ree choice for their
country, Romania's leaders have not tried to withdraw from the Soviet
alliances, nor have they changed the basic nature of their communist
government. Their actions have demonstrated that their goals have been
to lessen the influence of the Soviet Union in Romania's domestic and
foreign affairs, at the same time they themselves maintained an
absolute, single-party monopoly of power.

After issuing their declaration of independence, the Romanians in
subsequent years earned a reputation for opposition to the Soviet Union
within the Warsaw Pact and COMECON as well as in the conduct of their
relations with noncommunist states. Pursuit of these goals has sometimes
led the Romanians into situations that have been considered dangerous by
outside observers, and the leadership has often expressed fears of
Soviet retaliation against Romania's independent line.

One obvious result of the independent status has been the resurgence of
Romanian nationalism. Ceausescu, when he talks about "Romania for the
Romanians," even though he may be speaking in the context of building a
communist society, receives wide popular support and, at times, appears
to have genuine appeal among the people he rules. In contrast to the new
nationalism, during the early years of the Romanian communist era it was
generally accepted (at least by party members) that the Soviet Union
deserved to be emulated in every aspect of national life. Not only were
the party and government patterned on Soviet models, but the entire
social and economic life of the country was altered to the point of
almost losing its Romanian uniqueness.

Russian became a required language in the schools, and the history books
were rewritten to play down the traditional orientation toward Western
Europe and to highlight Russian influence in the country, which had been
considerable since the time of Tsar Peter the Great but which had not
always been beneficial from the Romanian point of view. Pseudoscholars
intent on the Russification of their country were publishing papers in
the late 1940s "proving" that the ancient Dacians, to whom modern
Romanians trace their ancestry, were actually Slavic tribes--a thesis
that had never before been suggested. Other spurious scholarship
attempted to show that the Romanian language was Slavic-based rather
than Latin-based as linguists had clearly shown.

While Josef Stalin, Soviet dictator and generally acknowledged leader of
wor