ethnic affiliation (the religious one being entirely excluded by the aggressive atheism promoted in the Soviet Union)"; Răutu and others were instead animated by their "obedience to the Soviet Union." Communist
Silviu Brucan Silviu Brucan (born Saul Bruckner; 18 January 1916 – 14 September 2006) was a Romanian communist politician. He became a critic of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. After the Romanian Revolution, Brucan became a political analyst. Ear ...
, who worked under Răutu and was also Jewish, recalls that PMR leader
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (; 8 November 1901 – 19 March 1965) was a Romanian politician. He was the first Socialist Republic of Romania, Communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party ...
had a condescending view of Răutu as "Jewish and culturally Russian". Răutu was first tried for sedition while still in the Communist Youth: on August 20, 1930, a Bessarabian tribunal validated arrest warrants for "the Oighenștein brothers", during a round-up of communists and alleged Soviet spies. Lev was consequently sentenced to a one-year prison term. He was for a while held in
Chișinău Chișinău ( , , ; formerly known as Kishinev) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Moldova, largest city of Moldova. The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial centre, and is located in the middle of the coun ...
jail, then moved to Doftana prison, in the company of other PCR militants, becoming acquainted with many of Romania's future political bosses. Shortly after being released, in 1932, he was again on trial: until 1934, he was again in prison, first at the penitentiary facility of Cernăuți and then at
Jilava Prison Jilava Prison () is a prison located in Jilava, a village south of Bucharest, Romania. History The prison began as Fort 13, part of the fortifications of Bucharest built in the 1870s and 1880s. It served as an arms deposit and garrison until 1 ...
.Dobre ''et al.'', p. 509; Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 39 This episode ended with him becoming an activist for the communist committee in Bucharest,Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 39 and head of its
Agitprop Agitprop (; from , portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in the Soviet Union where it referred to popular media, such as literatu ...
section. After his breakup with Tatiana Leapis, the young activist met his future wife Natalia "Niunia" Redel, herself Jewish and Russian-educated. Implicated in the communist underground and working for the
International Red Aid International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR) was an international social-service organization. MOPR was founded in 1922 by the Communist International to function as an "international political Red Cross", providing ma ...
,Comitetul Foștilor Luptători Antifasciști din Republica Socialistă România, "Natalia Răutu", in ''
Scînteia ''Scînteia'' ( Romanian for "The Spark") was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper '' Iskra''. It was known as ''Scânteia'' until ...
'', January 22, 1975, p. 5
she found employment with a clinic ran by physician
Leon Ghelerter Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
, himself politically active with the
United Socialists United Socialists (in Swedish: ''Förenade Socialister'') was a coalition in Gällivare, Sweden, formed on January 10, 1988 by the Workers Association of Malmberget (MAF), the Solidarity Party and the International Group. In practice it functio ...
. As recounted by Sorin Toma, in 1936 or 1937 Răutu personally witnessed, and excused, Foriș's mental breakdown. During early 1937, the two men oversaw the expulsion from the party of a young novelist,
Alexandru Sahia Alexandru Sahia (pen name of Alexandru Stănescu; October 11, 1908 – August 12, 1937) was a Romanian journalist and short story writer. Biography Born in Mânăstirea, Călărași County, as the son of a small landowner, he was enrolled in the ...
, whom they depicted as an infiltrator. Following the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
, Răutu was among those tasked with recruiting Romanian leftists for the
International Brigades The International Brigades () were soldiers recruited and organized by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front (Spain), Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The International Bri ...
. This was one of his final activities in Greater Romania. Answering a call for repatriation, Răutu and Natalia emigrated to the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
following the 1940 occupation of Bessarabia. Before leaving, he entrusted his documents to Foriș's lover and secretary, Victoria Sârbu.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 65 Although Jewish, Răutu was not dissuaded by the interval of Nazi–Soviet cooperation: once relocated to the
Moldavian SSR The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic or Moldavian SSR (, mo-Cyrl, Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ), also known as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, Moldovan SSR, Soviet Moldavia, Sovie ...
, he was made co-editor of ''Pămînt Sovietic'' ("Soviet Land"), a propaganda magazine. Counted as a Soviet citizen throughout the war, he may have also been an ideological instructor for the Bessarabian Communist Party. Lev and Natalia were married in the Soviet Union. Little is known about the couple in the months that followed the Nazi and Romanian attack on the Soviet Union. They escaped Bessarabia, and fled further inland. Răutu himself reported having worked as a mere laborer at two sand quarries and a ''
kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...
'', between 1942 and 1943. He and Natalia had two children, both of whom died, probably of hunger, during the months of Soviet retreat.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 69


Communist rise

At some point (perhaps in 1943), Răutu became head of the
Radio Moscow Radio Moscow (), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993, when it was reorganized into Voice of Russia, which was subsequently reorga ...
Romanian-language division, making him a favorite of exile faction leader
Ana Pauker Ana Pauker (born Hannah Rabinsohn; 13 February 1893 – 3 June 1960) was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's List of Romanian Foreign Ministers, foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ana Pauker became the world' ...
's, together with Valter Roman and
Petre Borilă Petre Borilă (born Iordan Dragan Rusev; Bulgarian: Йордан Драган Русев, ''Yordan Dragan Rusev''; 13 February 1906 – 2 January 1973) was a Romanian communist politician who briefly served as Vice-Premier under the Communis ...
. According to sociologist and former communist
Pavel Câmpeanu Pavel ( Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian: Павел; Czech, Slovene, and (although Romanian also uses Paul); ; ; ) is a male given name. It is a Slavic cognate of the name Paul (derived from the Greek Pavlos). Pavel may refer to: People Given ...
, he owed Pauker not only his career, but also his life, since she had made sure that Răutu and the others were never called up for active duty. This assignment also placed Răutu in direct contact with some of Pauker's colleagues in the
Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
: he replaced Basil Spiru, of Marx University fame, and was supervised by
Rudolf Slánský Rudolf Slánský (31 July 1901 – 3 December 1952) was a leading Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslova ...
. His other job was as book editor for the Foreign Languages Publishing House. Răutu returned to Romania in 1945 at Pauker's request and immediately rose to the top of the party's propaganda apparatus, as
Iosif Chișinevschi Iosif Chișinevschi (born Jakob Roitman; 26 December 1905–1963) was a Romanian communist politician. The leading ideologue of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) from 1944 to 1957, he served as head of its Agitprop Department from 1948 to 19 ...
's deputy, joining the editorial team of the revived ''Scînteia'', and becoming one of the most active contributors to ''
Contemporanul ''Contemporanul'' (''The Contemporary'') was a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukrain ...
'' monthly. The Romanian-sounding surname of ''Răutu'', picked out after a
Romanianization Romanianization is the series of policies aimed toward ethnic assimilation implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th and 21st century. The most noteworthy policies were those aimed at the Hungarian minority in Romania, Jews and as ...
policy was imposed by the PCR doctrinaires, may have been borrowed from the novels of Lev's one favorite Romanian author,
Constantin Stere Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian language, Romanian; , ''Konstantin Yegorovich Stere'' or Константин Георгиевич Стере, ''Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere''; also known under his pen name ''Șărcăleanu''; ...
. Under this signature, he published in mid-1946 a brochure called ''Problemele democrației în lumina marxismului'' ("Problems of Democracy as Highlighted by Marxism"). Communist writer
Miron Radu Paraschivescu __NOTOC__ Miron Radu Paraschivescu (; 2 October 1911 – 17 February 1971) was a Romanian poet, essayist, journalist, and translator. Born in Zimnicea, Teleorman County, he went to high school in Ploiești, after which he studied fine arts, first ...
welcomed the work as a keynote on the people's democracy, as "informed by the Soviet nationalities policy". Răutu was among the most vocal critics of multiparty, pluralist democracy, together with Brucan, Paraschivescu, Sorin Toma,
Ștefan Voicu Ștefan is the Romanian form of Stephen, used as both a given name and a surname. For the English version, see Stefan. Some better known people with the name Ștefan are listed below. For a comprehensive list see . Notable persons with that name ...
,
Nestor Ignat Nestor Ignat Filotti (2 March 1918 – 29 August 2016) was a Romanian journalist, writer and graphic artist. He was best known for his strong support for Marxist-Leninist ideology in culture. Journalist Born in Iași in 1918, Ignat graduat ...
,
Nicolae Moraru Nicolae may refer to: * Nicolae (name), an Aromanian and Romanian name * ''Nicolae'' (novel), a 1997 novel See also *Nicolai (disambiguation) *Nicolao Nicolao is an Italian given name and a surname. It may refer to the following: Given name *Ni ...
, and Traian Șelmaru. Răutu later recruited the core of the PMR's ideologists from his group. Răutu's ''Scînteia'' articles were noted for their bitter irony and for the vehemence of the insults they addressed to political enemies, in particular the
National Peasants' Party The National Peasants' Party (also known as the National Peasant Party or National Farmers' Party; , or ''Partidul Național-Țărănist'', PNȚ) was an Agrarianism, agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 throu ...
and its organ ''
Dreptatea ''Dreptatea'' was a Romanian newspaper that appeared between 17 October 1927 and 17 July 1947, as a newspaper of the National Peasants' Party. It was re-founded on February 5, 1990, as a publication of the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' ...
''. His ''Contemporanul'' articles included an attack on
Grigore Gafencu Grigore Gafencu (; January 30, 1892 – January 30, 1957) was a Romanian politician, diplomat and journalist. Political career Gafencu was born in Bârlad. He studied law and received his Ph.D. in law from the University of Bucharest. During ...
, a figure of the anti-communist
Romanian diaspora The Romanian diaspora is the Romanians, ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in nearby states, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine, Hun ...
—the text was celebrated by Paraschivescu as of a "polemical tone, in which his combative nervousness does not alter his logical succession". The Oigenstein family was becoming integrated into the
nomenklatura The ''nomenklatura'' (; from , system of names) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: ...
and lived in villas located near the political epicenter that was the
Primăverii Primăverii neighborhood (“Springtime”) is a district situated in the north of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, in Sector 1. The area is one of the most expensive in the city and is home to many politicians and local celebrities. History ...
compound: Londra Street, then Turgheniev Street. Lev and Natalia had two daughters: Anca, born 1947, and Elena ("Lena"), born 1951. The other Oigensteins and the Redels also moved to Romania. According to Câmpeanu, Răutu now illustrated the "abundance of Jews within the structures of Romania's emergent Stalinism"—though the overall Jewish community had few communists, the propaganda apparatus was subject to an "overwhelming Jewification". Câmpeanu proposes that the most likely explanation for this fact is that the two men "preferred to work with people of their own ethnicity, a preference that may have been strengthened by the existence of some older personal relations." He finds that this was an anomaly, since, in other branches of the party, apostate Jews would resort an antisemitism which was "more cynical, aggressive and capricious than the native variant". In his other main capacity, Răutu helped set up and guide the PCR's Agitprop, or "Political Education", Section. It came into existence in November 1945, with Răutu still serving as its deputy chief—Colonel Mihail Florescu was its inaugural chairman. On March 27, 1947, he lectured at Dalles Hall about the superiority of Socialist Realism, which he identified as being rooted in
19th-century French literature 19th-century French literature concerns the developments in French literature during a dynamic period in French history that saw the rise of Democracy and the fitful end of Monarchy and Empire. The period covered spans the following political re ...
and
dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...
. Răutu took over as full leader of Agitprop in 1948,Dobre ''et al.'', p. 509 just months before the kingdom was replaced with a
communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
, officially at the request of communist-controlled trade unions. The Agitprop Section embodied the PMR's control over the
Education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
and
Culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
ministries, the
Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its bylaws, the academy's ma ...
, the Radio Broadcasting Committee and cinema studios, the
AGERPRES ''Agerpres'' (stylised in all caps; ) is the national news agency of Romania. History ''Agerpres'' is the oldest Romanian news agency and the first autonomous agency in Romania. It was established in March 1889 at the initiative of Foreign ...
agency, the
Writers' Union Writers' Union may refer to the following organizations: Statewide unions * Writers Union of Armenia * Azerbaijani Writers Union * Writers' Union of Canada * Chinese Writers Union * Estonian Writers' Union * Hungarian Writers' Union * Iraqi Writer ...
and the Artists' Guild, and even sporting associations and clubs. From June 1948, Răutu also joined the editorial staff of a newly reestablished literary magazine, '' Viața Romînească''. That same month, he lectured at the Soviet–Romanian House of Friendship about Russian philosopher
Vissarion Belinsky Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky (; Pre-reform spelling: Виссаріонъ Григорьевичъ Бѣлинскій. – ) was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. Belinsky played one of the key roles in the career of p ...
. Already in 1947, Răutu organized Agitprop's unified offensive against the nearly dissolved "
reactionary In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary.''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, (1999) p. 729. ...
" forces: the National Peasants' Party, framed during the
Tămădău Affair The Tămădău affair (, ''Înscenarea de la Tămădău'' – "the Tămădău frameup" – or ''Fuga de la Tămădău'' – "the Tămădău flight") was an incident that took place in Romania in July 1947. It was the source of a political scandal ...
; the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, which Ana Pauker had pushed out of the coalition government; and the dissident
Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...
, who were vetoing proposals to merge into the Communist Party. His orders were for communist propaganda to focus on condemning the
Western Allies Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also be ...
and their
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred $13.3 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in economic recovery pr ...
(''see
Vin americanii! ("The Americans are coming!") was a slogan used in Romania in the 1940s and 1950s, encapsulating the hope that an American-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet-backed, Communist-dominated government installed in early 1945. Thi ...
''), and on supporting the supposed growth in industrial production from homegrown socialist sources. Additionally, Răutu joined Pauker in combating the spread of
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, signing the party's 1948 ''Resolution on the National Issue'', which assured the
Romanian Jews The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after ...
that their national identity would not be jeopardized under Marxist rule.


Establishing cultural dominance

Răutu was delegated by the communist workers of Bucharest to represent them at a congress preparing the ground for the Social Democrats' absorption into the Workers' Party; this inaugural meeting was held at Mihai Viteazul National College, Bucharest, Mihai Viteazul High School on January 24, 1948. Speaking on the occasion, he paid homage to Gheorghiu-Dej as the "living symbol of Romanian proletarian combativeness", and announced reforms such as the Nationalization in Romania, nationalization of industry, to be undertaken by the "Party of the working class". He served as a member of the unified central committee (February 24, 1948 – June 13, 1958), also joining the orgburo (January 24, 1950 – April 19, 1954). He doubled his executive roles with a seat on the Great National Assembly (Socialist Republic of Romania), Great National Assembly (MAN): he became a deputy for Buzău upon 1948 Romanian legislative election, elections in March 1948, and continuously served as Turda's representative between 1952 Romanian legislative election, November 1952 and 1961 Romanian legislative election, March 1961. Formally acknowledged as Chișinevschi's closest collaborator, Răutu is widely regarded as the dictator of Romanian cultural life until the death of party leader Gheorghiu-Dej. His credentials came from the communist essay ''Împotriva cosmopolitismului și obiectivismului burghez în științele sociale'' ("Against Rootless cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitanism and Objectivity (philosophy), Bourgeois Objectivism in Social Science"), published by the party press and ''Lupta de Clasă'' journal in 1949. This work introduced Romanians to historical materialism and a ''partiinost''' analysis of cultural or scientific matters, borrowing Soviet criticism of "bourgeois pseudoscience": against genetics, neo-Malthusianism, Indeterminism, and in large part against "cosmopolitan" social thinkers (Ernest Bevin, Léon Blum, Harold Laski). The two centuries of Romanian philosophy, from the advocates of Westernization (Titu Maiorescu) to the radical Nativism (politics), nativists (Nae Ionescu), were dismissed as irrelevant to the real priorities of Romanian workers, with Răutu firmly rooting Romania's past in Slavic Europe. Likewise, the right-wing historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu was depicted as both a "Nazism, Hitlerite" and a puppet of "American imperialism". Răutu's text is regarded by Tismăneanu as an "embarrassing" contribution to the field, and described by historian Leonard Ciocan as the origin of "Manichaeism, manichean" methodology and "typically Stalinist" discourse in Romanian social science. The direct inspiration for such contributions was Soviet culture boss Andrei Zhdanov, whose Zhdanov Doctrine, anti-formalist and anti-individualist campaigns he would try to replicate in Sovietized Romania. Since 1948, he had been preoccupied with eradicating "decadent" literature and art, including urban-themed modernism, but also informed his subordinates not to allow a resurgence of ruralizing traditionalism. He declared Zhdanov's "bitter criticism" of composer Dmitri Shostakovich to be a "profound" positive example: "Take the gloves off, let's start criticizing [as well]. Here too we can learn from the Soviets." Also then, he ordered a selection of publishing houses and literary magazines that followed a "just line", and set aside funds for financing writers who had internalized the Workers' Party principles and "stepped down from the ivory tower". On November 2, 1948, Răutu himself took a position on the steering committee of the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union. His brother Mihail Oișteanu was similarly employed as a lecturer by the House of Romanian–Soviet Friendship. As part of their propaganda campaigns, Răutu and Chișinevschi created a heroic image of
Alexandru Sahia Alexandru Sahia (pen name of Alexandru Stănescu; October 11, 1908 – August 12, 1937) was a Romanian journalist and short story writer. Biography Born in Mânăstirea, Călărași County, as the son of a small landowner, he was enrolled in the ...
, who had died short after his 1937 expulsion, and whose supposed ideological faults had been excused. A notorious experiment approved by Răutu, and brought to life by Sorin Toma, was the campaign against celebrated poet Tudor Arghezi, attacked as a "decadent" and subsequently banned for a number of years. Looking back on the events in 1949, the Agitprop chief told his subordinates: "[Writers] who are still enemies must be stomped upon without mercy. Arghezi, who has not changed, not even today, I have fulminated." Other targets were literary critics Șerban Cioculescu and Vladimir Streinu, both depicted as ill-adapted to the spirit of socialist patriotism. In 1949, when Răutu began his purge of academia, one of the first to fall was literary historian George Călinescu, a professor at the University of Bucharest, who, although left-wing, was not considered a true communist. As such figures were sidelined, Răutu himself was given the Chair of Marxism-Leninism at Bucharest University, which he kept from March 1949 to May 1952. In April 1949, Răutu was one of the Romanian delegates to the World Peace Council, Congress of Advocates of Peace, seconding Mihail Sadoveanu (who reputedly eclipsed him), afterwards helping to organize the Congress' Romanian chapter. In January 1950, Răutu and Sadoveanu also organized Mihai Eminescu's centennial, followed in January 1952 by the Ion Luca Caragiale centennial. From March 1950, Răutu and Miron Constantinescu were called upon by Pauker to organize the ideological retraining of various writers who had been excluded from the party—Eusebiu Camilar, Vladimir Cavarnali, Lucia Demetrius, Mihu Dragomir, Coca Farago, Alexandru Kirițescu, Sanda Movilă, Ioana Postelnicu, Zaharia Stancu, Cicerone Theodorescu, and Victor Tulbure. Navigating his course between the warring PMR groups of Pauker and Gheorghiu-Dej, Răutu established his reputation during the fall of a third faction,
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (; 4 November 1900 – 17 April 1954) was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he ...
's "Secretariat" group. Already in ''Împotriva cosmopolitismului...'', Răutu called his rival an "Enemy of the people, enemy of the working class", and a defamer of Marxist values. As noted by Tismăneanu, he applied "his proverbial zeal" to condemning Pătrășcanu's entire political activity. Also in 1949, Romania began the Collectivization in Romania, collectivization of agriculture, with Răutu called in for ideological support. His articles in ''Scînteia'' produced definitions of ''chiaburi'' (the Romanian version of ''kulaks'', or wealthy peasants), which prioritized their status as employers of farmhands and owners of business, rather than the surface of land they owned. Some two years later, he suggested that Romania still had to deal with the existence of ''chiaburi'' as the "largest capitalist class". He was similarly involved in ensuring a mass circulation for Petru Dumitriu's ''Drum fără pulbere'', made infamous with its parochial depiction of construction work on the Danube–Black Sea Canal—and for glossing over the fact that most workers were political prisoners. In 1951, Răutu also proposed to have the work filmed (though his move was defeated after opposition mounted by the novelist Marin Preda). With the Tito–Stalin split, Răutu became involved in exposing supposed "Titoism, Titoist" infiltration in Romania, ordering a tight monitoring of Tanjug propaganda, and then a Romanian Agitprop project focused on vilifying Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia. As part of this effort, he commissioned Titus Popovici to write a play specifically against Titoism. In parallel, he took over supervision of the nominally independent left-wing daily ''Adevărul'', overseeing its liquidation in 1951, and was involved in establishing the network of "people's councils", which cemented the communist grip on city and village administration during late 1950. On October 5, 1950, he was assigned to the central committee of the communist-led People's Democratic Front (Romania), People's Democratic Front. In February 1951, he and Mihail Roller were guests of honor at the party marking the 76th birthday of poet Alexandru Toma.


Pauker's fall and "processing" campaign

Răutu first impressed critics of the regime by being able to survive Pauker's downfall (1952), and was one of the very few of the wartime exiles not to be designated a "Right Opposition, Right deviationist". A theory first advanced by political scientist Ghiță Ionescu is that Gheorghiu-Dej relied on the party's "Bessarabian wing" to conspire against Pauker. This faction included Răutu, Borilă, and Emil Bodnăraș, all of whom enjoyed support from the emerging Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. Together with Constantinescu as the other PMR intellectual, Răutu initiated the campaign to purge all other supposed inner-party oppositionists, drafting the PMR resolution on ''prelucrări'' ("processing", a euphemism for "interrogations"). In his speeches to the PMR sections, Răutu described the cadre verification policy as inspired by the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 19th CPSU Congress and its talk of "ideological work" being paramount in the consolidation of socialism. He declared Pauker a saboteur of collectivization, and her associate Vasile Luca guilty of "criminal activity". In large part, "processing" meant a clampdown on writers with supposed (and supposedly concealed) "Fascism, fascist" sympathies. A communist-turned-dissident poet, Nina Cassian, recalls: "Leonte Răutu—[...] dominated these scatty, vulnerable, terrified and confused beings—the artists and the writers, producing tragedies and comedies, stagings glories and stigmatization, paralyzing one's morality, activating another's immorality". Cassian was targeted as a critic of the regime, and kept under surveillance for her "negative influence" on other literary figures, including Preda, who was at that time her lover. One author to escape from Răutu's campaigns was modernist left-winger Geo Dumitrescu, whom poet Eugen Jebeleanu defended, at the last moment, against claims that he had been working for far-right newspapers during the war years. Senior writers George Călinescu and Victor Eftimiu were accused of concealing Social Democratic sympathies; in 1951, Călinescu tried to ingratiate himself with Răutu by proposing him for admittance into the Romanian Academy, commending his essay on Joseph Stalin's contribution as a linguist. Meanwhile, historian Constantin Daicoviciu, a former member of the Iron Guard fascist movement, was found to be an embarrassment for the communist-run peace committees and banned from politics. Paradoxically, other areas under Răutu's control escaped such purges, and former far-right affiliates such as Octav Onicescu and Ion Barbu pursued their scientific careers with little standing in their way. Răutu built himself a new power base comprising noted Agitprop figures, some of whom were also writers and journalists. The prominent ones were Moraru, Șelmaru, Savin Bratu, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Paul Georgescu, Nicolae Tertulian and Ion Vitner. Over the years, his deputies included Roller, Ofelia Manole, Paul Niculescu-Mizil, Nicolae Goldberger (a member of the politburo since the 1930s), Manea Mănescu (in charge of science), Cornel Onescu and Pavel Țugui (later expelled from the party for having concealed his youthful sympathy for the Iron Guard). Some of his other favorites, including Constantin Ionescu Gulian (recovered from an initial put-down for his "cosmopolitan" discourse) and Ernő Gáll, became the official interpreters of Marxist philosophy. Before and after 1952, Răutu's program was rigidly and thoroughly Stalinist. As such, Tismăneanu writes, he spearheaded the most damaging campaigns in the cultural field, "designed to terrorize Romania's intellectual class": "the destruction of Romanian Academy research institutes, the [Academy's own] mutilation, the forced Sovietization—[...] the gaudy kowtowing at Russian culture (as it had been defined under the Stalinist canon)—[...] the promotion of fanatics, of the ideologically possessed, impostors and dilettantes, to high cultural offices". In private diaries which recorded his critique of the regime, writer Pericle Martinescu spoke about Răutu's contribution to the "criminal combat" for "liquidating the old world." As he notes, a March 1952 article by Răutu condensed "an entire mass-murdering action against the Romanian people". Răutu's monopoly on the humanities is also credited with having incapacitated the development of independent ideas in Romanian philosophy and sociology, as well as with the near-complete elimination of psychology as a credible academic subject. Instructed by Gheorghiu-Dej, the Agitprop chief even targeted Romania's pre-communist Marxist current as the school of "Menshevik, Menshevism"—announcing, in 1951, that Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the father of Romanian social democracy, was worthy of condemnation. Conversely, he and Ionescu Gulian attacked the conservative opinion-maker and Gherea's rival, Titu Maiorescu, as the icon of bourgeois conformity. The neotraditionalist philosopher Lucian Blaga, a contemporary of Răutu's, was also vilified. Blaga was the target of ominous commentary in the communist newspapers, singled out for revenge by the communist poet Mihai Beniuc, and ultimately derided in public by Răutu. Other main targets of Răutu's Censorship in Communist Romania, communist censorship were Tudor Vianu, Liviu Rusu (depicted as too idealistic) and Blaga's in-law Teodor Bugnariu. Răutu demanded that Rusu write an article condemning Maiorescu through the lens of Marxism-Leninism. A young scholar at the time, Mihai Șora described Răutu as the object of a fearful myth: "a censor with such keen eyes, that one will find it impossible to slip by [and] a very cultivated man, finding great pleasure in reading bourgeois, Western etc. literature, the very same one he will publicly condemn." Pursuing his ideological condemnation of philology, which in 1951 had seen him calling for a ban on works by Ferdinand de Saussure, Răutu arrived at imposing Stalin's own tract, ''Marxism and Problems of Linguistics''. Marxist linguists who were not keen on adopting Stalin's perspective, including Alexandru Rosetti, Alexandru Graur and Iorgu Iordan, were investigated for "enemy-like activity" and left virtually unemployed until 1954. Meanwhile, Răutu was censuring some of Roller's extreme positions in historiography, organizing a panel of historians, who were encouraged to discuss their problems; a review session was held in November 1954, and resulted in much loss of prestige for Roller. At that stage, the young communist activist
Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( ; ;  – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last Communism, communist leader of Socialist Romania, Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 u ...
was reporting to Răutu in matters of sport. Their activity included a 1953 investigation of the CSA Steaua București, Central Army Club, suspected of "caste-like" factionalism and of "placing [its] interests above the interests of national sport." From January 1956 to 1959, the two men also oversaw a Party Commission for Nationality Issues, which assessed the communization of Minorities of Romania, ethnic minorities.


"Anti-Revisionism"

Răutu was still unchallenged as cultural policymaker even after Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, Stalin's death, although the Romanian regime contemplated structural changes. After 1956, essentially his only superior within the party was Gheorghiu-Dej, who cared little for cultural intrigues. According to Gheorghiu-Dej's disciple, Gheorghe Apostol, Chișinevschi and Răutu sought to endear themselves to the PMR leadership by promoting a "cult of personality", which Gheorghiu-Dej resented and actively discouraged. At the VIIth party congress on December 28, 1955, Răutu became an alternate member of the politburo. Shortly after, he began an investigation into the activities of Nicolae Labiș, the disillusioned Marxist poet. Răutu signaled Labiș's fall into disgrace, declaring his piece "Murdered Albatross" to be pessimistic and unworthy of "building-sites that construct socialism." The tensions between Gheorghiu-Dej and Khrushchev, who had risen to a paramount position in the Soviet Union, were highlighted during the Hungarian revolution of 1956. Romania participated in the punitive expedition against Hungarian People's Republic, Hungary. Răutu himself reported that the general public felt that Romania suffered "because of the terrible boners made by the Soviets in Hungary." Documenting the reorientation of the mid-1950s, scholar Ken Jowitt included Răutu and Gheorghiu-Dej's economic adviser, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, among the PMR "regime figures" who mediated "between the progressives and the Stalinists." When Gheorghiu-Dej, who played the two factions against each other, decided to overturn some of the Zhdanovist measures adopted in the 1950s, he even described Răutu and Roller as responsible for the PMR's frail relationship with the Romanian intellectuals. Răutu had another close call at the Party Plenary of June 1957: Chișinevschi and Constantinescu were both attacked by Gheorghiu-Dej as "Liberal socialism, liberal socialists" and "Revisionism (Marxism), revisionists", then expelled from the party's inner core. Even though he was one of Chișinevschi's confidants (and Natalia Răutu was Chișinevschi's secretary), Răutu managed to survive the incident and preserved his standing. He expressed full support for Gheorghiu-Dej, and was even tasked by the communist leader with redacting the Plenary documents for public view. He collaborated on this project with Ceaușescu, who was one of Gheorghiu-Dej's trusted men. In early 1957, Răutu probed the Artists' Guild, allegedly entrapping M. H. Maxy, the painter and communist activist, into an "unmasking" session during which anti-Stalinists were allowed to have their say; the episode was cut short by another painter, Corneliu Baba, who spoke in favor of both artistic freedom and leniency toward Maxy. Răutu's only potential rival was Grigore Preoteasa, who joined the central committee's secretariat in charge of ideology shortly after Chișinevschi was sidelined. As Tismăneanu notes, this was a chance for Romanian culture to be revisited "with a modicum of decency". However, Preoteasa's death that November allowed Răutu undisputed control over culture. Răutu personally witnessed the fatal accident, which took place on a plane taking the delegation to Moscow's Vnukovo International Airport, Vnukovo Airfield. He and Preoteasa took turns playing chess with Ceaușescu before the failed landing. Răutu was injured, and had to be hospitalized. This hiatus brought an unexpected relaxation of censorship, which notably allowed ethnologists to write about the traditional Romanian dwellings (a theme that Răutu would have otherwise proscribed) and translators to focus on contemporary literature. Upon returning, the PMR ideologist heralded an all-out anti-revisionist campaign: his May 1958 speech began with attacks on the anti-Soviet Internationalist Communist Union, Hungarian revolutionaries and "liberal theories"; went on to criticize Stalinist "dogmatism" and the "personality cult"; and eventually listed Romanian philosophers and artists who had deviated into one field or the other. Răutu reassessed his own political positioning, depicting Chișinevschi as a morbid Stalinist and himself as a balanced figure.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 27 He then helped Gheorghiu-Dej deal with the apparent opposition of old-time communists, deciding in May 1958 that the association of former prisoners of fascism was "petty bourgeois" in nature, and needed to be dissolved. During June, he and Gheorghiu-Dej produced a case against the PMR veteran Constantin Doncea, who had been tempted to question Gheorghiu-Dej's claims of revolutionary primacy. Răutu labeled Doncea a Titoism, Titoist, then introduced claims that Doncea had followers in the cultural sphere—a pretext for the verification of writers who still harbored modernist ideas. This happened even as Răutu drafted a confidential note about improving relations with Yugoslavia and toning down anti-Titoist propaganda. In summer 1958, he went public with his critique of Roller, who had allegedly permitted his subordinates to publish complaints against Gheorghiu-Dej. In a contrary move, Răutu intervened to sideline several of Roller's emerging critics, including Andrei Oțetea. Though not involved directly in the controversy, he sent one of his associates to act as Oțetea's ideological supervisor; according to historian Șerban Papacostea, this unnamed figure had little competence in the scholarly field, noted among his peers for being unable to properly date events such as the Treaty of Passarowitz. The PMR cultural activists, Răutu included, also masterminded the show trial of philosopher Constantin Noica, writer Dinu Pillat and other literary dissidents, all of them brutalized by the Securitate secret police. He preserved much of his great influence, from directing the censorship apparatus (officially placed under Iosif Ardeleanu) to putting out ''Scînteia'' (approving each issue before it went into printing).


Transition to national communism

Between June 13, 1958 and June 25, 1960, Răutu was only a junior member of the central committee. In October 1958, he supported a measure which dissolved the orgburo into the PMR administrative section, effectively placing the entire party apparatus under Ceaușescu's direct supervision. While the regime veered into De-satellization of Romania, de-satellization and National communism in Romania, Stalinized national communism, he and Niculescu-Mizil were asked by Gheorghiu-Dej to press the Soviets into recognizing Romania's role in the defeat of Nazism. They raised the issue at an international congress of communist historians in 1959, when they informed their Soviet counterpart, N. I. Shatagin, that they expected a revision of the Soviet official line. Niculescu-Mizil sees his boss as partly responsible for transmitting Romania's new terms to the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact, whose sessions he attended in 1961–1963. In tandem, Răutu engineered some of the newer campaigns to quash alternative culture, indicating suspects to the Securitate. These included: communist writers Alexandru Jar and Gábor Gaál, attacked for having demanded De-Stalinization in Romania, de-Stalinization; modernist sculptor Milița Petrașcu, "unmasked" as an opponent of the regime in a humiliating public session; and classical composer Mihail Andricu, castigated for having revealed his appreciation for the West. Răutu's own push for retaining the Socialist Realist canon with a reprint of ''Drum fără pulbere'' was quietly defeated in early 1959 by his own subordinate, Țugui. While overseeing the cultural purges, Răutu networked between Gheorghiu-Dej and List of ambassadors of Russia to Romania, Soviet Ambassador Alexei Yepishev. The latter congratulated the PMR for its "extremely valuable initiative" in exposing Petrașcu, noting that the Soviets could learn from the example. Historian Stefano Bottoni argues that, in Jar's case, Răutu may have set a trap for Jar personally, by inviting his former friend to state openly his contempt for the PMR line. Răutu also refused to reinstate the modernist poet-translator Ion Vinea, calling him artistically irrelevant and an agent of Joint Intelligence Committee (United Kingdom), British Intelligence. In 1960, he returned to the George Călinescu issue, accusing him of deviating from the PMR program. Ștefan Cazimir
"Întîlnire G. Călinescu – Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej"
in ''România Literară'', Issue 41/2000
Răutu's men suggested that, as a novelist, Călinescu had portrayed the Iron Guard in too light tones; Călinescu made a personal appeal to Gheorghiu-Dej, who treated him with noted sympathy. They registered defeat when Gheorghiu-Dej allowed Călinescu to publish his novel ''Scrinul negru''. Later in 1960, Călinescu was allowed to lecture at the university, but still not reinstated as professor. The same year, Răutu also revised his stance on Blaga. According to the latter's daughter Dorli, he and his subordinate George Ivașcu were quick to assist her father in obtaining palliative care for his terminal illness. Tasked by the politburo with controlling the History of the Jews in Romania, Romanian Jewish community, Răutu became a denouncer of the "Ioanid Gang". This name was applied to a cell of Jewish anti-communists who managed to rob the National Bank of Romania; captured, they were also accused of having plotted Răutu's murder. Such issues troubled the cultural ideologist: Răutu looked on as the Jews, discriminated against by the PMR's Antisemitism, antisemitic lobby, registered for mass emigration to Israel. Răutu asked the party leaders not to strip all those who applied of their Romanian citizenship, and, responding to Gheorghiu-Dej's antisemitic comments, concluded that Romanian communism had failed at integrating the Jewish minority. Eventually, Răutu resigned himself to adopting Gheorghiu-Dej's view. He is purported as the author of a Self-hating Jew, Jewish self-hatred catchphrase, taken up by the (predominantly Romanian PMR) leaders: "Jews should lose their habit of controlling things". As the party began expelling significant numbers of its Jewish members, a confidential note circulated at the top confirmed that, even in 1958, Răutu was expressing strongly antisemitic feelings. According to one eyewitness account, Răutu attacked artist Iosif Molnár for having illustrated the Romanian edition of ''The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank's Diary'' with a stylized yellow badge. Instead of seeing this as a symbol of the Holocaust, Răutu accused Molnár of promoting
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, then ordered him to attend a "Self-criticism (Marxism–Leninism), self-criticism" session. Brucan recounts that Gheorghiu-Dej exhibited "lucidity" in noting that Răutu was downplaying both his Jewishness and his Russian mannerism. Brucan himself notes that Răutu had "systematically removed all Jews" from the Agitprop department, and "went as far as to pretend that he could not speak Russian" when receiving Soviet visitors. Similarly, Răutu was among those sent in to pacify the Hungarians of Romania, Hungarian Romanian minority, and (Bottoni writes) played "the role of a nationalist", airbrushing
Romanianization Romanianization is the series of policies aimed toward ethnic assimilation implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th and 21st century. The most noteworthy policies were those aimed at the Hungarian minority in Romania, Jews and as ...
measures, demanding action against the "hostile elements" supporting Hungarian nationalism, and participating in the disestablishment of Bolyai University. From September 1959, controlling the spread of "bourgeois nationalism" among the Hungarians was a permanent task, assigned to a PMR committee presided over by Ceaușescu and Răutu—its other job, of promoting minority interests, was entirely ceremonial. Allegedly, the two men also had differences of opinion: in January 1961, the censorship apparatus, probably instigated by Răutu, attempted to institute a ban against Aurel Baranga's play, ''Siciliana''; Ceaușescu, who admired Baranga's work, intervened to block the attempt. Răutu was reintegrated as a full member of the central committee on June 25, 1960, during a party congress which he and Ceaușescu helped organize. Some liberalization measures were being unveiled, and Răutu, officially introduced as a member of the MAN, found himself included in Gheorghiu-Dej's official delegation to the United States. He accompanied Gheorghiu-Dej to New York City for the Fifteenth Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in September 1960. The 1961 Romanian legislative election, elections of March 1961 saw Răutu taking another deputy's seat, for southern Bacău. As such, he was directly involved in drafting 1965 Constitution of Romania, Romania's socialist constitution. Speaking at a 1962 short-course session, he boasted that the 40,000 Agitprop Section activists had educated 1.4 million young Romanians, all of them inspired by the "party leaders' exigence" in the project to build a socialist society. He was notoriously silent as his former colleagues and favorites were pushed into retirement (Moraru, Țugui, Vitner) or trapped in "unmasking" sessions. Beniuc and Socialist realism in Romania, Socialist Realist artist Constantin Baraschi both kept a grudge against Răutu, who did not defend them when the national communists made them bear the blame.


Between Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceaușescu

In 1961, Răutu and Ceaușescu helped publicize the claim that Romania's issue with the "personality cult" was associated with Pauker, whereas Gheorghiu-Dej and the other leaders of the party had received, and were deserving of, the people's genuine love. Soon after, Răutu and Paul Cornea were also tasked with convincing the writing team behind the film ''Tudor (1963 film), Tudor'' that the lead female part should go to Lica Gheorghiu, who was Gheorghiu-Dej's daughter. Having sidelined Sorin Toma, Răutu revised his stance on the "decadent" poets, welcoming back into the spotlight modernists like Arghezi and Ion Barbu, and even describing himself as a protector of artistic autonomy. In 1962, he tacitly approved of the PMR's policy of politically (re)integrating some of Romania's more popular traditionalist intellectuals. However, Răutu and other PMR leaders also singled out the Writers' Union chief, novelist Zaharia Stancu, as a political suspect. According to literary historian Cornel Ungureanu, Răutu stated the point discreetly, "without aggravating the Great Chief" (that is, Gheorghiu-Dej, who believed Stancu to be an earnest fellow communist). By then, Răutu was receiving letters from politically suspect writers such as Păstorel Teodoreanu and George Mărgărit, who asked to be reinstated, as reeducated but starving men. Răutu still silenced critiques of Stalinism, but only by proxy. In 1963, on Răutu's orders, Romania became, with People's Socialist Republic of Albania, Albania, the only Eastern Bloc country not to publish a vernacular translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Ivan Denisovich''. In mid-1963, Gheorghiu-Dej confronted Khrushchev at a secretive meeting at Periș, Scroviștea, with both Răutu and Ceaușescu present. The PMR leadership sought to persuade Soviet leaders to dismantle its
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
network in Romania, with Khrushchev denying its very existence. In tandem, both men were called upon to investigate Maria Sîrbu, who had published an atlas on Economy of the Soviet Union, Soviet economy which showed Moldovans as the native inhabitants of Western Moldavia—a Soviet and Greater Moldovan point of view. Also that year, Niculescu-Mizil sought and obtained support from Răutu in establishing the world-affairs magazine ''Lumea'', with Ivașcu, the former political detainee, as an editor. This publication was an explicit alternative to the local edition of ''The New Times (magazine), Novoye Vremya'', intended as a hint that Romania was no longer tributary to Soviet foreign politics. By 1964, when Gheorghiu-Dej signaled Romania's full detachment from the de-Stalinized Soviet Union, Răutu was again called upon for ideological maneuvering. Gheorghiu-Dej sided with History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976), Red China in the Sino-Soviet split, Sino–Soviet divorce, and Răutu helped redact the "April Theses" recognizing "the sovereign rights of each socialist state". He was afterward heard stating his disgust for past Sovietization, leaving readers shocked with his comments on those "who have shamefully kowtowed at even the most insignificant Soviet creation"; he also praised "national values" in the scientific field. He enabled Gheorghiu-Dej's anti-Hungarian rhetoric by sending him a report on the nationalistic statements made by various Hungarian authors and tolerated by the People's Republic of Hungary, Hungarian communist government. Răutu also looked on as the regime allowed a partial recovery of his philosophical bugbears (Dobrogeanu-Gherea, then Maiorescu) and a controlled familiarization with Western literature or modernism. Despite his concessions to localism, the Bessarabian communist still looked to the Soviet hardliners for inspiration, and was considered by his peers a Stalinist survivor, à la Mikhail Suslov; he was also compared with Hungary's György Aczél. Răutu is said to have been thankful that Chișinevschi was out of politics altogether, but was embarrassed by Miron Constantinescu's re-admittance into the
nomenklatura The ''nomenklatura'' (; from , system of names) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: ...
; in front of other party figures, the two men acted like good friends. The party even selected Răutu to inform his nominal enemy that he had been widowed, Sulamita Constantinescu having been stabbed by her own daughter. Oțetea, who had finally been successful in toppling Roller from his position of Marxist historiographer, is said to have described Răutu as "the most intelligent of the communist leaders, but a bastard". In 1964, while carrying on with his other functions, Răutu was serving as general secretary of the Foreign Trade Ministry. Gheorghiu-Dej's terminal illness transformed him into an unconditional supporter of Ceaușescu, who was emerging as the new party leader; Niculescu-Mizil recalls being informed by Răutu that "you and I must obey Ceaușescu from now on". Conflicted by his own social and ethnic origins, Răutu sought good relations with Ceaușescu, a relationship strengthened due to the friendship between Răutu's wife Natalia and Elena Ceaușescu. His cordial rapport with the Ceaușescu couple, developed during the Gheorghiu-Dej era, together with (historians suggest) his chameleon-like persona, helps account for his longevity in public life. Holding approximately equal party ranks, the two men and their families were also recipients of a luxury trip to France, arranged by Gheorghiu-Dej and with television presenter Tudor Vornicu as their guide. Răutu managed to impress Ceaușescu, even though the latter was not just fearful of the PMR prison elite, but also a nationalist with antisemitic reactions. Răutu authored Gheorghiu-Dej's official obituary, as published by ''Scînteia'', and oversaw the funeral ceremony. After Ceaușescu's ascent in 1965, Răutu's was inducted into the central committee secretariat (elected March 22). He joined Ceaușescu on his first-ever mission as general secretary, namely a meeting with the scientists' community, where they had talks with Petre Constantinescu-Iași, Horia Hulubei, and Ilie Murgulescu. He also served on the party's executive committee from July 23, 1965 to November 28, 1974, one of several figures promoted as a direct result of Gheorghiu-Dej's death. When the new leader decided to reformulate Communist Party historiography, Răutu was among those tasked with compiling the short course in such a way as to describe the various ideological slips under Gheorghiu-Dej. Researched during 1965, the book was never completed. The same year, Răutu witnessed as Baranga stepped in to impose censorship in theater, by arguing that all plays by Eugène Ionesco other than ''Rhinoceros (play), Rhinoceros'' needed to be withdrawn from the national repertoire. Baranga cited Răutu as an authority on this issue but, as historian Cristian Vasile notes, this may have been tongue-in-cheek. In 1966, Ceaușescu presented Răutu with the Tudor Vladimirescu Order, 1st Class; Răutu was additionally a "Hero of Socialist Labor" from 1964. Despite the protection he enjoyed, he now found that his advancement within the party was curbed, with Ceaușescu informing him that theirs was not an equal partnership. While reconfirmed in his executive functions at the party congress in 1965, Răutu was no longer a rapporteur, his position filled by the younger Dumitru Popescu-Dumnezeu. His promotion to the secretariat also required him to relinquish his long-held position at Agitprop, on April 1, 1965. His immediate successor was his own protegé Ion Iliescu, the former student organizer (and future Ceaușescu opponent).


Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy

The year 1966 marked a low point in Răutu's career, as he was only tasked with supervising the interior commerce department and the Communist Youth's Pioneer movement, Pioneer branch. According to Tismăneanu, Răutu spent much of the interval reading up on political literature, including
Neo-Marxist Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, ps ...
authors frowned upon by the regime (Herbert Marcuse). In January 1967, he gave approval to publish the popular history review, ''Magazin Istoric''. As noted by its editor, Titu Georgescu, Răutu had to be persuaded by more sympathetic party figures, including Niculescu-Mizil and Ștefan Voitec. Also according to Georgescu, Răutu signed off on an order to double ''Magazin Istoric''s circulation, but did so without realizing that the review was already published in 60,000 copies. That year, he was similarly defeated in his attempt to prevent the regime from publishing a posthumous edition of Călinescu's main literary tract, ''Istoria literaturii''. Răutu's standing was again recognized in November, when he accompanied Ceaușescu to Moscow for the October Revolution's fiftieth anniversary, and on December 8, when he and Niculescu-Mizil were made supervisors of the Agitprop section. At the central committee plenary of April 1968, Ceaușescu acknowledged Răutu and
Valter Roman Valter or Walter Roman (October 9, 1913 – November 11, 1983), born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish ...
as rapporteurs on the social and economic education of Romanian youth, which they had deemed unsatisfactory. In August 1968, Ceaușescu increased his popularity by refusing to sanction the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia—effectively a standoff with the Soviet Union. As reported by Securitate sources, he came to be well-liked by anti-communist Romanians living in the West, though they feared that the deadlock would end in a Soviet coup, with Răutu at its helm. In mid-1969, Răutu was quietly removed from his position within the secretariat, though not from the executive committee. On March 13, 1969, Ceaușescu appointed Răutu as his
deputy prime minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...
, in charge of supervising education. He served as such until April 24, 1972, when he became rector of
Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy The Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy (Romanian: ''Academia Ștefan Gheorghiu'', in full: ''Academia de învățămînt social-politic Ștefan Gheorghiu de pe lîngă CC al PCR'' — roughly, ''Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy for Socio-Political Education ...
. In February 1970, he was officially recommended for membership of the new Academy of Social and Political Sciences, formed by Constantinescu—one of the old Stalinists to be inducted, he served there alongside non-communists such as Daicoviciu, Mihai Berza, and Henri H. Stahl; both he and Constantinescu attempted "a sort of modernization of party propaganda", aimed at getting youth interested in Marxism-Leninism. Răutu had by then shown personal initiative in interpreting the party line and even anticipated Ceaușescu's ideological permutations. After the ''July Theses'' of 1971 put a stop to liberalization and introduced the more repressive phase of national communism, he welcomed Ceaușescu's commands as "a model in Marxist-Leninist analysis" and the subjugation of culture to political economy as "an active, revolutionary, attitude"; he also informed the party that the time had come for himself to reexamine his past and determine his own "mistakes". In late 1972, he supported and obtained a ban on Liviu Ciulei's production of ''The Government Inspector'', which he and other party men regarded as too forward, following a negative report from Baranga. Ciulei himself argued that his work was only targeted because of a "showdown" between Răutu and Popescu-Dumnezeu—since the latter had actively promoted the play. Niculescu-Mizil was Răutu and Iliescu's successor at the Agitprop section, which now ran a more covert form of censorship.Nicolae Manolescu, "Editorial. Un pilon al culturii comuniste", in ''România Literară'', Issue 37/1993, p. 1 Răutu moved on to the lavishly furnished and overbudgeted Gheorghiu Academy, where Mihail Oișteanu was already serving as a teaching cadre. Here, Răutu set up a "Laboratory for Research into Contemporary Historical Progress", dedicated to defending communist dogma against "the illusion of technocracy". Tismăneanu argues that this think tank was merely "bizarre"; he describes Răutu's theories as "clichés" or "platitudes". In April 1973, Răutu went to East Germany, speaking at an international conference which marked 125 years since ''The Communist Manifesto''. In early September of that year, he attended a meeting of communist-party schools convened by Jan Fojtík and Ladislav Hrzal in Prague; in November, he was in Paris, a guest of the Institut Maurice Thorez. Literary scholar Nicolae Manolescu recalls catching a glimpse of him in the seaside resort of Neptun, Romania, Neptun, at some point in the mid 1970s. He "was sitting in a deckchair, reading French and American magazines. Even back when he was head of agitprop, Leonte Răutu, the intelligent and cultured man that he was, had access to all sources of cultural information that so many Romanian intellectuals could only long for." As rector, Răutu presented the communist leader with a Ph.D. in Politics on Ceaușescu's 60th birthday in January 1978. At that stage Răutu was assigned to the Party and State Committee which organized the International Committee of Historical Sciences, 15th International Congress of Historical Sciences (Bucharest, 1980), which Ceaușescu intended to use for broadcasting Dacianism, Dacianist theories. In tandem, Răutu continued to serve in the MAN—after 1975 Romanian legislative election, elections in March 1975, he served a term for northern Bacău. By January 1979, his regional activity included organizing shows of support for Ceaușescu's policies, involving industrial workers in both Bacău and Onești, Borzești. At the XIIth Party Congress in 1979, he issued a spontaneous and violent attack against fellow PCR veteran Constantin Pîrvulescu, who had taken the floor to ad-lib about Ceaușescu's separation from Marxism. In a February 1980 speech that saw print in ''Scînteia'', he gave his retouched version of communist history: claiming to have been one of the first communists to take note of young Ceaușescu's "exceptional courage and brilliant intelligence", he extended his gratitude to "my beloved Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu" for taking on the role of ideological guide in the eyes of "each and all party activists".Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 55 Răutu was returned to the MAN during 1980 Romanian legislative election, elections in March 1980, this time from the Aiud constituency. That same month, he was assigned to the central committee's commission on Ideology, Politics, Cultural and Socialist Education; in May, he returned as vice president of the Higher Council of Education.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 53 Also that year, he received two of Communist Romania's major distinctions: the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, Star of the Socialist Republic, 1st Class (granted, on his 70th birthday, for merits "in constructing the multilaterally developed socialist society"), and the 25th Anniversary of the Motherland's Liberation Medal. From the early 1970s, Răutu was practically a widower. Natalia Răutu, plagued by episodic migraines since the 1940s, was diagnosed with viral encephalitis after slipping into a coma; she was kept under specialized care at Elias Hospital but never recovered, dying on January 21, 1975. The former head of Agitprop began noticing that the relatives of various communist potentates were using their relative freedom of travel and defecting to the West. Knowing that his own family had little appreciation for Ceaușescu, he expressed fears that, should the same happen to him, the central committee would never pardon it.


Downfall and final years

Soviet archives suggest that, from as early as the 1940s, Răutu was one of the Romanian communists who had secretly broken with party discipline by asking Moscow to intervene in Romania's internal problems. In the late 1970s, Brucan spoke at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Architecture, where he was openly asked by one student if Romania would ever press at the UN for the return of Bessarabia. According to his own recollections, Brucan entertained the question; this alarmed both the Securitate and Răutu as "irredentist propaganda", but Ceaușescu overruled them, explaining that Brucan had done nothing wrong. A Securitate operative reported in August 1979 that Răutu and Ghizela Vass were perceived by at least one source as nomenklatura contacts for the
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
and the StB. According to such rumors, the two had "friendly meetings" with KGB sources and with each other, discussing "changes to the external agenda of our party and state." In her 2010s recollections, historian Cornelia Bodea accused Răutu and Roman of making repeated attempts to prevent her from publishing evidence that some 40,000 Romanians had been massacred during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848; this incident formed part of renewed tensions between Hungary and Romania, which were carried into the field of history-writing. 1980s austerity policy in Romania, Ceaușescu's austerity policy had already caused a rift between Romania and the West, prompting the regime to fall back on a stricter application of Marxist-Leninism. In March 1981, communist potentate Gogu Rădulescu informed his friends that, as a result of this transition, Răutu "jumped up" in political importance. Also that year, Răutu approved a request by Romanian-born scholar Lilly Marcou, who intended to do her research at Ștefan Gheorghiu. As Marcou reports: "[Răutu] allowed me to do my work, and helped me with it. [...] I had a meeting with the heads of departments, with the researchers at [this] institution, and I told them what I believed on what was happening in Romania: that it was a shame and a great bane for the country that all around I saw portraits of the Ceaușescus, that they were all one could see on TV etc. I spoke about that at the very core of the party. No one answered, but neither did they threaten me or contradict me." Around that time, Răutu's son-in-law Andrei Coler and his daughter Lena applied for emigration to the United States. Reportedly, news of this unprecedented act infuriated Ceaușescu, who "was bedridden for four days on the advice of his doctors"; Răutu himself tried to underscore his loyalty by asking that his relatives' Romanian passports be "frozen". In retribution for the Colers' move, but also accused of not having fulfilled his own political tasks, Răutu was made to present his resignation from the party's central committee; he was also made to renounce his rectorate in August 1981. Officially, his demotion was effective on November 26, which was also the day on which Răutu was removed from the party's executive committee, alongside Virgil Trofin. Niculescu-Mizil, who had advanced to the party's central leadership, recalls his opposition to Răutu's removal, claiming to have personally reminded Ceaușescu that Răutu had fully supported him in 1964. On November 22, 1984, Răutu was also altogether eliminated from the central committee, with his employment being recorded as "publicist" for the final years of his life; he was also no longer presented as a candidate in the 1985 Romanian legislative election, MAN elections of 1985. This ouster left the former ideologist entirely isolated, a recluse on the Romanian political scene. In his report for the exile station Radio Free Europe, Noël Bernard (journalist), Noël Bernard assessed: "Nobody is going to shed tears over the fall of Leonte Răutu." Bernard also derided the communists' hypocrisy: Răutu, he noted, had been forced out because his daughter emigrated; Miron Constantinescu advanced steadily, his own daughter a mentally disturbed matricide. In an October 1984 conversation with literary critic Dan Culcer (published in 1999), sociologist Zoltán Rostás argued that Răutu's ouster marked a peak in Ceaușescu's "
Romanianization Romanianization is the series of policies aimed toward ethnic assimilation implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th and 21st century. The most noteworthy policies were those aimed at the Hungarian minority in Romania, Jews and as ...
" policy. According to Rostás, the Ștefan Gheorghiu group was cultivating "Marxist information and criticism", thus hampering the "purity and ideological unity of Ceaușescuist thought"—the experiment required that Răutu be sidelined. Theater historian Mircea Morariu also notes that Răutu was made an example of, whereas Baranga, whose son Harry had also emigrated, had been spared persecution. Tismăneanu adds: "The 'perfect acrobat' [fell] victim to the very dialectical-Balkanic mechanism that he so decisively helped generate [...] Răutu had been thrown into the grim anonymity that had consumed the last years of his so many associates in youthful daydreaming." Răutu moved out into a regular house of protocol, and worked for the party's own History Institute.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p. 129 His last years were allegedly marked by panic and confusion: although it gave him pleasure to see Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, Ceaușescu being tried and executed during the Romanian Revolution of 1989, that event saw the formal destruction of a political and symbolic structure to which he had dedicated his life. An unverifiable rumor even places him among the dejected old-generation communists who prepared their return under a "Constantin Dăscălescu Government". Reportedly fearing anti-communist repression, Răutu supported Iliescu, his former employee at the Agitprop Section, whom the Revolution had propelled to the rank of President of Romania, President. Iliescu later acknowledged that he felt respect for Răutu. The History of Romania since 1989, post-revolutionary republic did not impinge on the privileges he had gained, as an old communist militant, under Gheorghiu-Dej. Legally included in a category of "Antifascism, antifascist combatants", he continued to receive a large pension and was eligible for special medical care. Răutu gave his only in-depth interview to Pierre du Bois, a Swiss political scientist, acknowledging that the communist system had produced tens of thousands of victims but expressing no remorse. He died shortly after, in September 1993, and was Cremation in Romania, cremated at ''Cenușa'' furnace, to the tune of ''The Internationale''.


Legacy

According to Vladimir Tismăneanu and Cristian Vasile, who cite various other authors, Răutu was not just responsible for cultural repression, but also for the characteristically "ill-adapted", "dull", and "Anti-intellectualism, anti-intellectual" essence of Romanian communist propaganda at all times between 1950 and 1989. According to poet-journalist Radu Cosașu (himself a figure in 1950s literature), Răutu is personally responsible for a slip of the wooden language, wooden tongue, allowing the notion of Eastern Bloc to be rendered in Romanian as ''lagărul socialist''—which can also be read as "socialist concentration camp". A renegade Stalinist and a defector, Petru Dumitriu, satirized Leonte Răutu (as "
Malvolio Malvolio is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's comedy '' Twelfth Night, or What You Will''. His name means "ill will" in Italian, referencing his disagreeable nature. He is the vain, pompous, authoritarian steward of Olivia's househ ...
") and Gheorghiu-Dej (as "Amon Ra") in political novels he wrote abroad. As Dumitriu's anti-hero, Răutu goes from fiery intellectual to corrupt and surfeited bureaucrat. The mid to late 1960s ignited a bookish flare of indignation at home, when some of the intellectuals harmed by Răutu's Stalinist policies took their literary revenge. In 1965,
Writers' Union Writers' Union may refer to the following organizations: Statewide unions * Writers Union of Armenia * Azerbaijani Writers Union * Writers' Union of Canada * Chinese Writers Union * Estonian Writers' Union * Hungarian Writers' Union * Iraqi Writer ...
president Zaharia Stancu publicly asked Ceaușescu to let Răutu follow in the trail of Chișinevschi, identifying the former as a Stalinist mastermind. According to Stancu, Chișinevschi had been more of a "dilettante" pawn. After personal tragedy led him to reconsider Stalinism (and possibly communism altogether), poet Eugen Jebeleanu also turned on Răutu. The notion of "perfect acrobat", used by Tismăneanu to qualify Răutu's record as a political survivor, was originally the title of a Jebeleanu piece: Marxist dissident Alexandru Ivasiuc portrayed Răutu (as "Valeriu Trotușeanu") in the novel ''Cunoaștere de noapte'' ("Nightly Knowledge"): the fictional cat-like Răutu spins a web of arguments, admitting his minor errors to divert focus from his crimes. Critic Nicolae Dragoș, who was in the process of moving from Stalinism to nationalism, made a point of saluting Ivasiuc's book: his own editorial for the review ''România Literară'' carried the unsettling title ''Te recunosc, domnule Trotușeanu'' ("I Recognize You, Mr. Trotușeanu"). A more nationalistic indictment of 1950s policies is found in Dinu Săraru's novel ''Dragostea și revoluția'' ("Love and Revolution"), where the antagonist, a politico by the name of "Anghel Tocsobie", is probably based on Răutu. In late 1982, Cosașu published the autofictional volume ''Logica'', which features the character "Reznicek", who is possibly a depiction of Răutu. Presumably, the national communists allowed such works to see print because they helped remind Răutu that he was always under their scrutiny. Although Ceaușescu countersigned Răutu's downfall and allowed a condemnation of Răutu's erstwhile proteges, little was published on the ideologist's own career, and almost no negative reinvestigation saw print before 1989. Researchers such as Ileana Vrancea and Ion Cristoiu, who tackled the more delicate subjects of Stalinist culture and were condemned by the communist press as borderline dissidents, refrained from even mentioning Răutu by name. Benefiting from his seniority in the communist movement, academician Iorgu Iordan made at least one reference to Răutu's problematic decision-making, even before Răutu had been sidelined: Iordan's version of events is preserved in his 1979 memoirs. Răutu's contribution as a propagandist was entirely absent from official reference works such as the 1978 biographical dictionary of Romanian historiography. Although highly decorated and commended as a positive example, the Agitprop Section founder was generally introduced as a dedicated "party activist", a communist powerhouse rather than a national instructor: while honoring him with the Star of the Socialist Republic, Ceaușescu made sure to remind the audience that Răutu's history had its share of "minuses and unfulfilled chapters". A controversial perspective on Răutu's public role and legacy was taken up from the late 1980s, with roots in the 1960s, by journalists and critics such as Eugen Barbu and Mihai Ungheanu. Such authors, criticized in turn as xenophobic and even antisemitic, suggest that there was a Jewish Bolshevism, Jewish-and-communist conspiracy against the very spirit of Romanian culture. This lobby, associated for a while with the journal ''Luceafărul (magazine), Luceafărul'', was tolerated by Ceaușescu as the radical facet of his national communism: Barbu and fellow novelist Ion Lăncrănjan, who had debuted as orthodox Stalinists and had won Răutu's approval, became proponents of the neotraditionalist revival. In contrast to theirs, largely positive assessments of Răutu survive in memoirs and interviews by Iliescu and by his Agitprop Section successor, Dumitru Popescu-Dumnezeu. Răutu's daughter Anca Oroveanu and her husband Mihai Oroveanu stayed behind in Romania after the Colers left for America, and continued to visit Răutu. Mihai Oroveanu, a noted art photographer, is a co-founder of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Romania), National Museum of Contemporary Art. Anca Oroveanu is an art historian, known for her studies in postmodern art; reportedly, in the early 1990s she was publicly scorned for her origins. Writing at the time, essayist and former dissident Dorin Tudoran noted that the attack was antisemitic, whereas pointing out that Leonte Răutu happened to be Jewish was not antisemitic. Răutu's nephews are anthropologist Andrei Oișteanu and poet Valery Oisteanu; the latter directly challenged his uncle by promoting the literary avant-garde in the 1960s. Dan C. Mihăilescu, "Arta descoaserii (II)", in ''Ziarul Financiar'', January 13, 2006; Peter Sragher
"Cum dispare Valery Oișteanu în sunetele vocii sale"
in ''Ziarul Financiar'', July 1, 2010


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rautu, Leonte 1910 births 1993 deaths Romanian Communist Party politicians Communist Party of Moldavia politicians Members of the Great National Assembly 20th-century Romanian civil servants Academic staff of the University of Bucharest Rectors of universities in Romania Recipients of the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic Romanian censors Censorship in Romania Romanian propagandists Moldovan propagandists Soviet propagandists Romanian radio people Soviet publishers (people) Anti-revisionists Jewish communists Jewish anti-Zionism in Romania People from Bălți People from Beletsky Uyezd Bessarabian Jews Moldovan Jews Jewish Romanian politicians Jewish Soviet politicians Romanian atheists Jewish atheists Scînteia editors Moldovan magazine editors Romanian magazine editors Soviet magazine editors Romanian newspaper editors Romanian emigrants to the Soviet Union Inmates of Doftana prison Inmates of Jilava Prison Romanian people of the Spanish Civil War Soviet people of World War II Romanian people of World War II