Source: https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/rumania.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:26:13+00:00

Document:
Letter of the C.C. of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to all Party organisations and all Party members, concerning the results of the currency reform and the tasks of the Party.
Plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party.
For constantly strengthening the Party. Leading article published in “Scânteia” of June 3, 1952.
A. Moghioroş: Consideration of Party of Working Class – Guarantee of Victory of Socialism in Rumania.
The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party debated at its plenum of February 29 – March 1, 1952, the results of the currency reform and the tasks of the Party with a view to consolidating the success of the reform.
1. The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party has established that the currency reform was carried out on the basis of the principles and instructions laid down, and within the time envisaged by the Party leadership. The working class, the working peasantry and the intelligentsia joyfully welcomed the currency reform and the price cuts. The political influence of the Party has increased and its links with the masses have been strengthened. The Party organisations, the People’s Councils, the trade union organisations and other mass organisations have unfolded an intensive activity to prepare and accomplish the currency reform.
The political level and the level of economic knowledge of the Party cadres and mass organisations cadres have risen, as has their interest in studying and mastering economic-financial problems and in administrative work. The Party organisations have given proof of great capacity for organising and mobilising the masses politically.
The State institutions – with the exception of some organs and elements of the financial-banking system, co-operative organisations and State trade – have unfolded a sustained activity with a view to preparing and carrying out the currency reform.
The currency reform has been a complete success, dealing a powerful blow at the capitalist elements in town and countryside and contributing towards a considerable reduction in prices also on the open market. A month and a half have elapsed since the reform, and prices on the open market have been maintained, generally speaking, at the level of the State trade prices. The working class, the working people in the towns, are able to obtain supplies under more favourable conditions than before.
The currency reform and the other measures designed to increase production and the circulation of goods, open up to the working people of our country the prospect of abolition of the rationing system, of introduction of uniform prices, and of a steady rise in their standard of living.
The success of the currency reform has proved up to the hilt the correct estimate made by the Party leadership – on the basis of Comrade Stalin’s teaching – concerning the financial-economic situation in our country and the necessity of carrying out the currency reform.
2. The chief aim of the currency reform was to do away with the unhealthy phenomena which had appeared in the financial and economic spheres as a result of the fact that within our Party there had manifested itself a Right deviation from the line laid down by the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party of March 3-5, 1949 and by other Party documents.
After our country was liberated by the Soviet Army, the alliance between the proletariat and the working peasantry took concrete shape and was cemented in the struggle waged by the working people under the leadership of the Communist Party against fascism, against imperialism, against the exploiting classes and for the conquest of State power.
Our Party has carried on a correct policy of strengthening this alliance under the hegemony of the working class. The Party successfully organised and led the struggle for carrying out the land reform, as a result of which the working peasantry received over one million hectares of land. The big landowners – who throughout the centuries had exploited the working peasantry – were liquidated as a class. Measures were taken to restrict exploitation of the working peasantry by the kulaks.
In order to increase agricultural production, ensure supplies of agricultural raw materials to industry and improve supplies to the working population, the State has granted loans to the working peasantry and, on favourable terms, has placed at their disposal tractors, agricultural machines and selected seeds. Supplies of manufactured goods to the working peasantry have improved year after year; the volume of manufactured goods sent to the villages increased five times during the years 1948-1951.
The peasantry have obtained considerable incomes by marketing large quantities of their surplus of agricultural products.
All this has brought about great changes in the situation of the peasantry as compared with their situation under the bourgeois-landlord regime; their material standard has been greatly improved; the peasant holdings have been strengthened economically.
The rise in the living standard of the working peasantry, as a result of the just policy pursued by people’s democracy regime, is one of the great successes achieved by our system. The working peasantry have been enabled to participate to an increasing extent in the economic development of the State and thus contribute towards the constant strengthening of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry.
In spite of all this, the peasantry were not asked to contribute, in proportion to their increased possibilities, towards increasing the revenue of the State and towards the country’s economic development with a view to building Socialism in our country.
In the period 1949-1951, over one million peasant holdings were unjustifiably exempted from agricultural taxes. Agricultural taxes were assessed on the basis of considerably underrated incomes, especially where the well-to-do strata were concerned. The number of kulak holdings was artificially lowered as compared with the real one. It is well known that at the plenum of March 3 – 5, 1949, in accordance with the approximative statistical data then at our disposal, the number of kulak holdings turned out to amount to some 150,000 (5.5 per cent of the total number of peasant holdings). Although, as far back as during the plenum, a proportion of six to ten per cent kulak holdings was considered nearer to reality, subsequently – in contradiction to the line laid down by the plenum with regard to the restriction of capitalist elements – when taxes and delivery quotas were assessed, a lowering of the number of kulak holdings to only 50,000-60,000 was arrived at in an impermissible manner and, in conformity with figures of the Ministry of Finance which were based on unchecked data supplied by the finance departments of the People’s Councils, it was asserted that the proportion of kulak holdings was merely 2.5 per cent. This artificial lowering of the percentage of kulaks was completely unjust, all the more so as in the period of transition from capitalism to Socialism, whilst there exists a mass of small producers, capitalism is spontaneously generated in the countryside, day by day and in mass proportions.
The non-Marxist policy has also been manifest in the reduction, at the State’s expense, of taxes on considerable quantities of goods distributed in the villages; in the fixing of ever higher purchase prices for agricultural products, which contributed toward causing a disproportion between the prices of manufactured products and those of agricultural products; in a wrong policy of contracting for agricultural products, consisting in a constant raising of prices and in granting, over and above the cash price, ever greater advantages in kind, in the form of manufactured goods; and in the disproportion between the large volume of industrial goods distributed through village co-operatives and the much smaller volume of agricultural-foodstuff products purchased by co-operatives and State organs.
All this has led to an incomplete fulfilment of the plan for State deliveries and, especially, of the purchase plan, has created serious difficulties in supplying the workers, and has enabled the profiteers in the towns and the kulaks in the villages to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and the working peasantry. The capitalist elements have been able to hoard considerable quantities of goods and cash, which has enabled them to offer resistance to the economic measures taken by our State of people’s democracy.
Taking advantage of the lack of firmness in the correct manipulation of the levers of taxation, deliveries, purchases, and in the policy of prices, the capitalist elements obstructed the normal development of exchange between town and countryside, the supplying of agricultural foodstuff products to the working class and the other working people in the towns, and of agricultural raw materials to the socialist industry; they constantly raised the prices on the open market, subjecting also the prices on the organised market to pressure; they systematically practised the non-payment of taxes and non-reimbursement of debts towards the State. This has prevented the implementation of the plan for consumer goods, especially in the foodstuff industry (meat, dairy produce, fats, etc.) It was not possible to raise the standard of living of the working people to the extent envisaged by the Party and the Government.
The wrong policy of constant concessions to the well-to-do strata of the peasantry leads to the strengthening of the capitalist elements. The deviation that has manifested itself in the Party and in the activity of the State consists precisely in the fact that instead of pursuing a policy of strengthening the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry in the ceaseless struggle against the capitalist elements among the peasantry and of ensuring the leading role of the working class in this alliance, there has been a slipping on to the non-Marxist line of a policy favouring and stimulating the capitalist elements in the villages.
* J. Stalin: Works, vol. II, p. 213, Russian edition.
The opportunist Right deviation in our Party consists in underrating the power of our enemy, the power of capitalism, the danger of kulak penetration into collective farms, consists in orientation towards the so-called “key-elements” of the villages, that is, towards the well-to-do rural strata, consists in the failure to understand the mechanism of the class struggle in the condition from capitalism to Socialism. It leads to concessions to the capitalist elements in town and countryside. This policy also affects the pace of the socialist industrialisation of the country.
Such a policy, prejudicial to the general interests of the State and of the national economy and hitting the interests of the working population in the towns, at the same time hits the interests of the working population in the villages. The peasantry is interested in cheap consumer goods, whereas the rise in agricultural prices leads to higher prices also for industrial consumer goods, leads to a deterioration of supplies of industrial goods to the village. The working peasantry is interested in a powerful leu and in realizing its income in sound money; this requires the development of the exchange of goods between town and countryside, the conscientious fulfilment of obligations towards the State with regard to deliveries, and the receipt of taxes by the State in good time, since this is how the purchasing power of the leu is strengthened. The working peasantry is vitally interested in the development of the socialist industry, as the development of industry is the basis for the strengthening of the entire national economy, the basis of the construction of Socialism in our country, and therefore also the basis of an increase in the working peasantry’s well-being.
The discovery and thorough analysis of the Right deviation arms the Party in the struggle for the complete liquidation of this deviation and for the consistent carrying out of the Leninist-Stalinist policy in the problem of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry.
3. The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party considers that comrade V. Luca bears a great responsibility for the deviation from the line of the Party in the problem of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry.
The roots of this deviation have to be sought for as far back as in the period following the currency reform of 1947, when comrade Luca adopted the position of revising the correlation established between wages – industrial prices – agricultural prices.
The non-Marxist conception in the question of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, in the problem of the exchange between town and countryside, and of the role of the co-operatives, has been set forth by comrade Luca in writing (articles and pamphlets) as well as in speeches.
Losing political vigilance, comrade Luca turned over the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank into the hands of anti-Party and anti-State elements who have caused great loss to the State and to the working people during the preparation and carrying through of the currency reform. These elements sought to oppose comrade Luca to the leadership of the Party. Comrade Luca actually isolated himself from the leadership of the Party and isolated the Ministry of Finance from the Party and the Government.
From the beginning, comrade Luca took up the stand of denying the necessity of the currency reform.
Throughout the period of preparing and carrying out the currency reform, comrade Luca did not engage in the work unfolding in connection with the reform to the extent required of a leader of the Party and the State who also holds the office of Minister of Finance. Comrade Luca left to his deputies his own tasks connected with the currency reform.
The leadership of the Party had to make prolonged efforts in order to convince comrade Luca of the necessity of the currency reform. And even after comrade Luca had signed, together with the other members of the Party leadership, the decision of the Central Committee of the. Rumanian Workers’ Party concerning the carrying out of the currency reform, and right up to the days when the exchange took place, comrade Luca, in opposition to the point of view of the leadership of the Party, tried to demonstrate that there was less money in the countryside than in the towns, that the currency in circulation amounted to less than the leadership of the Party estimated, which shows that not even in this period, was comrade Luca fully convinced of the necessity of the currency reform.
On the eve of the currency reform, the deputy-ministers of Finance forced up the pace of money receipts and slowed down the tempo of expenditures, falsifying the data regarding money in circulation – data designed for the leadership of the Party and the Government – and seriously injuring the interests of the State.
Even after the leadership of the Party had discovered all this, comrade Luca continued to uphold his point of view and to defend those who had taken the harmful measures mentioned above; he thus showed a lack of spirit of self-criticism and intolerance towards criticism. Comrade Luca began to retreat only after being confronted with undeniable facts and arguments.
Although the leadership of the Party made efforts to bring comrade Luca back to the line of the Party in the problem of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, comrade Luca maintained the position of defending the non-Party line, trying to turn the discussions in an unprincipled direction, to shift on others the responsibility for the mistakes he himself had committed.
Only after the Central Committee had risen against his stand, was comrade Luca forced to acknowledge that he had left the Ministry of Finance in the hands of anti-Party and anti-State elements in whom he had placed full confidence, and that he bore the greatest share of guilt in the introduction of a non-Marxist policy.
The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party took note of comrade Luca’s statement to the effect that he regarded as a help the criticism levelled at him by the Central Committee and that he pledged himself to work with zeal and devotion in applying the Party line.
4. Analysing the way in which the preparations for carrying out the currency reform had taken place, the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party established that throughout the period of preparing the reform – a period that lasted some six months – there was manifested a resistance on the part of elements hostile to the reform.
A. Vijoli, deputy-minister of Finance and President of the State Bank, gave illegal instructions prejudicial to the State to keep the branches of the Bank open throughout the country on Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30, 1951, in order to receive cash deposits from enterprises and from economic and public organisations.
This was done for the purpose of deceiving the Party and the Government, of defending the thesis that the amount of currency in circulation was much smaller than the leadership of the Party had thought, and of undermining the measures established by the Party with regard to the currency reform.
This anti-State action gave rise to a chain of hostile rumours throughout the country which caused harm to the working population in town and countryside and helped the capitalist elements in town' and countryside to avoid the effects of the currency reform as regards part of the sums they held.
Instead of enforcing at the time the State laws against the kulaks, against other capitalist elements and against all those who violate the taxation law, Al. Iacob, deputy-minister of Finance, despite the directives he had received, forced the pace of receipts of taxes and outstanding debts of all kinds in old lei precisely in the month of December, that is, on the eve of the reform, thus causing big losses to the State.
A. Vijoli and Al. Iacob did not accurately carry out the directive concerning the payment of wages for the first half of January 1952 on January 17-22, a directive which had been given by the Government in the interest of factory and office workers so as to enable them to do their shopping before stores were closed and the currency exchange put into effect. As these directives were not carried out, many workers received their wages only on the eve of the currency reform, on the days when the shops were closed, which constituted another blow dealt at the interests of the working class.
Prior to the currency reform, the management of the State Bank unreasonably restricted State expenditures on certain economic requirements (transports, constructions), whereas after the currency reform had been carried out, the management of the State Bank permitted an injustifiable rise in State expenditure.
The management of the State Bank went against the decision of the Government and the Party concerning the currency reform in connection with the calculation of the accounts of socialist enterprises, thus injuring the interests of the latter.
A. Vijoli did not take measures to check the abnormal rise in savings deposits (C.E.C.) in the month preceding the currency reform. In this way, considerable sums belonging to private persons were channelled through the Savings Bank into the State treasury, partly evading the effects of the currency reform.
Violating the provisions of the decision of the Government and the Party concerning the currency reform, Al. Iacob directed that workers’ earnings resulting from piece work during the second half of the month of January, be calculated at the ratio of 1:200 instead of 1:20 – a directive which dealt a serious blow at the interests of the working class and which was countermanded only as a result of the intervention of the Government.
Following the currency reform, elements in the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank continued to sabotage the decisions of the Party and the Government.
Serious weaknesses existed in the activity of the Ministry of Trade and of the Centrocoop,* which, despite the directives issued by the leadership of the Party and by the Government, did not take the measures designed to prevent profiteering elements from hoarding goods in the period preceding the currency reform. Owing to this situation, in no more than five days, considerable quantities of goods were sold, passing mainly into the hands of the well-to-do elements in town and countryside.
After the reform, the Ministry of Trade and the Centrocoop committed a number of mistakes as regards the putting into effect of the decision taken by the Council of Ministers of the Rumanian People’s Republic and by the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party on the new prices of commodities.
Moreover, owing to weakness in the work of the Executive Committees of the People’s Councils, of the organs dealing with State deliveries and of the co-operatives, the decisions on deliveries and purchases are not firmly carried out, and the plan for deliveries and purchases is not being implemented in its entirety.
The collection of taxes levied on the incomes of the population, especially agricultural taxes and taxes on the incomes of private persons, is not proceeding at the pace established.
5. The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party regards as a great weakness of its the fact that it was late in discovering the Right deviation in the question of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry, and that it did not control the activity of the Ministry of Finance and of the Bank of the Rumanian People’s Republic.
In the period of preparing the currency reform and after the reform had been carried out, the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, breaking the opposition of elements hostile to the Party line, took a series of measures to liquidate the deviation.
The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party considers that all the conditions exist for consolidating and further strengthening the great success of the currency reform.
Our Party is in the position to liquidate the deviations with determination, to correct the mistakes and shortcomings in its work and firmly carry through the Leninist-Stalinist policy concerning the strengthening of the alliance between the working class and the working peasantry.
The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party has decided to take the measures required for a steady increase in industrial and agricultural production; for expanding the marketable output of agriculture; for implementing the plan for State deliveries and for purchases; for improving the exchange of goods between town and countryside; as well as supplies to the working population; for a regulative intervention on the part of the State – through economic means, – in order to combat profiteering tendencies on the open market; for putting into effect the decisions of the Party and the Government concerning labour and wages; for improving work in the financial system and strengthening financial discipline; for applying a severe regime of savings; for improving work in the sphere of records and statistics; for creating considerable State reserves; for strengthening State discipline.
6. The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party considers that the constant guiding and controlling of the entire financial system is a central task of the Party and its leadership.
The activity of the Ministry of Finance and of the State Bank shall be re-organised. For this purpose there shall be initiated a checkup on the work of the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank, as well as of the cadres working in these institutions.
A check-up shall be initiated on the activity of the Party organisations in the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank, and measures taken to strengthen their leadership. A Party organiser of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party shall be appointed at the State Bank.
It is the duty of the regional, district and town committees to take a close interest in Party and mass organisations active in local financial organs and in branches of the State Bank, in order to ensure the fulfilment of their tasks.
7. The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party considers that the implementation of the tasks laid down by the decision of the Council of Ministers and of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party concerning the currency reform of January 26, 1952, and by the decision of the Government and the Party of March 7, 1952, concerning the consolidation of the success of the currency reform, must hold the central place in the entire activity of Party organisations.
The currency reform was carried out with a view to eliminating the consequences of the deviation from the Party line in the financial-economic sphere. However, in order fully to liquidate the Right deviation, the Party organisations have to wage a determined struggle againsit all manifestations of this deviation.
A number of leaderships of Party basic organisations in villages and rural People’s Councils are bearing their share of responsibility for the artificial lowering of the number of kulaks, the failure to combat opportunist, conciliatory manifestations towards the kulaks, and the inadequate handling of the lever of taxation and deliveries to the State. A number of regional and district committees of the Party and of regional and district People’s Councils did not take a permanent interest in the problems of deliveries, taxation and exchange between town and countryside, did not stand guard over the firm pursuance of the policy of restricting the capitalist elements. Many Party organs and organisations were insufficiently concerned with the political leadership and guidance of the co-operatives, did not give adequate assistance in purging the co-operative organs of capitalist, dishonest elements, in purging the fiscal apparatus of dishonest elements not devoted to people’s democracy power.
The Party organisations must engage in a permanent educational activity among Party members so as to ensure the vanguard role of Communists in all actions initiated by the Party. The Party organisations must boldly use criticism and self-criticism, as a reliable weapon for strengthening Party activity. Party members with a low political level must have the Party line explained to them. The Party basic organisations must discuss at their meetings the position in the Party of those whose attitude, despite educational and explanatory work, remains opposed to the line and directives of the Party, and must correspondingly apply statutory measures.
The Party organisations must combat and liquidate with utmost resolution any manifestation of a conciliatory attitude towards the enemies of the building of Socialism.
The Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party calls upon all Party organisations, all Party members to work selflessly to carry out the Party line, to liquidate the deviations and mistakes committed, to economically strengthen our country along the road to Socialism.
In industrial and agricultural production, in socialist emulation drives, in observing work discipline as well as State discipline, in fulfilling duties towards the State – payment of taxes, fulfilment of delivery commitments, etc. – Party members must always be in the lead, mobilising the masses of the working people through their personal example. Through the efforts of the working people, under the leadership of our beloved Party closely rallied round its Central Committee headed by Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej, and guiding ourselves by the luminous teaching of Lenin and Stalin, we shall ensure the constant strengthening of the leu, the consolidation of the full success of the currency reform, the raising of the standard of living, a continuous increase in the volume of goods, the supplies to the working population at uniform prices and without any rationing, the development and flourishing of the entire national economy and the constant strengthening of the Rumanian People’s Republic.
On May 26 and 27, 1952, a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party was held under the chairmanship of Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.
1. Vasile Luca, losing sense of class, has cut himself off from the Party and the working class, has surrounded himself with hostile elements, has risen against the general line of the Party, and has introduced his own Right opportunist line of stimulating capitalist elements in countryside and town, causing great damage to the State and creating difficulties in supplies to the working people.
2. Comrade Teohari Georgescu has manifested a conciliatory attitude towards V. Luca’s Right deviation, trying to conceal his own Right mistakes, his lack of militancy against the class enemy, and loss of revolutionary vigilance.
To remove Teohari Georgescu from the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, from the Political Bureau and the Organisational Bureau, and assign him work at a lower level.
In his speech concluding the work of the plenum, Comrade Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, stressed that the discussions and the decisions taken by the Central Committee had proved the unshakable unity of the Party, and its leadership and its firmness in the struggle to obliterate opportunism and conciliatory attitudes.
In the last few days, an announcement has been published concerning the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party held on May 26-27, 1952.
The plenum heard and debated the report of the Party Commission which had examined the activity and organisation of the financial system over the period 1947 (November 8) – 1952 (March 9), as well as preliminary information on the results of the verification by the Party Commission which had made enquiries into the activity unfolded in the system of goods exchange.
During the plenum, a number of central problems of our Party’s activity were analysed. The plenum established on this occasion the complete justness of the Party line, which is based on the teaching of genius of Lenin and Stalin and the gigantic experience of the Bolshevik Party. Leading the working people in the grand work of building Socialism, our Party pursues a policy of socialist industrialisation as a basis for the development of economy as a whole; a policy of strengthening and consolidating the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry with a view to restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, and to the socialist transformation of agriculture; a policy of constantly strengthening the State of people’s democracy, as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of active participation in the struggle for safeguarding peace in close friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy. The bases of this policy are set forth in Party documents such as Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej’s reports made at the National Conference of the Party and at the Congress of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, the report and resolution of the March 3 – 5, 1949, plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, the Decisions of the Party and the Government on the Five-Year Plan and the Electrification Plan, as well as other Decisions of the Party and works of Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej.
Firmly pursuing this Marxist-Leninist line, our Party, at the head of the working people, has achieved notable successes in building and consolidating the system of people’s democracy and of laying the economic foundations of Socialism.
Our socialist industry, and, in the first place, industry producing the means of production, is growing and developing at a rapid pace. More and more masses of working peasants are taking the path of the socialist transformation of agriculture. The material and cultural level of the working people is steadily rising.
The Party’s policy is actively supported by the broad masses of the people. The experience acquired in the struggle for setting up and strengthening the system of people’s democracy – a struggle waged by the working people under the Party’s leadership during the eight years that have elapsed since Rumania’s liberation by the Soviet Army – has inculcated in the conscience of the working masses in town and countryside the conviction that the Party’s policy is the only one capable of ensuring the blossoming of our homeland and the well-being of the working people. That is why the working people regard the Party’s policy as their own policy and remove from their path anyone who rises against the Party line and thus isolates himself from the people.
As our country progresses along the road to Socialism, the exploiting classes which have been ousted from power and the capitalist elements which are continuously engendered by small-scale production, realising that their end is drawing near, are intensifying their resistance against the revolutionary policy of our Party. But the Party and the State of people’s democracy, with the enthusiastic support of the millions of workers, working peasants and advanced intellectuals, expose and crush the machinations of the enemy.
Debating the reports submitted to it, the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party established that in the system of the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of the Rumanian People’s Republic, the Credit and Investment Bank, as well as in the co-operative organs, there had been maintained and provided with posts a large number of hostile elements, who had rallied round V. Luca and engaged in an intensive hostile activity of undermining the people’s democratic system and sabotaging the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism in our country.
Opposing the line of the Central Committee providing for the restricting and dislodging of the capitalist elements in countryside and town, they pursued a counter-revolutionary policy of encouragement and connivance in relation to the kulaks and the exploiters in the towns.
In relation to fiscal policy, they favoured the growth of capitalist elements in countryside and town, and defended them against the blows of the dictatorship of the proletariat. A large number of kulaks were transferred into the category of “middle peasants”, thus enabling them to evade the effects of the policy of restriction pursued by the State of people’s democracy.
In relation to price policy, the enemies of the people pursued a continuous raising of the prices during the purchasing of and contracting for agricultural products, with a view to creating conditions for the enrichment of the kulaks and profiteers, establishing at the same time for certain manufactured goods earmarked for the countryside prices below cost of production. Their hostile action also found expression in the lack to accomplish the plan for State deliveries and the plan for purchase of agricultural products through the cooperatives.
As regards the financing of the national economy, the enemies of the people tried to undermine the productive activity of the socialist enterprises, by delaying appropriating them with floating capital and by establishing schedules of planned profits and losses which did not correspond to their production plan and to their actual requirements and possibilities.
As regards the socialist industrialisation of the country, they pursued a policy of withholding investments, particularly in heavy industry, seeking to hamper the development of these key branches of the country’s economy and of the great constructions of Socialism, such as the Danube – Black Sea Canal, the “Scânteia” House, etc.
In the field of socialist agriculture, they aimed at creating ever more difficult conditions of activity for the State farms by blocking the latter’s bank accounts for the largest part of the year.
The policy they carried on in the sphere of taxes and credit, in contracting and in relation to prices, by stimulating the enrichment of the well-to-do stratum of the peasantry, acted as a brake on the socialist transformation of agriculture.
As regards socialist State trade, the enemies of the people sought to disorganise and liquidate it, transferring certain units into the patrimony of co-operatives which in many places had become a shelter for exploiting and profiteering elements of town and countryside.
In the period of preparing and carrying out the currency reform, these counter-revolutionary elements pursued an intense activity with a view to hampering and undermining the putting into effect of the September 1951 Decision of the Central Committee on the carrying out of the currency reform. These hostile elements were the source of all the provocative and diversionist rumours designed to help the capitalist elements in town and countryside to evade the consequences of the reform, and to disorientate the working population, sowing distrust and panic among its ranks.
Going against the decisions of the Party and the Government, the former leadership of the finance-banking system, pursued a policy prejudicial to the State and to the working people in the sphere of currency circulation. At the same time, in order to sow discontent and undermine the confidence of the working people in the Party and the Government, they failed to fulfil the task assigned to them by the Party leadership of paying the wages for the first half of January prior to the currency reform, and did not pay the wages of a great part of the workers in the main branches of industry.
This counter-revolutionary policy was pursued by means of maintaining the old bourgeois-landlord apparatus of the finance-banking system and by means of concentrating, within the framework of this apparatus, a large number of former exploiters, former agents of the Sigurantsa and other counter-revolutionary elements removed from the State apparatus, thus enabling them to sabotage the building of Socialism.
In order to reach their objectives, these enemies constantly sought to cut off the finance plan and the State budget from the economic State plan, sought to introduce anarchy and chaos into the socialist sector at the economy, encouraged theft and the plunderers of the people’s property.
The aim pursued was to create the conditions for re-establishing capitalism in our country. This criminal action was frustrated, exposed and resolutely crushed by the Party and the Government with the support of the working masses in town and countryside. The currency reform has been fully successful, dealing a powerful blow at the capitalist elements in town and countryside and contributing toward raising the living standard of the working class.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party established that the action of these counter-revolutionary elements was closely bound up with the anti-Party and anti-State activity of Vasile Luca. It is many years, since V. Luca has lost sense of class, has isolated himself from the Party and the working class, has pursued a line of his own, contrary to the general line of the Party, as established by the Decisions and Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. He not only opposed the currency reform from the very beginning, but also sought to deal it a blow and to foil its realisation. He became the main bearer of the Right deviation from the line of the Party, the main transmitter of opportunism in the Party.
– undermining the fulfilment of the plan for State deliveries and for purchase of grain and other foodstuffs, which caused great harm in the sphere of supplies of foodstuffs for the working class and the working people in the towns, striking a direct blow at their vital interests.
V. Luca set forth the theses of his opportunist line in numerous articles, pamphlets and exposes. At bedrock of this opportunist line lies the anti-Marxist conception to the effect that in the conditions of transition from capitalism to Socialism the class struggle, allegedly, does not sharpen but diminishes, on the basis of the so-called peaceful growing over of the capitalist elements to Socialism, and that the key to the economic development of the country lies, allegedly, not in socialist industrialisation but in enriching the kulaks.
This line of retarding the development of the socialist sector of the national economy and of supporting the capitalist sector of the economy and the capitalist elements in town and countryside, resulted in hampering foodstuff supplies, especially for factory and office workers and intellectuals in the towns and workers’ centres; in preventing a rise in the standard of living of the working class and, generally, of the working people of our country to the extent envisaged by the Party and the Government. At the same time, this line injured also the interests of the working population in the countryside. The working peasantry is interested in cheap consumer goods; however, a swelling of the prices of agricultural products leads also to a rise in the prices of industrial consumer goods, to a deterioration of the supplies of industrial products for the villages. The working peasantry is vitally interested in the development of the socialist industry, as the development of industry is the basis of the strengthening of the entire national economy, the basis of building Socialism in our country and, therefore, also basis of a rise in the well-being of the working peasantry.
The anti-Party line of V. Luca is not fortuitous. It is the continuation of old deviations and factional methods 'in which Vasile Luca indulged way back in the period of underground Party activity. V. Luca played a leading part in the factional, unprincipled struggle in our Party in the years 1929 to 1931, a struggle which seriously harmed the development of the working class movement and the Party, bringing the Party to the brink of liquidation. At the time V. Luca also drew the trade unions into the factional struggle, diverting them from their tasks and cutting them off from the masses, He likewise actively supported the drawing of the Union of Communist youth and of the Red Aid organisation into this struggle. This took place at a time when the bourgeoisie and landowners sought to emerge from the crisis by worsening still more the situation of the working class, preparing the country’s fascisation and the unleashing of the criminal anti-Soviet war; at a time when, in order to accomplish these foul designs, the exploiting classes needed the weakening of the unity in struggle of the working class and the break-up of its vanguard. For his factional activity, V. Luca was removed at the time from the leadership and assigned work at a lower level.
In 1938-1939, V. Luca contributed to the evolving and application of the mistaken line of the democratic elements’ entering into the monarcho-fascist F.R.N. organisation (the so-called “Front of National Rebirth”), which hindered the organisation by the Party of a large-scale action of struggle against fascism and anti-Soviet war preparations.
V. Luca used in our Party methods of stifling criticism and self-criticism, which harmed the healthy growth of the cadres and diminished their working élan and combativity.
Wayback Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej rebuffed the opportunist manifestations of V. Luca, but the latter, with the double-dealing typical of Right deviators, sought to deceive the Party, formally accepting the line and decisions of the Party, whilst in practice adhering to his own Right opportunist line.
The anti-Party character of V. Luca’s line was fully disclosed in connection with preparing and realising the currency reform, against which Luca rose directly and openly.
At its plenums of February 29 – March 1, and May 26-27 of this year, the Central Committee analysed its activity in the spirit of self-criticism, qualifying “as a great weakness of its the fact that it had only belatedly discovered the Right deviation....” (Letter of March of this year of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to Party organisations and members).
Vasile Luca was able to unfold his anti-Party activity because he received support and encouragement from Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker, who adopted all-along a conciliatory attitude and supported the Right deviation from the Party line.
The plenum established that Comrade Teohari Georgescu had adopted a conciliatory attitude in relation to the Right deviation of V. Luca. It has been proved that this stand taken by Comrade T. Georgescu concealed his own Right opportunist mistakes, his absence of militancy in struggle against the class enemy and the loss of revolutionary vigilance in his work. This had enabled hostile elements to conduct their activity inimical to the interests of the State. Comrade Teohari Georgescu had not taken measures against the profiteers, who plunder the workers in the towns and the working peasantry.
The plenum established that Comrade Ana Pauker had taken a stand of support of V. Luca’s Right deviation from the Party line and that she herself had deviated from the Party line on questions of agriculture and State deliveries, for which she was responsible to the Central Committee of the Party and to the Government. This had been expressed more particularly in the delay to organise peasant associations for joint cultivation of land (of the T.O.Z. type), in neglect with relation to setting up new collective farms, in her tolerant attitude towards kulaks who had wormed their way into the collective farms and peasant associations for joint cultivation, and in her lack of interest in questions dealing with Machine and Tractor Stations and State farms into which a large number of hostile elements had infiltrated. Comrade Ana Pauker had also made “Left” deviations from the Party line on the question of building collective farms, tolerating violations of the voluntary principle of working peasants joining collective farms. At the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party which took place on February 29 – March 1, Comrade Ana Pauker adopted an attitude of formally criticizing V. Luca and his Right deviation; after the plenum, however, she rose against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee and the Letter which the plenum had addressed to the Party organisations and Party members.
Comrade Ana Pauker cultivated unprincipled relations within the Party leadership. Between V. Luca and Comrades T. Georgescu and A. Pauker, meetings and discussions took place with a view to reaching preliminary agreement on political questions, a matter which they concealed from the Party and practised for a long time. They looked upon the sectors of activity with which they were entrusted as upon a kind of feudal estates, of personal domains, preventing the leadership of the Party from systematically checking up on the way in which these tasks were being carried out. This constitutes a grave violation of Party rules, a violation of the principle of iron Party unity and Party leadership, entirely inadmissible in a Marxist-Leninist Party.
After the plenum of February 29 – March 1 of this year, Vasile Luca rose against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party and the Letter of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party addressed in March of this year to Party organisations and Party members. Violating Party rules, he carried on separate discussions with Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker, with a view to undertaking a co-ordinated action against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. Consequently, at the meeting of March 13 of this year of the Party Commission set up by the Central Committee, V. Luca and Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker adopted the attitude they had agreed on, against the Decision of the plenum of the Central Committee.
The attitude of Comrades T. Georgescu and A. Pauker made it easier for V. Luca to put into practice his anti-Party line and made it more difficult for the Central Committee to wage its struggle against the Right deviation. Their conciliatory attitude and their Right deviations are closely bound up with the fact that they had slipped down the path of becoming aristocratic and had isolated themselves from the masses.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Party took a determined attitude of struggle against the danger represented by the conciliatory attitude towards opportunism.
The conciliationist trend is a definite form of opportunism.
This means that in order to smash opportunism, it is necessary to liquidate the conciliatory attitude towards it. Especially at the present moment, a conciliatory tendency towards the Right deviation is the most dangerous element. Whereas opportunism today stands exposed before the Party, the conciliationist attitude still tries to conceal itself behind a phraseology of outward recognition of the Party line with a view to deceiving the Party as to the real contents of the deviation and of the deviators’ activity.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party – after debating the reports submitted and establishing that Vasile Luca had gone back upon the acknowledgement he had made at the preceding plenum, had broken his pledge of adhering unswervingly to the Party line, had risen against the decisions of the plenum and had tried to drag also other members of the Central Committee along this path – unanimously decided to expel him from the Central Committee and to submit his case to the Party Control Commission. The Presidium of the Grand National Assembly removed him from the office of vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers which he still held after having been removed from the office of Minister of Finance.
As regards Comrade Teohari Georgescu, the plenum evaluated the self-criticism made by him as unsatisfactory and unanimously decided to remove Comrade Teohari Georgescu from the Secretariat of the Central Committee, from the Political Bureau and from the Organisational Bureau and to assign him work at a lower level. The Presidium of the Grand National Assembly released him of his office of vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers and of his office of Minister of the Interior.
Having severely criticised the mistakes of Comrade A. Pauker, the plenum unanimously decided to warn her, and did not re-elect her to the Secretariat and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party.
As a result of the criticism on the part of the plenum, Comrade A. Pauker acknowledged some of her mistakes and pledged the plenum to fight for the application of the Party line and for its decisions. The Central Committee decided to continue helping her to see the source of her deviations and mistakes and acknowledge them fully.
The plenum established that the discussions of the Letter addressed by the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to the Party organisations and Party members, testified to the rise in the political level and revolutionary militancy of Party members, contributing toward strengthening the spirit of criticism and self-criticism in the Party organisations. The discussions were a sharp rejoinder given by the whole Party to those who thought they could disrupt the Party’s unity. The discussions of the Letter turned into a vigorous manifestation of the unity of the entire Party rallied round the Central Committee headed by Comrade Gheorghiu-Dej, and of the Party’s determination fully to liquidate the Right deviation.
The Decisions of the February 29 – March 1 and May 26 – 27 plenums of the Central Committee of the Party express the boundless devotion of our Party to the interests of the working class and working people, its unswerving loyalty to the cause of Socialism and its determination and staunchness in the struggle against the enemies of the people.
The defeat of the Right deviation signifies a heavy blow struck at the enemy within and beyond our boundaries, it signifies the removal of a big barrier from the path of the country’s economic, political and cultural development and of raising the working people’s standard of living, it signifies the firm application of the Party line in building Socialism in our country.
Whatever strengthens our homeland also strengthens the camp of peace, at the same time weakening the imperialist camp.
It should be borne in mind that in the conditions of the sharpening of the struggle between the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism, and the warmongers’ camp headed by the American and British imperialists, the latter see in the Communist and Workers’ Parties one of the main obstacles in the path of their sanguinary schemes and are greatly interested in all deviations which might disrupt the unity and fighting capacity of the vanguard of the working class. That is why the defeat of the Right deviation signifies for our people a great success in the struggle for safeguarding peace.
There can be no doubt that the decisions taken by the Party will raise a great hue and cry in the enemy camp. Whenever our Party or other fraternal parties have taken steps to liquidate deviations, to discover and crush hostile elements, the enemies have howled. Their howls echo their helpless fury. For whenever the Party has taken such steps, they have contributed to its being strengthened as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Party, capable of facing any danger or difficulty, capable of leading the working people successfully along the path of building Socialism.
The measures taken by the Central Committee to liquidate the Right deviation testify to the strength and soundness of our Party, to its capacity to defeat and liquidate the Right deviation and the conciliatory attitude towards it. These measures are designed to strengthen still more the unity and discipline of the Party ranks. Comrade Stalin teaches us that the Party needs true, not formal, unity; and true unity can only be based on principles: it is achieved not by glossing over differences but by disclosing and eliminating them, by ruthless struggle against deviations and conciliatory trends, which threaten the unity of the Party. The Party is strengthened by the crushing of opportunism and of conciliatory attitudes.
* J. Stalin: Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1947, pp. 512 – 513.
The Party now admits into its ranks the most active and most militant sans of the working class, devoted to the cause of the working people, to the cause of Socialism. The admittance of new Party members will lead to an improvement of the Party’s social composition, to its strengthening in the struggle for the complete liquidation of opportunism and conciliatory attitudes.
The new composition of the Central Committee organs, elected at the May 26 – 27 plenum, headed by Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, constitutes a guarantee for the unity of the Party, for the growth of its revolutionary militancy and for the unswerving adherence to the line and decisions of the Party.
The 12th Session of the Grand National Assembly held yesterday, June 2, unanimously and enthusiastically decided to appoint Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej to the office of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, following the election of Comrade Dr. Petru Groza to the office of President of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly.
The election of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party to this State office of greatest responsibility signifies the strengthening of the system of people’s democracy and ensures a still more resolute application of the Party line in the work of our State.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party of May 26 – 27 of this year and the debates and decisions taken are a turning point in the life of our Party.
The discussions on the decisions of the plenum within the Party and the orientation of the work of the entire Party along the path mapped out by the decisions of this plenum will be an important step along the path of turning our Party into a Bolshevik Party.
– strict observance of Party and State secrets.
The fulfilment of the tasks laid down in the Decision of the Council of Ministers and of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party on the currency reform of January 26, 1952, and in the 7 March 1952 Decision of the Government and the Party on the consolidation of the success of the currency reform must occupy the central place in the entire activity of the Party organisations.
Under the leadership of our beloved Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party, our Party advances with determination along the path of applying the Leninist-Stalinist teaching on steeling and bolshevizing the Party, along the line of strengthening and consolidating the friendship with the Soviet Union – safe guarantee of our national independence and State sovereignty.
By liquidating opportunism and the conciliatory attitude towards it, we shall strengthen the unity of will and action of the Party, which guides the working class and the people along the road of socialist construction and of the struggle for the safeguarding and consolidation of peace, along the road lighted by the genius of the great Stalin, the leader and teacher of the working people the world over, the glorious standard-bearer of the peace, freedom and independence of the peoples.
The source of all the successes and victories of our Party since its inception, both in the underground – during the years of the ruthless landlord regime – and in the period following the liberation of the country by the Soviet Army and after the conquest of power, is the great revolutionary teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. The Marxist-Leninist line of the Party, its strategy and tactics, its indefatigable struggle for the freedom and happiness of the people, for the national independence of the homeland, for Socialism, always found and finds now a powerful response and the active support of the working class and of all working people.
In the fire of this struggle there was forged the revolutionary alliance of the working class and working peasantry, thousands of Communist fighters came forward, the best sons of the working class, boundlessly devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin, who guard as the apple of their eye unity and iron discipline in the ranks of the Party and indefatigably fight against any distortion of the Party line, for unflinchingly carrying out the line of the Party.
The strength of our Party lies in its indissoluble bonds with the popular masses. The masses regard the policy of the Party, expressing the vital interests of the working people, as their own policy. The Party lends a ready ear to the voice of the masses and endeavours not only to teach the masses but to learn from them.
Under the leadership of the Party millions of working people in our country actively participated in the struggle for agrarian reform, for the overthrow of the Radescu reactionary government, for the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment and consolidation of the people’s-democratic system, for nationalisation of industry, banks and transport. Having released and directed the creative energy of the masses, the Party is going ahead successfully with the policy of socialist industrialisation of the country as a basis for the successful development of the national economy as a whole, with the policy of strengthening the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry, of restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, with the policy of socialist transformation of agriculture. The Party pursues a policy of constantly strengthening the State of people’s democracy, as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of drawing, on the broadest possible scale, the working people into the struggle for peace, in close alliance and friendship with the great Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy. The clear, tangible proof of the vitality of this policy is the participation of hundreds of thousands of working people in running the State, in building Socialism, the wide development of socialist emulation, the appearance of the stakhanovite movement in industry and the successes of the socialist sector of agriculture. Our socialist industry and in the first place industry producing the means of production is growing and developing at a rapid pace. More and more masses of working peasants are taking to collective farming. The material and cultural level of the working people is rising.
All these successes have been won by the people and the Party by means of overcoming the difficulties arising from the growing resistance of the class enemy inside the country, in conditions of the growing struggle of the hundreds of millions of people in all countries for preserving and consolidating peace, against the U.S.-British imperialists – the instigators of war.
V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin repeatedly stressed that the idea of building Socialism without class struggle is but a naive dream. They warned that after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class struggle inevitably sharpens and assumes new forms, that in these circumstances high revolutionary vigilance is needed.
Explaining the reasons for the sharpening of the class struggle in the transition period from capitalism to Socialism, Comrade Stalin pointed out that in this period “Socialism is conducting a successful offensive against the capitalist elements. Socialism is growing faster than the capitalist elements, and, as a result, the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining; and for the very reason that the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining, the capitalist elements realise that they are in mortal danger and are increasing their resistance.
And they are still able to increase their resistance not only because world capitalism is supporting them, but also because, in spite of the decline in their relative importance, in spite of the decline in their growth compared with the growth of Socialism, there is still an absolute growth of the capitalist elements, and this, to a certain extent, enables them to accumulate forces to resist the growth of Socialism.”* The resistance of the capitalist elements in the transition period assumes the most diverse forms, ranging from sabotage, assassination and espionage on behalf of the imperialists to infiltration into the Party and attempts to undermine its unity.
* J. Stalin: Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1947, p. 254.
The experience of our Party fully confirms the justness of these wise Lenin-Stalin theses.
The Central Committee of the Party has established that as a result of the anti-Party and anti-State activity of V. Luca both the finance-banking system and the cooperative organs were honeycombed with large numbers of hostile elements who rallied around Vasile Luca and engaged in active counter-revolutionary work aimed at undermining the people’s-democratic system and sabotaging the laying of the economic foundations of Socialism in our country. Former manufacturers, landlords and bankers who had wormed their way into our finance-banking and co-operative systems concentrated their undermining efforts on creating chaos and anarchy in the socialist sector of the national economy seeking in this way to undermine the alliance of the working class and working peasantry which is the base of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The enemies of the people used the most diverse methods and forms in their criminal activity. Opposing the line of the Party directed at restricting and dislodging the capitalist elements in countryside and town, the enemies of the people pursued their counterrevolutionary policy of encouragement and connivance in relation to the capitalist elements. Thus by transferring a large number of kulaks into the category of “middle peasants” they helped them evade the state deliveries and the taxation policy of the people’s democratic state. By unlawfully raising prices during purchasing and contracting for agricultural products they created conditions for the enrichment of the kulaks and profiteers since the prices for certain manufactured goods earmarked for the countryside were below cost of production. They opposed the development of the socialist sector of agriculture and blocked hank accounts for the state farms. Their hostile policy in the sphere of taxes and credits, in contracting for agricultural products and in relation to prices acted as brake on the socialist transformation of agriculture.
In their attempts to frustrate the plan for socialist industrialisation the hostile elements deliberately withheld capital investments and particularly those for heavy industry – the key branch of the national economy – and also appropriations for the constructions of Socialism such as the Danube-Black Sea Canal, “Scânteia” House, etc.
In the period of preparing and carrying out the currency reform these counter-revolutionary elements tried to sow discontent and to undermine the confidence of the working people in the Party and the Government. They were responsible for the fact that on the eve of the reform a considerable part of the workers in the main industrial enterprises received their wages in old lei. It was they who, long before the currency reform, circulated all kinds of provocative rumours in order, on the one hand, to help the capitalist and profiteer elements to evade the consequences of the reform and, on the other hand, to disorientate the masses.
The criminal activity of the enemies of the people was exposed and cut short thanks to the vigorous struggle of the working class and the working peasantry under the leadership of our Party and its Central Committee headed by Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.
The hostile elements who wormed their way into the finance-banking and co-operative systems were able to carry out their criminal activity as a result of the anti-Party and anti-State activity of V. Luca and with his direct support. Having lost sense of class and having isolated himself troth the Party and the working class he surrounded himself with hostile elements and, contrary to the general line of the Party, pursued his own opportunist line. V. Luca became the main bearer of the right deviation from the line of the Party, the main transmitter of opportunism.
The anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist line of V. Luca which he defended in oral and written statements over a period of years and which he pursued in practice in his sphere of work was expressed in retarding the rate of socialist industrialisation of the country and the socialist transformation of the countryside, in disrupting the exchange of goods between town and the countryside, in encouraging speculative trade, in frustrating the plan for state deliveries and for purchase of grain and other foodstuffs, a line which caused great harm in the sphere of supplies for the working class and the entire working people.
At bedrock of the opportunist line of V. Luca lay the departure from the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle, the anti-Marxist view to the effect that in the conditions of transition from capitalism to Socialism the class struggle, allegedly, does not sharpen but diminishes, that there takes place, allegedly, the peaceful growing over of the capitalist elements to Socialism and that the key to the economic development of the country lies, allegedly, not in socialist industrialisation but in enriching the kulaks.
In practice this obviously opportunist line found expression in retarding development of industry producing the means of production, in undermining the state and collective farms, in opposing the creation and development of peasant associations far joint cultivation, in fixing prices during the purchasing of and contracting for agricultural products on the basis of the prices on the open market, in undermining the purchasing power of the old lei prior to the currency reform and in lowering the purchasing power of the working class. This line prevented a rise in the standard of living of the working class and working people to the extent envisaged by the Party and the Government.
The line of the Party concerning the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry was explicitly formulated by Comrade Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej on the basis of the Lenin-Stalin teaching as far back as March 1949, when he stressed that “Our policy in relation to the peasantry must be clear: We rely on the poor peasantry, strengthen the alliance with the middle peasantry and wage constant struggle against the kulaks”.* Contrary to these Party directives, Vasile Luca who occupied responsible posts in the Party and state apparatus, strove in every way to help and encourage the capitalist elements in the countryside, and, in this way, to strike a blow at the alliance between the working class and working peasantry, at the people’s democratic State.
* Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej: Report to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Workers’ Party on March 3-5, 1949.
Way back at the time of the 1949 March plenum of the Central Committee, Comrade Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej stressed that the main significance of the co-operatives in the present conditions is that they combine the private interests of millions of poor and middle peasants with the common interests of the working class in building Socialism and in creating the pre-requisites that make it easier for the working peasantry to take the path-way to Socialism.
The anti-Leninist line of V. Luca in the peasant question, directed against the interests of the working class and working peasantry, was manifested with special force also in relation to the consumer co-operative which he regarded as an organisation whose sole aim was to transfer manufactured goods from town to countryside.
By supporting the counter-revolutionary elements V. Luca, being Minister of Finance, left intact the old bourgeois-landlord apparatus of the finance-banking system; he advanced to leading posts hostile elements, former agents of the Sigurantsa and fascists, farmer landlords and capitalists, a policy which was in keeping with his anti-Party line on the question of cadres. Contrary to the Lenin-Stalin line of our Party in selecting cadres on the basis of their political and professional qualities, V. Luca, implanted, in the guise of specialists, hostile elements in the state apparatus. At the same time V. Luca stifled criticism, crushed the creative initiative of the Party members and carried out a policy of demoralising and ill-treating cadres loyal to the cause of the Party.
The anti-Party line of V. Luca was not fortuitous. It was the continuation of old deviations and factional work in which Luca indulged way back in the period of underground Party activity when he was one of the leaders of the factional struggle against the Party.
Time and again the Party leadership fed the opportunism of Vasile Luca, but with the double-dealing typical of deviators, sought to the Party formally accepting its line and decisions but in practice adhering to his opportunist line.
The anti-Party and anti-State character Luca’s line was fully disclosed in connection with preparing and realising the currency reform against which he not only acted and openly, but sabotaged it in every way.
The plenum of the Central Committee of May 26-27 decided to expel V. Luca form the Central Committee and to submit his case to the Party Control Commission.
Our Party launched a resolute and irreconcilable struggle against the Right deviation and the conciliatory attitude towards it.
Comrade Stalin teaches us that Right deviation is extremely dangerous, since it reflects the resistance of the basic element of the dying classes. “The strength of Right opportunism lies in the strength of in bourgeois element, in the strength of sure against the Party exercised by the capitalist elements in general and by the kulaks in particular.”* Revolutionary vigilance, Party principledness and class irreconcilability in the struggle against the Right deviation, against all opportunist vacillations is a most important condition for the victorious building of Socialism.
* J. Stalin: Political report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U (B), Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1951, p. 164.
V. Luca was able to unfold his anti-Party activity because he received support and encouragement from Comrades Teohari Georgescu and Ana Pauker who adopted a conciliatory attitude and supported the Right deviation from the Party line.
The conciliatory stand taken by Comrade T. Georgescu in relation to the Right-wing opportunism of V. Luca concealed his own Right opportunist mistakes, absence of militancy in struggle against the class enemy and loss of revolutionary vigilance in work. It enabled hostile elements to conduct their subversive activity. Comrade Georgescu, in particular, did not take resolute measures the profiteers who plundered the industrial workers and working peasants.
The conciliatory stand taken by Comrade Ana Pauker in relation to V. Luca concealed that she herself had deviated from the line on questions of agriculture and state deliveries – a deviation expressed in her neglect of questions dealing with the formation collective farms and associations for joins cultivation of land, and in her tolerant attitude towards kulaks who had worm way into the collective farms and associations for joint cultivation, in her lack interest in questions dealing with machine tractor stations and state farms into hostile elements had infiltrated. Comrade Pauker also made “Left” deviations Party line, tolerating violations of voluntary principle of working peasant collective farms.
Ana Pauker cultivated unprincipled relations within the Party leadership. There were instances of V. Luca, A. Pauker and T. Georgescu reaching preliminary agreement political questions, a matter which they concealed from the Party and practised for a long time. There was a grave violation of Party discipline, an attempt to form factions, violation of the principle of iron Party unity and Party leadership, entirely inadmissible in a Marxist-Leninist Party.
* J. Stalin: Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1947, p. 246.
This conciliationist trend is a definite form of opportunism. This means that in order to smash opportunism completely it is necessary to liquidate the conciliatory attitude towards it. Guided by this, the Central Committee is mobilising the entire Party for struggle against the conciliatory tendency towards opportunism.
The plenum of the Central Committee held on May 26-27, evaluated the self-criticism made by Comrade Teohari Georgescu as unsatisfactory and unanimously decided to remove him from the Political Bureau, the Organisational Bureau, the Secretariat of the Committee and to assign him work at a level.
Having severely criticised the mistakes of Comrade Ana Pauker, the plenum unanimously warned her and did not elect her to political Bureau and Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party.
As a result of the criticism, Comrade Ana Pauker acknowledged some of her mistake and pledged the plenum to fight for the line and for its decisions.
The decisions of the March and May (1952) plenums of the Central Committee testify the strength and firmness of the Rumanian Workers’ Party. These decisions testify that iron unity and discipline in the Party are achieved not by glossing over differences but disclosing and eliminating them, by ruthless struggle against deviations and conciliatory trends which threaten the unity of the Party. Iron Bolshevik discipline, on which the Party is founded, is obligatory equally for all Party members and for its leaders, including those who “rendered service in the past” and who, having become “rulers”, do not regard fulfilment of Party decisions as their duty.
* History of the C.P.S.U. (B), Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1951, p. 549.
The exposure and smashing of the Right deviation in our Party are a severe blow against internal and foreign enemies, they signify removal of a big barrier to the economic prosperity of the country, to a further rise in the material and cultural level of the working people.
The experience of the Bolshevik Party teaches that a Party which is the leading detachment of the working class, its militant general staff, cannot tolerate in its midst waverers, opportunists, capitulators or traitors. It is impossible to wage a life and death struggle against class enemies with opportunists, capitulators or traitors in one’s own ranks. To achieve victory it is necessary the Party of the working class should firs all purge itself of opportunists of every shade. The Party becomes stronger by purging itself of opportunists.
Mobilisation of the entire Party for struggle against opportunism and conciliatory attitude towards opportunism helps to raise the level of the entire work of the Party organisation of the state organs and mass organisation. This leads to a further welding of the unity of will and actions of the Party to a growing sense of responsibility of the Party members and fidelity to the great cause of socialist construction in our country.
It can be said confidently that the prestige of the Party has risen higher in the eyes the masses, because the people see that Party holds the interests of the working people above all, and that it unhesitatingly adopts resolute measures against those who injure the interests of the people, irrespective of position in the Party or State.
The struggle against opportunism and conciliatory attitude towards it is indissolubly linked with the struggle for reinforcing the ranks of the Party, for the political and ideological tempering of the members, for inculcating Bolshevik methods in Party work, for strict observation of Party principles in accordance with the Party’s rules. We must and will fight for an increasingly deeper inculcation of inner-Party democracy, for ensuring activisation of all the members in the struggle for carrying out the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party. The Party strictly condemns any suppression of criticism. The leading Party organs must systematically verify the carrying out of decisions and give an account of their work to the Party members who elected them. These reports must be discussed in an atmosphere of Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism. The Party organisations and all Party members must constantly strengthen their contact with the masses – the guarantee of the invincibility of the Party.
Successful solution of the practical tasks of Party work is impossible without diligently and persistently mastering Marxist-Leninist theory. Profound knowledge of the economic and political problems of socialist construction will ensure correct orientation for the Party members in their daily work and safeguard them against mistakes and deviations.
* Gh. GheorghiuDej: Class struggle in Rumania in the present phase, article published in “For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy!” Nr. 14 (74) of April 7, 1950.
Recently, admittance of new members into the Party was resumed. The best workers and peasants – members of the agricultural co-operatives, rank and file and officers of the People’s Army, intellectuals and the best members of the Union of Working Youth seek admission to the ranks of the vanguard of the Rumanian working class in order work better and better for peace and Socialism. Adherence to the Lenin-Stalin principle of individual admittance into the Party and ensuring the correct social composition of the Party will lead to further and still greater strengthening of the Party.
All who strengthen our homeland, strengthen also the peace camp and simultaneously weaken the imperialist camp. We cannot and must not forget that the U.S.-British imperialists and their Right-wing Socialist and Titoite lackeys see in the Communist and Workers’ Parties one of the main obstacles preventing realisation of their aggressive designs, that they try to take advantage of any deviation which may weaken the unity and militancy of the Party. The smashing of the Right deviation signifies for our people also a big success in the fight for peace.
Closely rallied around its Central Committee, headed by Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej, ceaselessly learning from the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union and from Comrade Stalin, beloved leader of the working people of the world, daily reinforcing its unity and discipline, its bonds with the masses, our Party will, in the future too, wage ceaseless struggle for the further consolidation of the people’s democratic state, for fulfilment with honour of its role as organiser and leader of the great cause of building Socialism in our country.

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