The Cult of Personality in Communist Romania
Victor Manta, PWO
The souvenir sheet displayed below, and entitled "50 years since the great anti-fascist and anti-war demonstration of May 1, 1939" was issued by the Romanian Post in 1989, before the annual celebration of the May 1st. This wa an event celebrated in the past by both communists (in the USSR, Romania, etc.) and fascists (such as Hitler's Germany).
In the center of the sheet figures (very young) leaders of communist Romania, President Nicolae Ceausescu, number one in the state, and his wife Elena (Lenuta) Ceausescu, de facto number two.
I will continue by quoting from the article published on April 30, 2009 in the Romanian newspaper Jurnalul.ro and entitled "May 1, 1939 - May 1, 1989: 50 years of propaganda (source: https://jurnalul.ro/scinteia/special/1-mai- 1939-May-1-1989-50-years-of-propaganda-506034.html) .
On May 1, 1989, the ideologues of the regime claimed,passed 50 years since the "Great Patriotic Anti-Fascist and Anti-War Demonstration" of May 1, 1939, organized by Nicolae Ceauşescu. That year, Ceausescu had just turned 21 and had been out of prison Doftana for a few months. Could he organize a large-scale demonstration, with a communist character, in a state led by an authoritarian regime, such as that of [King] Charles II? Nothing more fake. The communist character of the demonstration on May 1, 1939, as well as the organizing role of Nicolae Ceauşescu, were an invention of [communist] propaganda from one end to the other.
The demonstration in question was a "gift" offered by the Ministry of Labor and Mihai Ralea (the relevant minister) to King Carol. In February 1938, he established an authoritarian regime, in which he abolished all pluralistic state institutions: parties, civic associations with democratic views, trade unions. The latter were replaced by "workers' guilds", fascist-oriented organizations through which workers were controlled.
70th birth anniversary. "Over 55 years of revolutionary activity."
Could Nicolae Ceausescu take control of the parade so that the participants shout anti-fascist and anti-war slogans? Of course not! The participants in the congress of the guilds were carefully selected by the county organizations that had sent them, being also checked by Siguranță [political police], so that there would be no doubt about their political "beliefs". Was Nicolae Ceauşescu among the demonstrators who greeted Carol II with a raised (fascist) arm? Unlikely [for a communist].
MAY 1, 1939, "CONFISCATED" BY PROPAGANDA
After 1948, however, history was written according to the "ideological line" of the [communist] party. Therefore, during the "Dej period" [G.G. preceded Ceausescu as party leader - see the souvenir sheet below],
the pro-royal demonstration of May 1, 1939 became "patriotic anti-fascist demonstration". The ideologues of the "Ceauşescu period" later forced the note, naming the head of state as the organizer of the event, along with his consort, Lenuta Petrescu. [End of excerpt.]
The image of both Romanian leaders depicted on the 1989 souvenir sheet will be the last ones to appear on stamps, because about six months later they will be executed as a result of the common resentment of the masses, who suffered enormously in the last decade of their reign, and some foreign (Romanian) agents of the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate - GRU, who acted at the behest of the "pacifier and strengthener", last communist leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev
