Communism was the first doctrine, political regime and form of societal organization to proclaim its exclusive reliance on rational knowledge. Everything that went against its precepts had to be done away with. Therefore, the truths underlying the new society, all knowledge and science had to be redefined. This is why the \u201cStefan Gheorghiu\u201d Academy of Social-Political Studies was set up as a higher education institution that would train the new political activists able to further the cause of the regime.<\/p>\n
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Established on March 21st, 1945, by the Romanian Communist Party, under the name \u201cThe Workers\u2019 University of the Romanian Communist Party,\u201d the institution was designed to undermine the traditional concept of \u201cuniversity\u201d and the intellectuals, as a social category. The institution was given the name \u201cStefan Gheorghiu,\u201d in memory of a 19th Century Socialist activist, whose personality was brought back into the spotlight in 1971 by the communist regime, in response to the growing capitalist ideology. Here is historian Cosmin Popa, from the \u201cNicolae Iorga\u201d History Institute in Bucharest:<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe establishment of the Academy of Social Sciences in the early 1970s may be seen as a symptom of the Romanian communist regime\u2019s turning to conservatism. It was also an evident signal that the party and its leaders sought to reinstate a particular ideological primacy. The massive changes in power structures, the reinstatement of collective leadership and of the internal party democracy, carrying on the reforms designed to respond to the challenges of a very dynamic capitalism, all these features are specific to all communist states in the 1960s-1970s<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Romania, the communist regime was from the very beginning affected by a lack of legitimacy and by the fact that in 1945 the country\u2019s most distinguished intellectuals would not cooperate with the communists. In the mid-1960s however, the regime\u2019s new openness to intellectuals was an offer than not so many people would decline. Here is historian Cosmin Popa again:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe late 1960s were in Nicolae Ceausescu\u2019s view the time when the Party could assess the success of its efforts to win over the intellectuals. In an address given during a meeting of party activists in the education and research sector in September 1969, and designed to detail and explain the message launched by Ceausescu himself at the Party\u2019s 10th Congress, a senior party leader, Paul Niculescu-Mizil said the distinction between intellectuals old and new was no longer operational. As he put it, Romania had a united intellectual class, whose members mostly came from among the workers. This speech offered a set of clues to read the party policy with respect to the specific features of Romanian communism, pointing to the party\u2019s relation with the intellectuals, and the principles on which the organization of the education and research system was based. The regime was working on the right assumption that society was witnessing a scientific revolution that strengthened the political role of intellectuals. The increase in the number and role of intellectuals also prompted a change in the institutions in charge with the ideological management of this class, because its success was critical to the building of communism<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n
On October the 3rd, 1971, the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party passed a resolution on the establishment of the \u201cStefan Gheorghiu\u201d Academy for social-political education and the training of senior party members, attached to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The institution was designed to educate new activists, in all fields of activity, preparing them for positions in the party and the government apparatus. The regime\u2019s distrust in the ideological work of the traditional research institutions strengthened the role of the \u201cStefan Gheorghiu\u201d Academy. One of the pretexts was that traditional institutions had no activity relevant to the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ideological control over social sciences was not the main goal of these efforts. In fact, nobody doubted the efficiency of the mechanisms of control over intellectuals, which already existed in all institutions. What the party leadership originally intended was to improve the professional training of political leaders and the spending of resources. Economists in particular were subject to Ceausescu\u2019s criticism and were targeted by propaganda workers. The regime saw itself as strong enough to no longer have to insist on the coercive dimension of ideological control. The party was beginning to feel its dynamism was hindered by the bourgeois forms of research organization and professional recognition. In Ceausescu\u2019s view, the old institutions with their intellectuals isolated from real life failed to respond promptly to the needs generated by a fast economic development. Furthermore, they were sometimes a problem for those in charge with propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
In spite of the regime\u2019s plans to make it an elite university, the \u201cStefan Gheorghiu\u201d Academy was perceived by specialists as a mere tool of the regime. It constantly failed to become more than an attachment of the repressive apparatus, and shortly after the 1989 Revolution it was dismantled altogether.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Academy was designed by the communist regime to shape the new politicl activits of the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":127971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[39842,42525,29743,42524,42523],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-127970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-communist-regime","tag-ideological-research","tag-propaganda","tag-social-activists","tag-the-stefan-gheorghiu-academy-of-social-political-studies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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