How the communists mutilated the Romanian family. Divorce, sex and childhood were in the hands of the party

A defining characteristic of totalitarian regimes was the desire of the dictatorial state to demographically control the population. Both the Nazis and the Communists wanted as large a population as possible and families with as many children as possible.

The reasons were diverse, from the desire to have a workforce and an army as numerous as possible, according to the megalomaniac plans of the dictators, to ideological reasons and the obsession to obtain the “new man”, a generation. the totalitarian state and the single party.

Romania was no exception. During the years of the Ceausescu dictatorship, one of the most cruel pro-natalist dictatorial policies in the history of Europe was implemented in the country. Ceausescu wanted a new generation of socialist workers to fill the factories and contribute to his megalomaniacal projects. The price was a social catastrophe that took many lives, literally and figuratively, mutilating the lives of generations.

It all started in 1966, with a decree that wanted to demographically restore Romania according to Ceausescu’s plans.

The day Ceausescu decided on the private life of Romanians

In most cases of pro-natal demographic policies of totalitarian states, abortion was the greatest enemy. Just as Himmler decided in Nazi Germany to ban abortion in order to have as many soldiers as possible and then multiply the “Aryan race”, the Romanian Communists focused on the legal regulation of abortions.

With the coming to power of the Communists in 1948, the law prohibited abortion. The explanation offered at that time was to restore the demographic increase severely affected by World War II, but also by hunger. In 1957, the Communists reconsidered this measure and liberalized abortion, on one condition that the operation be performed by a specialist.

With the coming to power of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1965, things would change radically. He expressed dissatisfaction with the decline in population growth coupled with the emancipation of women. So he decided to take action and came up with a plan to increase the birth rate, through particularly harsh measures.

“In the year that Ceausescu assumed power in Romania, 1965, the crude birth rate had for the first time fallen below the threshold of 15 per thousand, continuing its decline in the following year (14.3 per thousand). Under these circumstances, the dictator decides to intervene in the problems of the population to materialize as soon as possible his demographic ambitions, to lead a “properly” populated “country, Ioan Bolovan says in the newspaper. communist in Romania ”.

Regarding legislation, the most important measure was materialized in decree 770/1966 that prohibited abortion in Romania. Through this decree the interruption of pregnancy was prohibited, but it could only be authorized in the following situations: the pregnancy endangered the mother’s life, one of the parents suffers from serious genetic diseases that can cause serious malformations in the newborn, the pregnant has severe mental or physical disabilities, the pregnancy occurred as a result of rape or incest, the mother already has four dependent children or is over 45 years old. In the aforementioned cases, abortion could only take place in the first three months of pregnancy.

Furthermore, following his demographic dream, Ceausescu also banned the importation of contraceptives, publicly motivating that he also comes from a family with 10 children living in one room. The Romanians practically no longer had any legal solution at hand to control the couple’s tasks.

Additionally, PCR members who had active divorces or aborted wives were barred from promoting or serving. Obviously, there were also legislative rules that wanted to stop divorces. Ceausescu expected the population of Romania to reach 25 million in 1990 and 30 million in 2000. “First of all, the Romanian communist regime had the absurd obsession of increasing the country’s population at a rapid pace, ascribing human potential an important role in the mission of building an ideal society,” Ion Bolovan said in the same newspaper.

The generation of unwanted children and the mutilation of the Romanian family

Practically, as a result of these pronatal measures, if women did not want to go to jail or die as a result of an illegal abortion, in conditions difficult to imagine, they had to give birth when they became pregnant.

To ensure that everyone respects Ceausescu’s demographic plans, the communist party entered the private lives of Romanians with their boots on.

A new class of founders emerged: doctors, co-workers or factory managers who had to report on tasks that suddenly disappeared or who had to report any suspicious activity in this regard. The workers underwent periodic gynecological examinations to detect a possible abortion.

In this context, in 1967, Ceausescu’s plans seemed to bear fruit. The number of children born practically doubled compared to 1966. They were those “decrees”, many of them unwanted, but kept to avoid imprisonment or death.

It was a drama of the Romanian family that came to accept and love the child who was born through the state decree, or to experience frustration with traumatic consequences especially in the child, involving verbal and physical violence, indifference.

Sexual relations were scheduled and were cause for fear. Divorces have also been drastically reduced. Many couples stayed together just because the party said so, otherwise mutilating the Romanian family.

Death and failure in Ceausescu’s plans

Ceausescu’s plan did not work for a long time. On the contrary, couples have found ways to get rid of unwanted children. Especially single women, with unwanted pregnancies, risked everything. This led to the situation where thousands of women died under the communist regime as a result of illegal and inhuman abortions.

It was concluded that the number of women who died as a result of curettage performed on midwives and all types of women without specialization, on kitchen tables or in closets, exceeded the number of deaths among political prisoners. It is assumed that from the year of the anti-abortion decree until the fall of the communist regime in Romania, more than 9,000 women died, especially from sepsis or hemorrhage, caused by secret abortions.

On the one hand, some women died at home after resorting to all kinds of midwives who provoked barbaric abortions, on the other hand, many women died in hospital after such illegal abortions. Some doctors did not help them and let them die for fear of imprisonment. There were also doctors who agreed with all the risks to save the lives of these women.

Generally, the route in these cases was as follows. The women learned from neighbors or colleagues of midwives that they were willing to induce an abortion. The operation was usually done at home. If it failed, and the cases were frequent, the women would end up in the hospital in agony, especially with infections and bleeding. That is where your fate was decided.

In the absence of legal contraceptives on the market, women inserted lemon, mustard, or cold water douches into the vagina to avoid pregnancy. In addition, there were other social and demographic realities in Romania that Ceausescu did not want to take into account. It is precisely because of this and despite the party’s efforts that population growth has stalled and it has been involved ever since.

“Despite the brutal intervention of the authorities in the private life of citizens, fertility could not be artificially maintained at high values, continuing its decline in 1969-1973. Basically, this trend was inevitable, being the natural expression of a new phase of demographic transition in our country, but the communist regime refused to accept that social or economic phenomena could not be directed from the center, “adds Ioan Bolovan in the article already mentioned. .

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