Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (58 page)

The second S
n
tescu government was even shorter lived than the first. At the end of November two trade unionists were shot by Romanian soldiers during a drunken brawl, an event that the Communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF) made full use of. A huge funeral was organized for the two dead men, which became yet another mass demonstration against the government. The Communist press, meanwhile, raged about how ‘Hitlerist Fascists’ in the establishment were literally getting away with murder, and directly accused the National Peasant Party of supporting them. In protest at such harassment from the NDF, members of the Peasant Party and the Liberals withdrew from the cabinet en masse. Overwhelmed, S
n
tescu was forced to resign, this time for good.
¹¹

The third post-coup government was formed on 2 December 1944. This time King Michael appointed his Chief of Staff, General Nicolae R
descu – a non-party figure who was approved by the Soviets. In an attempt to put an end to the continued civil disturbances the king informed the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinski that if the Communist agitation continued he would be forced to abdicate and leave the country. Vyshinski was aware that such a move would cause chaos behind the Soviet front lines, and might even force the Soviets to take formal control of the country – an event that would not look good to their British and American allies. He therefore instructed the Romanian Communists to lower the temperature a little, and for a while at least the street demonstrations were stopped.
¹²

The Communists did, however, use the government reshuffle to make further inroads towards power. They did not quite manage to gain over-all control of the Interior Ministry, which R
descu kept for himself, but they did get a prominent Communist appointed as his deputy. The new man, Teohari Georgescu, lost no time in seizing as much control for the Communists as he could. He installed his own men in nine of the sixteen prefectures in the provinces, and gave them strict instructions to take no orders from anyone but him. He began to introduce the Communist-trained ‘Patriotic Guards’ into the Romanian security police, the Siguran
a, and accelerated the Communist infiltration of the other branches of the security apparatus. By the time R
descu realized what his deputy was up to it was already too late. When he ordered the disbanding of the ‘Patriotic Guards’ he was simply ignored. When he demanded Georgescu’s resignation he was also ignored – his deputy simply carried on coming into the office and issuing orders to the regional prefects.
¹³

Soon R
descu’s lack of control over his other deputy also became apparent. At the beginning of 1945 the vice-premier, Petru Groza, began openly encouraging peasants to seize land from the owners of large estates in anticipation of the forthcoming land-reform programme. On 13 February the Communist paper
Scînteia
reported that estates in the counties of Prahova and Dâmbovi
a had been occupied by peasants. At a cabinet meeting two days later R
descu accused his deputy of fomenting civil war.
¹⁴

Once again, the Communists organized demonstrations calling for the resignation of R
descu, and by now their power was great enough to stage these rallies in several cities across the country. The situation came to a head on 24 February with a large demonstration outside the Interior Ministry itself. R
descu, who was in the building, instructed the guards to fire into the air to disperse the crowd. In the ensuing confusion more shots were fired, this time from an unknown quarter, and some members of the crowd were killed. R
descu, fed up with the constant provocation from the Communists, and losing his temper at now also being called a murderer, made a radio broadcast to the nation the same evening in which he called the Communist leaders Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca ‘hyenas’ and ‘nationless and godless’ foreigners. He was referring to the fact that many of the Romanian Communists were not actually ‘Romanian’ in the eyes of the population, but had Russian, Ukrainian, German or Jewish parentage; but he was also obliquely referring to their Soviet backers.
¹⁵
This appeal to Romanian nationalism did him no good, however, and the Communists continued to demand his arrest. In the aftermath of these events a joint commission of Soviet and Romanian doctors established that R
descu’s guards had almost certainly not shot into the crowd, since the bullets taken from the victims’ bodies were not of a type that was used by the Romanian army. But by the time this became known it was immaterial. R
descu had fallen into the same trap as S
n
tescu before him, and his government was quickly becoming untenable.