1 Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Romania’s Eastern Neighbourhood  Florin Abraham National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism flabraham@yahoo.com Published in Eurolimes, Volume 11, Spring 2011, pp. 11-29, Oradea University Press, ISSN: 1841 – 9259 http://www.iser.rdsor.ro/Main_page/Documents/Eurolimes/Eurolimes_11/cover.pdf Gheorghe Gheorghiu, who later became Gheorghiu-Dej, can be considered a person whose destiny could become exceptional only after important moments of historical turmoil. Coming from a poor workers’ family, Gheorghiu-Dej was brought into prominence as a result of the huge global shift produced by the Second World War. During the interval 1945-1965 he has played an increasingly important political role and his activity is one of the favourite subjects for several historical studies. Having the advantage of a rich historical literature, as well as the access to primary sources 1 , in the present study we set to grasp the way in which Gheorghiu-Dej understood and then conceived Romania’s eastern neighbourhood and, obviously, the relation with the Soviet Union in the interval 23 August 1944 – March 1965 (until the end of his life). Our scientific undertaking is neither repetitive nor a synthesis of the several edited or archive sources; instead, we are using a new interpretation grid of some facts which are, for the most part, already known. The method we propose does not aim at a simple narration of diplomatic history, but it attempts to analyze Romania’s foreign policy in the interval 1945-1965 from the perspective of Gheorghiu-Dej’s power interests. The main hypothesis of our research is that Gheorghiu-Dej conceived Romania’s relation with the Soviet Union not as a distinct political process, with separate rules from the national political life, but as an instrument for increasing his personal power. Thus, we break, of course, with the classical explanations of the realist school (dominated by the idea of competition between impersonal forces), and bringing into discussion psychological-historical elements, with their advantage of including the individual into the core of historical explanation. The general rule under which we operate is the diachronic exposure of the study’s subject, along three subtopics: ideological definition of neighbourhood; geopolitical aspects of the relation with the Soviet Union; diplomatic activity elements determined by Romania’s neighbourhood with the “big neighbour” from the East. Psychological-political profile of a survivor Testing the hypothesis of our research implies inevitable clarifications regarding Gheorghiu- Dej’s personality. The purpose of our study is not to achieve a psychological-biography of one of the most important leaders of Romanian communism, an undertaking which is the more necessary as a historical biography of Gheorghiu-Dej is still missing. The remarks concerning the psychological-  „This paper is suported by the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number SOP HRD/89/1.5/S/59758” 1 We would like to mention the fact that within the National Archives of Romania there is the “Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Collection (1901-1965)”, gathering 24.30 linear meters, which includes important documents concerning his political and trade-union activity. See http://www.arhivelenationale.ro/ (accessed on 1 st of March 2011)