Theories of collective action and revolution: Evidence from the Romanian transition of December 1989

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 52, Issue 6, 2000, Pages 1069-1093

  Hall, Richard Andrew ^a  

^a LAFAYETTE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COLLECTIVE ACTION; COMMUNISM; POLITICAL PARTICIPATION; POPULAR PROTEST;

ROMANIA;

EID: 0034545401     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668130050143833     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. Spontaneous mass mobilisation played a fundamental role in toppling regimes in East Germany and Czechoslovakia as well as Romania. It was also a relevant factor in the collapse of the Bulgarian and Albanian regimes.
2. See, for example, Sidney Tarrow, '"Aiming at a Moving Target": Social Science and Recent Rebellions in Eastern Europe', Political Science & Politics, 24, 1, March 1991, pp. 12-20. By 'sudden mass mobilisation' I refer to the development and expansion of public, anti-regime demonstrations over a period of days or weeks, especially where there was little or no prior history of such organised protest actions.
3. Chirot formally articulates this characterisation in Daniel Chirot, 'The East European Revolutions of 1989', in Jack A. Goldstone (ed.), Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies (New York, Harcourt Brace, 1994), p. 178.
4. Steven D. Roper, 'The Romanian Revolution from a Theoretical Perspective', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 27, 4, December 1994, pp. 401-410; Peter Siani-Davies, 'Romanian Revolution or Coup d'état?', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 29, 4, December 1996, pp. 453-465.
5. Steven D. Roper, 'The Romanian Revolution from a Theoretical Perspective', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 27, 4, December 1994, pp. 401-410; Peter Siani-Davies, 'Romanian Revolution or Coup d'état?', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 29, 4, December 1996, pp. 453-465.
6. Particularly in a single case study, I am wary of searching for confirmation of hypotheses, rather than letting the case first speak for itself. As I demonstrate below, the former approach easily leads to an inflation of 'confirmed hypotheses' and the overdetermination of the phenomena being explained because such confirmation is often acontextual and mistakes the presence of a factor for causation.
7. For a discussion see Michael S. Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1990); and James B. Rule, Theories of Civil Violence (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988).
8. For a discussion see Michael S. Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1990); and James B. Rule, Theories of Civil Violence (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988).
9. László Bruszt & David Stark, 'Remaking the Political Field in Hungary: From the Politics of Political Confrontation to the Politics of Competition', in Ivo Banac (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 13-55; Patrick H. O'Neil, 'Revolution from Within: Institutional Analysis, Transitions from Authoritarianism, and the Case of Hungary', World Politics, 48, 4, July 1996, pp. 579-603; Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
10. László Bruszt & David Stark, 'Remaking the Political Field in Hungary: From the Politics of Political Confrontation to the Politics of Competition', in Ivo Banac (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 13-55; Patrick H. O'Neil, 'Revolution from Within: Institutional Analysis, Transitions from Authoritarianism, and the Case of Hungary', World Politics, 48, 4, July 1996, pp. 579-603; Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
11. László Bruszt & David Stark, 'Remaking the Political Field in Hungary: From the Politics of Political Confrontation to the Politics of Competition', in Ivo Banac (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 13-55; Patrick H. O'Neil, 'Revolution from Within: Institutional Analysis, Transitions from Authoritarianism, and the Case of Hungary', World Politics, 48, 4, July 1996, pp. 579-603; Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
12. For a discussion of the influence of these three factors see Linz & Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, pp. 347-356; and Richard Andrew Hall, 'Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceauşescu Romania', PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1997, pp. 79-140. For a discussion of what the shift from totalitarianism to post-totalitarianism entails, see Linz & Stepan, pp. 40-51; Linz & Stepan's analysis is useful because they do not treat 'communist rule' as a static regime type.
13. For a discussion of the influence of these three factors see Linz & Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, pp. 347-356; and Richard Andrew Hall, 'Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceauşescu Romania', PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1997, pp. 79-140. For a discussion of what the shift from totalitarianism to post-totalitarianism entails, see Linz & Stepan, pp. 40-51; Linz & Stepan's analysis is useful because they do not treat 'communist rule' as a static regime type.
14. On the demoralising and atomising impact of sultanism within the party-state see Vladimir Tismaneanu, 'The Quasi-Revolution and Its Discontents: Emerging Political Pluralism in Post-Ceauşescu Romania', East European Politics and Societies, 7, 2, Spring 1993, pp. 309-348.
15. See the case of the poet, Mircea Dinescu (mentioned below), in Dennis Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989 (Armonk, NY, M. E. Sharpe, 1995), p. 280. Such rumours worked much more effectively than those alleging that a dissenter was doing the bidding of a Western intelligence agency. The Securitate realised well that anti-Russian sentiment was much stronger than anti-Western sentiment, particularly among the intelligentsia.
16. See note 65 for more details on those who captured power.
17. Totalitarianism is self-replicating in this way, since the exercise of pervasive control and the image of complete control conveyed by the state discourage dissent.
18. Linz & Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, p. 352 (citing Jiri Pehe, 'An Annotated Survey of Independent Movements in Eastern Europe', Radio Free Europe Research, RAD Background Report/100 (Eastern Europe), 13, June 1989, pp. 1-29).
19. Linz & Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, p. 352 (citing Jiri Pehe, 'An Annotated Survey of Independent Movements in Eastern Europe', Radio Free Europe Research, RAD Background Report/100 (Eastern Europe), 13, June 1989, pp. 1-29).
20. The first is most directly associated with the work of Tocqueville, Lenin and others, while the second is identified particularly with Crane Brinton. For a discussion see Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation.
21. Michael Shafir, 'Former Senior RCP Officials Protest Ceauşescu's Policies', Radio Free Europe Research, Romania/3, 29 March 1989, pp. 8-11.
22. For a discussion, see Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate, pp. 235-293.
23. Workers' protests had occurred in 1977 and 1981 (among miners) and in 1987 (among factory workers), but in none of these cases did these protests spark more broad-based societal participation. See discussion of events in Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate, pp. 243-254.
24. For a discussion of the theory and its history, see Sidney Tarrow, Struggle, Politics, and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 32-38.
25. For discussions of 'preference falsification' see Timur Kuran, 'Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989', World Politics, 44, 1, October 1991, pp. 7-48, and of 'dissimulation' see Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992), p. 80.
26. For discussions of 'preference falsification' see Timur Kuran, 'Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989', World Politics, 44, 1, October 1991, pp. 7-48, and of 'dissimulation' see Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992), p. 80.
27. Tarrow, '"Aiming at a Moving Target"', p. 17.
28. For a discussion of the 'demonstration' effect see Thomas H. Greene, Comparative Revolutionary Movements: Search for Theory and Justice (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1990), pp. 147-149.
29. See Chirot, 'The East European Revolutions', p. 177, on the significance of the events in Bulgaria for Romanians.
30. The fact that the Romanian regime did not attempt to jam these signals highlights the difference between late communist totalitarianism of the variety practiced by Ceauşescu and that which had existed in the 1940s and 1950s in Eastern Europe.
31. Based on my reading of România Liberǎ for the period October-December 1989.
32. In fact, at the time Belgrade Television was running taped CNN broadcasts at night.
33. For a discussion see Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation, pp. 47-53.
34. Revisionist historiography has haunted Romania since the December events, with tragically misguided conclusions and consequences, as I discuss in Richard Andrew Hall, 'The Uses of Absurdity: The Staged War Theory and the Romanian Revolution of December 1989', East European Politics and Societies, 13, 3, Fall 1999, pp. 501-542.
35. Radu Portocala & Olivier Weber, 'Romania: Revelations about a plot', Le Point (Paris), 21 May 1990, pp. 42-49. The article was translated by several opposition weeklies in 1990 and has been cited in positive terms frequently since.
36. László Tökés, with David Porter, With God, For the People: The Autobiography of László Tökés (Toronto, Hodder and Stoughton Publishers, 1990).
37. Ibid., pp. 102, 120. This hardly meant the regime renounced its recourse to intimidation and force. Tökés and his family were subject to repeated telephone threats and rumour-mongering, his associates were detained, beaten up and arrested on trumped-up charges (indeed, a church elder who had organised a petition in defence of Tökés was found murdered in September), the windows of the parochial residence were smashed, and in November Tökés and his family were attacked in the middle of the night by knife-wielding assailants (Tökés was slashed on the forehead during the altercation).
38. Ibid., pp. 1-4.
39. For a discussion see Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation, pp. 36-39, 73-82.
40. Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 (New York, Random House, 1990), pp. 133-134.
41. The fact that the Uniate (Eastern rite Catholic) Church of Transylvania was integrated into the Orthodox Church during the early communist era (thus completely losing its identity) accentuated the ethnic-religious cleavage by further separating Hungarian and Romanian Catholics.
42. See the discussion in Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York, Random House, 1978), pp. 81-84. It is interesting to note that Oberschall's argument is mirrored to some extent in the 'poor but free' assumptions of Eric Wolf with regard to peasant participation in revolutions (see Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation, p. 199).
43. See the discussion in Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York, Random House, 1978), pp. 81-84. It is interesting to note that Oberschall's argument is mirrored to some extent in the 'poor but free' assumptions of Eric Wolf with regard to peasant participation in revolutions (see Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation, p. 199).
44. Tökés, With God, For the People, pp. 1-20.
45. For some arguments on how the political culture of Timişoara contributed to the outbreak of the December events there see Victor Neumann, 'De ce tocmai Timişoara?' (Why exactly Timişoara?), Orizont (Timişoara), 9 February 1990, p. 4.
46. Totalitarianism may even enhance the importance of the state's public relations response to the evolution of regime-society confrontation. Because totalitarian regimes exercise high levels of control, over such a wide array of resources, the expansion of anti-regime protest is dependent upon regime miscalculations and blunders to an extent it is not in less totalitarian regimes.
47. Mircea Bǎlan, 'Masacrul', Cuvîntul, 9-15 October 1990, p. 7.
48. Belgrade Domestic Service, 1400 GMT 20 December 1989, in FBIS-EEU-89-243, 20 December 1989.
49. Radu Bǎlan, interview by Adrian Pǎunescu, 'Fanfara din Timişoara a început, în 17 decembrie 1989, ora 10, prohodul socialismului (2)', Totuşi Iubirea, 60, October 1991, p. 8a.
50. Adelina Elena, 'Martor ocular. Faţǎ în Faţǎ', Orizont, 6 January 1990, p. 5.
51. Ibid.
52. It is interesting to observe just how much the party official's explanation of the Timişoara unrest echoes the arguments of the so-called 'irrationalist' school of revolution. The 'irrationalist' school, which was led by such turn-of-the-century theorists such as Gustave Le Bon and Scipio Sighele, argued that 'criminals, madmen, the offspring of madmen, alcoholics, the slime of society, deprived of all moral sense, given over to crime' were the driving force behind the 'crowd' and that women and children, because of their 'inferior form of evolution', were particularly susceptible to being drawn into the 'irrational' actions of the 'crowd' (Rule, Theories of Civil Violence, pp. 91-95). As the party official's comments suggest, the wording of the epithets may have changed to reflect modern ideological categories, but the character of the argument remains much the same. Unfortunately, for as Rule notes there is something undeniably mystical about the 'crowd' which cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts, the claims of the 'irrationalists' remain the favourite final recourse of tyrannical leaders attempting to explain protest against their rule.
53. Martyn Rady, Romania in Turmoil: A Contemporary History (New York, IB Tauris & Co., 1992), p. 97.
54. Most analysts concur that the Romanian regime had supported Dubcek and the Czechoslovak Communist Party less out of support for the liberalisation of the Prague Spring reform movement than because they wanted to defend the concept of national autonomy, which they too could use in their relations with the Soviet leaders.
55. See the report on Sofia Domestic Service, 1400 GMT 21 December 1989, in FBIS-EEU-89-244, 21 December 1989, p. 71.
56. Rady, Romania in Turmoil, pp. 97-98.
57. See the discussion in Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, pp. 214-216.
58. Radu Bǎlan, 'Fanfara din Timişoara', p. 8a.
59. See the comments of participants in Titus Suciu, Reportaj eu sufletul la Gurǎ (Romania, Editura Facla, 1990).
60. See Suciu, Reportaj cu sufletul. The rationalism of demonstrators approached tragic dimensions, as Mircea Bǎlan relates: 'very many [of the demonstrators] had bags in their hands and children with them. It was a naive rationalisation - that if they were arrested by the forces of order they could escape by claiming they had been out shopping or taking a walk' (Bǎlan, 'Masacrul').
61. Elena, 'Martor Ocular'.
62. Nestor Ratesh, Romania: The Entangled Revolution (New York, Praeger, 1991), pp. 33-34.
63. Budapest Domestic Service, 2115 GMT 20 December 1989, in FB1S-EEU-89-244, 21 December 1989.
64. Major Viorel Oancea, interview by Tudorel Urian, 'Fricǎ, din nou pe strǎzi', Cuvîntul, 14 February 1990, pp. 5, 11.
65. Other factors have also been suggested as having hastened the withdrawal, such as the threat of the strike committee at the Solvent petrochemical works to blow up the plant if the army did not withdraw immediately. See Rady, Romania in Turmoil, pp. 96-97.
66. Ion D. Goia, 'Chiar Dacǎ fugea, Ceauşescu nu scapa!, Flacǎra, 6-12 February 1991, pp. 8-9, comments of Lt Col. Ion Cotîrlea and Lt Col. Alexandru Rafaelescu.
67. Discussed in Gelu Voican Voiculescu, interview by Adrian Pǎunescu, 'L-am ajutat pe Ceauşescu sǎ moarǎ în picioare (3)', Totuşi Iubirea, 5-12 March 1992, p. 7a; and Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate, pp. 356-357.
68. Discussed in Gelu Voican Voiculescu, interview by Adrian Pǎunescu, 'L-am ajutat pe Ceauşescu sǎ moarǎ în picioare (3)', Totuşi Iubirea, 5-12 March 1992, p. 7a; and Deletant, Ceauşescu and the Securitate, pp. 356-357.
69. See Goia, 'Chiar dacǎ fugea', p. 9.
70. Pomojnicu in ibid.
71. Pomojnicu in ibid.
72. See the discussion in Tilly, From Mobilization to Collective Action, pp. 84-90.
73. The 'rumour' that one in every four or one in every three Romanian citizens was working for the Securitate (the real number appears to have been substantially lower) is a good example of this. In the final analysis it does not matter a great deal whether this rumour was begun by the Securitate itself or evolved naturally in a fearful society and was exploited by the institution: the result was the same; it was plausible given the Securitate's reputation, and it gave the impression that societal dissent was impossible and futile, and thus discouraged dissent.
74. These party-state bureaucrats emerged calling themselves the National Salvation Front. Its leaders apparently knew one another prior to 22 December and had conspired to overthrow Ceauşescu, but their plans were overtaken by the unanticipated outbreak of anti-regime protest in mid-December. Initially they clearly intended only to replace Ceauşescu and to introduce Gorbachev-style political and economic reforms and they were pro-Moscow in their orientation. Their prior, conspiratorial contacts with one another, their prior organisation and their prior planning - to say nothing of their experience in and knowledge of the party-state apparatus - put them in a tremendously advantageous position versus other groups (especially societal groups) vying to seize control of the state in the wake of the flight of the Ceauşescus. The personalist character of the Ceauşescu regime had often personalised dissent within the party-state, and thus, although the Front's senior leader, Ion Iliescu, did not pose a well-developed ideological alternative to Ceauşescu, his name had been whispered in the party-state and in society for many years prior to the December 1989 events as someone who had raised Ceauşescu's ire and thus might be an appropriate replacement for him. Iliescu thus had a name recognition and popular image that few other individuals in Romania could counter, something which served him and the Front well in consolidating their power both during and after the December events. The core of the National Salvation Front, including Iliescu, would dominate politics (often by less than democratic methods) for the next seven years until being voted out of office in the elections of November 1996.
75. Teodor Brateş, Explozia Unei Clipe (Bucharest, Editura Scripta, 1992), p. 110.
76. Ibid., pp. 110-111.
77. Colonel Mireca Budiaci, interview by Maior D. Amariei, 'NU! Teroriştii n-au avut elicoptere', Armata Poporului, 21 March 1990, p. 4.
78. Nicolae Militaru, interview by Corneliu Antim, 'Ordinul 2600 în Revoluţia din decembrie', România Liberǎ, 17 December 1992, p. 2.
79. Gelu Voican Voiculescu, interview by Adrian Pǎunescu, 'L-am ajutat pe Ceauşescu sǎ moarǎ în picioare (II)', Totuşi Iubirea, 27 February-5 March 1992, p. 7a.
80. Gelu Voican Voiculescu, interview by Adrian Pǎunescu, 'Gelu Voican, e adevǎrat cǎ tu 1-ai împuşcat pe Ceauşescu? (3)', Totuşi Iubirea, 30 January-6 February 1992, p. 5a.
81. Mark Granovetter, 'Threshold Models of Collective Behavior', American Journal of Sociology, 83, 6, May 1978, pp. 1420-1443. For an excellent discussion of Granovetter's hypothesis see Rule, Theories of Civil Violence, pp. 43-49.
82. Mark Granovetter, 'Threshold Models of Collective Behavior', American Journal of Sociology, 83, 6, May 1978, pp. 1420-1443. For an excellent discussion of Granovetter's hypothesis see Rule, Theories of Civil Violence, pp. 43-49.
83. Jaroslav Krejci, Great Revolutions Compared: The Outline of a Theory (New York, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), p. 38.