2RHPZ
05-28-2005, 03:18 AM
Inside the Securitate Archives
A review of the current state of the archives of the Romanian Securitate by Lavinia Stan.
The Securitate was set up in 1948 by the communist regime as a Soviet-style secret political police entrusted with the task of eliminating opponents in order to consolidate power, ensuring compliance to the regime and its leader, as well as shaping public sentiment and gaining acceptance for public policies. The structure had two main departments, charged with conducting operations within and outside the country, respectively. Over the years, the Securitate’s methods, goals and personnel changed. While from 1948 to 1964 uneducated and brutal officers engaged in summary executions, illegal house arrests, imprisonment and deportations, after Ceausescu became the country’s ruler the Securitate preferred a more subtle control of the population that no longer aimed to physically annihilate dissenters but instead publicly discredited them or encouraged them to emigrate.
The political police employed some 14,000 full-time agents and 400,000-700,000 part-time informers selected from all walks of life. Official figures suggest that on 22 December 1989 the Securitate had 13,275 officers and 984 civilian personnel, but the figures fail to mention the percentage of Securitate troops engaged in counter-espionage activities conducted outside the country.[3] The number of full-time agents varied over the years, according to the needs of the political police. On 11 February 1948 there were 3,549 employees, of whom 64 percent were workers, 4 percent peasants, 2 percent intellectuals and 28 percent clerks. Eight years later the Securitate troops reached 72,697, including 7,865 officers, 5,306 sergeants, 1,565 civilians and 57,961 high school graduates drafted for up to a year and a half long military service. In April 1977 the Securitate boasted a total of 20,297 agents at the rank of army officers, of whom 13,397 were engaged in permanent missions and 6,900 could be drafted for occasional special missions, while six years later it included 1,389 officers, 968 sub-officers, 574 civilians and 20,459 young recruits—young men who just finished high-school or university and were neither Securitate civilians, nor officers—to a grand total of 23,381 individuals.[4] Some 90 percent of Securitate agents were Communist Party members.[5] According to documents Constantin (“Ticu”) Dumitrescu obtained in 1993, the political police had 507,003 informers, but archival evidence confirmed the involvement of only 486,000. Of these 29,613 were Nazi sympathizers, 10,367 members of the inter-war Peasant and Liberal Parties, and 2,753 former political prisoners. Demographically, 241,932 were sixty and older, 145,294 between forty and sixty, 81,572 between thirty and forty, and 17,995 under thirty years of age. The number of active informers fluctuated over time, depending on the domestic and international political situation, but steadily increased from 73,000 in 1968 to 144,289 in 1989. Following an undated socio-economic analysis of 3,007 new informers, 39 percent had university and 37 percent had high school education, 18 percent were engineers and researchers, 17 percent were professionals, 19 percent were public servants, and 32 percent army officers, workers or peasants.[6]
http://wwics.si.edu/topics/images/header_cwihp.gif (http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=109979)
A review of the current state of the archives of the Romanian Securitate by Lavinia Stan.
The Securitate was set up in 1948 by the communist regime as a Soviet-style secret political police entrusted with the task of eliminating opponents in order to consolidate power, ensuring compliance to the regime and its leader, as well as shaping public sentiment and gaining acceptance for public policies. The structure had two main departments, charged with conducting operations within and outside the country, respectively. Over the years, the Securitate’s methods, goals and personnel changed. While from 1948 to 1964 uneducated and brutal officers engaged in summary executions, illegal house arrests, imprisonment and deportations, after Ceausescu became the country’s ruler the Securitate preferred a more subtle control of the population that no longer aimed to physically annihilate dissenters but instead publicly discredited them or encouraged them to emigrate.
The political police employed some 14,000 full-time agents and 400,000-700,000 part-time informers selected from all walks of life. Official figures suggest that on 22 December 1989 the Securitate had 13,275 officers and 984 civilian personnel, but the figures fail to mention the percentage of Securitate troops engaged in counter-espionage activities conducted outside the country.[3] The number of full-time agents varied over the years, according to the needs of the political police. On 11 February 1948 there were 3,549 employees, of whom 64 percent were workers, 4 percent peasants, 2 percent intellectuals and 28 percent clerks. Eight years later the Securitate troops reached 72,697, including 7,865 officers, 5,306 sergeants, 1,565 civilians and 57,961 high school graduates drafted for up to a year and a half long military service. In April 1977 the Securitate boasted a total of 20,297 agents at the rank of army officers, of whom 13,397 were engaged in permanent missions and 6,900 could be drafted for occasional special missions, while six years later it included 1,389 officers, 968 sub-officers, 574 civilians and 20,459 young recruits—young men who just finished high-school or university and were neither Securitate civilians, nor officers—to a grand total of 23,381 individuals.[4] Some 90 percent of Securitate agents were Communist Party members.[5] According to documents Constantin (“Ticu”) Dumitrescu obtained in 1993, the political police had 507,003 informers, but archival evidence confirmed the involvement of only 486,000. Of these 29,613 were Nazi sympathizers, 10,367 members of the inter-war Peasant and Liberal Parties, and 2,753 former political prisoners. Demographically, 241,932 were sixty and older, 145,294 between forty and sixty, 81,572 between thirty and forty, and 17,995 under thirty years of age. The number of active informers fluctuated over time, depending on the domestic and international political situation, but steadily increased from 73,000 in 1968 to 144,289 in 1989. Following an undated socio-economic analysis of 3,007 new informers, 39 percent had university and 37 percent had high school education, 18 percent were engineers and researchers, 17 percent were professionals, 19 percent were public servants, and 32 percent army officers, workers or peasants.[6]
http://wwics.si.edu/topics/images/header_cwihp.gif (http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=109979)