Preliminary Programme

The core of my démarche is the case of the National Liberal Party of Romania (PNL) between the years 1947-1989, like a result of a research undertaken in the period July 2004 and June 2005 in Bucharest. My sources are oral (interviews with old members of the National Liberal Party and historians) and written (archives- Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNASS), National Institute for the Memory of the Romanian Exile (INMER), National Romanian Archives Bucharest, personal archives of the members of the liberal Romanian exile -, newspapers of the communist period, memory books). The PNL finds its roots in the 19th century and, in its history, the year 1947 represents the beginning of a 42 years interruption of its activity. At the days of the revolution, on December 25th 1989, three of its former members (re)shaped the bases of the National Liberal Party. For some of these former and today liberals, the PNL continued to exist in the interval 1947-1989, in spite of the reality of the Single Party, and this without asserting any clandestine activity. The point of this research is thus to understand how the continuity of this party could be claimed without an official existence, a claim that has been a major stake during the Romanian political system’s reconstruction after 1989. (Show less)

In the waning days of World War II and for a few years after that conflict a number of non-Communist political leaders in Germany and Austria -- Karl Renner, Max Fechner, Otto Grotewohl, Herrman Brill come to mind -- endorsed the so-called "Eastern orientation" for the post-war societies that were to be built in Germany and Austria. Following this strategy they hoped to create socialist societies in Central Europe with the help of the Soviet Union and specifically Joseph Stalin. Such socialist societies would not be dominated by the Communists, nor be mere copies of the Soviet blueprint, but independent, indigenous, democratic socialist societies.

In my paper I would like to address two central points. What motivated these non-Communists to endorse what in retrospect was clearly an illusion: opportunism, viceral hatred of capitalism, self-delusion? Secondly, I would like to explore at what point individual non-Communists saw that the "Eastern orientation" was an illusion, or, if they did not, how were they able to hold on to their belief in the "Eastern orientation" in the face of the intensifying Cold War? (Show less)

My paper aspires to develop and elaborate the national discourse that the Bulgarian Communist Party (henceforth BCP) used in order to legitimise its power after the Second World War. So far literature has paid attention to several factors underpinning the struggle of Bulgarian communists to consolidate their power: high discipline of the Party membership and maintenance of party structure and function during the harsh period of the Second World War, prestige gained by the resistance movement and the victory of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and a series of authoritative measures and means of violence mainly due to the presence of the Red Army, such as terror, purges, authoritative control of key ministries, and elimination of the opposition. Undoubtedly, all of the above factors played a crucial role in the establishment of the communist power. However, means of violence cannot effectively explain the popularity that the BCP and the Fatherland Front enjoyed in the post-war period. Moreover, the communist regimes could not rely only on means of violence: they needed means of consent to legitimise the new regime, gain the support of the masses, maintain the Fatherland Front united, and navigate political antagonism with the opposition.

My paper goes beyond tactical political manoeuvres (maintenance of the unity of the Fatherland Front, salami tactics and development of clientele networks) focusing on the national discourse as articulated by the communists. The in-depth analysis of this discourse relies on archival material and primary sources. This discourse recast earlier discursive elements from the French revolution (identification of people, nation, and state) and from the October revolution (identification of people, state, and the Party). As the Party was identified with the nation, challenging the Party became synonymous with challenging the nation. The schema “if you are not within the Fatherland Front, you are against Bulgaria” was taken for granted.

This discourse was all-embracing and operated in a set of key policy domains: security apparatuses (People’s Army and Militia), the justice (including the People’s Courts), the economy (first and foremost concerning the modernisation project of the BCP), the constitution and governance, and the elimination of the opposition. Identifying the nation, the people, the state, and the Party in all these domains, the Bulgarian communists effectively began to articulate what we might call a totalitarian discourse as it negated the separation of the various domains of social life. The totalitarianism of the nation-state constituted the discourse of the BCP in its efforts to legitimise its regime, pacify Bulgarian society, re-build and modernise the Bulgarian state. (Show less)