Marius Oprea on the apparent death of Romanian Communism

Historian Marius Oprea explains in the weekly magazine Observator Cultural why the past is still very much alive in Romania: "Not a single officer of the Securitate, the former communist secret police, has been convicted. Not one party activist has had to answer for his behaviour in court - or even suffered the slightest loss of dignity for what he did in the past, for the crimes and abuse of power. Today I must deliver a grim diagnosis. ... The guilty ones receive their pensions without batting an eyelid. And of course they're far better off than their victims. Their dead are buried in military graves or in the cemetery of honour - depending on their rank. And until that day comes they are cared for in the hospitals of the interior ministry. ... Romania has failed to distance itself from its past, and this lack of distance has pushed it into the arms of those who take a nostalgic view of communism. And there are certainly more of these people than the party cadres or secret police would have dared to hope in December 1989. ... The sole veritable reforms have been freedom of the press and political pluralism, but even these are compromised by the omnipresence of a well-organised post-communist mafia which controls large parts of the media and many politicians, regardless of their party. Communism has not disappeared in Romania, it has simply been privatised. It seemed that it was dead, that it had committed suicide in 1989. But it only looked that way. Its brain, its dictator and its ideology are dead, but its cells are alive and well."

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