ABSTRACT
The chapter aims to explain why after 1989, the Romanian left marginalized the memory of communism while at the same time it received a lot of attention in the public debate. It also attempts to assess how this phenomenon affects both current official and more informal or vernacular historical narratives and memory practices dominated by prevailing and recurrent themes of national victimhood, foreign oppression and occupation, national resistance and Christian sacrifice. The chapter examines the attempts of some former communist party officials to clarify the misdeeds of the communist elite for which Nicolae Ceauşescu was blamed. Their aim was to restore the memory of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1948–1965), Ceauşescu’s predecessor, as the genuine communist and patriotic leader. However, this attempt failed to resonate in the post-communist public rhetoric. Compared to a wide range of state and non-state activities in preserving the memory and reconstructing the history of the communist repression and of the 1989 popular revolt, no systematic attempt has been undertaken by the Romanian left toward recovering the early history of the Romanian Communist Party. The author argues that it was the lack of reformist or democratic socialist tradition within the socialist Romanian that made these attempts impossible.
