ABSTRACT
After proposing to relax Romania’s Communist regime, Nicolae Ceausescu walked in the footsteps of his predecessor Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and re-imposed Stalinism. Member of the Political Executive Committee, head of the party Cadre Commission, Deputy Prime Minister, and president of the National Council for Science and Technology, Elena was creating a parallel cult of personality. Nicolae Ceausescu’s own ideological interests revolved around the essential myth of “socialist Romanianism.” Nicolae Ceausescu succeeded Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej as Romanian Communist Party General Secretary in March 1965. The re-Stalinization started in 1971 was in fact accepted by the nomenklatura and continued de facto until 1989. It turned into a civic revolt and led to violent repression by the police. When Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej died in March 1965, Ceausescu inherited not only his political mantle, but also a platform with the potential for either “Albanization” or Tito’s reformist but paternalistic Yugoslavism.
