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romania

Relations were bad between the USSR and Romania before World War II. First, we had claims against Romania for Bessarabia, which it had annexed after the October revolution, when we didn’t yet have a new army. Later relations were strained further because Romania became a place of refuge for bands of White Guards. Makhno’s bands also fled across the border to Romania, although Makhno himself made his way to France, by way of

Romania, Poland, and Germany. He died in France.1

It’s hard for me to explain Romania’s pugnacious anti-Soviet attitude. When I was working as first secretary of the Ukrainian party’s Central Committee [beginning in 1938], I knew about the complicated and difficult situation on the Romanian border [before World War II], and sometimes I went to the border region myself. It ran along the Dniester River.2 I was warned that provocative shots were often fired at our border troops in that area; therefore I should avoid making myself visible at or near the border. In 1940 we occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina,3 which was inhabited mainly by Ukrainians. That was one more step in the process of unifying the Ukrainian lands.

This part of the memoirs was dictated in 1970. [SK]

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Thus [in 1940] we arrived at the former border between tsarist Russia and Romania, on the Pruth River.4 In those days I often had occasion to travel from Chernovtsy [Chernovitsy before 1944] to Stanislav [later renamed IvanoFrankovsk].5 A military camp with a lot of Romanian soldiers was visible from our side [across the Chorny Cheremosh River]. One day they opened fire from that camp. They weren’t firing directly at my vehicle, but they were firing in our general direction. The vehicle was stuck and its wheels were spinning. While we were messing around with it, their commander apparently concluded that we were conducting observations from our side of the river, and he gave the order to open fire to give us a warning. He just wanted to scare us so that we would leave faster.

We never reacted to such provocations. We didn’t allow an equivalent response from our side. We wanted good relations with our Romanian neighbor, as with all other countries. But after we had occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina—that is, less than a year before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War—a certain lack of restraint on the part of the pro-Nazi government of Romania became evident. General Antonescu, who was the dominant figure in Romania, became friendly with Hitler. According to the two Soviet-German agreements of 1939, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland belonged to our sphere of influence, that is, to our realm of interests. If this step that we took is to be categorized in political language, what occurred was that the Soviet Union was drawn into a provocation. Hitler wanted to deceive Stalin by making promises to him and allowing him to occupy the above-named territories. Meanwhile Hitler himself was preparing a devastating blow against the USSR. That’s why he made this concession to us, giving us Bessarabia, in order to secure the support of Romania, so that it would take his side in the event of war.

When we occupied Bessarabia, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Its capital was Tiraspol, a beautiful, clean, white town on the banks of the Dniester.6 A question came up as to whether the Moldavian Autonomous Republic should become a union republic in its own right. This idea ripened in my mind. I reported on the subject to Stalin and proposed that a new union republic be created—Moldavia, with its capital at Kishinev.7 A resolution to that effect was adopted. To this day the Moldavian SSR is one of the constituent republics of the USSR. Its economy and culture are developing successfully. I have been to Moldavia more than once, and I was always delighted by the successes achieved by the Moldavian people, a diligent and industrious people who do excellent work in both field and factory.

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As Hitler had proposed, Romania became his ally and went to war against us in 1941. During the war, being a member of the Military Council of the Southwestern Area Command (which combined the Southwestern Front and the Southern Front), I often encountered prisoners of war who fell into our hands in the southern part of our country, and I even interrogated some of them. In 1942, Italian and Romanian troops were fighting there as well as Germans. For the Stalingrad Front the largest areas where our front lines were contiguous with enemy front lines were with Romanians, who held the positions along the right flank of Hitler’s Stalingrad group—that is, along our left flank in the Lake Tsatsa region.8 It was in that region that we later carried out our successful operation surrounding the German troops at Stalingrad from the south. Those who remained alive [among the encircled German troops] were taken prisoner, with their commander, Field Marshal Paulus, at their head. There were many Romanians in that region. When we went on the offensive, we struck our main blow precisely at the positions held by Romanian troops. They didn’t fight well, and their resistance was quickly overcome. I don’t think that’s because of any particular national character or qualities of the Romanian soldiers, but because the Romanians didn’t really know why they were participating in that war or what they were fighting for. They had no reason to be in the war. Still, many of their soldiers died there and many were taken prisoner.

In 1944, as we approached Bessarabia and fighting broke out on its territory, and then as we approached the borders of Romania itself, it became evident that the pointer on the scale had tipped strongly in the direction of victory for our side. The result was that Romanian troops were even less inclined to resist our forces. Then a coup occurred in Romania. The young King Michael took part in it.9 [Gheorghe] Gheorghiu-Dej reminisced that he was sitting in prison with his comrades at the time and one day he was taken to the palace in Bucharest for negotiations about the formation of a new government with Communist participation.10 In Romania a situation took shape in which the sympathies of the people moved to the left, the authority of the Communist Party rose, and the king decided the Communists should participate in the new government that was being formed. I am relating here what I heard from Dej more than once in subsequent times. The Nazis began bombing Bucharest, but our forces had already entered Romanian territory, and Romania turned against Germany and began fighting on our side.

The question of whether Romania would take the socialist path did not come up at that time. The social order existing there was capitalist. Soon a new man became head of the government—Petru Groza,11 a very wealthy man and a landowner, but one with progressive ideas. He began pursuing a

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policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union and later became our good friend. The war ended. For the time being the government remained a monarchy. The Soviet Union awarded the Order of Victory12 to King Michael. This award was in recognition of Romania’s change of policy [turning against Hitler]. At any rate, King Michael wanted friendly relations with us. I knew this from reports that I became acquainted with. General Zheltov13 was our commandant in Bucharest at that time. I recently saw him on a television program. He is a veteran political official of the Soviet Army. He told about his conversations with King Michael, mainly during hunting expeditions. So it turns out that Zheltov even became friends with the king and took part in his leisure activities.

Subsequently events developed under the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party, which became more and more influential among the people. Granted permission by the new leadership, the king quietly left Romania, although he didn’t want to. As Dej reminisced, “We told him he could take everything with him that he considered necessary, but he had to leave his kingdom.” With that the rule of the monarchy in Romania ended. Later Romania declared itself to be a country that would build socialism.

For a while Dej was minister of roads and railways in the new government. The [general] secretary of the Romanian Communist Party’s Central Committee was Ana Pauker.14 I never met her personally, but I heard many good things about her from Manuilsky, who knew her from the Comintern and valued her highly as a well-trained individual.15 In general he considered her the best-trained person among the Communists in Romania in theoretical respects, and he felt she could be relied on as a person who stood firmly on the ground of Marxism-Leninism. [Vasile] Luca16 was also part of the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party. I had met with him earlier, when he was working in the underground in Chernovitsy and consequently became a Soviet citizen when the Soviet Union occupied the part of Romania that had included Chernovitsy in 1940, and we assigned him to continue to engage in party work there. A year later, when we retreated, Luca retreated together with our troops. When we liberated this territory again [in 1944], Luca worked for a while in the same city [which was now called Chernovtsy], but later he was invited to Budapest when the Communist leadership [of the new Romanian government] was formed. He was invited in his capacity as a member of the Communist Party of Romania who had served time in Romanian prisons together with his other leading comrades.

While Stalin was still alive I met Petru Groza. He made a good impression on Stalin, who showed sympathy for Groza. No longer young, he was a rather

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original figure, not a Communist, but a progressive leader. After the war he personally gave up the property he had formerly owned and turned it over to the government and distributed his land to the peasants. I want to tell now about a vacation Groza took in fall 1951 in Sochi. Stalin was also on vacation there at the time. I didn’t want to go there, but Stalin literally dragged me there along with him. Voroshilov17 was also there. But in those days Voroshilov no longer had any particular influence with Stalin and didn’t even enjoy Stalin’s respect. Voroshilov simply came there out of old habit. A former dacha of his remained there from the time when he had been people’s commissar of defense. He had built it. It was called Kholodny Ruchei (Cold Brook). It had been built with a great deal of pretension, being somewhat similar in layout to the former tsar’s palace at Livadia.18

I knew ahead of time that Groza was coming there. Stalin found this pleasing, a point he emphasized repeatedly at meals. Everyone was waiting for Groza expectantly. I was occupying a dacha which for those days was fairly modest. Voroshilov was living next to me. In preparation for Groza’s arrival Stalin also moved. He went to Gagra19 to a dacha called Kholodnaya Rechka (Cold Little River), which consisted of several buildings, not just one. A vacation resort is located there now (a dom otdykha). Suddenly Stalin called me on the phone: “Where are you staying?”

I told him.

He said: “But that’s a crummy, lousy dacha.”

I said: “No, what are you saying? It’s very nice. I find it quite suitable, and I like the fact that it’s right by the seashore. My wife and I are here together.” (Our children were university students at the time and therefore remained in Moscow.)

Stalin said: “I propose that you move immediately with your luggage to my Dacha No. 1 in Sochi. It’s much better.” (I knew that this was true because I had visited Stalin there a number of times, had stayed overnight, and on some occasions had spent several days there.)

I thanked him but refused: “What would I want that for? It’s far away from the seashore.” (That dacha was up in the mountains.)

He said: “You can always take a car if you want to go to the seashore. I propose that you move. What are you living in that bedraggled dacha for?”

With that the conversation ended, and I told my wife, Nina Petrovna, about it. Neither she nor I wanted to move. We felt fine about where we were. It was a comfortable little house, and we found it quite suitable. I began to wonder why Stalin was insisting so much in offering me his dacha, with which, of course, mine could not compare in any way. If I refused to move there, he

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might take a dim view of it, resenting that I responded to his kindness with a refusal. It would be very difficult later on to make myself understood. Stalin never wanted to understand things in ordinary human terms. I felt obliged to suggest to my wife: “All right, let’s pack our suitcases and move over there.”

So that’s what we did. We summoned a car, picked up our luggage, and left. It took us about thirty minutes. We settled in at the new dacha, which was called Stalin’s Dacha No. 1. Nevertheless, I refused to take the building where Stalin usually lived, but took the building next to it, which was for visitors, but was also large and luxurious.

We settled in and spent the night. The next day Voroshilov called: “Where are you?”

“At Dacha No. 1.”

“Meanwhile I’ve moved into your dacha. What a crummy one! There are ants in it, and the devil only knows how poor the conditions are here!”

“Why did you move to my dacha from the good one you had?”

“Stalin called up and recommended that I immediately occupy your dacha.” Only then did it become clear to me why Stalin had been insisting so stubbornly. He wanted to free up Voroshilov’s luxurious dacha for Petru Groza. Now I understood Stalin’s gambit. He wanted to make an impression on Groza and provide the best conditions for his vacation. Of course it would have been simpler to suggest that Voroshilov immediately move over to Stalin’s Dacha No.1. Voroshilov would have been ecstatic. But at that time he had fallen out of favor with Stalin, and something like that would have seemed to some extent like being restored to Stalin’s good graces. Stalin arranged a more humiliating rearrangement of living quarters, and Voroshilov’s pride was wounded deeply. I met Groza at that time during dinners at Stalin’s place, but only briefly, in passing. Later I met him again after Stalin’s death, in China, at the celebration of some anniversary.20 Groza was heading the

Romanian delegation. There too our meeting was rather cursory.

Soon after the war the exposure of “enemies of the people” began in the fraternal countries [that is, the Soviet-dominated countries of Eastern Europe]. Romania was also sucked into this whirlpool. Luca was arrested. Formerly a worker, they made an “agent of hostile enemy intelligence” out of him. Some pamphlets were even published, “demonstrating” that he had been an intelligence agent. I don’t believe the charge at all. It would have been impossible to find real evidence of any such thing, but it could be fabricated. Thus Luca’s head rolled. Ana Pauker was also arrested. Dmitry Zakharovich Manuilsky was greatly shaken by this. He told me: “She’s the most honorable of persons! Life itself determined which side she would be on. She sided firmly with the

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working class.” She ended up in prison but was later released. That was only after Stalin’s death, however. She had contracted cancer, and an operation was performed. The poor woman experienced not only physical suffering but also moral, because at the end of her life she was deprived of the party’s confidence in her. When meeting with the Romanian comrades, I heard Dej denounce her up one side and down the other, alleging that she was not a true Communist, that she exaggerated her own abilities and her role in the Romanian revolutionary movement, and so forth.

There were three other prominent figures among the Romanian Communist leaders: Chivu Stoica,21 a comrade whose last name was Apostol,22 and Nicolae Ceausescu. All these people passed through the school of the Romanian prisons [before the revolution]. Today Ceausescu is president of Romania and general secretary of the Communist Party of Romania. Dej told us that Ceausescu and he had been in the same prison together. At that time Ceausescu headed the Young Communist League of Romania and was a good, steadfast Communist.23 He had taken a good position, and Dej felt special respect and confidence toward him.

Among the older generation of Communist leaders in Romania was [Emil] Bodnaras. He had also passed through the school of the prisons. After Stalin’s death, when I began to meet with representatives of the fraternal parties, including the Romanians, Bodnaras held the post of minister of defense, as I recall.24 He made a good impression. He spoke Russian better than the others, and it was easy for me to communicate with him without a translator. I remember that he spoke Russian without a noticeable accent. Good relations developed between us and the Romanian leadership.

Romania was economically backward, more so than the other fraternal countries. It was rather impoverished and was oriented mainly toward agriculture. But it did have some great natural riches: oil, natural gas, and valuable timber reserves; in fact it exported the latter item. Romania occupies a splendid territory in geographical respects, and its land is fertile. Therefore its agricultural production exceeds its domestic requirements, and that became a fairly solid basis for earning foreign currency, a favorable condition for the development of other branches of the economy. Romania evolved into a strong country of the socialist type. The Romanian comrades took the road of combining peasant households into cooperatives, just as we had. Everything went along successfully. Of course they also had disturbances in their country. Uprisings took place in some isolated villages, but they managed to deal with it. The cooperative farms began working well. For our part, we helped them organize tractor production and the establishment of a mechanized basis for engaging

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in agriculture. We also helped them set up production of motor vehicles, steam and diesel locomotives, oil refineries, and metallurgical plants. In short, everything the new Romania needed and was not able to do by itself, we provided, delivering technology and equipment and sending our specialists and advisers.

As I’ve related previously, a Soviet-Romanian joint company, a joint operation called Sovrum, was functioning there. In particular it was engaged in mining uranium.25 Some formerly German-owned factories also were part of this company. In effect this joint operation infringed on Romania’s sovereignty, and after Stalin’s death we eliminated the company. Later, if any discussion about it came up, Dej would repeatedly intone “Sovrum! Sovrum!” with a bitter look on his face, as though he were cursing.26 We eliminated joint companies like that in all the fraternal countries, understanding that they were like a sore toe on someone else’s foot that we had stepped on, that we were offending their sense of national dignity and bringing dissension into our own camp.

In addition, we had a special conversation with the Romanian leadership concerning the illegal arrests and executions that had taken place under Stalin. Dej reacted in a restrained way, and to the very end, every time we met, he insisted that the arrests had been proper. The Romanian leadership paid special attention to the question of its own national homogeneity, seeking to remove people of non-Romanian origin. Pauker had been Jewish, and Luca had Ukrainian blood in his veins.27 The only non-Romanian in their Politburo during my time was a Hungarian from Transylvania,28 a very good comrade and a friend of Dej. Apparently that’s why he remained in the leadership. There are many Hungarians living in Transylvania, and it was as though he were representing them in the leadership. That of course was not stated officially anywhere. Those are just my assumptions. But I can’t say anything bad about any of those comrades; I consider them all worthy of respect.

In the first years after Stalin’s death, we often invited leaders of the fraternal countries to come to Moscow to have discussions on one or another confidential subject. Molotov at that time still enjoyed our absolute confidence, and we assigned him to carry on these discussions as the oldest member of the Central Committee Presidium.29 However, he conducted himself in an arrogant way, not on an equal footing. He “issued instructions” [handed out orders] to representatives of the other Communist parties. He treated them as though they ought to listen to what he said and do as he commanded. They were offended by this and insulted, and after Molotov had been removed from our leadership, Dej a number of times recalled him with annoyance. As for me, I never tried to invite myself as a guest to visit Romania and only

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went there when I was invited by our hosts. We came to an agreement in advance about when I would come and what questions our hosts were interested in discussing. However, I couldn’t travel from Moscow to any other country without a specific decision to that effect by our leadership. On one occasion we were having a discussion under such conditions, and suddenly Comrade Bodnaras brought up a question that I was not ready for and had never thought about. He asked: “What is your opinion, Comrade Khrushchev? Shouldn’t Soviet troops be withdrawn from Romania?”

I was taken aback. None of us had thought about that in those days. On the contrary, we assumed that as long as the Cold War was continuing and as long as we had no assurance of nonaggression on the part of the imperialist powers, we thought it inappropriate to weaken the borders that the socialist camp had in common or allow any breaches to appear in those lines. So far from thinking along the lines expressed by Bodnaras, we were thinking about strengthening the common defense. The proposal that had been made, from our point of view, would have weakened the positions of the socialist countries, because in particular it would have left a large stretch of the coast of the Black Sea unprotected. As far as I recall, I reacted sharply: “What’s that? What for? Why, our enemies could take advantage of that.”

He replied: “What enemies do we have there? All our borders are with socialist countries. Generally speaking, it would be impossible to invade us without invading other fraternal countries first.”

“Well, but what about the Black Sea? And Turkey? An invasion could be carried out through Turkey in whatever direction NATO ordered it.”

“Yes, but after all, the USSR is right there next to us.”

“Yes, we’re right next to you, but in spite of that a certain amount of time would be lost transferring troops, whereas now our divisions are positioned there with their guns aimed at the Black Sea coast. If an enemy landing were made, our troops would go into battle immediately.”

“Well, we only wanted to raise the question and find out your opinion.” “Well, what I’m saying here is only my opinion. I don’t know what atti-

tude my comrades would take toward it. We’ll have an exchange of views on the subject, but I don’t think the necessary conditions for this have yet ripened.”

Actually, I would hardly have used an expression like “conditions have not yet ripened” at that time. My understanding of things then was fairly solidly fixed on the concept that defenses needed to be strengthened and that the strengthening of defenses was inseparably linked with the continuing presence of our troops on the territories of the fraternal countries. Later we stopped

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talking about this subject at all. And our Romanian colleagues did not insist. After they found out my opinion they decided to leave everything as it was. Only later did Dej once ask me: “Do you know why we brought up the question about withdrawal of your troops back then?”

I answered: “No, I don’t know why.”

“On one occasion, when we arrived in Moscow for talks, Molotov went after us and began cursing us up one side and down the other. He allowed himself to use monstrous expressions. He said the only reason we remained in power was because of the help given us by the Russian people and that it was only thanks to the presence of Soviet troops. He said: ‘If those troops weren’t there, you wouldn’t stay in power for even one week.’ We were offended and insulted by this. We felt confident that we were in the leadership not because of the presence of foreign troops but as a result of the confidence placed in us by the Romanian people. We wanted to convince you of that, and that’s why we proposed that your troops be withdrawn. We were absolutely certain that even after your troops were withdrawn our position would remain just as solid, because we held power as a result of the confidence of the people and not because of the presence of your tanks.”

We, of course, had not correctly understood their proposal when it was made back then. We assumed that the aim they were pursuing was to free themselves from our influence, that they were displaying lack of understanding of the imperialist threat against the socialist countries.

I don’t remember how much time went by, but that conversation with the Romanians stuck in my mind, especially after another conversation with Dej [on the same subject]. In my thoughts I returned to this problem many times. It seemed that Dej was a sincere person; he was not trying to pull a fast one on me—not trying to use cunning or stratagems with me. I was concerned about the feeling of insult [over Molotov’s remarks], and I continued to reflect on the problem. Gradually we strengthened our position in the world and began to feel surer of ourselves. We no longer looked at the surrounding capitalist world as Stalin had. Capitalist encirclement had always made him afraid, and he lived in constant expectation of war. Nor did we forget about capitalist encirclement, but we knew that our strength had grown. We now had missiles, atomic bombs, and hydrogen bombs. The socialist countries had built up their economic as well as military power. Our armed forces could compete with the armed forces of any country, and everyone had to take us into account. Our military power strengthened our policy of peaceful coexistence, the only possible and only correct policy in humankind’s transitional period on the way to socialism.

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For the time being the forces of socialism were less than those of capitalism. But in recent times new forces had appeared that did not belong to either military bloc. These were the nonaligned countries. They were fairly numerous. A struggle for their support lay before us. These were reserve forces [potentially]. To a considerable extent the transition of all countries in the world to the building of socialism would be determined by the question: “On which side would they choose to exert their efforts?” After prolonged reflection the opinion ripened in my mind that the Romanian comrades were right. We should accommodate them and withdraw our troops. We didn’t have that many troops there anyhow: just a few divisions. In the western parts of the USSR we had many more troops. In addition to the arguments I have indicated above, there was also the consideration that if we withdrew our troops from Romania and stationed them somewhere in Moldavia or Izmail province,30 essentially very little would change in the event of an attack by our enemies on Romania. The distances there are not great if we needed to rush to the Romanians’ assistance. It wouldn’t take much time to overcome those distances. We had powerful aircraft. We had ships and planes armed with missiles, and we had short-range missiles. Also our naval forces were not in bad shape, so that it would be no simple matter for the enemy to try to make a landing on the coast of Romania. From the sound of things the enemy would not have a relaxed, easygoing stroll, but would have to think seriously before undertaking such an action. The political confidence we displayed toward the Romanians would be favorably evaluated by them. It would be a demonstration of equal partnership and a good propaganda argument for us against countries that maintain troops on foreign territory. It was at that very time that we were emphasizing the slogan of “withdrawal of all foreign troops to within their national borders.” Even today that’s a pretty powerful slogan, and we need to fight to have it carried out. But how can you fight for that if a political leader is advocating détente in international relations, and all the while troops from his country are stationed on the territories of other countries? The reputation of such a political leader would be undermined, and no one would have confidence in what he was advocating. For all these reasons I thought the withdrawal of our troops from Romania would be expedient.

I brought the question up within our leadership, proposed an exchange of views, and suggested we return to the subject of the discussion we had had earlier with the Romanian comrades. We invited the minister of defense of the USSR and asked him his point of view. However, even before that, having brought the question before the Central Committee Presidium, I had had an exchange of opinions with him, and he had agreed with me. Defense Minister

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Malinovsky at the session of the Presidium confirmed that the withdrawal of troops would not weaken our military positions. Besides, we would obtain some material relief as a result, because it was twice as expensive to maintain troops outside our borders as on our own territory. We decided the matter then and there and announced our decision to the Romanians.31 They of course were very pleased. Their idea had triumphed, along with the realization that we treated them with confidence and respect.

It’s true that our relations went sour later on. But trying to improve relations by introducing your forces onto the territory of another country or keeping them there is no method at all. On the contrary, while creating the appearance of good relations, such a situation serves, beneath the surface, as a kind of time bomb that at some point will work against good relations between countries.

Back then, immediately after the withdrawal of our troops, relations with Romania continued to develop on especially favorable terms, with mutual assistance being kept in mind. But “mutual assistance” is just a phrase. In actual fact we helped them more than they helped us. Mutual assistance consisted in the fact that our interests and Romania’s interests were interconnected in the sphere of international relations.

On questions of internal policy, each country went about its own business and developed its economy in order to raise the living standards of its people. Continuing to cooperate in the economic sphere, we provided all possible support to Romania. In return it paid us with goods and raw materials, the most valuable component of which was uranium ore. We paid for it at world prices, but if it is kept in mind that there was great demand in the world for uranium ore and that it had a particular [military] significance, it can be considered that this was essential aid to us on the part of our Romanian friends. Of course there’s another side to this question. The delivery of uranium ore was paid for by goods that we delivered in exchange. Besides, its use for making nuclear weapons was in the interests of both Romania and the USSR, as well as the other socialist countries. I would even say in the interests of all progressive people on earth, those who stand for and have stood for peaceful coexistence and exert their efforts to avoid war.

I traveled to Romania many times—on official visits, for brief vacations, and for discussions in the line of business. I became fairly well acquainted with the life of the country and its natural environment. It made a vivid impression on me. Romania has a splendid climate, good soil, and high yields in agriculture. And the Carpathian Mountains are something indeed to remember! The hunting there is wonderful, with abundant game. The most valuable type of animal to hunt is bear. And there were many bears in those mountains.

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The main thing, however, was not the beautiful views or the excellent hunting, but how well the people worked. Romania developed its agriculture quite thoroughly, producing a surplus of agricultural goods and exporting grain and corn. If to that we add traditional export commodities such as oil and timber, which are also very valuable, it becomes clear why Romania’s economy developed successfully and why it enjoyed a favorable balance of payments.

Some other socialist countries were offended by Romania and accused it of focusing solely on its own national interests. The chief accusation was that the Romanians, while being very well provided for with the amount of arable land per capita and having a surplus of agricultural products, failed to move in the direction of offering those products to the other socialist countries in exchange for the delivery of goods from those countries. Romania preferred to sell its agricultural products to the capitalist countries. I understood these accusations, but I didn’t always agree with them. Romania needed foreign currency, just like every country does. If it sold its agricultural surpluses to the fraternal countries, it would no longer be able to go shopping on the world capitalist market [having no foreign currency for that], and consequently it would not be able to buy the instruments and equipment that its economy needed. After all, it could not satisfy all its needs with goods produced in the socialist countries, and it would end up without any foreign currency. This is a complicated problem, and a sober approach must be taken toward evaluating it. Passions should not be allowed to get out of hand, and the interests of one’s partner must be taken into account. In this connection I remember Bulgaria’s claims against Romania and Yugoslavia when the latter two countries were holding talks about building a hydroelectric power plant along a stretch of the Danube River called the Iron Gate.32 Bulgaria took no part in the construction of the power plant, but it claimed the right to receive part of the electricity produced by that plant for the needs of its economy. The Romanians and Yugoslavs had a bad reaction to this claim. They felt dissatisfied, but at the same time they didn’t feel comfortable expressing their dissatisfaction, and for that reason they didn’t reply to the Bulgarians in the affirmative or the negative. They simply pursed their lips [and said nothing], to use an expression common among the people.

As I’ve recounted earlier, I noticed that the Romanians also took offense against us. I drew the conclusion from this that they apparently thought the claims made by Bulgaria had been coordinated with the USSR, which was supporting them, although this was not stated anywhere. After a considerable time we had another one of our regular meetings with our Romanian comrades. Our relations had already begun to go bad at that time, and we didn’t want

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them to get any worse. The question of Bulgaria’s claims was touched on. We explained that by no means did we share the Bulgarian point of view. On the contrary we had recommended to the Bulgarian comrades, with whom we had always had the very best relations, that they should take an understanding attitude toward the reluctance of Romania and Yugoslavia to satisfy their demands. We thought these demands had no substance to them and that they could not be taken into account because the territory where the dam was being built was not Bulgarian and the plant itself would do no harm to Bulgaria. Consequently there were no grounds for demanding compensation. The Bulgarian claims gave the appearance of intervening in the internal affairs of other countries. There was no basis for demanding that Bulgaria should be given something in this connection or that the fruits of this project should be shared with the Bulgarians if the Bulgarians had not participated in the work. After that conversation the Bulgarian comrades did not insist on their demands any longer, and this question never came up again. The Romanians listened to us very attentively when we told them this, and Dej was watching me especially closely.

He said: “When did you tell the Bulgarians this?”

I answered him. I repeated that in response to the Bulgarian proposals I had stated that such claims could only cause fraternal relations to grow worse.

Dej said nothing and we discussed the question no further.

With the passage of time, however, relations between the Soviet Union and Romania kept growing worse. We received reports that the Romanians were condemning us at closed party meetings and expressing all sorts of negative things against the Soviet Union. I don’t remember now exactly what they were accusing us of. Later the unfavorable attitude toward our country began to be expressed by having the names of streets changed. Some streets in Bucharest previously had Russian names, and by no means all of them were the names of prominent political figures in our time. [That is, they were from earlier history.] The streets were renamed. Meanwhile we had been doing everything we could not to infringe on the national feelings of our neighbors and not to do them any economic harm. If our economic relations are examined, it can be seen that they operated in favor of Romania. Our technical aid, construction projects, and scientific information were provided to them free of charge, and goods were supplied on credit at a minimal rate of interest that the Romanians had to pay, and the time allowed for repayment was much longer than is usually the custom in the world. As I recall, the USSR provided credit for the building of factories in Romania charging 2.5 percent interest. If we had used this capital, which we gave to Romania on credit—if we had

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used it inside the USSR and sold the surplus products from the factories and plants built with this capital—we would have earned much more [than the 2.5 percent]. However, that would not have represented fraternal relations between socialist countries; it would have been the kind of relations that exist between capitalist countries. While trade among socialist countries is sometimes calculated on the basis of world market prices, we felt that in this case, to the contrary, we should provide aid to the Romanian people. It would have seemed that this policy line should have impressed the Romanians. But it didn’t turn out that way and we felt chagrined, and so we decided to meet with the Romanian side again, hear what they had to say, and try to speak candidly with them. We wanted them to tell us honestly what they were dissatisfied about and what was needed in order to remove obstacles to normal development and the strengthening of fraternal relations.

I was assigned to head a delegation of the CPSU to a regular congress of the Romanian Workers Party in summer 1960.33 This congress of the Romanian Party took place at the time when the Chinese Communist Party had already begun its open polemic against us. We wanted to hold a preliminary conference of the fraternal Communist parties and have an exchange of views on current questions. We succeeded in organizing such a gathering. It was not an official conference, but exactly what I have said—an exchange of opinions on currently disputed questions that had become painful, questions mainly being raised by the Chinese. At that time the Romanian Workers Party shared our point of view on these questions, and on this level we did not have any disagreements with them. At the conference it became evident that Albania was taking a pro-Chinese position and speaking out against us. I asked the Albanian representative what was the explanation for this. He replied that he was only following the orders of his leadership.

This was spoken candidly, but for me such an explanation was insufficient. Everything became clear later, although even now, if I was subjected to strict interrogation, I would say that I don’t fully understand why the Albanian Party of Labor decided to go along with the Chinese against the CPSU. I cannot give any really intelligible explanations. I suppose that the Albanian Party of Labor itself could not give any intelligible explanations. At the conference in Bucharest all the other parties, aside from the representatives of the Albanian Party of Labor and the Chinese Communist Party, expressed unanimity and adopted a common position flowing from the decisions of the International Conference of Communist and Workers’ parties of [November] 1957, held in Moscow. However, we had firm knowledge that the Romanians, confidentially, inside their own party, were conducting “explanatory” work

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aimed against the Soviet Union and the CPSU. We wrote an official letter to the Romanian comrades asking them to think over all those problems that from their point of view were interfering with our fraternal relations, so that our disagreements could be eliminated. We sincerely stated that we did not understand the source of the unfriendly attitude toward the USSR. We presented the following arguments, along with others: “History had made us neighbors. If we didn’t like each other [that was one thing], but no one chooses their neighbors, and it’s better to live in peace and friendship with your neighbors; we didn’t want our relations to go bad. On the contrary, we wanted them to improve; we had lived peacefully side by side with Romania when it was ruled by a king; we lived side by side with it when Antonescu was carrying out a policy hostile toward us; we wanted our relations to remain fraternal, and we would do everything possible so that they would remain warm and friendly; therefore we called on them to do the same on their side as we were doing.” But in reply the Romanians presented no persuasive or comprehensible counterarguments. At that point we decided to make another trip to Romania and look into all these matters right there on the spot.

Within the framework of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), and in our bilateral relations with Romania as well as with other socialist countries, when the various economic plans of each country were worked out matters of fundamental mutual interest were encountered. Each country expressed its wishes about what it wanted to obtain from another country, but such requests were not always satisfied. I would not say that this kind of thing always developed into a conflict. But the majority of countries presented their wishes (I don’t want to use the word “claims” because no one had the right to make claims; we were not debtors and creditors in relation to one another)—but they expressed such wishes toward us with the aim of receiving from us more than we were able to give. Our failure to satisfy their wishes left a bad taste in their mouths, which subsequently developed into an unfriendly attitude.

The Romanian comrades agreed to a meeting, and we decided to form a rather comprehensive delegation for this purpose. We included people who dealt with various economic and political questions and had been in contact with counterparts in Romania on such questions. I was assigned to head the delegation. Among the others in the delegation were Kosygin, Lesechko, who was the chairman of the executive committee of Comecon, and Andropov, from the apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee.34 And so we made our trip to Romania. On the Romanian side the entire leadership was present. The meeting was held on their territory and as hosts they received us. The

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meeting was held outside the capital city in a very lovely spot about thirty minutes from Bucharest. Whenever I went to Romania I was put up at that location. There was a lake, a forest, and a beautiful meadow alongside— among the fairest splendors of Romania. The first meeting was held at a table richly laden with delicacies.

I should note at once that on matters of principle our unanimity became evident. During the course of the discussion, however, I reminded the Romanian comrades that on one occasion we had felt frustrated and hurt by their refusal to respond to a request we had made. On one occasion we had a shortage of pesticides for combating sugar-beet weevils. Romania produced those pesticides. We requested that they supply us with a certain quantity in addition to what we had already purchased. Romania replied that it could provide what we had asked for on the condition that we paid with foreign currency or with goods salable on the world market to earn foreign currency. We agreed, but we felt hurt by their reply. After all, we had provided Romania with a great many types of goods and materials that could be sold on the world market for foreign currency and had never requested repayment in foreign currency. We had received ordinary products in exchange—of a kind that we could have obtained on any market. Dej heard me out and then turned to [Ion Gheorghe] Maurer,35 asking him if he could confirm my account. My account was confirmed to Dej. Lesechko and Kosygin recalled more details about this incident. The goods the Romanians had asked for in exchange for the pesticides had also been earmarked in our planning for sale on the world market to earn foreign currency, to pay for orders we had placed on the capitalist market. I said that I had given this example in order to show our friends that such cases did occur and were the result of the initiative taken by Romanian representatives. I said: “All sorts of things happen in matters of trade and commerce. Let’s come to an agreement, Comrade Dej, that in the future no dissension in our relations will occur and that we will not give each other any reason for dissension. Let’s make a separate chart or schedule for all deliveries of goods that are salable for foreign currency, including raw materials and finished products, so that both sides, in advance, can propose goods side by side that will be of equal value. Then no misunderstandings will arise.”

Dej replied: “All right, we agree.”

It seemed that he was satisfied with my remarks. But the conversation was joined by the chairman of the Romanian state planning commission, a good economist who knew his business. He objected: “I ask that such a decision not be made.” And he looked at me with a smile on his face.

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I asked him: “Why? That would create equal conditions, and there would be no reason for anyone to take offense.”

“That’s true, Comrade Khrushchev, but (and here he turned toward Dej) that’s not to our advantage, because right now we are receiving many goods from the USSR that can be sold for foreign currency and we’re paying for them with goods of a different kind.”

I insisted: “It turns out that there are complaints from both sides, and this will give rise to misunderstandings. So that that won’t happen in the future, let’s agree to keep separate accounts for all goods that are salable for foreign currency.” Now Dej himself replied: “Comrade Khrushchev, I ask you not to insist on that, because that kind of commerce would be very disadvantageous

for Romania.”

I said: “Right, I understand you. How much copper have we supplied to you? And we ourselves buy it on the world capitalist market and pay with gold. But you pay us with soft strips of wood for making containers to pack fruits and vegetables in.” That’s because Romania is close to Moldavia, which needs a lot of container packaging for fruits and vegetables. For our convenience in shipping fruits and vegetables beyond the borders of Moldavia, Romania made wooden boxes, and we were paying with foreign currency for these— that is, for scrap wood!

I continued: “Under the new conditions we can’t keep doing this. Let our economic managers find some other solution. There are other possibilities open to us. We can start making paper containers or we can supply our own wood for these boxes. We also have the Carpathian Mountains nearby on our territory. Ukraine can supply Moldavia with container packaging.”

The Romanian comrades started asking us not to establish such a system of trade on a parity basis.

So I made this proposal: “All right. Let’s keep trading in the old way, but then the question comes up, ‘What other complaints remain? What is it that is now dividing us? What contributes to the special separate position that we notice being taken by the Romanian comrades?’” We didn’t hear anything comprehensible in reply to that.

Subsequently Romania continued its policy of setting itself apart and taking its own special position within the socialist camp, and this was expressed in various aspects of life. I will just give one example. Our young women who had married Romanian students who had been studying in our country [and then had gone with their husbands to Romania] began returning to the USSR. Their husbands were divorcing them, because an intolerable atmosphere had been created around them. Other unpleasant incidents occurred

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of a domestic character, not to mention openly political matters. As before, inside their country the Romanians continued to conduct propaganda against the Soviet Union. Soon a delegation of theirs went to China (but we were no longer going to China; we were not invited there any more), and on their way back they stopped to vacation in our country. Mikoyan and I were on vacation at Pitsunda,36 and we invited the Romanians to spend a few days with us. That would give us a chance to hear what they had to say and have an exchange of opinions.

A lively discussion ensued. They told about the situation in China, and we understood from what they said that the Romanians on a whole did not share the Chinese point of view. They said: “The Chinese tried to turn us against you. They said that the USSR had taken Bessarabia from us and had taken Poland’s eastern territories from it and in general pursued an incorrect policy. But we didn’t listen to them because we don’t need Bessarabia.”

What they said impressed itself on my hearing quite strongly. I was not about to continue the discussion on this touchy subject, but I began to reflect. Why did the Romanian comrades suddenly say this to us? At the same time they were fairly soft in their attitude toward China; they didn’t condemn Beijing’s point of view categorically. This left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps they were offended after all by the fact that Bessarabia was restored as part of the Soviet state. Before the revolution it had been part of Russia and was snatched away by Romania in 1918. At that time the Red Army had been weak. Soviet Russia had not had the capacity to defend all of its borders at that time. So what happened in 1940 was not that we tore away part of Romania for the benefit of the USSR, but this territory was returned to its homeland with the reestablishment of the former borders. If this matter is looked at from a historical point of view, the left-bank part of Moldavia [that is, the left, or east, bank of the Dniester River] was never part of the Romanian state whatsoever. This hint about Bessarabia remained the only rough spot during our meeting at Pitsunda. And we met with the Romanians many times after that. Outwardly good relations continued. However, I didn’t observe the same warmth and openness as before. Politeness was evident, but it was somehow artificial, not a really fraternal cordiality. Our embassy staff members in Romania also reported the same thing.

Even today I can’t explain what the reason was for all this. I must admit that at that time we decided that this same man, Ion Maurer, might be to blame. I had no complaints about him personally. He was a polite man of good breeding. It was always pleasant to converse with him both on business

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matters and in a more relaxed atmosphere. He and I went hunting together a number of times. He is an excellent hunter, a good shot, and a good comrade to be out tramping around with. His social background was a cause of concern. He was not a proletarian but from a long line of the intelligentsia. He had a strong influence on Dej. They had become friends ever since the time that Maurer defended Dej as a lawyer when Dej was on trial. But that fact also speaks in Maurer’s favor, that he undertook to defend a Communist in Romania under the monarchy! However, it may be that some survivals of the past of a nationalist character remained in him. Having been given a high position in Romania, he began to exert an influence that was harmful to our relations. Could that be? All this is sheer speculation. I had no specific facts or information then and I don’t have any now. There was some kind of unfortunate misunderstanding that damaged our relations.

Subsequently, Ceausescu gained enormous influence in Romanian politics,37 but I can’t say anything about him aside from the fact that he was young and nobody’s fool. He was a man who had also gone through the school of class struggle. He evidently was not just a chance figure who appeared in the Romanian leadership. Now that I’m retired I observe Romania’s foreign policy, and I don’t understand everything they do. Some of the steps they take on the international arena don’t seem to have any sensible explanation.

On defense matters Romania also took a special position setting itself apart. It didn’t always fulfill the plans that had been worked out by the Warsaw Pact countries, plans according to which each country assumed obligations to have a certain number of troops and weapons. Correspondingly, orders were placed for the manufacture of certain weapons.

I remember an incident that I’ve already mentioned before. According to plans worked out by the Warsaw Pact, Romania was supposed to purchase a certain number of tanks, which it had placed orders for in Czechoslovakia. When Czechoslovakia had completed the production of these tanks, Romania was supposed to pay for them, but it refused to pay. Why do I remember this? Because Comrade Novotny38 appealed to us in tragic tones: “We spent money on this. We live by foreign trade. And Romania is refusing to take our tanks and won’t compensate us for our expenses.”

I don’t remember what decision Romania later accepted, but this was already a violation of a definite treaty obligation, and such violations are impermissible. If you belong to the Warsaw Pact alliance, if military interests require that a certain level of armaments be built up, and if one or another country cannot produce those armaments itself, an order for production of such armaments is

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distributed among other countries. This order must be regarded as one that you have placed yourself, because you must receive the goods produced and pay for them.

Other similar incidents took place. Marshal Grechko reported to me that when he was the commander of the unified forces of the Warsaw Pact39 the Romanian defense minister conducted himself in an improper manner at meetings of the headquarters staffs. Grechko, as his superior in rank, was forced to call him to order. After all, the defense ministers of the various Warsaw Pact countries were deputies to the commander-in-chief [who was Grechko]. But all these incidents were reflections of more profound processes that were eating away at our friendly relations. The roots of these processes remained unknown to me, and to this day I don’t know what they were. I think that time will smooth everything over. After all, the interests of all the socialist countries are the same. Unfortunately, in my reminiscences about our Romanian neighbor I have not been able to reveal the most important thing that I wanted to explain—that is, the origin of the cleavage that occurred in our relationship. To this day these cracks and cleavages have not healed, and relations remain cold as before, if not worse.

For a while after I became a pensioner, when I reflected on this problem I attributed the cooling-off of relations to myself. I thought that it might have been the result of some personal qualities or shortcomings of mine. However, it will soon be six years since I ceased to be involved in the world of politics, and not only have relations not improved; they have grown worse. That means it’s not a matter of personalities. There are some other factors causing this division between our countries and parties. Unfortunately, I could not then and cannot now say what they are.

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