Summary
Olivera Dragišić
”A Movement in Mountains”. Anticommunist Resistance in Romania
from 1944 to 1962
Abstract: The paper explores the origin, structure, motives, and goals of the armed resistance in Romania from 1944 to the early 1960s. The analysis of the activities of anticommunist resistance in post-war Romania represents the polar opposite of examining the communist takeover in Romania following the World War II. The paper aims to underline the key features of the anticommunist campaign in Romania, stressing, at the same time, the necessity of comparing the anticommunist resistance in Romania with the similar movements in the other East European countries.
Key words: Romania, Cold War, Allies, Resistance, Guerrillas
The paper analyzes the key features of anticommunist guerrilla warfare in Romania after the World War II. Although the anticommunist resistance derived from the internal structure of the Romanian post-war society and from the domestic political developments, external factors obviously played a significant role in fomenting this kind of anticommunist sentiment in Romania. By March 1945 the anticommunist resistance in Romania was provoked by German intentions to defend their positions in Romania, in particular in Ploieşti. These German attempts were terminated after the constitution of the government of Petru Groza. Nevertheless, the expulsion of the "historical parties" from the Romanian Government gave fresh impetus to the anticommunist resistance in Romania. Besides, from 1945 onwards the influence of the American intelligence agencies on the right-wing guerilla movement in Romania was becoming more and more profound.
The anticommunist resistance in Romania was at its peak in the late 1940s, as a consequence of the sovietization of the structure of power in Romania and the Cominform Resolution in 1948. The revival of the anticommunist resistance in Romania in the late 1950s was generated by the riots in Hungary, following the unsuccessful anti-Soviet campaign in this Central European country in 1956.
The anticommunist guerrillas in Romania consisted mostly of ethnic Romanians (to a certain extent also of Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians), members of the People's Peasant Party (Iuliu Maniu), and peasants, the majority of whom were men between 35 and 55. The majority of their leaders were former legionaries, whose inclination to cooperate with external factors was a consequence of their marginalization in Romania's post-war system.