Interesting the earlier communist issues of Romania before the stamps were farmed out for foreign exchange. The image of the lowly citizen in their labors as part of the creation of a better state was unique to the time. How much was the reality however. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Romania in the mid 50s was still paying a huge price for the previous governments having fought alongside the Axis in World War II. The overwhelmingly peasant, agricultural based economy was required to make great transfers of wealth to the Soviet Union. Yet these stamps show little of the country’s agriculture, instead opting for industrial workers and urban students such as the girl pictured on this stamp. The communists party was divided between the prison faction, industrial leftists organizers that were imprisoned for their activism and the Moscow faction, more intellectual, mainly Jewish leftists who had been in exile in Moscow until they returned with the Red Army in 1944. The 80% of the country that were simple peasants can be excused for feeling removed from the debate.
Todays stamp is issue A378, a 40 Bani stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of Romania in 1955. It was a 12 stamp issue in various denominations that featured various professions in Romania. Only one of the stamps was an agricultural worker who showed off a new tractor, no doubt provided by the new communist industrialization. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.
As the fortunes of war changed Romania attempted to change sides. The fascist Prime Minister Antonescu was dismissed and arrested by King Micheal and turned over to the Red Army for a show trial and execution. Communist industrial leaders including future General Secretary Gheorghe Gheorgiu-Dej were released from jail and quickly appointed to high roles in the still Royal government. The Red Army was welcomed and with them came Romanian exiled Communists like Ana Pauker who became foreign minister, the first female to hold such a position in the world. The communist raising of women to high postions was real. By 1948 the communist takeover was complete with the King forced at gunpoint to abdicate but then generously allowed to leave weighted down with crown jewels and 47 paintings. Better than King Michael did for his former partner Prime Minister Antonescu.
There was now a power struggle setting up over who got to run the Communist Party. In this Ana Pauker was at a big disadvantage. She had been absent and was of Jewish background. The Jews had been very unpopular in the old days as the often operated as advantage taking intermediaries between peasants and absentee German landlords. There were far fewer Jews after the atrocities of the war years but where Gheogiu-Dej had suffered for his beliefs in fascist jails, Anna Pauker had prime gigs in places like Paris and Vienna promoting international communism.
Stalin was very much in charge in the client state of Romania and he had become suspicious of dual loyalty among Jews in the movement. Suggestions of dual loyalty are often used as a slight against Jews but when Ana Pauker went against Stalinist policies by helping remaining Jewish Romanians escape to Isreal and trying to extract extra privledges for wealthier Kulates peasants her fate was sealed. She was removed as Foreign Minister and placed in jail awaiting her own show trial. The death of Stalin got her reprieved, as she was friendly with Molotov’s wife but she was unsuccessful in her quest to return to power. She died of breast cancer in 1960.
With all the debts due Moscow Gheogiu-Dej progress in Romania was slow. He attempted to industrialize to busy the many workers coming off the farm and started trading ties to the West. His largest achievement was negotiating the withdrawal of the Red Army from Romania in 1958. He died of lung cancer in 1965 and his deputy Ceausescu replaced him and continued to expand industrial ties to the west.
Well my drink is empty and I don’t think I would do well in the Romania of the day as I have many loyalties. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.