Socialist Republic of Romania

From 1947 to 1989, Romania was officially governed by a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state known as the Socialist Republic of Romania (România Socialistă Republică). The name of the state was changed to the Romanian People's Republic in 1947 and remained in use until 1965. The nation was a member of the Warsaw Pact and an Eastern Bloc state at the time, and its constitutions stipulated that the Romanian Communist Party was to have a preeminent role in government. In terms of geography, the RSR was bounded to the east by the Black Sea, to the north and east by the Soviet Union (through the Ukrainian and Moldavian SSRs), to the west by Hungary and Yugoslavia (via SR Serbia), and to the south by Bulgaria.

Romania, a previous member of Axis that had toppled the Axis, was overrun by the Soviet Union, the only representation of the Allies, as World War II came to a close. A new pro-Soviet administration that included members of the Romanian Workers' Party that had been previously banned was formed on March 6, 1945. The People's Republic of Romania was proclaimed on December 1st, 1947, shortly after King Michael I was coerced into abdicating his throne.

At initially, the "SovRoms," which were new tax-exempt Soviet-Romanian firms, drained Romania's little post-war resources. This enabled the Soviet Union to exert control over Romania's primary sources of revenue. The war reparations that were paid to the Soviet Union were another strain on resources. On the other hand, throughout the 1950s, Romania's communist government started to establish greater independence, which led to things like the evacuation of all Soviet forces from Romania by 1958. The nation saw strong rates of economic development and major increases in areas such as infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy, urbanisation, and women's rights from the 1950s through the 1970s, but then reached a plateau in the 1980s.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Nicolae Ceaușescu rose through the ranks to become General Secretary of the Communist Party (1965), Chairman of the State Council (1967), and the newly created office of President in 1974. The public perception of Ceausescu improved both at home and in Western countries as a result of his condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and a temporary easing of the country's domestic repressive policies. Nevertheless, fast economic expansion that was financed in part by foreign financing soon gave way to austerity and political repression, which ultimately led to the violent collapse of his authoritarian regime in December of 1989.

During the time when Romania was under communist rule, a significant number of individuals met their deaths by way of execution or while being held in detention. The majority of these deaths occurred during the Stalinist period in the 1950s. In contrast to the estimated tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people who have died while in jail, there were only 137 people put to death by the legal system between the years 1945 and 1964. Others were taken into custody for political, economic, or other reasons and then subjected to jail or torture as a result.

Once the Communist Party of Romania was overthrown in 1989, the constitution that had been in place since 1965 continued to be in force. It was later revised to reflect the new democratic order in Romania. On December 8, 1991, it was replaced by the present constitution. This occurred after a countrywide vote entirely eliminated the socialist form of government and replaced it with a semi-presidential one.