Gurgu Andrei-Daniel

RISE II

The fight for power from the heights of the RCP

This paper seeks to explain and understand how fights for power were held inside the
Romanian Communist Party and how it evolved through out the years. Between 1945 and 1947,
the Romanian Communist Party was transformed from a minor party in Romanian politics to the
controlling party of the country.1 During the early interwar period from 1918 till 1939 the two
major political parties had been the Liberal Party (LP) and the National Peasant Party (NPP). 2The
RCP is reported to had one thousand members during his period. The birth of th RCP can be traced
back to 1930 when it was a small division lead by Carol II an later by the fascists under Marshal
Ion Antonescu. In August 1994 the coup that was organized against Ion Antonescu was the start
of a series of events that lead to the struggle of having power. The coup was ordered by King
Michael as the soviet union approached Romania. One of the first tasks of the RCP was to creat a
broader base of support. Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej leader of the RCP at that time used the coup to
legitimize his power within the party and to marginalize RCP members who had spent the interwar
period in Moscow namely Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca.

1
Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia: 2 volumes, Ed. Routledge; 1 edition (January 10, 2001), pp.1080-1081
2
Ibidem