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Abstract
The article analyses the exceptionalism of housing during the early communist period in Romania, in particular the extent to which the regime's ambivalent policies regarding housing undermined the overall political and ideological goal of dismantling private property. Focusing on appropriations, restitutions and new construction in the city of Timi¸oara and the surrounding region, the article emphasises conflicting and inconsistent policies regarding housing and the consequences of these policies. Housing's double meaning as home and asset further complicated the overall ideological mission of denaturalising bourgeois private property, and provided a basis for the continuing relevance of pre-communist legal ideologies and consciousness of property rights during this period. The article is based on documentary and archival research conducted in the city of Timi¸oara, Romania, in 2007–2008.
Notes
1 Civil section decision 2686/19 June 2003, România, Înalta Curte de Casaţie ¸i Justiţie, Secţia I Civilă, Decizia nr. 2686/2003, Pronunţată în ¸edinţă publică, astăzi 19 iunie 2003, available at: http://www.scj.ro/1093/Detalii-jurisprudenta?customQuery%5B0%5D.Key = id&customQuery%5B0%5D.Value = 1205, accessed 2 February 2015. The court transcripts did not provide the full names of the individuals concerned, but only their initials, as reflected in the quotations in this article.
2 ‘“A doua naţionalizare” efectele unui război imobiliar cu mize uria¸e’, FrontNews, 9 October 2008, available at: http://www.frontnews.ro/social-si-economic/eveniment/a-doua-nationalizare-efectele-unui-razboi-imobiliar-cu-mize-uriase-15802, accessed 4 February 2015.
3 This is more fully described in Serban Rosen (Citation2010).
4 Decret nr. 92 din 19 aprilie 1950 pentru naţionalizarea unor imobile, publicat in Buletinul Oficial nr. 36/20 aprilie 1950, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/64, accessed 4 February 2015.
5 Lege nr. 119 din 11 iunie 1948 pentru naţionalizarea întreprinderilor industriale, bancare, de asigurări, miniere ¸i de transporturi, Monitorul Oficial nr. 133 bis din 11 iunie 1948, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/46, accessed 4 February 2015.
6 See most recently, Markovits (Citation2010).
7 See Smith (Citation2010) for a similar analysis for Russia.
8 The historical Banat region is larger, and includes the Serbian Banat, which holds a significant Romanian minority population in Serbia. Banat is sometimes considered part of Transylvania.
9 As late as 1945, Romania was overwhelmingly a rural economy, with over 80% of the population living in the countryside and only 20% in the urban areas. The compliance and cooptation of the peasants was thus a key necessity for the communist regime. Agricultural cooperatives were created in 1949 by Decree 319/1949 (Decretul nr. 319 din 1949 pentru înfiinţarea de Gospodării Agricole Colective, Buletinul Oficial nr. 51 din 1 august 1949). Until 1962, however, there was heavy resistance to the forced process of collectivisation, resulting in a series of laws and decrees punishing peasants (for example, Decree 131/1952 (Decretul nr. 131/1952 privind răspunderea pentru nepredarea în termen de către gospodăriile agricole individuale ¸i cetăţeni a produselor agricole supuse colectării, precum ¸i procedura de urmărire silită a executării acestor obligaţiuni, Buletinul Oficial nr. 30 din 18 iunie 1952)). The rural expropriations of land and the collectivisation process have been extensively studied. See Dobrincu and Iordachi (Citation2005).
10 Constituţia Republicii Populare Române, Monitorul Oficial, partea I, nr. 87 bis din 13 aprilie 1948, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/14931, accessed 4 February 2015.
11 Decret nr. 92 din 19 aprilie 1950 pentru naţionalizarea unor immobile, publicat in Buletinul Oficial nr. 36/20 aprilie 1950, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/64, accessed 4 February 2015.
12 Decret nr. 92 din 19 aprilie 1950 pentru naţionalizarea unor imobile, publicat in Buletinul Oficial nr. 36/20 aprilie 1950, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/64, accessed 4 February 2015.
13 Decret nr. 524 din 1955 privind completarea ¸i modificarea Decretului nr. 92/1950 pentru naţionalizarea unor immobile, nepublicat, available at: http://www.jurisprudenta.com/lege/decret-524-1955-7svz/, accessed 4 February 2015.
14 A more detailed breakdown can be found in Mioc (Citation2007, p. 208): 9,231 apartments, 151 sheds, 32 garages, 606 small stores and workshops, and six hotels.
15 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Primăria Municipiului Timi¸oara, File no. 12/1950, p. 62. There were 14,471 buildings in 1947 (Munteanu & Munteanu Citation2002, p. 218).
16 This was the case, for example, of a milk shop seized because the housing authority had already invested money in the building. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 102/1960, p. 15.
17 As of 1960, only 1,082 apartments in the whole country were returned to their former owners, which represents approximately 0.009% of the total number of nationalised apartments. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 102/1960, pp. 82–84.
18 On the basis of Law 119 and its Implementation Instructions, according to an internal report of the Prefecture, there were further nationalised 123 mills, 61 oil presses, eight electricity plants, three bakeries, three dairy farms, one ice plant, one printing press, one weaving mill and three quarries. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Prefectura, File no. 213/1948, pp. 164–73.
19 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Prefectura, File no. 50/1949, p. 2. Decret nr. 134 din 2 aprilie 1949 pentru naţionalizarea unităţilor sanitare ca: farmaciile urbane resedinte ¸i neresedinte de judeţ ¸i centre importante muncitoresti, laboratoare chimico—farmaceutice, drogherii medicinale ¸i laboratoare de analize medicale, Buletinul Oficial nr. 15 bis din 2 mai 1949, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/21851, accessed 4 February 2015.
20 Decret nr. 302 din 3 noiembrie 1948 privind naţionalizarea instituţiilor sanitare particulare, Monitorul Oficial nr. 256 din 3 noiembrie 1948, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/22656, accessed 4 February 2015.
21 Decret nr. 303 din 3 noiembrie 1948 pentru naţionalizarea industriei cinematografice ¸i reglementarea comerţului cu produse cinematografice, Monitorul Oficial nr. 256 din 3 noiembrie 1948, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/22674, accessed 4 February 2015.
22 Decret nr. 232 din 9 septembrie 1948 privind naţionalizarea unor întreprinderi de cai ferate particulare, Monitorul Oficial nr. 209 din 9 septembrie 1948, available at: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/22730, accessed 4 February 2015.
23 Decret nr. 83 din 2 martie 1949 pentru completarea unor dispoziţiuni din legea Nr. 187 din 1945, Buletinul Oficial nr. 1 din 2 martie 1949.
24 In a concerted action during the early morning of 2 March 1949, landowners' families were abruptly woken up, sometimes not even allowed to get dressed or take any personal clothes with them, loaded up in trucks bound for Timi¸oara, triaged and immediately sent to various cities in the country, with only the clothes on their backs and no money. Once there, they had to fend for themselves, while being specifically excluded from social services and even jobs as ‘enemies of the people’. Twenty-two owners were not at home, as well as seven administrators. During the operation, two people escaped. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Prefectură, Files no. 92–97/1949.
25 Lege nr. 312 din 24 aprilie 1945 pentru urmărirea ¸i sancţionarea celor vinovaţi de dezastrul ţării sau de crime de război, Monitorul Oficial nr. 94 din 24 aprilie 1945; Decret nr. 221 din 1 iulie 1960 cu privire la executarea silita impotriva persoanelor fizice a platii impozitelor si a taxelor neachitate in termen si a creantelor banesti ale organizatiilor socialiste, precum si cu privire la executarea confiscarii, Buletinul Oficial nr. 10 din 1 iulie 1960, available at: http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt = 9014, accessed 10 February 2015.
26 All ethnic Germans were automatically enrolled in the German ethnic group while Romania was allied with Germany during World War II (Law 830/1940; Memo Regarding the German Population in the Popular Republic of Romania 815/17 April 1956, prepared by the Directorate of Affairs, Central Council of the Romanian Workers' Party, available at: http://www.sferapoliticii.ro/sfera/pdf/Sfera_83.pdf, 2 February 2015).
27 Lege nr. 139 din 27 februarie 1940 asupra rechiziţiilor, Monitorul Oficial nr. 48 din 27 februarie 1940; Lege nr. 439 din 5 iunie 1945 pentru efectuarea de rechiziţii pentru cartiruirea de persoane, autorităţi ¸i instituţii, Monitorul Oficial nr. 125 din 5 iunie 1945.
28 See National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Prefectură, File no. 57/1949.
29 Decret nr. 511 din 22 noiembrie 1955 priving reglementarea situaţiei unor bunuri rechiziţionate, nepublicat.
30 Place names are anonymised in order to preserve anonymity as required by Romanian law on archival material.
31 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Inventory 1517, File no. 30/1955, 8 December, pp. 28–34.
32 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Inventory 1517, File no. 30/1955, 8 December, pp. 28–34.
33 Decret nr. 224 din 12 decembrie 1951 privitor la urmărirea imobiliară pentru realizarea creanţelor Statului, Buletinul Oficial nr. 117 din 12 decembrie 1951.
34 Decret nr. 478 din 22 noiembrie 1954 privitor la donaţiile făcute statului, Buletinul Oficial nr. 46 din 10 decembrie 1954.
35 See for example National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Inventory 1630, File no. 32/1959; Secretariat, Files no. 65/1958, 26/1962, 56/1962.
36 Decret nr. 111 din 14 iulie 1951 privind reglementarea situaţiei bunurilor supuse confiscării, fără mo¸tenitori sau fără stăpân, precum ¸i a unor bunuri care nu mai folosesc instituţiilor, Buletinul Oficial nr. 81 din 27 iulie 1951.
37 Council of Ministers Decision no. 326/1951. This decision was secret, unpublished and apparently it has been destroyed. However, knowledge of its existence and what it contained is available from a variety of other sources. It has been publicly acknowledged, for example by Marius Oprea (Citation2008).
38 Decree nr. 218 din 1 iulie 1960 pentru modificarea Decretului nr. 167 din 21 aprilie 1958, privitor la prescripţia extinctivă, Buletinul Oficial nr. 10 din 1 iulie 1960.
39 May 1956 memo from regional to local administrative branches of the state apparatus, National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 63/1956, p. 68. Instructions 11/752/1958 issued by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection to further the implementation of Decree 462/1957 established in some detail the rights that returning citizens of German or Hungarian ethnicity obtained. For example, time spent in the USSR was considered for pension purposes, and those who returned were entitled to disability benefits as a result of injuries suffered while deported, Secretariat, File no. 65/1958, pp. 148–51.
40 Lege nr. 187 din 23 martie 1945 pentru înfăptuirea reformei agrare, Monitorul Oficial nr. 68 din 23 martie 1945.
41Luptătorul Bănăţean, 432, 18 February 1946, p. 5.
42 Lege nr. 187 din 23 martie 1945 pentru înfăptuirea reformei agrare, Monitorul Oficial nr. 68 din 23 martie 1945. There are slight differences in numbers among versions of the report cited here. I am using here what appears to be the final version of the report. Whether all of this happened in fact is unclear.
43 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 10/1959, p. 331.
44 Selling the houses back to the population had its own problems, such as the fact that the prices mandated by the Ministry of Finance were higher than the ‘real price of circulation’ (the market value), therefore the local administration had no buyers for them. Instructions of the Ministry of Finance no. 2003/1958, National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secţia Financiară, File no. 10/1959, pp. 8–15, 339.
45 A 1950 memo of the local Temporary Committee for the Timi¸oara region gives us some numbers for poor peasants re-settled in the region after the war. They had come from: Dobrogea (3,179 families), Ardeal (3,883 families), Basarabia (2,571 families), Macedonia (1,116 families), Moldova (713 families), Bucovina (911 families), Oltenia (559 families), Muntenia (367 families) and 1,931 families from other parts. They were given land, on average five hectares per family, for a total of 76,150 ha, which represented 14% of the total tillable land of the region. This was also the best land, as they had turned down anything else. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Prefectură, File no. 28/1950, p. 6.
46 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 10/1959, pp. 351–52.
47 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 10/1959, p. 359.
48 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 10/1959, p. 333.
49 Council of Ministers Decision no. 2694/1955, National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 18/1956, p. 429. Out of 661 houses that had been taken when they were displaced, 588 were fully returned and 25 were partially returned (the owners had to rent rooms to socialist organisations who were already there pre-restitution). Some of the houses could not be given back because they were occupied by collectives, the army, or had been demolished or destroyed. For these cases—44 for the Timi¸oara region, similarly with German property—there was compensation and special credit lines. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 46/1956, p. 326.
50 Council of Ministers Decisions no. 29/1955 and 623/19, National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 46/1956, p. 326. The official report containing these data further criticised those village officials who proposed compensation instead of restitution of houses themselves, even though there were houses available to be given back, and urged them ‘to do this properly’, that is, to return the houses, as opposed to compensation (pp. 326–27).
51 See, for example, an extensive memo and a historical overview on urban planning in the city from 1965, also documenting specific needs. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 38/1965, pp. 4–13, 77–121.
52 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, File no. 38/1965, pp. 77–121.
53 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection City Hall, File no. 12/1950.
54 ‘Banca naţională trebuie etatizată’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 29 June 1946.
55 ‘Nationalizarea spitalelor particulare, a industriei cinematografice ¸i a cinematografelor’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 4 November 1948.
56 ‘Textul legii pentru naţionalizarea întreprinderilor industriale, bancare, de asigurări, miniere ¸i de transporturi’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 14 June 1948.
57 ‘Nemţii expropriabili’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 12 January 1946.
58 ‘Ne-am construit case noi cu ajutorul statului’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 6 May 1954.
59 ‘Fabrica Bozsak vrea să construiască locuinţe gratuite pentru muncitori dar nu prime¸te loturi virane de la Primărie’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 10 May 1946.
60 ‘Sporirea veniturilor Primăriei prin vânzarea loturilor virane’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 20 June 1946.
61 ‘Împărţirea titlurilor de proprietate’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 15 May 1946.
62 ‘Se vor construi 50 de locuinţe noi pentru muncitorii ceferi¸ti’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 8 March 1947; ‘Muncitorii din Friedorf au primit loturi de case’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 30 March 1947.
63 ‘Revizuirea îndreptăţiţilor la împroprietărire ¸i a coloni¸tilor’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 18 January 1947.
64 ‘Două blocuri care pot fi considerate ca ¸ase vile’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 16 July 1948.
65 ‘În apărarea chiria¸ilor’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 28 April 1948.
66 ‘Sistematizarea Timi¸oarei’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 9 September 1948.
67 ‘Revizuirea îndreptăţiţilor la împroprietărire ¸i a coloni¸tilor’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 18 January 1947.
68 ‘Imobile luate în păstrare socialistă’, Luptătorul Bănăţean, 10 May 1952.
69 Munteanu and Munteanu (Citation2002, p. 223); National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, City Hall, File no. 12/1950, pp. 48–49.
70 To manage and control the urban spaces better, the plan was to build in and up. National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secretariat, Files no. 36, 38/1965.
71 National Archives of Romania Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secţia Gospodărie Comunală, File no. 1/1966, p. 51.
72 National Archives of Romania, Timi¸oara, Collection Sfatul Popular Banat, Secţia de Gospodărie Comunală, File no. 6/1960, pp. 40–41. The Soviet regime itself was deeply conflicted about houses as objects of personal property. The abolition of private property and taking of all houses in 1918 was followed only three years later by restitution of houses with no more than two apartments (Kucherov Citation1962, p. 376). Kucherov also describes the inconsistent efforts of the Soviet regime to deal with ‘speculation of personal property’—such as obtaining profit from renting. Until the 1960s, urban houses held as personal property consistently made up a third of the total number of urban housing stock in the Soviet Union (Smith Citation2010, p. 285).