Atitudini anticomuniste” la nivel local? Cazul unei scrisori adresate Comitetului Central al PMR, în aprilie 1956
Local “anti-communist attitudes”? The Case of a Letter addressed to the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers’ Party, in April 1956

Summary/Abstract: The present paper analyzes the existence of a so-called “anti-communist attitude” manifested at the local level analyzing a particular case, that of Vasiliu Constantin, a Party activist from Constanţa. He contested, in April 1956, two months after N. S. Khrushchev’s “secret” Speech, delivered at the XXth Congress of the CPSU, the manner in which the most prominent members of the Romanian Workers’ Party and, above all, Gheorghiu-Dej, have chosen to understand the phenomenon called “cult of personality”. In other words, Vasiliu Constantin criticized, in a letter addressed to the members of the Central Committee of the RWP the entire Party leadership for the manner in which they defined the leader’s cult. This case becomes as interesting as the documents issued in the epoch highlight the existence of many other attitudes of this kind. Therefore, the questions we aim to answer are: how did the leaders of the Party understand to solve this problem? Which was the reason for which the event incorporated such a great importance? What could have happened if such critiques amplified their number? Our analysis is mainly based on documents from the National Archives of Romania. Moreover, for a better understanding of the topic, we have chosen to transcript the letter sent by Constantin Vasiliu and fragments from the discussions between the petitioner and Nicolae Ceauşescu, Petre Lupu and Ştefan Voicu, about the manner in which the communist leaders of the time understood his attitude towards the cult of personality.

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