Flag of Patriotic Guards of Romania (1977-1989, obverse)

The Patriotic Guards ( ro, Gărzile Patriotice) were

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

formations formed during the Communist era, designed to provide additional defence in case of a foreign attack.

History

The Patriotic Guards were formed in 1968, after the 21 August Bucharest speech through which Romanian Communist Party General Secretary and State Council President Nicolae Ceaușescu condemned the suppression of the

Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Se ...

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...

forces. Ceaușescu appealed to

anti-Sovietism Anti-Sovietism, anti-Soviet sentiment, called by Soviet authorities ''antisovetchina'' (russian: антисоветчина), refers to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the ...

within the general population to ask for resistance against the perceived threat of a similar Soviet invasion against Romania itself. The

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

themes he used had their immediate effect in rallying large portions of the public, who began organizing and arming themselves under the direction of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). Although the threat was over by the end of the year, the Patriotic Guards remained a feature of the republic's communist structure. They became a permanent addition to the regular military, and compulsory training was introduced for young men and women. For university students, this meant that hours of the

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

were reserved for shooting drills and other training courses; soon, they were doubled by additional requirements for work in the fields (that was also asked from high school and middle school students, as well as their teachers). No longer backed by enthusiasm as they had been in the early 1970s, the Patriotic Guards nonetheless were the basic line of defence against projected invasions. The threat posed by the latter seemed to increase as the regime plunged into isolation, especially after it lost the support of the

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...

in the mid-1980s. From that point on, the Patriotic Guards were to become part of the State's apparatus of repression against its own people. During the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred i ...

of December 1989, Ceaușescu attempted to use them against protesters, notably in Timișoara. However, the pace of events and the breadth of hostility to his regime outstripped this plan. As the Revolution progressed, many Patriotic Guard members (who like most other Romanians were fed up with Ceauşescu's failed economic policies and suffering from declining living standards) actually joined the protesters. To no small extent, the people who were meant to be armed in case of the disturbances were in fact the ones causing them.

Function

The Patriotic Guards was an all-inclusive

public security Public security or public safety is the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage. It is often conducted by a state government to ensur ...

organization, its functions included normal civil policing and fire-fighting, and a very large " People's Militia" force. During wartime it would provide rear area security, augment the ground forces, and operate as guerrillas if their areas were overrun by invaders.

Place in the official ideology

In the 1980s, Romanian communism took on a militarized form.

Ilie Ceaușescu Ilie Ceaușescu (8 June 1926 – 1 October 2002) was a Romanian army general and communist politician who was Deputy Defence Minister of Communist Romania during the rule of his older brother, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Ilie's military and political care ...

, general in the Romanian People's Army and brother of Nicolae, summarized the new traits in his ''Istoria militară a poporului român'' ("The Military History of the Romanian People"). The work (soon turned into official dogma) argued that the Romanians had always had the largest standing army in the world—notably, he consistently chose to add up the entire population as present under arms. This constituted a message for the future, since the regime had established a strong connection with all past forms. As such, the ideology behind the formation of the Patriotic Guards was rendered as the ''War of the Entire People'' military doctrine, inspired by the Yugoslav '' Total People's Defense'' doctrine.

Organization

The Patriotic Guards were staffed by about 700,000 citizens in 1989, both men and women. In keeping with the doctrine of "War of the Entire People", the Patriotic Guards were a combined territorial defence or national guard and civil defence organization, which was established immediately after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Patriotic Guards worked closely with the Ministry of National Defence but were directly subordinated to the PCR and its

youth organization The following is a list of youth organizations. A youth organization is a type of organization with a focus upon providing activities and socialization for minors. In this list, most organizations are international unless noted otherwise. ...

. Relying more on ordinary citizens than on the professional military, the Patriotic Guards served as a potential counterweight to or check on the power and influence of the regular armed forces. In 1989 the Patriotic Guards were organized into company- and platoon-sized units in almost every ''

județ A ''județ'' (, plural ) is an administrative division in Romania, and was also used from 1940 to 1947 in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and from 1998 to 2003 in Moldova. ''Județ'' translates into English as "jurisdiction", but is co ...

'', municipality, town, village, and industrial or agricultural enterprise. Under the command of the first secretary of the local PCR apparatus, they conducted basic and refresher training in small-arms handling, demolition, mortar and grenade-launcher firing, and small-unit tactics. In wartime they had responsibility for local antiaircraft defence, providing early warning of air attack, defending population centers and important elements of national infrastructure, and conducting civil engineering work as needed to reestablish essential military production after an attack. They would reconnoiter and attack enemy flanks and rear areas, combat airborne units and special forces penetrating deep into Romania, and mount resistance operations against occupying forces. In keeping with their guerrilla image, the Patriotic Guards wore plain uniforms with no insignia or badges of rank.

References

{{reflist * Lucian Boia, ''Istorie şi mit în conştiinţa românească'' ("History and myth in the Romanian conscience"), Bucharest, Humanitas, 1997. *Mihai Retegan, ''1968 - Din primăvară până în toamnă'' ("1968 - From spring to autumn"), Bucharest, RAO, 1998.

External links