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During their Eastern Front offensive of 1944, the Soviet troops occupied Romania. The northwestern part of Moldavia was occupied through fighting from May to August, while Romania was still an ally of Nazi Germany. The rest was occupied after Romania changed sides in the war as a result of the royal coup launched by King Michael on August 23. On that date, the King announced that Romania had unilaterally ceased all military actions against the Allied forces, had accepted the Allied armistice offer, and had entered war against the Axis Powers. As no formal armistice offer existed, the Red Army occupied most of Romania as ennemy territory prior to the signature of the Moscow Armistice of September 12, 1944.

The armistice convention and then the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 gave a legal basis to the the Soviet military presence in Romania, which lasted until August 1958, reaching a peak of some 615,000 in 1946.

Soviet authors and the 1952 Constitution of Romania referred to the events of 1944 as the "liberation of Romania by the glorious Soviet Union".

However, most Romanian and Western sources use the term Soviet occupation of Romania, some applying it to the whole period from 1944 to 1958.

Background and beginning of the occupation

See also: The Royal Coup

After having withdrawn from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina following the June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum, Romania allied with Nazi Germany and declared war on the Soviet Union. Romanian troops, placed under the German High Command, entered WWII in 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa. After reoccupying the territory annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, Romania also occupied Southern Ukraine all the way to the Southern Buh. However Romania's eastern campaign ended in desaster, notably at Stalingrad.

By the end of 1943, the Red Army had liberated most of the Soviet territory, advancing westward from its borders to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. It was in this context that the Soviet forces crossed into Romania and occupied Northern and Eastern Moldavia.

On August 23, 1944, in order to avoid fighting on Romanian territory in an increasingly unpopular war, King Michael I of Romania launched a coup d'état, overthrowing the pro-Nazi government of Ion Antonescu, and putting Romania's Army on the side of the Allies. As a result, King Michael was spared the fate of another former German ally, Prince Kyril, Regent of Bulgaria, executed by the Soviets in 1945; as a matter of fact, King Michael was the last monarch behind the Iron Curtain to lose his throne, on December 30, 1947.

The coup speeded the Red Army's advance into Romania and gave the Romanian Army the chance to liberate the country from the German occupation. In the absence of an actual signed armistice, the Soviet troops continued to treat the Romanians as a hostile force. The armistice was signed three weeks later, on September 12, 1944, "on terms Moscow virtually dictated."The coup effectively amounted to a "capitulation", and an "unconditional surrender" to the Allies. Inter-Allied negotiations had delayed the signing of the Armistice in order for the Soviets to occupy as much of Romania as possible so as to dictate the terms of the Armistice. During that time, between 114,000 and 160,000 Romanian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war by the Soviets without any fight as result of the cease fire order given by King Michael, and sent on foot to camps in the Soviet Union; about a third of them perished on the way.

By September 12, the Red Army already controlled much of the Romanian territory. Under the Armistice Agreement between Romania and the Allies, Romania subjected itself to an Allied Control Commission, consisting of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, while the Soviet military command de-facto exercised predominant authority. Bessarabia and Norhern Bukovina were again incorporated into the Soviet Union.

Founding documents

The Armistice Agreement

In the Armistice Agreement with Rumania (in Moscow on September 12, 1944), it was stipulated in Article 3 that

"The Government and High Command of Rumania will ensure to the Soviet and other Allied forces facilities for free movement on Rumanian territory in any direction if required by the military situation, the Rumanian Government and High Command of Rumania giving such movement every possible assistance with their own means of communications and at their own expense on land, on water and in the air."

and in Article 18 that

"An Allied Control Commission will be established which will undertake until the conclusion of peace the regulation of and control over the execution of the present terms under the general direction and orders of the Allied (Soviet) High Command, acting on behalf of the Allied Powers. In the Annex to Article 18, it was made clear that "The Rumanian Government and their organs shall fulfill all instructions of the Allied Control Commission arising out of the Armistice Agreement", and that The Allied Control Commission would have its seat in Bucharest.

In line with Article 14 of the Armistice Agreement, two People's Tribunals were set up to try suspected war criminals, one in Bucharest, and the other in Cluj.

The plenipotentiary signatories to the armistice as indicated therein were:

• Allied powers: "representative of the Allied (Soviet) High Command, Marshal of the Soviet Union, R. Y. Malinovski, duly authorized hereto by the Governments of the United States of America; the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom."
• Romania: "Minister of State and Minister of Justice L. Patrascanu, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Adjutant of His Majesty the King of Rumania General D. Damaceanu, Prince Stirbey, and Mr. G. Popp."

Paris Peace Treaties, 1947

The effect of the Armistice Agreement ceased on September 15, 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty with Romania entered into force. The new treaty posed the basis for continued and unlimited Soviet military presence into Romania through Article 21, paragraph 1:

Upon the coming into force of the present Treaty, all Allied Forces shall, within a period of 90 days, be withdrawn from Roumania, subject to the right of the Soviet Union to keep on Roumanian territory such armed forces as it may need for the maintenance of the lines of communication of the Soviet Army with the Soviet zone of occupation in Austria.

The Romanian delegation at the Paris Conference was headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Gheorghe Tătărescu. The Peace Treaty with Romania was signed on February 10, 1947, in the Salon de l’Horloge of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. On the Romanian side, the four signatories were Gheorghe Tătărescu, Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Ştefan Voitec, and Dumitru Dămăceanu. The signatories for the Allied powers included United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Ernest Bevin.

Soviet forces in Romania, 1944–1956

After the Armistice Agreement was concluded in 1944, Soviet troops occupied the entire territory of Romania. Estimates over troop levels vary between 750,000 and 1 million (estimates of British military officials), to between 1 and 1.5 million (estimates of the Romanian General Staff); many Western diplomats and experts refer to more than 1 million Soviet troops.

The estimated strength of Soviet forces in Romania (including air, navy, ground, and security troops), from VE Day to 1952, is as follows:

During the second part of 1946, more than half of the frontline strength of the Soviet Air Forces was stationed outside the USSR, with the largest portion in Poland and Romania (2,500 planes in each country). The troop levels surged to a high of 615,000 in March 1946, but were drawn down after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty in 1947. By the end of 1946, Soviet units were concentrated in five areas: Craiova–Slatina, Sibiu–Alba-Iulia, Constanţa, and Brăila–Focşani. Troop levels reach a relatively stable level from May 1948 until October 1956: two full divisions, plus supporting units adding up to roughly a third division.

With the Austrian State Treaty in 1955 the reason for the presence of troops as stated in the Paris Peace Treaties ceased to exist, but Premier Gheorghiu-Dej announced the troops would stay as long as there are foreign soldiers in West Germany.

Soviet troops in Romania were used to supress the Hungarian Revolution in November 1956. Romania aided and abetted the attack on Hungary by permitting Soviet troops to cross its territory to the Hungarian border, and by affording them additional bases; Soviet troop facilities inside Romania were off limits to all Romanians at the time.

Reorganization of the Romanian Army

The Soviet occupation of Romania led to a complete reorganization of the Romanian Army, under the supervision of the Red Army. At the onset, pro-German elements were purged from the Romanian armed forces. In 1944–45, two divisions were formed out of Romanian volunteers—ex-prisoners of war, trained and indoctrinated in the Soviet Union during the war, but also of Communist activists such as Valter Roman. One was the Tudor Vladimirescu First Volunteer Division, under the command of Colonel Nicolae Cambrea, and the other the Horia, Cloşca şi Crişan Division, under the command of General Mihail Lascăr (who was to serve as Minister of Defense from 1946 to 1947). These two units were to form the nucleus of the new Romanian Army under Soviet control. Once the Romanian Communist Party was in charge, 30% of officers and noncommissioned officers (mostly experienced soldiers, and a potential source of opposition to the Sovietization of the Army) were purged from the military.

After the Romanian Workers' Party seized political power, the Sovietization of the army commenced, under the supervision of the new Minister of Defense, Emil Bodnăraş. This involved copying the Soviet model of military and political organization, and changing the military doctrine of combat and defense, also in the context of Romania's integration in the strategic system of the Soviets, at the beginning of the Cold War.

Soviet officers were appointed as counsellors to supervise the efficient reorganization of the army. They had leading control and surveillance roles in the main institutions of the state, but also in areas of lesser importance. In the beginning, they only had a few positions in the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, the political sections inside the army. Their number gradually increased, while their positions became permanent. In November 1952, there were 105 permanent counsellors and 17 temporary positions in military schools. After 1955, their number started to decrease: 72 in 1955, 63 in 1956, 25 in 1957 and 10 in 1958.

After 1945, new military regulations were elaborated following the model of the Red Army, and they were finalized in 1949–1952. As a consequence, a number of officers and military students were sent to the Soviet Union for training. Between 1949 and 1952, 717 students went in USSR for studies, while in 1958 there were 471 military students in USSR. Their number decreased in the following years.

Reorganization of the security services

Right after August 23, 1944, communists began to infiltrate the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a large scale. The General Direction for the Security of the People (Romanian initials: DGSP, but more commonly just called the Securitate) was officially founded on August 30, 1948 by Decree 221/30. The Securitate was created by SMERSH, an NKVD unit charged with demolishing existing intelligence agencies and replacing them with Soviet-style bodies in the Soviet-occupied countries of Eastern Europe. The SMERSH unit in Romania, called Brigada Mobilă, was led until 1948 by the NKVD colonel Boris Grünberg, also known in Romania as Alexandru Nicolschi. Its stated purpose was to "defend democratic conquests and guarantee the safety of the Romanian Peoples' Republic against both internal and external enemies." The first Director of the Securitate was NKVD general Panteleimon Bondarenko, who used in Romania the name Gheorghe Pintilie. Alexandru Nicolschi (by then a general) and another Soviet officer, Major General Vladimir Mazuru (born Mazurov), held the deputy directorships.

Expulsion of Germans

The Red Army played a crucial role in the expulsion of Transylvanian Saxons from Romania in January 1945. In October 1944, the Sănătescu government, at the solicitation of the Allied Control Commission, began arresting young ethnic German Romanian citizens, who were placed at the disposal of the Soviet command. Under the Rădescu government, faced with ultimatums from the Soviet command, trains carrying Transylvanian Saxons left for the Soviet Union. In a Protest (dated January 13, 1945), the Rădescu government noted the Romanian government's obligation to protect each of its citizens, regardless of ethnic origin, and of the absence of a legal basis for the deportation of the Transylvanian Saxons. The deportations were a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which at Article 49 states: "Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive."

SovRoms

The SovRoms were joint Soviet-Romanian ventures established in Romania at the end of World War II, and lasting until 1954–1956. An agreement between the two countries regarding the establishment of these enterprises was signed in Moscow on May 8, 1945. In theory, these ventures were aimed at generating revenue for reconstruction after the devastations of the war. However, they were mainly designed as a means to ensure resources for the Soviet side, and generally contributed to the draining of Romania's resources, in addition to the war reparations demanded by the Armistice Agreement and the Paris Peace Treaties, which had been set at 300 million U.S. dollars. The Soviet contribution in creating the SovRoms lay mostly in reselling leftover German equipment to Romania, which was systematically overvalued. The total number of goods sent from Romania to the Soviet Union were estimated at 2 billion dollars, by far surpassing the war reparations demanded by the Soviets. By 1952, 85% of Romanian exports were directed towards the Soviet Union. The last Sovrom was dissolved in 1956.

In popular culture

• Davai ceas, davai palton. The well-known Romanian stage actor Constantin Tănase was performing in Bucharest a year after the arrival of Soviet troops. He used to satirize the soldiers' habit of "requisitioning" all personal property in sight (in particular, wristwatches and coats), demanding them by saying, "Davai ceas, davai palton". There are differing accounts of his demise, in August 1945, but one of them is that he was found dead two days after one of his satirical acts.
• Among the eyewitnesses to the events of 1944 was the writer Mihail Sebastian. In his diary (Journal, 1935-1944: The Fascist Years), he described the atmosphere in Bucharest at the time, as follows: "Bewilderment, fear, doubt. Russian soldiers rape women (as Dina Cocea was saying yesterday). Soldiers stop cars, let the driver and passengers out, get behind the wheel, and take off. Stores looted. This afternoon, at Zaharia, three of them broke in the safe, taking watches. (The watch is the toy they like the best.)" Sebastian died in a tram accident just weeks after the Soviet Army occupied Romania. His Journal has recently gained a new audience in the West. In 2004, American playwright David Auburn wrote a one-man play, entitled The Journals of Mihail Sebastian; it made its debut the same year in New York City, starring actor Stephen Kunken in the role of Sebastian.
• The 25th Hour. Virgil Gheorghiu's best-known book depicts the plight of a young farmhand, Johann Moritz, under German and Soviet occupation. Johann is sent to a labor camp by a police captain who covets his wife, Suzanna. At first, he is tagged as a Jew. Later, he is "rescued" by a Nazi officer, who forces him into service as a model for German propaganda. Imprisoned after the war, he is severely beaten by his Russian captors, then put on trial by Allied forces because of his work for the Nazis. In 1967, Carlo Ponti produced a film based on this book; directed by Henri Verneuil, it featured Anthony Quinn as Johann and Virna Lisi as Suzanna.

See also

• Potsdam Agreement
• History of Romania
• Romania during World War II
• Battle of Romania (1944)
• Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
• Southern Group of Forces

Notes

1. Template:Ro icon "The Dictatorship Has Ended and along with It All Opression" - From The Proclamation to The Nation of King Michael I on The Night of August 23 1944, Curierul National, August 7, 2004
2. Verona, pp. 49–51
3. National Minorities in Romania -Romanian Politics and Nationality Policy Since 1956
4. The term "occupation" is widely used by Western and post-Revolutionary Romanian historians. Examples include:
   • "Soviet forces occupied Romania in 1944 and stayed for more than a decade." Roger E. Kirk, Mircea Răceanu, Romania Versus the United States: Diplomacy of the Absurd, 1985-1989, p. 2. Palgrave Macmillan, 1994, ISBN 0312120591.
   • "Soviet occupation troops had been withdrawn in 1958." Gordon L. Rottman, Ron Volstad, Warsaw Pact Ground Forces, p. 45. Osprey, 1987, ISBN 0850457300.
   • "The country had to endure a long Soviet occupation (until 1958), and to pay the Soviets massive reparations." Lucian Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, p. 106. Reaktion Books, 2001, ISBN 1861891032.
   • "Soviet occupation forces in Romania unlimited interference in Romanian political life." Verona, p. 31.
   • "In June 1958, based on complex arrangements between the Romanians, the Russians, and the Yugoslavs, the occupying Soviet Army units left Romania." Tismăneanu, p. 25. "Romanian communists remained an unappealing marginal group until the occupation of the country by the Red Army in 1944." ibid., p. 59. "The Soviet Army occupied Romanian territory and ... the Soviet-controlled political formation called the RCP was exploiting this state of affairs to establish a Stalinist regime as soon as possible, whatever the human cost." ibid., p. 91.
   • "The primary focus is the occupation of the rest of Romania from 1944 to 1958...There is little doubt that the Soviet occupation had a devastating economic, political, and social impact on Romania." Aurel Braun, review of The Red Army in Romania, in Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1, 146-147, Spring 2002.
   • "The withdrawal of Soviet troops signified the end of the country's direct military occupation, which lasted 14 years." Istoria României în date, p. 553. Editura Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 2003, ISBN 973-45-0432-0
   • "Wisner (who had, as an OSS officer, witnessed the brutal Soviet occupation of Romania)", David F. Rudgers, "The origins of covert action", Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 35 , no. 2 (2000), 249–262
   • Flori Stănescu, Dragoş Zamfirescu, Ocupaţia sovietică în România - Documente 1944-1946 (The Soviet Occupation in Romania - Documents 1944-1946). Vremea, 1998, ISBN 9739423175.
   • "The first period of the communist regime in Romania, 1944-1958 is defined by Stefan Fisher Galati as the loss of national identity by the destruction of the "bourgeois nationalist" legacy and the diminution of Romania's national sovereignty under a virtual Soviet occupation." Constantin Iordachi, "The Anatomy of a Historical Conflict: Romanian-Hungarian Diplomatic Conflict in the 1980's", MA Thesis, Central European University, 1995-1996.
5. Country Studies: Romania. Chap. 23. US Library of Congress
6. ^ Ioan Vlad, Alexandru Baboş, Războiul României pentru reîntregirea naţională(1941-1945), Ch. 3, in Istoria artei militare, Sibiu, 1996
7. Country Studies: Romania. Chap. 23. US Library of Congress
8. "Hitler Resorts To 'Puppets' In Romania", The Washington Post, August 25, 1944
9. "King Proclaims Nation's Surrender and Wish to Help Allies", The New York Times, August 24, 1944
10. Template:Ro icon Alexandru Dutu and Florica Dobre, "Generali români in prizonierat"
11. Vartan Arachelian "Pamfil Şeicaru despre 23 August: 'Mai multă ruşine, mai puţine victime' ", Ziua, August 16, 2004
12. The Armistice Agreement with Rumania
13. Verona, pp. 46–47
14. Verona, pp. 47–51
15. Verona, p. 49
16. Verona, pp. 58–59
17. Gravitational Pull - TIME September 05, 1955
18. Verona, p. 104
19. "Development of the Romanian Armed Forces after World War II", from the Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook
20. Oroian, p. 28
21. Oroian, p. 29-30
22. Oroian, p. 37
23. Oroian, p. 38-40
24. Oroian, p. 40-41
25. Marga
26. Cioroianu
27. Alexandrescu
28. Roper
29. Cioroianu
30. Template:Ro icon Constantin Tănase: A căzut cortina! ("Constantin Tănase: The Curtain Dropped!"), Jurnalul Naţional, January 15, 2007.
31. Micu

References

• Romania - History ": This text comes from the Country Studies Program, formerly the Army Area Handbook Program. The Country Studies Series presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world."
  See sections:
  • Romania - Armistice Negotiations and Soviet Occupation
  • Romania - POSTWAR ROMANIA, 1944-85
• Template:Ro icon Andrei Marga - Deportarea Saşilor Transilvǎneni
• Template:Ro icon Ion Alexandrescu, "1945–1956: Din «cleştele» german — în braţele «fratelui» de la răsărit. Societăţile mixte sovieto-române (Sovrom)" ("1945–1956: From the German «Tongs» — into the Arms of the Eastern «Brother». Mixed Soviet-Romanian Societies (Sovrom)"), in Dosarele Istoriei, 3/1996
• Template:Ro icon Vartan Arachelian, Falsificatorii, Ziua, August 23, 2005
• Template:Ro icon Adrian Cioroianu, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005. ISBN 9736691756
• Template:Ro icon Cristina Diac and Florin Mihai, "1939-1944: 23 august, Cronica unui dezastru", Jurnalul Naţional, August 23, 2006.
• Stephen Fischer-Galati, "The New Rumania: from People's Democracy to Socialist Republic", MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1967. OCLC 243006
• Constantin Hlihor and Ioan Scurtu, "The Red Army in Romania", Center for Romanian Studies, Iaşi, Portland, OR, 2000. ISBN 9739839258
• Template:Ro icon Cornel Micu, "Armata Roşie ocupă Bucureştiul", Jurnalul Naţional, October 26, 2005.
• Stephen D. Roper, Romania: The Unfinished Revolution, Routledge, London, 2000. ISBN 9058230279
• Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, ISBN 0520237471
• Sergiu Verona, "Military Occupation and Diplomacy: Soviet Troops in Romania, 1944-1958", Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1992, ISBN 0822311712
• Template:Ro icon Teofil Oroian, "«Umbrela protectoare» a consilierilor sovietici. Armata Roşie în România (Prolonged and Defying Stationing of Soviet Troops in Romania)", in Dosarele Istoriei, 12/2003, pp. 22-28
• Template:Ro icon Teofil Oroian, "Scurtă «cronică» a consilierilor (Soviet Counsellors in the Romanian Army. A Brief Historical Perspective)", in Dosarele Istoriei, 12/2003, pp. 28-32
• Template:Ro icon Teofil Oroian, "Doctrină, metode şi procedee de luptă de inspiraţie sovietică (War Doctrine, Fighting Methods and Procedures of Soviet Inspiration)", in Dosarele Istoriei, 12/2003, pp. 32-33, 35-41
• Template:Ro icon Mircea Tănase, "Relaţii româno-sovietice sub cupola paraşutei (The Paratroopers and the Romanian-Soviet Relations)", in Dosarele Istoriei, 9/2005, pp. 11-16
• Template:Ro icon Liviu Ţăranu, "RPR-URSS: Relaţii economice în numele «internaţionalismului proletar» (Communist Romania and Soviet Union: Economic Relations in the 50's)", in Dosarele Istoriei, 9/2005, pp. 23-28

Further reading

• Romania and peace conditions after the Second World War, on the website of Radio Romania International, January 31, 2005
• Review of Verona's book, by J. Calvitt Clarke III, at Jacksonville University.
• Template:Ro icon Paula Mihailov Chiciuc, "Practica sovietică a lui 'Veni, vidi, vici'", Jurnalul Naţional, April 25, 2006
• "Paris-WWII Peace Conference-1946: Settling Romania's Western Frontiers", at the Honorary Consulate of Romania in Boston, has pictures of the Romanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference

• Communist Romania
• Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
• Cold War military history of the Soviet Union
• Cold War
• Romania during World War II
• Aftermath of World War II
• Soviet occupation