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ROMANIA AMID THE “TWO EUROPES”. THE MISSED CHANCE OF EARLY
EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL DIALOGUE
Adrian-Gabriel CORPĂDEAN, Assistant, PhD, “Babeş-Bolyai”
University of Cluj-Napoca
Abstract: This paper focuses on the intricate events at an international scale that surround the
Second World War, eventually marking the abrupt division of Europe into two geopolitically
and culturally distinct realms. Whilst Western Europe took the first institutional steps to what
we are entitled to refer to as European Construction, given the Schuman Declaration and its
immediate impact, the Soviet Bloc denied assistance stemming from the Marshall Plan and
failed to participate in the endeavours that led to the creation of the European Communities
and the multicultural dialogue networks that rendered Western Europe more united. Our study
makes use of archives from both Romania and western countries, so as to shed light on the
context that prompted Romania’s separation from its interwar modernisation paradigm, thus
missing the chance to embrace the reconstruction wave that presented itself after World War
Two.
Keywords: Marshall Plan, Second World War, division, communism, iron curtain.
Political Action
The end of the Second World War marked the end of an era, along with the Allies’
victory against the Nazi war machine, a victory that came at unimaginable costs, in terms of
casualties, devastation and horror. The unprecedented traumatising events, such as the
Holocaust, as well as the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, in August 1945, left deep scars on the face of the entire world, which may never fully
heal. Apart from these disasters, the tentacles of the destructions spread to the economic sectors
of the countries that fought in the war, whose industrial branches were converted to suppliers
for the front, subsequently collapsing before the shock of returning to their initial purpose. The
United Kingdom, which had fought the harshest battle against the mighty Wehrmacht during
the first years of the war, eventually abandoned its war hero, Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
in favour of Labour leader Clement Attlee. 1
As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, human losses were extremely serious,
amounting to an approximate 40 million citizens, not only on the front, but also during the
ruthless sieges, such as the one of Leningrad, or in Nazi concentration camps. If the population
had been seriously reduced, the economy was also badly shaken, to the extent that the Soviet
government was left with little choice but to resort to its satellite states in order to acquire the
necessary resources for its reconstruction, in addition to war reparations paid by Germany and
its former allies. Under the iron fist of Joseph Stalin, the heavy industry registered the most
consistent growth, whilst in the case of the agricultural output and consumer goods, it took a
long time to return to their initial level of development, i.e. the one prior to the Second World
War. Moreover, Stalin refused to accept the application of the economic reconstruction plan
promoted by the American government in the countries controlled by the Soviets, known as the
Marshall Plan. 2
1
2
Chris Wrigley, Winston Churchill. A Biographical Companion, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2002, p.34.
Robert Service, Stalin: a Biography, Macmillan, London, 2004, pp.513-514.
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Also named The European Recovery Programme, General George Marshall’s plan - US
Secretary of State under President Harry Truman - was aimed at the integration of European
states within the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation. While bringing to an end a
period of traditional economic isolation, the Plan was operational between 1947 and 1952 and
comprised a number of 17 European nations, providing them with aid worth 13 billion dollars
(a sum which may be compared to nine times its amount at present). 3
As far as Romania is concerned, the invitation to participate in the Marshall Plan came
from the French and British governments on the 4th of July 1947, as we find out from a letter
addressed by National Liberal Party president Constantin I.C. Brătianu to the Prime Minister of
Romania, Petru Groza.4 In this letter, Brătianu resorts to an impressive plead in favour of the
national interest of Romania, consisting in continuing a tradition of openness towards
international trade, while underlining the vital character of this reconstruction plan for a
devastated country such as Romania. In the three points of his argumentation, the president of
the National Liberal Party denotes lucidity, when performing a pertinent analysis of the
economic and social situation of the country, by engaging the responsibility of this proEuropean historical party, prompting a positive answer to the Allies’ invitation, on the part of
the Romanian government. Furthermore, Brătianu underlined the threats that would emerge
following any decision of isolation towards the West, all the more because an affirmative
answer would not mean an abandonment of Romania’s national sovereignty on the stage of
international affairs. In fact, he emphasised the historical course of Romania’s liaisons with
western powers, which had always been founded on solid cooperation, which is why in his
view, the only possible response would be an approval to take part in the Marshall Plan. 5
Instead, the official answer of Groza’s government came by means of a letter drafted by
the Minister of foreign affairs, Gheorghe Tătărăscu, a former liberal whose collaboration with
the communist administration was totally incompatible with his previous political views. On the
grounds of a rigid and incoherent argumentative structure, typical of a communist regime, the
letter turned to the argument of Romania’s specific interests and a potential loss of
independence following the construction of structures meant to implement the reconstruction
plan. 6 The last fragments of the document praise a Soviet Union which allegedly represented
the main pillar for the continent’s economic rebuilding, thanks to “the working class discipline
of the peoples that form it”, its productivity and the abundance of its natural resources.
Deeming the plan inefficient from an economic viewpoint and dangerous from a political one 7,
Tătărăscu made use of language which would become specific to the communication approach
3
Gérard Bossuat, L’Europe occidentale à l’heure américaine 1945-1952, Éditions Complexe, Paris, 1992,
p.140.
4
Letter of the president of the National Liberal Party of Romania, C.I.C. Brătianu, addressed to the President of
the Council of Ministers, Dr. Petru Groza, on the 5th of July 1947. Archives of Cicerone Ioniţoiu,
http://www.procesulcomunismului.com/marturii/fonduri/ioanitoiu/maniu2/default.asp.htm. Last access: 15
November 2013.
5
See, for further details: Dinu Giurescu (Editor), Cade Cortina de Fier. România 1947. Documente diplomatice,
Cartea Veche Publishing, Bucharest, 2002, p.256.; Florin Dobrinescu, România la Conferinţele de pace (Paris:
1919-1920; 1946-1947), Focşani, 1996.
6
Nicolae Păun, “Planul Marshall - veritabilă instituţie a construcţiei europene”, in Studii istorice. Omagiu
Profesorului Mureşanu, PUF, 1988, pp.507-513.
7
Marcel Ştirban, Nicolae Păun, “Continuitate şi schimbare în structurile instituţionale din România în anii 19401947”, in Studia Historia, 1991, 36, no. 1-2, pp.111-119.
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with the West of all Romanian communist governments - an argumentative structure deprived
of consistency, the perpetuation of Soviet-like clichés and an absence of vision in forecasting
the political and economic course of action. 8
As further proof of irony, it is the same Tătărăscu who, on the 9th of July 1947, only one
day after the rejection of the Marshall Plan, addressed a letter to the General Secretariat of the
United Nations, in order to apply for Romania’s membership, “amongst the other free peoples
of the world”. 9 As if this boldness was not blind enough, the minister stated at the time that
Romania had undergone a decisive series of democratic reforms and had succeeded in
reorganising the entire life within the state - a set of lies that failed to persuade the western
world, knowledgeable about the corruption within the Romanian administration and its
enslavement by the Soviet line of thought. We can only agree with the British ambassador to
Bucharest, Archibald Clark Kerr, who, at the time, had characterised not only Gheorghe
Tătărăscu, but also Petru Groza, as traitors and skilled deceivers, mere marionettes in the hands
of the Soviet commissioner for foreign affairs, Andrei Vîşinski. 10
In reality, when the aforementioned letters were sent beyond the iron curtain, one that
was already visible in Europe, communist Romania had resorted to persecuting the opposition,
along with outrageous fraud amid the electoral process and the illegal imprisonment of the
political enemies of the new “democratic” regime. In fact, the Romanian Prime Minister had
used a hostile tone to answer the letters received from the British and American governments on
the 24th-25th of July 1947, accusing the Bucharest administration of severe violations of human
rights and the peace treaties. Hence, Groza did little more than to recite the same poetry typical
of communist discourse regarding the West, by frankly stating that the attitude of these two
governments was an unacceptable interference in the internal policies of the Romanian state.
The stark contradiction between the attitude of western powers and those of the
communist bloc towards the financial aid provided by the Truman administration for European
reconstruction becomes more obvious now. While western states benefitted from the
implementation of an entire model of conducting business, tailored according to American
capitalist experience, communist countries were, in most cases, obliged by Stalin to reject this
proposal. For instance, there is sufficient evidence showing that Czechoslovakia and Poland
were willing to reach an agreement with the leaders of the Marshall Plan, but one has to
comprehend that such a route - i.e. accepting the implementation of the Plan - would have
inevitably led to a form of European economic unification that was totally incompatible with
the Soviet approach to a controlled economy. 11 That said, the meeting scheduled for the 12th of
July 1947 in Paris was supposed to be attended by Polish and Czechoslovakian representatives,
who were nevertheless persuaded by Stalin not to join the negotiations. In exchange, for
instance, Stalin made a counter-offer to Poland, in the form of a five-year agreement, consisting
Letter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania, Gheorghe Tătărăscu, addressed to the delegates attending
the Peace Conference of Paris, on the 9th of July 1947. Archives of Cicerone Ioniţoiu.
9
Letter of Gheorghe Tătărăscu addressed to the General Secretariat of the UN, on the 10th of July 1947. Archives
of Cicerone Ioniţoiu.
10
Idem, http://www.procesulcomunismului.com/marturii/fonduri/ioanitoiu/maniu2/default.asp.htm. Last access:
15 November 2013.
11
Gerhard Wetting, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, p.138.
8
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of credits, industrial equipment and cereals, and the Prime Minister in Warsaw, Josef
Cyrankiewicz, accepted the Soviet proposal. 12
The other states of Eastern Europe followed in Poland’s footsteps, by rejecting the
Marshall Plan and taking the alternative route, namely the Molotov Plan, rendered functional
(to some extent) by means of the Comecon, in other words the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance.
A historiographical approach
The historiography of the Marshall Plan is abundant, but it is essential to underline the
tone adopted by historians with regard to this topic, on both sides of the iron curtain. One of the
books written amid the adoption of the Plan belongs to Sidney Stuart Alexander, who was part
of the Economic Cooperation Administration of the United States, i.e. the agency in charge of
the Marshall Plan, and one of the partisans of this initiative. Between 1949 and 1952, Alexander
worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC and published 31 studies,
mostly on topics germane to international economics. In his book entitled “The Marshall Plan”,
he presented an inside view on the structures that were in charge of conceiving the Plan, by
assessing in a detailed manner the objectives and mechanisms of this initiative. 13 Furthermore,
this author dwelled on the American involvement in the Marshall Plan, whilst describing the
stakes for this main promoter of the programme, albeit in a way that clearly exhibits
Alexander’s affiliation (since the text is marked by a certain dose of idealism, under the mask of
attempted objectivity). 14
If such attitudes appear to have been understandable on the American side at the time, it
is to be noted that the main purpose of the Marshall Plan remained a preoccupation of western
historians even one decade after the iron curtain made its appearance. The historiography
dedicated to those times includes an impressive number of titles, of which we have selected a
contribution by Martin A. Schain, a political science professor and head of the Centre for
European Studies at New York University 15, who regrouped in his volume “The Marshall Plan:
Fifty Years After” a collection of valuable texts on this subject. Amongst the latter, one notices,
in the first part of the volume (suggestively entitled “The Marshall Plan and European
Construction”) a study by Michelle Cini 16, called “From the Marshall Plan to EEC: Direct and
Indirect Influences”. Here, the author emphasises the contribution of the plan to the
reconstruction of Western Europe after the War and, more precisely, the mechanisms through
which the American initiative pushed democratic European states towards economic
unification. 17 In the second section of the book (named “The Others: From the Outside Looking
in”), a contribution by Bradley F. Adams 18 , entitled “The Marshall Plan and Czechoslovak
12
“Poland:
Carnations”,
Time
Magazine,
9th
of
February
1948,
Time
Archives :
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html. Last access: 15 November 2013.
13
Sidney Stuart Alexander, The Marshall Plan, National Planning Association, Washington DC, 1948, pp.4-6.
14
Ibidem, pp.7-10.
15
http://us.macmillan.com/author/martinschain. Last access: 15 November 2013.
16
Michelle Cini is a Professor of European Studies at the University of Bristol, in the UK.
17
Michelle Cini, “From the Marshall Plan to EEC : Direct and Indirect Influences”, in Martin A. Schain, The
Marshall Plan : Fifty Years After, Palgrave, New York, 2001, pp.13-39.
18
Bradley F. Adams is a Professor of the History of Communism at Columbia University, New York.
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Democracy: Elements of Interdependency”, describes Soviet pressure on this government so
that Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk would not attend the Paris Conference in July 1947. 19
Finally, another very useful study meant to foster the comprehension of western
attitudes towards the Marshall Plan in its original context was drafted by Allen Dulles, former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, in 1947/48. At the time, the
debates in the American public opinion and within governmental circles with regard to the
course that the Marshall Plan should undertake were livelier than ever. Amongst other useful
facts, Dulles underlined the connections of the Plan with the political line adopted by the
Truman administration in the struggle against communism, while explaining the principal
opinion currents embraced by the American society with regard to this matter. 20
The interwar period: a laboratory of European reconstruction?
If the rupture between the Two Europes occurred from an economic perspective as well,
whose witness was undoubtedly the Marshall Plan, the roots of this breach may be traced back
to the interwar period. Thus, the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922 destabilised an already
fragile system, given the revisionist attitudes following the signature of the peace treaties in
Versailles. The legacy of World War One enables us to understand the manner in which a
rupture took place between the western integration model (marked by an impressive number of
projects, such as Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa, or French Foreign
Minister Aristide Briand’s Memorandum) and the new eastern model, built around the
communist structures initiated within the Soviet Union.
One of the most perilous repercussions of the First World War, which had decisively
altered the very essence of the European economy, was the Great Depression, occurring
between 1929 and 1933, albeit it did not cease to affect several European states until the
beginning of the Second World War. The disastrous effects of this crisis, which affected the
capitalist system in a most profound way, prompted a new approach to liberalism, one that
found its most famous expression in the new economic line adopted by the United States under
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, referred to as the New Deal. This innovative orientation,
entailing a more prominent role of the state in the economy, made it possible to implement the
Marshall Plan after the end of the War. 21
Meanwhile, the economic background created by the crisis turned out to be a good
opportunity for extremist political movements to gain momentum across Europe. Reunified
under various political formulas, the German National-Socialist Party came to power along with
the rise of Adolph Hitler, as Chancellor of Germany, on the 30th of January 1933, an event that
was to alter the geopolitical configuration of Europe for a period of 12 years.
Amid a low interest on the part of the United States in the actions of its allies after the
First World War and during most of the interwar period, the international stage was prepared to
undergo dangerous reconstruction. If for the United States, the Pacific axis gathered most of the
attention of the political class, to the detriment of relations with Europe, the Soviet Union was
19
Bradley F. Adams, The Marshall Plan and Czechoslovak Democracy: Elements of Interdependency, in op.cit,
pp. 93-119.
20
Allen Welsh Dulles (Editor: Michael Wala), The Marshall Plan, Berg, 1993, pp.14-15.
21
Ronald Edsforth, The New Deal: America’s Response to the Great Depression, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken,
2000, p.25.
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about to conceive plans for expanding its ideological influence throughout the continent, with
the ultimate purpose of achieving political domination. As for the Allies, the Locarno Pact of
1925, between France and Germany, failed to provide guarantees for the eastern borders of the
latter, whereas the Briand-Kellog Pact of 1929, condemning the action of resorting to war, did
not impose any real sanctions. Hence, institutional endeavours meant to counteract the rise of
radicalism in Europe were limited. 22 To this we may add the effects of an inefficient League of
Nations, whose functioning tools did not account for prompt, coherent, coercive actions, on the
part of European countries, against an aggressor.
On the other hand, the attitude of the French and the Britons at the time was named
appeasement in historiography, as the Allies, visibly affected by the memory of the Great War,
did not want to resort to future military confrontations with the authoritarian regimes of
Germany or Italy. Such politics, often perceived as proof of cowardliness, are regarded as the
product of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his French counterpart, Édouard
Daladier, whose actions regarding Hitler followed the main logic as the powerlessness of the
League of Nations. The conference in Munich in September 1938, during which these political
leaders consented to Hitler’s occupation of the Sudetenland, against the peace treaties, is merely
one example of the failure of appeasement, which did little more than to amplify the echoes of
the Germans’ need for revenge during the interwar period. 23
What about the War? A cultural and geopolitical fracture of the European space
In light of the above, the 1st of September 1939 came as an inevitable event, namely the
invasion of Poland by a Hitler that already regarded himself apparently invincible, before his
incoherent and weak rivals. 24 The Pacific axis once again prompted the interest of the French
and the Britons, following the tragic event occurring on the 7th of December 1941, i.e. the Pearl
Harbour attack of the Japanese, which drew the United States into the war, as it once more
abandoned the isolation doctrine towards European matters.25
Given the context of the alliance between Great Britain, the United States and the exiled
French forces, joined by the Soviet Union, it was inevitable to reach a compromise on the future
of Europe and the entire world, which would meet the expectations of both ideological poles:
the Soviet or communist front, on the one hand, and the capitalist front, on the other hand.
However, it is important to note that this time, unlike in the First World War, the conflict which
lasted until 1945 did not end under the auspices of peace treaties. Albeit the winners did learn
from the failures of the Versailles system and that of the League of Nations, this did not solve
the geopolitical situation of the European continent at the end of the conflict, a status quo that
remains interesting and worthy of being further explored.
Instead, the tools the allied leaders made use of so as to render their ententes official
took the form of conferences. The one in Tehran, occurring at the end of 1943, fostered the first
meeting of the three prominent politicians that were responsible for Europe’s reconfiguration
22
Ladislau Gyémánt, Prehistory of the European Construction, EFES, Cluj-Napoca, 1999, p.321.
Peter Neville, Hitler and Appeasement: the British Attempt to Prevent the Second World War, Continuum
International Publishing Group, London, 2006, p.59.
24
Ibidem, p.192.
25
Sir John Thomas Pratt, Before Pearl Harbour: a Study of the Historical Background to the War in the Pacific,
Caxton, University of Michigan, 1944, p.59.
23
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after the Nazi capitulation: Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, the American President and Joseph Stalin, the incontestable leader of the Soviet
Union. Although this first conference, occurring immediately after the Cairo summit, apparently
did little more than to establish a set of military principles in the fight against common enemies,
in reality it paved the way for future negotiations of the same decision making trio. 26
To conclude, it is the Yalta conference that became of paramount importance for the
outcome of the War, as the allied leaders debated on the idea of reorganising Europe after a
foreseeable victory. Besides the key points pertaining to Germany’s unconditional surrender, a
significant victory of Roosevelt was that of obtaining Stalin’s promise according to which the
latter would join the organisation that was to inherit the goals of the League of Nations, namely
the United Nations. 27 Nevertheless, Romania, forcefully included in the Soviet Bloc, would not
get the chance to participate in the first institutional endeavours that ultimately led to a
functional form of European integration - the European Communities - and its access to the
multicultural approach that would define the lengthy process of European construction was
restrained for almost half a century. The consequences of this failure are still taking a toll on
Romania, as the communist regime that ruled with an iron fist until 1989 rendered the contrast
between West and East ever bleaker, so that the only genuinely multicultural way for the
country was paved by a very active diaspora. 28
Bibliography
a. Archives:
Archives of Cicerone Ioniţoiu:
a. Letter of the president of the National Liberal Party of Romania, C.I.C. Brătianu, addressed
to the President of the Council of Ministers, Dr. Petru Groza, on the 5th of July 1947.
(http://www.procesulcomunismului.com/marturii/fonduri/ioanitoiu/maniu2/default.asp.htm.)
b. Letter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania, Gheorghe Tătărăscu, addressed to the
delegates attending the Peace Conference of Paris, on the 9th of July 1947.
c. Letter of Gheorghe Tătărăscu addressed to the General Secretariat of the UN, on the 10th of
July 1947.
Time Magazine Archives:
d. “Poland: Carnations”, 9th of February1948,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855998,00.html.
b. Books and articles:
Adams, Bradley F., “The Marshall Plan and Czechoslovak Democracy : Elements of
Interdependency”, in Martin A. Schain, The Marshall Plan : Fifty Years After, Palgrave, New
York, 2001.
26
Chris Wrigley, op. cit., pp.321-322.
Robert Service, op. cit., p.503.
28
See: Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean, “Le message européen de la diaspora roumaine de France après 1945”, in
Culture, Elites and European Integration, volume IV (International Relations and European Interdisciplinary
Studies), editors: Iulian Boldea, Cornel Sigmirean, Simion Costea, Ed. Prodifmultimedia, Paris, 2011, pp.189202.
27
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Bossuat, Gérard, L’Europe occidentale à l’heure américaine 1945-1952, Éditions Complexe,
Paris, 1992.
Cini, Michelle, “From the Marshall Plan to EEC : Direct and Indirect Influences”, in Martin A.
Schain, The Marshall Plan : Fifty Years After, Palgrave, New York, 2001.
Corpădean, Adrian-Gabriel, “Le message européen de la diaspora roumaine de France après
1945”, in Culture, Elites and European Integration, volume IV (International Relations and
European Interdisciplinary Studies), editors: Iulian Boldea, Cornel Sigmirean, Simion Costea,
Ed. Prodifmultimedia, Paris, 2011.
Dulles, Allen Welsh (Editor: Michael Wala), The Marshall Plan, Berg, 1993.
Edsforth, Ronald, The New Deal: America’s Response to the Great Depression, WileyBlackwell, Hoboken, 2000.
Giurescu, Dinu (Editor), Cade Cortina de Fier. România 1947. Documente diplomatice, Cartea
Veche Publishing, Bucharest, 2002.
Gyémánt, Ladislau, Prehistory of the European Construction, EFES, Cluj-Napoca, 1999.
Neville, Peter, Hitler and Appeasement: the British Attempt to Prevent the Second World War,
Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 2006.
Păun, Nicolae, “Planul Marshall - veritabilă instituţie a construcţiei europene”, in Studii
istorice. Omagiu Profesorului Mureşanu, PUF, 1988.
Pratt, Sir John Thomas, Before Pearl Harbour: a Study of the Historical Background to the War
in the Pacific, Caxton, University of Michigan, 1944.
Service, Robert, Stalin: a Biography, Macmillan, London, 2004.
Ştirban, Marcel; Păun, Nicolae, “Continuitate şi schimbare în structurile instituţionale din
România în anii 1940-1947”, in Studia Historia, 1991, 36, no. 1-2.
Stuart Alexander, Sidney, The Marshall Plan, National Planning Association, Washington DC,
1948.
Wetting, Gerhard, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
Wrigley, Chris, Winston Churchill. A Biographical Companion, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara,
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c. Websites:
http://us.macmillan.com/author/martinschain.
438