User:Transylvania1916/sandbox

Highlights (Axis)

 * Romanian engineers contributed to the construction of the longest bridge ever built under fire – the bridge over the Dnieper at Beryslav.
 * The Romanian capture of Odessa was the most important wartime conquest – without substantial German support – by any of the minor European Axis powers.
 * On 1 September 1942, the Romanian 3rd Mountain Division took part in the largest amphibious assault undertaken in Europe by the Axis Powers during the war.
 * In late 1942, General Ioan Dumitrache captured Nalchik, the furthest point of Axis advance in the Caucasus.
 * Romania provided up to 40% of the Axis personnel in the Kuban Bridgehead. On 7 April 1943, a single Romanian battalion restored the front of an entire German division.
 * When an entire German army (the 6th) came under Romanian command in May 1944 (as part of general Petre Dumitrescu's Armeegruppe), German commanders came under the actual (rather than nominal) command of their foreign allies for the first time in the war.
 * Romania received more Knight's Crosses than any other non-German Axis power.
 * Ion Antonescu was the first foreigner to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
 * Mihail Lascăr was the first foreign recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.
 * The Romanian Mareșal tank destroyer is credited with being the inspiration for the German Hetzer.
 * In terms of heavy armored vehicles, Romania captured 2 KV-1 tanks, 1 IS-2 tank and 1 ISU-152 assault gun. These were the only heavy AFVs that Romania possessed throughout the war, as the country's armor establishment - even as late as July 1944 - never went beyond medium tanks and assault guns.

Romania and EU candidates (1998)
Among the 10 EU candidates in 1998, Romania stood out:
 * It was the most statist economy among the 10.
 * Romania had the highest Freedom House's Nations in Transit score in 1998, making it the most authoritarian of the 10 EU candidates.
 * Largely as a legacy of Nicolae Ceaușescu's 1980s debt policies, Romania had the lowest external debt among the 10 EU candidates in 1998.

War with Hungary
During the first half of the Hungarian-Romanian War, the Romanians advanced to the Tisza and remained there in defiance of a mid-June order of the Supreme Council to evacuate Eastern Hungary. The mid-June telegram of the Allies assured the Hungarians that the Romanian troops would be withdrawn from Hungarian territory as soon as Hungarian troops would evacuate Slovakia. The Hungarians complied, but the Romanians did not. The failure of the Allies to bring about the retreat of the Romanians and thus make good on their mid-June assurance to Hungary directly caused the resumption of hostilities between Romania and Hungary one month later. On 20 July, the Hungarians launched an offensive against the Romanian lines, but - without the approval of the Supreme Council - the Romanians were in Budapest by 4 August. Romania's refusal to promptly withdraw put a temporary but serious strain on its relations with the main Allies.

On 1 July, the Romanians crossed the Tisza at Tiszalúc, attacking Hungarian forces as they completed their withdrawal from Slovakia. On 11 July, Bela Kun wrote to Paris complaining about the failure of the Romanians to undertake the withdrawal promised by Clemenceau on 13 June. The Allies replied on 12 July, stating a refusal to deal with Budapest until Hungary disarmed. This was a bitter disappointment to Kun and his associates, who decided to take matters into his own hands. The Hungarian Red Army attacked the Romanian lines on 20 July, successfully crossing the Tisza at multiple points. After several days of bitter combat, the Hungarian lines were broken and the Romanians crossed the Tisza on 29 July. On 1 August, Kun resigned and fled to Austria, the Romanians marching into Budapest two days later. The Supreme Council recognized Romania as an occupying power and called attention to its responsibility.

Romanian occupation of Hungary
Within the first 48 hours of Romanian occupation, thousands of Hungarian officers of all ranks were relocated to Transylvania as prisoners of war. The Romanians baited them with the prospect of forming an armed militia for the maintenance of order, but they were captured when they showed up at the posts of the Romanian Army in Budapest and elsewhere. On 5 August, the Romanians presented the Government of Gyula Peidl with the terms of armistice: delivery to Romania of military equipment for an army of 300,000, 50% of Hungary's rolling stock and related material, 200 touring cars and 400 trucks with accessories, 30% of Hungary's live stock and agricultural machinery, 20,000 carloads of barley and fodder and 50% of Hungary's own shipping in addition to all shipping allegedly taken from Romania during the war. Furthermore the terms demanded the immediate release of all Romanian POWs and hostages and the payment of the expenses of the Romanian Army during the occupation period (including coal for transportation). The Romanian armistice terms reached the Supreme Council at its meeting on 6 August. That morning, the Allied representatives in Budapest (British, Italian and American) requested from the Romanian Army commander the suspension of the armistice terms pending advice from the Supreme Council. The terms were said to be directly conflicting with the promises made by the Allies to Hungary. General Holban, the Romanian commanding officer, not only rejected their protest but was also "most discourteous" to the Allied officers. A third warning from the Supreme Council to Romania followed, within as many days.

Transition comparative tables
https://books.google.ro/books?id=cGUYEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21

The EU candidate countries plus Russia (1998)
Between 16 December 1991 and 10 June 1996, a total of 10 transition countries signed Europe Association Agreements (EAs), these agreements acknowledging their ultimate objective of joining the EU. The ten countries were subsequently divided. The five states deemed to have made the most progress (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Estonia) - constituting the Luxembourg Group - were invited in July 1997 to begin accession negotiations (these began in March 1998). The remaining five countries (Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania) - constituting the Helsinki Group - joined the Luxembourg Group in December 1999.

Two extremes: Romania and Kyrgyzstan
These two countries were both exceptions within their respective regions: Romania was the only one of the 6 former non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries to opt for gradual instead of radical reform, while Kyrgyzstan was the only Central Asian country and the only one in the CIS other than Russia to implement radical reform. According to the EBRD's Structural Reform Index, a country can be defined as a "full-fledged market economy" once it crosses the threshold of 0.70, which Kyrgyzstan accomplished in 1994 (the first CIS country to do so) and Romania in 1998 (and Russia, for reference, in 1996).

Foreign privatization
Due to low levels of native capital accumulation in the former Central and Eastern Europe, the rapid privatization preferred by international institutions (EBRD, IMF, World Bank) and other foreign banks was a de facto call for international bidding, reflecting the assumption that foreign investment would play a major role.

Contrasting cases in Eastern Europe: Romania and East Germany
In post-reunification East Germany, by the end of June 1992, the Treuhandanstalt had privatized 8,175 companies, with 5,950 left on hand (4,340 remaining to be sold and the remainder to be liquidated). June 1992 was also when the last East German on the board of the Treuhand left. By the end of 1994, Treuhand had sold almost everything, having only 65 firms left to privatize as of December 1994. More than 80% of the privatized businesses were bought by foreigners (chiefly West Germans - 75%).

Romania's first privatization took place on 3 August 1992. There was "very little" privatization during 1992: only 22 state-owned enterprises were privatized. The pace picked up throughout the following year, with more than 260 companies privatized. Four of the 22 enterprises privatized in 1992 were sold to foreign investors. In 1993, 265 companies were privatized, followed by 604 in 1994. Two companies were sold to foreign investors during this period, one each in 1993 and 1994. At the start of 1999, 4,330 companies were left to be privatized, with 5,476 having been sold during 1993-1998. At the end of 1998, only 2.4% of privatized companies had foreign participation.

Romanian Holocaust
"Of the countries aligned with Nazi Germany, only Romania initiated its own mass extermination program." "Romania was the only ally of Germany that had its own plan of destruction and used its own army to exterminate Jews." According to Raul Hilberg: "Besides Germany itself, Romania was thus the only country that implemented all the steps of the destruction process, from definition to killings."

According to Hannah Arendt: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Romania was the most antisemitic country in pre-war Europe". For instance, the government headed by Octavian Goga, who took office at the end of 1937, despite lasting little over a month, has been rated as "more Nazi than the Germans".

After the start of World War II, even before joining the Axis, Ion Antonescu stripped almost all of Romania's Jews of their citizenship and introduced, according to Arendt, "anti-Jewish legislation that was the severest in Europe, Germany not excluded". In her Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt also describes how "In Romania even the SS were taken aback, and occasionally frightened by the horrors of old-fashioned, spontaneous pogroms on a gigantic scale; they often intervened to save Jews from sheer butchery, so that the killing could be done in what, according to them, was a civilized way.".

On 18/19 August 1941, two months into Operation Barbarossa, Hitler expressed to Joseph Goebbels his awareness that Germany was being outdone by Romania, along with his admiration for Antonescu's barbarity, observing that: "As far as the Jewish Question is concerned, it can now be stated with certainty that a man like Antonescu is pursuing much more radical policies in this area than we have so far.". While Nazi Germany's open air massacres were targetting only Jewish men, Antonescu's Romania had been killing Jewish men, women and children of all ages, clearing entire Jewish communities. In implying that Antonescu was actually showing the way, Hitler was obviously referring to the sheer extent of Romanian killing in Bessarabia and Bukovina, which at that point exceeded Nazi murder in nearby German-occupied Ukraine.

Romanian economy (1989 - 1996)
Data from unless otherwise specified.

Romania and the Warsaw Pact
Romania and - until 1968, Albania - were exceptions. Together with Yugoslavia, which broke with the Soviet Union before the Warsaw Pact was created, these three countries completely rejected the Soviet doctrine formulated for the Pact. Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of the its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as a nationalist as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he wouldn't have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act. ). When Andrei Grechko assumed command of the Warsaw Pact, both Romania and Albania had for all practical purposes defected from the Pact. In the early 1960s, Grechko initiated programs meant to preempt Romanian doctrinal heresies from spreading to other Pact members. Romania's doctrine of territorial defense threatened the Pact's unity and cohesion. No other country succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw Pact like Romania and Albania did. For example, the mainstays of Romania's tank forces were locally-developed models. Soviet troops were deployed to Romania for the last time in 1963, as part of a Warsaw Pact exercise. After 1964, the Red Army was barred from returning to Romania, as the country refused to take part in joint Pact exercises.

Even before the advent of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania was in fact an independent country, as opposed to the rest of the Warsaw Pact. To some extent, it was even more independent than Cuba (a Communist state that was not a member of the Warsaw Pact). The Romanian regime was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceaușescu was the only declared opponent of glasnost and perestroika. On account of the conflictual relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in the region, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. At the start of 1990, the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, implicitly confirmed the lack of Soviet influence over Ceaușescu's Romania. When asked whether it made sense for him to visit Romania less than two weeks after its revolution, Shevardnadze insisted that only by going in person to Romania could he figure out how to "restore Soviet influence".

Romania requested and obtained the complete withdrawal of the Red Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist-Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only the large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence of Moscow.

Following Albania's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Romania remained the only Pact member with an independent military doctrine which denied the Soviet Union use of its armed forces and avoided absolute dependence on Soviet sources of military equipment. Romania was the only non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member which was not obliged to militarily defend the Soviet Union in case of an armed attack. Romania was also the only Warsaw Pact member that did not have Soviet troops stationed on its soil.

Romania was neutral in the Sino-Soviet split. Its neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute along with being the small Communist country with the most influence in global affairs enabled Romania to be recognized by the world as the "third force" of the Communist world. Romania's independence - achieved in the early 1960s through its freeing from its Soviet satellite status - was tolerated by Moscow because Romania was not bordering the Iron Curtain - being surrounded by socialist states - and because its ruling party was not going to abandon Communism.

Although certain historians such as Robert King and Dennis Deletant argue against the usage of the term "independent" to describe Romania's relations with the Soviet Union, favoring "autonomy" instead on account of the country's continued membership within both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact along with its commitment to Socialism, this approach fails to explain why Romania blocked in July 1963 Mongolia's accession to the Warsaw Pact, why in November 1963 Romania voted in favor of a UN resolution to establish a nuclear-free zone in Latin America when the other Socialist countries abstained, or why in 1964 Romania opposed the Soviet-proposed "strong collective riposte" against China (and these are examples solely from the 1963-1964 period). Soviet disinformation tried to convince the West that Ceaușescu's empowerment was a dissimulation in connivance with Moscow. To an extent this worked, as some historians came to see the hand of Moscow behind every Romanian initiative. For instance, when Romania became the only Eastern European country to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, some historians have speculated that this was at Moscow's whim. However, this theory fails upon closer inspection. Even during the Cold War, some thought that Romanian actions were done at the behest of the Soviets, but Soviet anger at said actions was "persuasively genuine". In truth, the Soviets were not beyond publicly aligning themselves with the West against the Romanians at times.

In 1970, Romania blocked the establishment of the Committee of Foreign Ministers. As a result, during the CSCE process, the most efficient Warsaw Pact multilateral forum was the regular meetings of the deputy foreign ministers. During the CSCE talks preceding the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975, Romania was not willing to subordinate its own interests to a joint bloc position. This development challenged the Soviet leadership and was one of the reasons why the Warsaw Pact's Political Consultative Committee did not hold any meeting for more than two years, from January 1972 to April 1974. With the rest of the Warsaw Pact ultimately forming a unified position against it, Romania had to either give up its opposition or compromise.

Library (sources repository)
Romania blocked Mongolian membership in the Warsaw Pact.

Romania was independent/non-satellite.

Ceausescu Sadat peace process.

More Israel stuff.

Military organization.

Soviet troops 1990/1989

The theory of military economics was a system which left each Warsaw Pact military absolutely dependent on Soviet-sourced weapons and technology. Romania avoided this system and also its objections likely prevented the formal establishment of two de facto agencies directing military training and education.

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

CSCE Romania. Wow...Was Romania in the Warsaw Pact really just for the lulz? The Soviets weren't even beyond siding with the West against Romania!

Gorbachev.

KGB counsellors withdrawn.

Anti-KGB.

"Conclusion: Romania reconsidered."

1989 forces reduction.

Military equipment:
 * Tanks (TR-85 and TR-580)
 * Jets (IAR-93 and IAR-99)
 * Naval (Marasesti)

Actual intended text
Even under Ceausescu's predecessor, Romania was in fact an independent country. To some extent, it was even more independent than Cuba (a Communist state that was not a member of the Warsaw Pact). Romania was free from the Kremlin and Ceausescu may not have answered to Brezhnev, but its population still answered to Stalinism all the same. Although Romania was uniquely independent from the Soviet Union, in the long run this independence only served to preserve the Stalinism of the regime until its last days, while the Soviet Empire de-Stalinized. Thus, instead of being imposed by a foreign force, Romania's Stalinism was forced on the population by the Romanians themselves. Romania was the only "significantly independent" Warsaw Pact member. Romania - along with Yugoslavia and Albania - completely rejected the Soviet-established doctrine for the Warsaw Pact and adopted nationalist military doctrines adapted to the specific circumstances of each country. Although Romania condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, it remained a formal member of the Pact. The Romanians found that remaining in the Pact gave them privileged access to NATO counterparts.

The regime of the Socialist Republic of Romania was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceausescu was the only declared opponent of glasnost and perestroika. All political, social and cultural exchanges between Romania and the Soviet Union were systematically reduced to a strict minimum following Mikhail Gorbachev's accession to power. Gorbachev for his part went out of his way to publicly disassociate himself from the Ceausescu regime by publicly and openly criticizing the latter. On account of the conflictual relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in the region, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. While in economic terms trade with the Soviet Union rose from 17% of Romania's foreign trade in 1980 to 33% in 1988, Romania's import of energy from the Soviet Union was balanced out by Romania becoming the Soviet Union's largest provider of meat.

Ceausescu's Romania had at least as much leverage within the Warsaw Pact as Charles de Gaulle's France had within NATO. At a Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee (PCC) meeting in July 1966, Romania attempted to pressure its six allies into submission on the issue of the Vietnam War. Instead of withdrawing Romania from the structrues of the Warsaw Pact like de Gaulle withdrew France from the integrated structrues of NATO, the Romanian leadership began to see the benefits of the Pact as an instrument for asserting its independence. Romania sought to introduce amendments to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons before its signing which would keep all options open for the unhampered development of a Romanian nuclear programme. East Germany was concerned that Romania's amendments could thwart the non-proliferation treaty altogether. Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov and Poland's Gomulka even suggested expelling Romania from the Warsaw Pact over the matter. The other six members of the Warsaw Pact signed - without Romania - a declaration of strong support for the Soviet draft for a non-proliferation treaty. This declaration - although not signed in the name of the Warsaw Pact but as six individual states - was a blow to the Pact because it made public for the first time in its history the disagreements between Romania and the rest of the members. Despite the unprecedented public stance against it by the rest of the Pact, Romania ultimately decided to sign the non-proliferation treaty in July 1968. The Romanian signature does not testify to any Soviet pressure; the actual treaty already contained a great number of Romanian proposals, so Romania's refusal to sign would have undermined its own interests. Romania's signature acknowledged its own input, rather than a confirmation of Soviet hegemony. Contrary to what is usually assumed, Romanian pressure was considered a much greater threat to the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) members than Soviet hegemony. As such, the Kremlin was actually more amenable to Romanian wishes than the rest of the Warsaw Pact, even though its authority was time and again undermined by the Romanians. Romania's independence left little room for the independence of others, and as such had to be isolated. The Prague Spring enabled the Romanians to turn their isolation into renewed independence.

Romania was the only Warsaw Pact country that did not have important bilateral military relations with the Soviet Union. Soviet prerogatives did not extend to the Romanian Army. The Soviet Union controlled the education of senior officers from all the members of the Warsaw Pact except Romania. Romania was the only Warsaw Pact state that had a doctrine of national defence against a Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion. In 1979, the Soviet Union gained East European acceptance (excepting Romania) of a statute under which all Warsaw Pact military forces were practically almost completely subordinated to the Soviet high command during wartime. Romania's veto stymied Khrushchev, but Brezhnev avoided this by dropping the unanimity principle. Romania, "the one openly recalcitrant" member of the Warsaw Pact, did not share a Soviet-inspired military doctrine that was irrelevant to its defensive needs as a sovereign state. Romania was the only member that had operational control over its armed forces. The Romanian-Soviet Treaty of Friendship was allowed to expire in 1968 and its renewal took two years. Unlike every other Warsaw Pact member, this treaty did not require signatories to respond automatically to an armed attack. The two countries were merely obliged to consult eachother on possible assistance. The Romanian Constitution was also amended to stipulate that only the Romanian Government could send forces to war and decide when this might be necessary.

Romania requested and obtained the complete withdrawal of the Red Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist-Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only the large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence of Moscow.

End of the Cold War (3 December 1989 to 21 November 1990)
On 3 December 1989, at the Malta Summit, the American and Soviet leadership declared the end of the Cold War, with Gorbachev announcing that the Soviet Union no longer regarded the United States as an enemy. However, historians generally recognize the official dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 as the end of the Cold War. The November 1990 Paris Charter had clearly ended the Cold War, but the swift disintegration of the Soviet Union so soon afterwards has led many to blur the distincion. The end of the Cold War did not depend on or await the fall of the Soviet system. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was the outcome of its deep internal revolutionary transformation, but that outcome was not the result of the revolutionary transformation of the outside world. As George F. Kennan had foreseen, the Cold War was ended by the softening and transformation of the Soviet system even before its collapse. It was assumed by all that the post-Cold War new world order which began in November 1990 would include the Soviet Union as a partner. Although the subsequent early demise of the Soviet Union did underscore the outcome of the Cold War, it was not necessarily an element in it. As opposed to a Western campaign against Soviet rule within the Soviet Union itself, President George Bush - fearing chaos if the Soviet Union collapsed - went out of his way to try to halt Soviet disintegration. For example, he stated while on a visit to Kiev that "freedom is not the same as independence" and he criticized Boris Yeltsin while praising Gorbachev's achievements and urging the Soviet republics to remain under Moscow's authority. Even when it came to the Baltic states - whose incorporation into the Soviet Union had never been formally accepted by the United States - President Bush withheld recognition of their declared independence until Gorbachev announced on 2 September 1991 that the Soviet Union would recognize them. In his New Year's message to the people of the Soviet Union, aired on 1 January 1990, Gorbachev declared that the year which had just passed had been the "year of the ending of the Cold War". Nevertheless, at the Malta and Washington summits, United States leaders had hesitated to acknowledge that the Cold War was coming to an end. On 6 July 1990, at the end of NATO's London summit, the London Declaration was issued which proclaimed the demise of the Cold War.