rticipate. These
include labor unions, youth leagues, women's organizations, and sports
societies, which serve to involve the people in national and local
affairs while the party hierarchy retains absolute authority in all
areas.

The 1948 Constitution was superseded by another in 1952 that brought no
significant changes and did not greatly alter the structure that had
been established earlier. The Constitution of 1965, however, changed the
name of the country to the Socialist Republic of Romania, and, in
communist jargon, this change was of particular importance because it
signified that the transition from bourgeois capitalism to socialism had
been achieved and that Romania could now proceed on its path toward
communism. Significant also in the 1965 Constitution was the absence of
any mention of the Soviet Union, which had been featured prominently in
the previous documents as a model to be copied and as the liberator of
Romania.

The most prominent feature of the Romanian political system is its
extreme centralization in both the party structure and the government
organization. The people vote for their representatives at all levels of
government from a single list of party-approved candidates. Local
governments always look for direction from a higher level or from the
center. The PCR has a similar pyramidal structure, the topmost organs
being self-selecting and self-perpetuating. The concentration of power
in the hands of the party hierarchy has prevented the rise of any overt
opposition groups, and there has been no observable coalition of
dissenters within the party ranks.

In the transformation of the social structure, the Communists brought
down the former aristocracy and anyone else who they considered might be
opposed to the new order. They then attempted to elevate the status of
the former lower classes--that is, the workers and peasants--but because
of the elitist structure of the party the great leveling process
faltered, and new classes were created despite the prescribed ideology
of a classless society. The party elite became the new upper class, and
immediately below them was a growing group of lesser party
functionaries, technocrats, managers, scientists, teachers, and other
professionals. The privileges, life-styles, and aspirations of these
groups ran far ahead of those of the workers and peasants who once again
found themselves at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Upward mobility is possible, a