Silviu Brucan (18 January 1916 – 14 September 2006) was a Romanian communist politician.

He became a critic of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. After the Romanian Revolution, Brucan became a political analyst.

Early life

He was born in Bucharest to wealthy Jewish parents living in Berzei Street, near Matache Măcelaru Market. His father was a wholesale wool merchant who imported fabrics from England in the aftermath of World War I, suits of fine English fabrics being a luxury item that was popular among the Romanian bourgeoisie that was rising in the wake of an economic boom.

In 1929 came the Wall Street Crash, leading to the Great Depression and a slump in the luxury industry, including English clothes. As a result, Brucan's father's shop in Șepcari Street went bankrupt, and the Brucan family was left penniless. They moved into a modest apartment on Vlad Țepeș Street. Brucan's father found a job as a fabric expert working for a German merchant, but as that was not enough to feed a family of six, Silviu Brucan began giving private lessons to pupils of wealthy families, thus gaining access to the world of the rich landowners and industrialists. In his memories, Brucan said that the sharp contrast between the world of luxury of the privileged classes and the misery of those who worked hard all day to earn a living and the feeling of social injustice strongly influenced him. Nevertheless, with the help of some friends, he attended some courses at the university, such as the lectures of historian Nicolae Iorga, the philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, the aesthetician Tudor Vianu, and the philosopher Nae Ionescu.

Early activism

Brucan joined the left-wing movement at the age of 18. He was attracted by the opinions found in leftist and antifascist weekly newspapers such as Stînga (The Left), Era Nouă (New Era) and Cuvîntul Liber (Free Word).

In 1935, the moderate left-wing Dimineața newspaper was competing against Universul, a nationalist right-wing newspaper. To eliminate his rival, the owner of Universul, Stelian Popescu, began an anti-Semitic campaign (the owners of Dimineața were Jews) leading to fascists burning copies of the newspaper and associated posters. The communist and socialist youth organized vigilante groups to defend the newsstands. In his memoirs, Brucan stated that he was part of one of the left-wing groups defending the newsstands at Gara de Nord, and was involved in a fight with Iron Guard supporters, sustaining a severe head injury.

In late 1938, he was conscripted, serving at a border guard unit at the frontier with Bulgaria, where he was acquainted with both komitadji extremists who attacked Romanian outposts, the Aromanian colonists in Southern Dobruja, and the Middle Eastern smugglers who illegally crossed the border with hashish or opium.

During World War II, Brucan lived in the attic of a house in a quiet area in Cotroceni, working as an illegal press worker for the Communist Party's newspaper Scînteia. In 1943, he was arrested by a police agent who accidentally noticed him on Buzești Street, recalling his face from a photograph of a fellow Communist who had been previously arrested. However, as the police could not find any incriminating evidence, he was released a few days later.

After the 23 August 1944 coup

In September 1944, upon Romania's exit from the Axis camp and the onset of Soviet occupation, he was named the general secretary of Scînteia (the deputy editor in chief to Leonte Răutu), the official newspaper of the Communist Party.

As long as the other newspapers still were published, Scînteia competed with them for the readers and Brucan, with the rest of the editors, tried to make a professional newspaper. However, Brucan recounts that as party newspapers and independent newspapers were forcibly closed, one by one, by the new communist authorities, the Scînteia journalists became office clerks working 9 to 5 and writing ideological editorials for the indoctrination of the workers, who were "full of hope for a glorious future".

As editor of Scînteia, he supported the prison sentences of Iuliu Maniu, Gheorghe I. Brătianu, and Corneliu Coposu (see Tămădău Affair). He also supported the repression of anti-communist journalists, such as Radu Gyr and Pamfil Șeicaru, asking for the death penalty for the latter. she was a member of the nomenklatura of the Communist government.

For a short while (1948–1949), Brucan was Professor of Journalism at the University of Bucharest, although he never graduated from college.

Ambassador to the United States

A loyal Soviet agent, Brucan was ambassador of Romania to the United States in 1955. He used the experience as the basis of a book that he co-authored with Sidorovici (a virulent attack on American institutions).

Conflict with Ceaușescu

According to his declarations after the fall of Ceaușescu, Brucan became an opponent of the new leadership around Ceaușescu progressively from the 1960s. Initially, upon news that Ceaușescu had been appointed general secretary, he reportedly considered renouncing his political career to focus on an office at the university, but he was persuaded by Emil Bodnăraș to remain an activist. According to Brucan himself, he faced a period of financial insecurity and began work as a translator to cover his expenses.

In 1987, after sending an anti-Ceaușescu declaration to the foreign press (to the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and United Press International), a relatively mild criticism for the violent repression of the Braşov Rebellion, he was sentenced to house arrest. At the time, Brucan had won the approval of Soviet authorities, which had already engaged in Perestroika policies and had been extended informal protection by the Soviet embassy in Bucharest, allowing him a relevant degree of freedom.

With the help from Iulian Vlad, the chief of the Securitate, he was issued a passport, and in 1988, despite being expelled from the party,

Letter of the Six

In March 1989, together with five other Communist dignitaries (Gheorghe Apostol, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Grigore Răceanu, Corneliu Mănescu and Constantin Pîrvulescu), he signed the open letter known as Scrisoarea celor șase("The Letter of the Six").

The document, which was immediately broadcast on Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, was a left-wing critique of Ceauşescu's policies, and it led to the swift arrest and interrogation of the signatories by the Securitate and then to their exile and house arrest at various locations. the letter was argued to be among the most important and influential acts of opposition and a notorious break with the traditions of strict obedience and party discipline.

During and after the Revolution

Brucan was part of the National Salvation Front (FSN) during the Romanian Revolution, joining its Provisional Council and its executive committee. As a member of the council, he was also involved in selecting Roman for the office of Premier. According to the testimony of Petre Roman, Brucan was among those who insisted for Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu to be executed immediately after the trial, However, only three weeks later, he supported the transformation of the FSN into a political party,

After public allegations, Brucan resigned from the FSN in February 1990, claiming that he had accomplished his mission to restore stability in Romania and to put the country on a course toward multi-party elections. His prediction that the FSN would win the elections by more than 90%, supported the already-wide suspicions of falsified ballots.

Early that year, he had been the host of investor George Soros at the Group for Social Dialogue, a Romanian NGO that had been formed around the intellectual élite of the previous regime.

He did not wish to run in the 1990 elections

As a supporter and activist of Soviet autopoiesis, Brucan also had important contributions to transatlantic geopolitics and the emergence of Eurasianism as a geopolitical concept.

Later life

From the late 1990s, Brucan hosted a news commentary program on the ProTV network (Profeții despre trecut - "Foretellings on the Past"), initially together with Lucian Mândruță. During his final years, he was also a columnist for Ziarul Financiar.

In 1998, he was brought to court by Vasile Lupu, a leader of the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNȚCD) and a deputy for Iași County.

Legacy

Writing in 2006, Vladimir Tismăneanu criticized Brucan, arguing that, despite his renunciation of Communism, Brucan had continued to support authoritarianism in public life and to display a taste for intrigue, and that he had attempted to transform the FSN into a "big party", virtually replacing the PCR. (The claim that FSN was leftist is dubious at best.)Tismăneanu pointed out Brucan's post-1990 opposition to Mircea Răceanu, who had been imprisoned for espionage under Ceauşescu, and who was later rehabilitated by Romanian courts.

According to Victor Neumann, Brucan's role in the Bucharest episode of the 1989 Revolution had apparently helped indirectly the original and virtually unrelated revolt in Timișoara, especially by preventing a more violent repression against it, but it was never explained. He also argued that Brucan's group of former inner-Party dissidents was, in the eyes of the uninformed public at large, the only "credible alternative" at the time, and cited Brucan's own statement: "The train had arrived in the station and we were the only ones who could get on it. What were we to say, that we will not get on? We did it". Overall, Neumann contended, Silviu Brucan's political and diplomatic expertise, as well as his adaptability, had made this old Stalinist the "ideologist of political transformations in 1989 Romania", and had contributed to the supremacy of left-wing discourse in the years following the Revolution (in regard to the latter point, he cited Brucan arguments, which challenged the existence of the right-wing themes in the ideological makeup of the 1989 movement).

Works

English

Romanian

  • Originile politicii americane Bucharest, Editura Științifică, 1968 – (Origins of the American policy)
  • Democratizarea relațiilor internaționale: premise și realități, Bucharest, Editura Politică, 1975 – (The democratization of international relations: premisses and realities)
  • Dialectica politicii internaționale, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 1985 – (The dialectic of world politics)
  • Pluralism și conflict social. O analiză socială a lumii comuniste, Bucharest, Editura Enciclopedică, 1990 – (Pluralism and social conflict. A social analysis of the communist world)
  • Piață și democrație, Bucharest, Editura Științifică, 1990 – (Market and democracy)
  • Îndreptar-dicționar de politologie, Bucharest, Nemira, 1993 – (Handbook-dictionary of politology)
  • Stâlpii noii puteri în România, Bucharest, Nemira, 1996 – (The bases of the new power structure in Romania)
  • Lumea după războiul rece. Locul României și viitorul ei, Bucharest, Editura România Liberă, 1996 – (The World after the Cold War. Romania's place and her future)
  • O biografie între două revoluții: De la capitalism la socialism și retur, Bucharest, Nemira, 1998 – (A biography between two revolutions: from capitalism to socialism and back)
  • România în derivă, Bucharest, Nemira, 2000 – (Romania adrift)
  • Profeții despre trecut și despre viitor, Iași, Polirom, 2004 – (Prophecies about the past and the future)
  • Secolul XXI. Viitorul Uniunii Europene. Războaiele in secolul XXI, Iași, Polirom, 2005 – (The 21st century. The future of the European Union. Wars in the 21st century)

Notes

References

  • Adrian Cioroianu, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005
  • Victor Neumann, "Schimbările politice din România anului 1989" ("Political Changes in 1989 Romania"), in Ideologie şi fantasmagorie. Perspective comparative asupra istoriei gîndirii politice în Europa Est-Centrală ("Ideology and Phantasmagoria. Comparative Perspectives on the History of Political Thought in East-Central Europe"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
  • Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism pentru eternitate, Polirom, Iaşi, 2005 (translation of Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, )
  • Silviu Brucan, The Wasted Generation: Memoirs of the Romanian Journey from Capitalism to Socialism and Back, Westview Press, 1993, Online
  • Dennis Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989, M.E. Sharpe, London, 1995, .
  • Silviu Brucan Obituary The Washington Post
  • Biography at Polirom.ro
  • Silviu Brucan,
  • "Pedeapsa trebue să fie maximă!" ("The Penalty Must be the Maximum One!"), article of November 10, 1947, republished by Adevărul
  • "Una este «reţea» şi alta este «urmărit»" ("An «Informant Network» and «Under Surveillance» Are Entirely Different Things") - his last column in Ziarul Financiar, August 28, 2006