RPR vsRSR

I'm new to this forum, and my Romanian collection exclusively Cold War. My question is why the transition from the Romanian Peoples' Republic to the Romanian Socialist Republic? What may have motivated the change; what was gained (or lost) through the change? I realize that, pound for pound, my RPR ODM's are worth more than my RSR ODM's, but I'd like to have some explanation of the decision involved in what seems to be an unnecessary political move.

Shortly put, that was a step for the society towards achieving the final goal: Communism.

Gen. Dénes

They "evolved"...
I'll keep you posted!

Seems to me that both titles would work equally in the push toward Communism; however, from what I've seen of the Ceausescu era, it would appear the attempt was more toward monarchy- a cult of personality much like Stalin, which wasn't Communism either.

You spoke true words, Grasshopper
However, the change was needed by Nicolae Ceauşescu to distance himself and his not-so-new and not-really-different regime from the regime of Gheorghiu-Dej. This is (still) a very common practice among the politicians - to blame the former gov't. for the situationin the present and thus to justify the lacks of any kind: you don't have bread not because of me, but because of hte former ruler (Gheorghiu-Dej blamed the former king, Ceauşescu blamed Gh.-D., Iliescu blamed Ceauşescu etc. ad nauseam). The differences began showing themselves from 1964, from the so-called "declaration of independence from Moscow", and the period of "de-freezing" lasted roughly from 1964 to 1971. 1965 is no more, no less than the year of Ceauşescu's access to the throne although only in 1977 did he receive the sceptre as the first president of Romania.
Plus: Socialist Republic was a title held at that time only by USSR's republics, the other communist states being mostly Popular or Democrat or Popular-Democrat Republics - so we showed off a little by naming ourselves Socialist Republic.

This post has been edited by MMM on March 07, 2009 11:41 am

Ah hah! Now I understand the dynamics surrounding the name change. One wonders what the name would be today if Ceauşescu had had a successor. Thanks for the help!

Maybe the communist republic already?

Ceausescu had a successor. He is called Ion Iliescu and the country took the name of Romania.

Yep. And it seems the communist party came back to life from his not-so-burnt ashes aka parties that emerged from him.
On a more original note, the National Salvation Front (FSN) of december 1989 clearly shows the originality of the revolution and the non-intervention of the foreign secret services (agenturili): does anyone remember how it was called the russian party supposed to save the country after the coup in august 1991?
Same as the above: National Salvation Front (I also used copy/paste)!
What now?

"Socialist republics" were very fashionable in the 60s.
Czechoslovakia was called a "Socialist Republic" in 1960. Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963.
This was seen as a necessary step on the path to "Victory of Socialism" (a concept established by Lenin). Ceausescu had a fixation with the Victory of Socialism and he referred to "Victoria Socialismului" a lot. That may explain why when he came to power he changed the name from "People's Republic" to "Socialist Republic" of Romania.
Radu

The russian "party" was called "Gosudarstvenii Komitet po Cerezviciainaomu Polojeniu " (State comity for Emergency Situation ) and unlike FSN had no roots in russian society.Subsequently it failed.

OK, so I guess my next question is "is there a Communist Party in Romania today"?

Yes, there is. For a while it was officially banned, but AFAIK they won in court and now they are legal (and insignificant).

Gen. Dénes

http://www.pasro.ro/

There were rumours ante-1989 that the main boulevard of Bucharest should be renamed "The victory of socialism against the Romanian people". Anyway, the number of "Socialist" republics was much smaller than the popular or popular democrat ones - not including the African states.

Where did u find that, guina? I remembered something else, but I was much younger then and a lot of time had passed - but I still remember my shock at the similarity of the names! Neither did the FSN have roots in the Romanian society, other than its members seeking power, I guess.

This post has been edited by MMM on February 18, 2009 02:13 pm