How was Ceausescu viewed during the Cold War?

[MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao]

So, how did different communist groups view Nicolae Ceausescu during the Cold War? Are there perhaps any Cold War-era writings about him written by communists?

[A.J.]

Perhaps a bit of renegade for attacking Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
(On which note, did Ceausescu openly declare opposition to the Brezhnev Doctrine in general or just the aforementioned deployment in particular?)

As Romania wasn't a frontline state during the Cold War due to its geographical location, I guess Warsaw Pact strategists regarded Ceausescu's renegacy on certain matters as not representing much of a threat.

Incidentley, did George Bush Snr not refer to Ceausescu as "one of the good communists"?

[Bala Perdida]

Actually yes he did. During the late 80's the United States actually supported him.

[Captain Ahab]

Here's this Cold War era piece that talks about Ceausescu http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/harman/1973/11/ceausescu.htm
This shows that Trots didn't take kindly to him and that there were MLs supportive of Ceausescu.
Presumably those that followed the Chinese or Albanian line would have lumped him in with the other revisionists. A larger portion of the adherents to the Moscow line would have also likely disliked him due to his "maverick" tendencies.

[Yuppie Grinder]

While he was regarded in a relatively favorable light compared to other Stalinists by the US establishment, he was no less an anti-working class tyrant than his more infamous homies and ex-homies.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Actually yes he did. During the late 80's the United States actually supported him.

I remember Ceaușescu as being quite close to Western imperialism: during Jimmy Carter's one term as US President (January 1977 to January 1981), the Ceaușescus (the head of state and his wife) actually visited the White House.

[Red Commissar]

Ceaușescu seemed to have tried to create a weird personality cult to the extent that Kim il-Sung fashioned in DPRK, also pushed in a lot of nationalism (including forms championed by quasi-fascists years before, pretty xenophobic in that respect), much more than was the norm in some other eastern bloc nations.

As has been mentioned before, he had developed cordial ties with nations outside the usual Eastern Bloc and "progressive" nations, trying to elevate his standing as independent from Moscow. Ties becoming strained with USSR as a result led him to turn to western states for loans and other assistance, and then applied some austerity measures to help service his debt.

He tried to pitch himself as a reformer and international statesman for PR purposes, especially trying to show himself as humane with respect to the 1968 Soviet-led intervention into Czechoslovakia and the change in government there. It was probably then that he had the best image in the west and it went down from there, though he did get some state awards from western states. He seems to have sold his opposition to Moscow policies better than his predecessor, Gheorghiu-Dej (though he appeared to oppose Moscow more due to de-stalinization), who helped to set the stage for him anyways. It seems that he tried to compete with Tito in terms of state visits to western countries that were spurned by other Eastern Bloc nations. I guess a difference would be though that Tito had some support at home right until his death and years afterwards, Ceaușescu's reputation was more muddled and got even worse as the 80s rolled on.

He paid a visit to Nixon which apparently endeared him enough to Nixon for ol' Tricky Dick to send birthday greetings on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 1983. Nixon also helped hook Ceaușescu up with a trade agreement with Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/01/us/cameo-players-in-an-84-deal-with-iraq-nixon-agnew-ceausescu.html) during the Iran-Iraq War. During this period Ceaușescu was really hellbent on exports to finance his debt payments in any way possible.

I know by the 80s Romania managed to get Most Favored Nation status in trade with the United States, which said a lot about their relationship. It should also be pointed out that while the US imposed an embargo on Poland following the imposition of martial law there, they didn't extend the same standard to Romania which had been operating under virtual martial law by that point. It only fell upon itself when Ceaușescu tried to deflect anger back to his foreign ties- complaining about terms of the IMF and other loans- resulting in some weird politicking where a referendum banned foreign loans or some business. This about face led to the US eventually not renewing MFN status as well as the EEC (predecessor to the EU) declining trade talks with Romania. His kissing up to the Shah of Iran for oil also backfired because of the change of government after 79.

Romania was also the only eastern bloc nation to participate in the 1984 olympics which USSR and its allies boycotted. Besides Romania, the other major self-declared socialist nations to participate were China and Yugoslavia. Incidentally Romania ended up getting the second most gold medals that year after the US and from what I read were greeted with applause by the audience during the opening ceremony.

In the end he didn't endear himself to anyone. Anti-Stalinists still saw through his facade, anti-revisionists saw him as opportunistic, Maoists only saw an alignment of interests and nothing more, and westerners only hoped to use Romania as a piece to disrupt eastern bloc politics. With regards to the last, it should be emphasized that in the 90s and onwards these nations which viewed him warmly then had no qualms about producing documentaries and other media showing the nasty side of Ceaușescu's Romania, with adoption policy and nepotism/corruption popular subjects.

Even as bizarre as it is, concepts of juche have more of a following today. You don't see organizations outside of Romania which revolve around Ceaușescu, at least to my knowledge.

[Blake's Baby]

Wasn't there a thread on this like 2 weeks ago? Why does no-one ever use the search function?

EDIT: ah, yes there was, you should remember, you started it:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/parties-uphold-ceausescui-t183744/index.html?t=183744&highlight=Ceausescu

[Ismail]

Two quotes sum up Ceaușescu's reactionary stands:

"The [Romanian Communist Party] has redefined and extrapolated the Leninist definition of conflicts as being 'antagonistic' or 'nonantagonistic' to the sphere of international relations in general and to the South in particular... Thus, conflicts between Communist states (China and the Soviet Union, Kampuchea and Vietnam) or between various developing countries are defined as basically 'nonantagonistic,' to be solved through negotiations and compromise only. While the Soviets admit no compromise (and neither do the Chinese) between 'revisionism' and Marxism-Leninism, or between 'reactionary' and 'progressive' developing countries, the RCP has not used the word 'revisionism' since the 1950s, when it applied it [at the time] to Tito, and rejects the very distinction between 'progressive' and 'reactionary' regimes in the South, a distinction which provides the basis for Soviet involvement in support of various radical regimes and groups there. In the words of a Romanian commentator:

'The emphasis placed on dividing the developing countries into 'progressive' and 'moderate' ones and opposing them to each other in international relations runs counter to the unanimously recognized principle of peaceful coexistence of countries with different social and political systems, feeding instead the theory of the spheres of influence, which is used to weaken the unity of the developing countries in the international arena.'

This position is very similar to that of the Yugoslavs, reflecting once again the similarity of viewpoint between Belgrade and Bucharest concerning the role and character of the Nonaligned Movement...

The very foundation of the RCP ideology, its demand that every Communist party be free to choose its own way of applying Marxism-Leninism, is linked to a rather particular assessment of the international situation as a whole. Although Bucharest does occasionally admit the existence of international conflicts, as Ceausescu puts it, 'Imperialism is much weaker than most people would say, and to overestimate its strength would lead to panic.'"
(Radu, Michael (ed). [I]Eastern Europe and the Third World: East vs. South. New York: Praeger Publishers. 1981. pp. 239-240.)

"There is no going back either to old theses or the slogans which reflected the conditions of past periods. The concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' has ceased to correspond to reality, and I hereby inform you and all those who did not know about it that several years ago, a plenum of our Central Committee adopted an ideological programme from which we excluded the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was deemed inappropriate from many points of view. We must not for a moment identify the dictatorship of the proletariat with the power of workers and peasants, the power of the people; those are things which should not be mixed up. The way towards socialism really does pass, as it should, through democratic reform; however, such reform should have the backing of the majority of the people. Otherwise, the victory of socialism would be impossible."
(Nicolae Ceaușescu, quoted in Meeting of Representatives of the Parties and Movements Participating in the Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House. 1988. p. 113.)

Hoxha mentions Ceaușescu in his two-volume Reflections on China various times, always negatively. Tito, Kim Il Sung and Ceaușescu enjoyed friendly relations with each other and all three tried to pose as foremost figures in the third world against the superpowers. Unlike Tito and Kim, however, Ceaușescu adopted a "maverick" position on Israel as well, refusing to break off diplomatic relations with it in response to the Six Day War and instead posing as a man who could reconcile Israeli and Palestinian interests. Another example is that whereas Tito LCY established "fraternal relations" with, say, the Swedish Social-Democrats, Ceaușescu's RCP established "fraternal relations" with Mobutu's MPR.

Like Tito and Kim Il Sung, Ceaușescu's "maverick" positions were an expression of bourgeois nationalism. His attempts to claim Bessarabia were part and parcel of his attacks on the policies of Lenin and Stalin.

Of course if you want the official Soviet revisionist position on the country circa 1977, you can look at the Great Soviet Encyclopedia article: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Rumania (scroll down to the fourth entry)

China officially classified Romania as a "socialist country" and praised it owing to its "maverick" stance vis-à-vis the USSR. Maoists nowadays do not hold such a view.

[EverythingNothing]

As living in Romania,I can sum this up shortly:
-He created the so called "Natiolal-Communism"
-He was not really the proponent of the USSR
-He was in close relationship with Ghadaffi,Arafat and most of the middle-eastern countries
-He did destroy Hungarian communities,by forcibly moving them and locating Romanians in populus Hungarian areas..
-He destroyed the "Hungarian Autonome Territory" ..which was created by Soviet pressure,'cuz there were many "ethnic cleansing" done by Romanians..

This was not really about the Cold War,but as far as my current knowledge goes...