• DOI:10.2307/20060382
• Corpus ID: 155753970

Confronting Romania's Communist Past: A Response to Charles King

@article{Tismneanu2007ConfrontingRC,
  title={Confronting Romania's Communist Past: A Response to Charles King},
  author={Vladimir Tismăneanu},
  journal={Slavic Review},
  year={2007},
  volume={66},
  pages={724 - 727}
}

• Vladimir Tismăneanu
• Published 2007
• Political Science
• Slavic Review

The report of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in România, issued in December 2006, is the most serious attempt to understand România's communist experience ever produced. Coordinated by the American political scientist Vladimir Tismaneanu, the report covers virtually every aspect of communism as a lived system, from the installation of Communist Party officials during the postwar occupation, through the instruments of coercion, to the fate of religious institutions, the economy, national minorities, and education. The release of the report also contributed to a major political crisis, during which the parliament attempted to unseat the president, Traian Basescu, who had lauded the report and officially condemned communism as an illegitimate system. The question now is whether the commission's report will be used as yet another opportunity to reject history or as a way of helping Românians learn, at last, how to own it.