REVIEWS 773 Tismaneanu, Vladimir. Stalinism for All Seasons: A PoliticalHistogy ofRomanian Communism. Societies and Culturein East-CentralEurope, iI. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, 2003. xvi + 379 pp. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $45-00: /29.95THE name of Vladimir Tismaneanu is synonymouswith penetratinganalyses of twentieth- and twenty-first-centurypolitics in Central and EasternEurope and thisbook is no exception. Although, in the Englishlanguage, the worksof Ghita Ionescu, Robert King and, in particular,Michael Shafir, have made major contributions to the history of the Romanian Communist Party, Tismaneanu, in bringing his focus to bear on the RCP, provides us with the first study to examine the historical and structural correlations between Romanian Communism and the developmentsin the post-Communistperiod in that country. As a subtle examination of the nature and dynamics of Romanian Communism, and the political fluctuationsin the transitionfrom state socialism to a fledgling democracy, the book will provide an invaluable basis for any comparative study of the exit from Communism in Central Europe. The firstchapterexploresthe 'exceptional' to use Tismaneanu'sterm nature of the Communist regime in Romania among the formerCommunist countries of Central Europe which in turn explains the unique character of the revolution in Romania, the only one through its violence to live up to its name. What the authorargues -and, indeed, showsthroughoutmuch of the book is that the country was characterized by a variety of authoritarian mentalities and practices, and by the blending of Byzantine and Leninist traditions in a cynical manner by Communist leaders. By the end of Ceau?escu'sdictatorship,the RCP was nothing but a propagandavehicle for his personality cult. In the words of former President Iliescu (I990-96, 2000-04), himself a member of the party elite under Ceau,escu, 'political obtuseness, ignorance, and even stupidity, overgrown vanity, arbitrariness, and despotism that for a period of time coexisted with an aggressive and arrogantnarcissism[. . .] transformed[Ceau,escu's] personalleadershipinto an immense parody and the source of monumental errors' (p. I9). In this climate it is hardly surprisingthat the Institute for PartyHistory, created by the RCP, failed to produce a single volume of party history during its entire thirty-oddyear existence. The following two chapters focus on the early history of the RCP, the competition between variouscentresof authority,the factionalstrugglesof the 1920S, relationswith the Comintern, and the Communist takeoverfollowing King Michael's coupon 23 August I944 against the pro-Nazi Marshal Antonescu. Tismaneanu makes generous use of the new documents from the Comintern archiveswhich are now availablein Moscow and in Bucharest,as wellason personaltestimony,gleanedfrominterviewswithseniorpartyfigures from its days in clandestinity it was outlawed in December I924 and remained so for twenty years but he devotes little more than two pages to the role of the party in the coup. This is surprising,given the fact that the coup transformedthe statusof Communist Partyin Romania. At the beginning of 774 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 I944, aftertwenty-threeyears'existence, the partywas a smallfaction-ridden political group with little or no effectiveresonance in Romania, its leadership scattered over three main centres, and constrained to respond to policies decided in Moscow which were relevant to Soviet political strategiesrather than Romanian political conditions.By the autumnof thatyear, the RCP had become an influentialfactor in the Romanian political scene. By the end of I944, it had been thrustinto the forefrontof events by the occupying Soviet power, its factional rivalryblurredby the need to prepare itself for the role assignedto it by Stalinin Romania'sfuture. Chapters four and five cover 1956: the shock of de-Stalinization and the emergence of what Tismaneanu calls 'national Stalinism':'nationalStalinism systematicallyopposed any form of liberalization,let alone democratisation. Reactionary and self-centered, it valued autarky and exclusiveness [...] It voiced political anguish and played on sentiments of national isolation, humiliation and panic' (p. 33). It is the main assumption of Tismaneanu's approach that in Romania, whether under Gheorghiu-Dej or Ceau?escu,the legacy of Stalinism was never questioned, and could therefore not be abandoned. In this context Tismaneanu makes one of his highly original observations, namely that although Romania's intelligentsia was one of the most sophisticated in Central Europe, and one of the most powerfully influenced by Frenchliterarycurrents,it remained untouched...