ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the nature of the challenge facing rural Romania by examining its political economy before, during, and after the revolution of winter 1989. It focuses on political relations in rural Romanian communities and considers rural attitudes toward authority and political participation through the tumultuous period. To a great extent, the future of the Romanian state, in both political and economic senses, rests disproportionately on the shoulders of its rural population. The disastrous agricultural circumstances of the Ceausescu years must be entirely transformed and peasant energies tapped if the peoples of Romania are to be provided with a reasonable diet and standard of living. The inability and unwillingness to influence national, regional, or even local political processes paradoxically left rural Romanians relatively complacent about politics. Rural life in the days leading up to and immediately after the vote suggested a rejection of new Romanian political possibilities and support for certain of the verities promulgated in the Ceausescu epoch.
