The Securitate (“Safety” in Rumanian), whose official name was Departamentul Securităţii Statului , namely “Department of the Safety of the State”, was the Rumanian secret police under the communist era. Previously the secret police was called Siguranţa statului (“State security”).

Paid to the number of inhabitants, its manpower were most important of all the secret polices of the communist bloc.

History

Foundation

The Head office of the safety of the people ( Direcţia Generală has Securităţii Poporului in Rumanian), more commonly called the Securitate , was officially founded, in close cooperation with Soviet officers of the KGB, the August 30th 1948 by the Decree n°221/30. However, it existed already in the facts since 1944 when the communist started to infiltrate with large scales the Ministry for the Interior matters.

Its posted goal was “to defend the conquests of the democracy and (...) to guarantee the safety of the Popular republic of Romania against the enemies as well interior as external” (“ has will apăra cuceririle democratice şi of has will asigura securitatea Republicii Populare Române împotriva uneltirilor dusmanilor interni if externi ”).

The position of director of Securitate was given to the Général Gheorghe Pintilie (of its true name Pantelei Bodnarenko, known under the pseudonym of Pantiusa ), while two Soviet officers became assistant editors. In fact, the two Soviets, the General Alexandru Nicolschi (a Roumanian born in Bessarabia, of its true name Boris Grumberg) and Vladimir Mazuru (born Mazurov), had the seizure on the organization: nobody could without their agreement obtain a station with responsibilities within Securitate.

At the beginning, much of the agents of Securitate were former members of royal Safety, the Direcţia Generală has Poliţiei de Siguranţă (Head office of safety). However, very quickly, Pintilie ordered the arrest of all those which had belonged to the police force under the monarchy and in the place of those, recruited dedicated members of the Communist party in order to ensure a total honesty within the organization.

The first budget of Securitate in 1948 gave a report on 4641 stations, out of which 3549 were occupied the February 11th 1949: 64% were workmen, 28% of the civils servant, 4% of the peasants, 2% of the intellectuals and 2% in the not specified beginning.

Countryside against the “enemies of class”

In 1951, manpower of Securitate had been multiplied by 5, in bond with the intensification of the Class struggle in Romania. At the instigation of the Party, Securitate started to pursue the opponents with the mode. Special prisons were arranged to receive the “enemies of class”, generally without preliminary lawsuit. In these camps, the prisoners worked until death or quite simply were shot. One of these prisons, located at Sighet, was transformed into museum testifying to the oppression of the Communist regime.

In 1964, the government proclaimed a general Amnistie: according to the official statistics of Securitate, 10.014 prisoners were slackened of these camps. Official propaganda declared that there was no more no political prisoner in Romania, even if the arrests for “conspiracy against the social order” or “plot” were frequent.

Call to the “popular conscience”

After this amnesty, Securitate called some with the “popular conscience”, which in fact meant significant rise of the use, by the organization, advisers. Many Roumanians were forced to give information on friends or their family while resorting to the Délation. The advisers signed a contract by which they were committed “announcing the threats against the State”.

In the Years 1980, Securitate launched a vast campaign for éradiquer dissidence to Romania:

• handling of the population by means of false rumors (like contacts supposed with the Western intelligence services), of machinations, false evidence, public denunciations;
• will to draw up certain parts of the population ones against the others;
• humiliation as a public of the dissidents;
• Censure reinforced;
• repression of the least sign of independence on behalf of the intellectuals.

The entry forces some inside the houses and of the offices was another process used by Securitate in order to tap information of the whole of the population.

Organization

Head office of the technical operations

The Head office of the technical operations ( Direcţia Generală de Tehnică Operativă ) is a element-key of Securitate. Created with the assistance of the Soviets in 1954, it supervised all the voice communications and electronic last in Romania or direction from abroad. It had put on listening the telephones and intercepted all the messages sent by Télégraphe or Téléscripteur, having placed micro in the public buildings and deprived. Almost all the conversations directed towards communist Romania would have been listened by this department.

Direction of against-espionage

The Direction of the Against-espionage ( Direcţia de Contraspionaj ) inquired into all the foreigners residing in Romania and made very to prevent those from coming into contact with the Roumanians. If a contact were impossible to stop, it put under monitoring the people. Many measurements were installation in order to prevent that the Roumanians live with foreign nationals. Thus any person knowing a foreigner was to announce it under 12 midnight. This Direction was also charged to stop the Roumanians who would seek asylum in the foreign embassies.

Penitentiary direction

The penitentiary Direction operated in the Rumanian, known prisons for their deplorable living conditions. The prisoners were regularly beaten, could not lay out doctors nor to receive mail; sometimes, of the amounts mortals of poison were managed to them.

Direction of the internal security

The Direction of the internal security ( Direcţia de Securitate Interned ) was charged to eliminate the dissidents within the Communist party. It was almost about Securitate in Securitate. It was it which put on table of listening the telephones of the other officers of Securitate in order to ensure a total honesty.

National Commission of the visas and the passports

The National Commission of the visas and the passports controlled all the voyages and the emigration towards Romania or in direction from abroad. In fact, the emigration was impossible, except for the members placed high of the Party: any Roumanian who would have made the step in this direction would have been immediately returned of his work and is prohibited to exert a trade which would not be manual.

When in 1988 the laws on the emigration were softened, nearly 40.000 Roumanians fled in Hungary.

Direction of the troops of safety

The Direction of the troops of safety was made up of a force Paramilitaire of 20.000 men, equipped with Artillerie light and armored vehicles. It kept the buildings of the Télévision and the radio like those of the party. In order to make sure of the total honesty of these troops of elite, there were five times more political police chiefs within Management of the troops of safety that in the regular army. In the event of Coup d'etat, this one was called in reinforcement of the mode. The troops of safety profited from privileged treatments and often lived under living conditions higher than the remainder of the population.

Direction of the Militia

The Direction of the Militia controlled the Rumanian police force and dealt in particular with the control of circulation.

Direction V

The Direction V included/understood the bodyguards of the dignitaries of the mode.

Last years

In the last decade of the Ceauşescu mode, there no was notable movement of dissidence. However, there were some scattered and rare revolts which revealed at the great day the dissatisfactions concerning the living conditions. These movements of opposition germinated near dissidents various, working, ethnic minorities and religious and even near members of the lower levels of the PCR.

Securitate easily succeeded in choking these movements owing to the fact that the dissidents were isolated and very few. But the industrial workmen had become, towards the end of the year 1970, an important threat against the Ceauşescu mode and the driving role of the PCR. In the years 1980, the dissatisfaction with the proletariat continued to grow, particularly because of the collapse of the nation's economy and the increasingly precarious standard of living. The poverty and the rationing of food, fuel and electricity have thus affected in first the working class.

Ceauşescu prevented the development of a true movement of workers like the Solidarność in Poland, while being helped of Securitate but also of the police force. Securitate had a strategy varied and effective to repress the dissidents. Its agents resorted to various means going of harassing, while passing by threats and intimidation while going to beating up. The dissidents were often congédiés, shown and imprisoned for “parasitism” even if they were committed nowhere.

To move away them from/to each other and to prevent them from setting up bonds with Western diplomats like with representatives of the mass media of the country, which could have drawn the attention of the whole world, the authorities refused the visas to them of pendular, necessary if one wanted to live in a big city. Sometimes, to avoid drawing the attention to them, the known dissidents were not officially marked or were judged in secrecy by military tribunals. Certain known dissidents were not écroués but their telephone was put under listening, their mail was supervised and they could be apprehended without reason. Some thus practically lived with the stops in residence, were continuously supervised by agents of the securitate as a civilian and police officers in uniform which intimidated potential visitors.

The mass media denounced often publicly the dissidents as being “traitors”, “spies imperialists” or “servants of the old mode”. When certain cases of dissidents arriving for submission to the international organizations for the defense of the human rights, failing to be able to take measures against those, the securitate endeavoured to make it leave the country while returning the impossible life to him and by granting an exit visa to him.

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