Romanian rural systematization program

The villages most likely to be phased out were those with minimal prospects for growth. By the year 2000, 85% of communes were to have piped drinking water and 82% modern sewage.[4] According to a statement by the regime, by the year 2000, Romania expected "to eradicate basic differences between villages and cities and to ensure the harmonious development of all sections of the country".[5] Ceauşescu's declared aim - based on an original idea in the Communist Manifesto - was "to wipe out radically the major differences between towns and villages; to bring the living and working conditions of the working people in the countryside closer to those in the towns". He thought that by gathering people together into apartment buildings so that "the community fully dominates and controls the individual", systematization would produce Romania's "new socialist man". Ceaușescu was determined to revolutionize agriculture by increasing the cultivation area, while also stifling individual initiative and increasing centralization. The peasants were to receive derisory compensation for their demolished homes and then be charged rent for their new blocks, in which there was no accommodation for animals.[6] As Romanian historian Dinu Giurescu put it: "The ultimate goal is the proletarianization of our society. The final step in this process is the loss of the individual house.". It was an all-out effort at social engineering: kitchens and bathrooms were communal space in the government-owned and controlled apartments.[7] The number of villages was to be reduced to 5,000–6,000 (grouped in 2,000 communes), implying that 7,000–8,000 would be destroyed. Workers and intellectuals were to be settled in 3–4 storey buildings, with small blocks of 4 apartments or individual two-storey houses for the farmers. The countryside would be urbanized through 558 new agro-industrial towns. Although aspects of the program were absolutely necessary (improvement of services, diversification and stabilization of the workforce), it allowed little scope for local consultation and its implementation timespan was far too short (hence compulsory resettlement) with no realistic compensation for the required expropriation.[8]

Between 3 August 1975 and 3 July 1988, Romania was accorded most favoured nation status from the United States.[9][10] In 1988, Ceaușescu renounced Romania's MFN status with the United States, just as the latter was about to suspend it over human rights violations.[11] In July 1987, the United States Congress voted to suspend Romania's MFN status. Although the suspension was meant to last at least 6 months, in order to avoid further humiliation, Ceaușescu renounced his country's MFN status.[12][13] More than 85 oral testimonies and 995 written statements were submitted to support the suspension of Romania's MFN status. On 26 February 1988, in order to save face, Romania announced that it did not need MFN status. The House and Senate votes were rejected as unacceptable "interference in the internal affairs" of Romania. To underline this rejection, the village-bulldozing program was made public in April 1988.[14] Romania's renunciation of MFN status in February 1988 resulted from Ceaușescu's growing irritation with American pressure over Romania's human rights situation, such as Ceaușescu's treatment of his opponents.[15][16] Ceaușescu's renunciation of MFN made its suspension by the United States Congress meaningless.[17] His action showed that he would not submit to pressure from either side, East or West.[18]

The program fell behind schedule, with only 24 new towns declared in 1989 out of the 100 expected by 1990.[26] These 24 agro-industrial towns are listed below:[27][28]

• Transylvania
  • Bihor County
    • Valea lui Mihai - Although agriculture remained predominant, small-scale industries were being developed. Around 30 apartment blocks were built in the center.[29]
  • Hunedoara County
    • Aninoasa - A mining center in the upper Jiu Valley.[30]
  • Maramureș County
    • Seini - Main industries: agriculture, animal breeding and fruit growing.[31]
  • Mureș County
    • Iernut
  • Sibiu County
    • Avrig - The Mechanical Works at Mârșa (Mecanica Mârșa) was the most important industrial plant in the area.[32]
    • Tălmaciu - Several timber factories and a textile plant. Blocks totalling 480 apartments were built.[33]

• Wallachia
  • Argeș County
    • Colibași - Location of Automobile Dacia, Romania's first car manufacturing plant. Two national research institutes - for automotive engineering and nuclear technology - were also located there.[34]
  • Brăila County
    • Ianca - A model for agro-industrial towns in flat regions.[35]
    • Însurăței - Blocks totalling 330 apartments were built, of which 200 were located in the center.[36]
  • Buzău County
    • Nehoiu - A model for agro-industrial towns in mountainous regions.[37]
    • Pogoanele - Blocks totalling 200 apartments were built in the center.[38]
  • Călărași County
    • Budești
    • Lehliu Gară - Its main industrial plant was a subsidiary of a clothes factory based in Bucharest.[39]
    • Fundulea - Three important agricultural research institutes were based there, most of their staff commuting from Bucharest.[40]
  • Giurgiu County
    • Bolintin-Vale - A satellite of Bucharest.[41]
    • Mihăilești - Most of the former village razed and rebuilt to make way for the Danube–Bucharest Canal. Visited by Ceaușescu multiple times.[42] Blocks totalling 3,500 apartments were built.[43]
  • Gorj County
    • Bumbești-Jiu
    • Rovinari - Already a town as of 9 December 1981.[44]
  • Olt County
    • Piatra Olt
    • Scornicești - The town with the most impressive record of medals, distinctions and titles in Socialist Romania, including that of "Hero of the New Agrarian Revolution". The new town had a factory making automobile spare parts, a clothes factory, a brewery, a dairy plant and a poultry farm.[45]

The Danube-Black Sea Canal at Basarabi/Murfatlar

• Dobruja
  • Constanța County
    • Basarabi - An inland harbor for the Danube–Black Sea Canal. There were also two large wineries.[46]
    • Negru Vodă - Blocks totalling 341 apartments were built.[47]
    • Ovidiu

• Moldavia
  • Bacău County
    • Dărmănești

Bragadiru, Cornetu, Balotești and Otopeni were likewise to become agro-industrial towns.[48] Two hundred dump trucks were required to carry the rubble resulted from the demolition of many private houses in Otopeni, Dimieni and Odăile.[49] In Bragadiru, Măgurele, Otopeni and 30 Decembrie blocks totalling thousands of apartments were built.[50] Otopeni became a town on 28 November 2000.[51] Bragadiru and Măgurele became towns on 29 December 2005.[52][53]

The 27 June 1988 protest rally in Budapest

In Hungary, the program is called "romániai falurombolás" (lit. "Romanian village destruction"). After May 1988, Transylvanian "atrocity stories" abounded in the Hungarian press. The Romanian regime drew unfavorable world opinion and came under increasing attack from the global press.[54] In June 1988, 50,000 people protested in Budapest because the thousands of villages proposed for destruction by the Romanian Government included 1,500 ethnic Hungarian ones.[55] That demonstration, taking place on 27 June, was the largest organized in Hungary after 1956.[56] The plan was also criticised by leading members of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. In retaliation for the 27 June protest rally held in Budapest, Ceaușescu closed the Hungarian consulate in Cluj.[57] To address these issues, and to comply with Mikhail Gorbachev's request, Károly Grósz met with Ceaușescu in Arad on 28 August 1988. The talks were fruitless, with Ceaușescu unwilling to concede or compromise on any point. He simply used the fact that talks were being held at all as a means to win time and regain some of his lost credibility. The meeting was seen in Hungary as a capitulation of the country's national interests and significantly damaged Grósz's own prestige.[58]

The scale of the potential destruction caused an international outcry to such an extent that it led to the creation of organizations such as the Belgian-based Opération Villages Roumains, which provided for the twinning of threatened Romanian villages with Western communities. Few of the villages were actually destroyed, systematization only really succeeding in "imprinting Romania onto the consciousness of Europe".[59] Opération Villages Roumains was founded on 22 December 1988 in Brussels, being officially launched on 3 February 1989.[60] By the beginning of May 1989, Romanian villages had been adopted by 231 communes in Belgium, 95 in France, and 42 in Switzerland.[61] The Belgian effort was almost exclusively Walloon.[62] In its March 1989 session, the Council of Europe strongly condemned the liquidation of the villages, asking the authorities to cease the campaign. Shortly afterwards, in a speech broadcast by the BBC, the Prince of Wales publicly criticized this policy.[63]