Everything about The July Theses totally explained
The
July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by
Romanian leader
Nicolae Ceauşescu on
July 6 1971 before the Executive Committee of the
Romanian Communist Party (PCR). Its full name was
Propuneri de măsuri pentru îmbunătăţirea activităţii politico-ideologice, de educare marxist-leninistă a membrilor de partid, a tuturor oamenilor muncii ("Proposed measures for the improvement of political-ideological activity, of the
Marxist-Leninist education of Party members, of all working people"). This quasi-
Maoist speech marked the beginning of a "mini
cultural revolution" offensive against cultural autonomy, a return to the strict guidelines of
socialist realism and attacks on non-compliant
intellectuals. Strict ideological conformity in the humanities and social sciences was demanded. Competence and aesthetics were to be replaced by ideology; professionals were to be replaced by
agitators; and culture was once again to become an instrument for political-ideological
propaganda.
In their final version of early November 1971, publicized as an official document of the PCR Plenum, the Theses carried the title:
Expunere cu privire la programul PCR pentru îmbunătăţirea activităţii ideologice, ridicarea nivelului general al cunoaşterii şi educaţia socialistă a maselor, pentru aşezarea relaţiilor din societatea noastră pe baza principiilor eticii şi echităţii socialiste şi comuniste ("Exposition regarding the PCR programme for improving ideological activity, raising the general level of knowledge and the
socialist education of the masses, in order to arrange relations in our society on the basis of the principles of socialist and
communist ethics and equity"). This trend accelerated with the IXth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965. Furthermore, at the April 1968 Central Committee plenum, Ceauşescu denounced his predecessor
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and rehabilitated
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, executed just two days before Ceauşescu joined the
Politburo (thus allowing him to claim innocence and to demote a key rival,
Alexandru Drăghici). This opened up even more space for artistic expression.
Eugen Barbu's novel
Principele ("The Prince", 1969), though set in the
Phanariot era, clearly refers to Gheorghiu-Dej — there's even a project to build a
canal that claims many of its builders' lives (a disguised reference to the
Danube-Black Sea Canal). In
Dumitru Radu Popescu's novel
F, abuses committed during
collectivisation are explored. Augustin Buzura's novel
Absenţii ("The Absent Ones", 1970) went so far as to provide a critique of contemporary society, describing the spiritual crisis of a young doctor.
Writing over three decades later, Sorin Preda, who arrived in
Bucharest from
Bacău as an 18-year-old in 1970, recalled the scene:
The Theses
Ceauşescu visited the
People's Republic of China,
North Korea and
North Vietnam in 1971 and was inspired by the hardline model he found there. He took great interest in the idea of total national transformation as embodied in the programs of the
Korean Workers' Party and China's
Cultural Revolution. Shortly after returning home, he began to emulate North Korea's system, influenced by the
Juche philosophy of North Korean
President Kim Il Sung. Korean books on Juche were translated into Romanian and widely distributed in the country.
Upon his return, he issued the Theses, which contained seventeen proposals. and presented himself as the defender of Romanian values (an intensification of the
personality cult).
Impact
Especially after the Writers' Congress of 1968, Party leaders started to clash with writers; earlier that year Ceauşescu had announced: "the freedom of the individual isn't in contradiction with the general demands and interests of society but, on the contrary, serves these interests". Ceauşescu managed to co-opt numerous intellectuals (many of them formerly apolitical or even oppositionist) and bring them into the Party after condemning the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, but still the Party began to intensify the struggle among writers as a group and between them and the Party. In 1970, awards of literary prizes brought the Party leadership into open conflict with the
Writers' Union. This determined the Party to recover the privilege of granting such awards and of determining their standards of value.
Despite these forebodings of conflict, the Theses, with their promise of
Neo-Stalinism, came as a shock. The Party was supposed to supervise the Theses' implementation closely and meticulously, but it was unable to do so with the same efficacy as in the 1950s. In part, this was due to the artistic community, which was numbed by the proposals and roused into a temporary united front against them.
Zaharia Stancu and
Eugen Jebeleanu, long associated with the régime, joined in protest with younger writers like Buzura, Păunescu, Popescu and
Marin Sorescu.
Leonid Dimov and
Dumitru Ţepeneag denounced the proposals on
Radio Free Europe in Paris, and
Nicolae Breban, editor-in-chief of
România Literară, resigned while in
West Germany and attacked the Theses in an interview with
Le Monde. Writers appeared combative at a meeting with Ceauşescu in
Neptun.
The Party issued its own counter-measures. For instance, a law passed in December 1971 prohibited the broadcasting or publication abroad of any written material that might prejudice the interest of the state. Romanian citizens were also forbidden from having any contact with foreign radio stations or newspapers, as this was considered hostile to Romania. One man who had submitted a volume of poetry to a critic for evaluation was tried for having written "hostile" verse; despite the critic having come to defend him, a military court sentenced him to 12 years' imprisonment. Writers felt resentment at Goma's success in West Germany and at Ţepeneag's having been translated into
French; the Party exploited this by persuading the Writers' Union to hold its 1972 congress with delegates elected by secret ballot, not by a general assembly — delegates would choose one of two names offered to them. By the time of the July 1972 National Party Conference, the cultural élite's strategies and the conflicts that would dominate the 1970s and '80s had crystallized. Dissident
Monica Lovinescu describes four features of the literary scene in Romania until 1989: intermittent courage; position in the social order transformed into an aesthetic criterion; the efficacy of some means of corruption; and a breakdown between generations, with many young oppositionists ready to compromise and some older writers ready to resist.
The Party offered increased royalties and pensions and played upon writers' envy, which led to the exclusion of Goma and Ţepeneag, who failed to be elected by secret ballot and were jeered when they spoke at the Union delegate election meeting before the conference; there, it was also established that Goma had no talent. While writers like Blandiana, Buzura,
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş and
Marin Sorescu refused to conform, maintaining moral and artistic integrity, Goma and Ţepeneag were targeted for their readiness to challenge the Party's cultural dictates. Other writers were anxious not to jeopardise their privileges and afraid that the Party might use the Theses to bring new "writers" into a rebellious Union. They instead preferred subtle evasion of their constraints and so were reluctant to back the pair of more outspoken dissidents.
Within three years, the balance of power in the writers' community had shifted from the
1960s generation to the
protochronists; writers eager for greater influence could now obtain it by specialising in the production of ideology. These included both figures on the decline who hoped to revive their careers, such as Barbu (whose career had suffered at the expense of oppositionists), and younger writers like Păunescu, an initial opponent. Instead, with the greater emphasis on ideology, force, and centralisation, and with more funds, the protochronists remained more influential until the
Romanian Revolution of 1989, having been reinforced by the "
Mangalia Theses" in the summer of 1982. Particularly in the 1980s, Romanian culture and science became increasingly isolated internationally.
Also as a result of the Theses,
sociology was removed as a university discipline and what was left was taught at the Party's
Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy. The number of those allowed to study non-technical subjects at the university was sharply cut; fewer books were published; and the privileges formerly accorded to intellectuals were reduced. In 1974, the Academy of Sciences was forced to take on
Elena Ceauşescu as a member and then its head; she politicized it to such an extent that its prestige and much of its serious research were destroyed.
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