Impunerea controlului comunist asupra Ministerului Afacerilor Străine, 1944-1948
Methods and Practices of Imposing Communist Control over the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1944 -1948)

Summary/Abstract: The process of imposing the communist control upon the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took place between 1944 and 1948, and it was founded on a legislative basis designated to give the appearance of legality to the abuses committed by the communists. Actually, the "legal leverage" served both to justify the purging of the old diplomatic elite, and to open the doors of the ministry to those who were accepted by the government of Petru Groza. The purging and compression policy was doubled by the entry of new legal frameworks in the diplomatic and consular corps, as well as in the leading structures of the ministry – especially after 1946. These frameworks corresponded ideologically to all the rigors of the new regime established in Bucharest in March 1945. Thus, the founding of a trade union within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the infiltration of intelligence, the Law for the ministry organization from March 1946, and the repeated purging of the diplomatic and administrative staff have served as a means to impose communist control over one of the few ministries that haven’t been governed by a communist leader between August 1944 and November 1947. This phase ended after Ana Pauker took over the portfolio of the Foreign Affairs and launched a harsh campaign to change the social origins of the staff, which emphasised how adrift the Romanian diplomacy, subservient to the directives sent from Moscow, was.

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