Romanian anti-communist resistance movement

Romanian anti-communist resistance movement
Part of the Cold War and the anti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe
Map of Romania with armed resistance areas marked in red
Date 1947–1962 Location Romania Result Insurgency suppressed
Belligerents
PR Romania PCR Securitate Supported by:  Soviet Union	Anti-communist groups Nationalists Monarchists National Peasantists Supported by:  United States  United Kingdom CNR
Commanders and leaders
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Gheorghe Pintilie Alexandru Drăghici	Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu (POW) Ioan Carlaonț # Vasile Motrescu [ro]  Iosif Capotă  Toma Arnăuțoiu  Leon Șușman (DOW) Teodor Șușman [ro] † Nicolae Dabija  Aurel Aldea # Constantin Eftimiu # Victor Lupșa  Gogu Puiu †
Units involved
Securitate Directorate for Security Troops Miliția	Haiducii lui Avram Iancu Haiducii Muscelului National Defence Front ...and others
Strength
Several battalions[1]	10,000 rebels
Casualties and losses
Unknown, but most likely light	2,000 killed Most of the army executed Rest of them imprisoned

Eastern Bloc
Republics of the USSR Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan
Allied and satellite states Afghanistan Albania (until 1961) Angola Benin Bulgaria China (until 1961) Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Kampuchea Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland (until 1989) Romania Somalia (until 1977) South Yemen Vietnam (North Vietnam, PRG) Yugoslavia (until 1948)
Related organizations Warsaw Pact Comecon Cominform World Federation of Trade Unions World Federation of Democratic Youth
Dissent and opposition Anti-Soviet partisans Albania Bulgaria Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Ukraine Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Soviet occupation Estonia Latvia Lithuania Operation Jungle Protests and uprisings Poland 1944–1989 Poznań 1956 1980–89 Plzeň 1953 East Germany 1953 Georgia 1956 Hungary 1956 Novocherkassk 1962 Prague 1968 Invasion Moscow Czechoslovakia 1976–90 Romania 1977 Kazakhstan 1986 Brașov 1987 Tbilisi 1989 Ukraine 1989–1991 Baku 1990 Lithuania 1991 Riga 1991
Cold War events Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Korean War Secret Speech Sino-Soviet split Albanian–Soviet split De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Cuban intervention in Angola Afghan War 1980 Moscow Olympics 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Gulf War
Fall Singing Revolution Polish Round Table Agreement Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall January Events Barricades in Latvia Breakup of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Wars End of the Soviet Union Post-Soviet conflicts Fall of communism in Albania Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
v t e

The Romanian anti-communist resistance movement was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime, which in turn regarded the fighters as "bandits". It was not until the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in late 1989 that details about what was called "anti-communist armed resistance" were made public. It was only then that the public learned about the several small armed groups, which sometimes termed themselves "hajduks", that had taken refuge in the Carpathian Mountains, where some hid for ten years from authorities. The last fighter was eliminated in the mountains of Banat in 1962. The Romanian resistance was one of the longest lasting armed movements in the former Eastern Bloc.^[2]

Some academics argue that the extent and influence of the movement is often exaggerated in the post-communist Romanian media, memoirs of the survivors, and even historiography, while the authoritarian, anti-Semitic and/or xenophobic ideology of part of the groups are generally overlooked or minimized.^[3] Others, generally civic associations and former dissidents, argue that had external circumstances been different, and had the Western powers not permitted the Soviet Union to incorporate Romania and other countries from Eastern Europe into its sphere of domination, the anti-communist armed resistance could have led a successful war of national liberation.^[4][5] Still others, mainly former officials, former members of the Securitate secret police, as well as sympathizers of the communist regime, label these clandestine groups as fascist, criminal, or anti-national elements subordinate to foreign Western interests seeking to destabilize the country.^[4] Some former resistance fighters (such as Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu, Gavrilă Vatamaniuc, and Lucreția Jurj) acknowledged after 1989 that they never posed a real threat to the communist regime, and that their role was rather limited in maintaining an anti-communist climate in their local communities in the event of an American intervention.^[4]