Invatamantul de partid si scolile de cadre in Romania comunista. Cazul scolii Interjudetene de Partid din Timisoara

Abstract

The present article raises the question of the necessity of a thorough study of a largely ignored chapter in the history of Romanian communism, namely the system of party education and cadre schools. If in a first phase, in Romanian post‑socialist historiography, the orientation towards the research of the extremes of the system, of terror and repression has prevailed, nowadays it is at least as necessary to understand the mechanisms by which the communist system was perpetuated and regenerated. Party schools were more than mere instruments of indoctrination, manipulation and propaganda, they represented key institutions that fully contributed to the construction and perpetuation of the system itself. The studying the archives of this school, which between 1948 and 1973 has produced almost 7,000 graduates, could yield relevant conclusions not only about the entire national system of party education and its network of cadre schools but, more importantly, about the ways into which power has been exercised by political elites throughout the communist period.