The SovRoms (plural of ''SovRom'') were economic enterprises established in
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, a ...
following the
communist takeover at the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, in place until 1954–1956 (when they were dissolved by the Romanian authorities).
In theory, SovRoms were joint Romanian-Soviet ventures aimed at generating revenue for reconstruction, and were created on a half-share basis in respect to the two states; however, they were mainly designed as a means to ensure resources for the Soviet side, and generally contributed to draining Romania's resources (in addition to the
war reparations demanded by the armistice convention of 1944 and the
Paris Peace Treaties, which had been set at 300 million
United States dollar
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
s—''see
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania under King Carol II officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political uph ...
''). The Soviet contribution in creating the SovRoms lay mostly in reselling leftover
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
equipment to Romania, which was systematically overvalued.
History
Creation, structure, and effects

An agreement between the two countries regarding the establishment of common enterprises was signed in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
on
May 8, 1945, at a time when Romania found itself in economic isolation.
[Alexandrescu, p.39]
The first SovRom to be created (on July 17, 1945), was ''Sovrompetrol'', which had as its objective the exploitation of
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...
in
Prahova County
Prahova County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Ploiești.
Demographics
In 2011, it had a population of 762,886 and the population density was 161/km². It is Romania's third most ...
areas and the
oil refineries
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquef ...
in
Ploieşti. By 1947, it was responsible for 37% of oil drilling,
some 30% of the total production of crude oil, and over 36% of refined oil,
controlling 37% of internal oil supplies and 38% of external ones.
''Sovrompetrol'' was followed by ''Sovromtransport'' and ''Tars'' (transportation), and later by ''Sovrombanc'' (
bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Becau ...
ing and commercial
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
), ''Sovromlemn'' (
wood processing
Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing.
The major wood ...
), ''Sovromgaz'' (
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon ...
), ''Sovromasigurare'' (
insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
), ''Sovromcărbune'' (
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...
exploitation in the
Jiu Valley
The Jiu Valley ( ro, Valea Jiului ) is a region in southwestern Transylvania, Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains. The region was heavily industrialised and ...
and other areas), ''Sovromchim'' (
chemical industry
The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials ( oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. T ...
), ''Sovromconstrucţii'' (construction materials), ''Sovrommetal'' (
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
mining — around
Reşiţa), ''Sovromtractor'' (future ', in
Brașov
Brașov (, , ; german: Kronstadt; hu, Brassó; la, Corona; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the administrative centre of Brașov County.
According to the latest Romanian census ( 2011), Brașov has a po ...
), ''Sovromfilm'' (importing
Soviet cinema productions), ''Sovrom Utilaj Petrolier'' (producing
oil refining equipment) and ''Sovromnaval'' (
shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roo ...
in
Constanța
Constanța (, ; ; rup, Custantsa; bg, Кюстенджа, Kyustendzha, or bg, Констанца, Konstantsa, label=none; el, Κωνστάντζα, Kōnstántza, or el, Κωνστάντια, Kōnstántia, label=none; tr, Köstence), histo ...
,
Giurgiu
Giurgiu (; bg, Гюргево) is a city in southern Romania. The seat of Giurgiu County, it lies in the historical region of Muntenia. It is situated amongst mud-flats and marshes on the left bank of the Danube facing the Bulgarian city ...
, and
Brăila
Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila.
According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...
).
Most notoriously, ''Sovromcuarț'' (or ''Sovromquarțit''), while ostensibly producing
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...
, as its name suggested, was in fact engaged in the mining of uranium ore. ''Sovromcuarț'' started operating in 1950 at
Băiţa mine Baita may refer to:
Romania
;Communes and villages
*Băița, Hunedoara, a commune in Hunedoara County
*Băița and Băița-Plai, villages in Nucet town, Bihor County
*Băița, a village in Gherla town, Cluj County
*Băița, a village in Tăuții-M� ...
in
Bihor County
Bihor County () is a county (județ) in western Romania. With a total area of , Bihor is Romania's 6th largest county geographically and the main county in the historical region of Crișana. Its capital city is Oradea.
Toponymy
The origin of ...
, with a workforce of 15,000
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their politics, political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, al ...
s. After most of them died of
radiation poisoning, they were replaced by local villagers, who did not know what they were mining. In secrecy, Romania delivered 17,288 tons of
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly ...
ore to the Soviet Union between 1952 and 1960, which was used, at least partly, in the
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the Classified information in Russia, classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Although th ...
. Uranium mining continued until 1961.
[Diehl] All ore was shipped outside Romania for processing, initially to
Sillamäe
Sillamäe (Estonian for 'Bridge Hill'; also known by the Germanised names of ''Sillamäggi'' or ''Sillamägi'') is a town in Ida-Viru County in the northern part of Estonia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. It has a population of 1 ...
in
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...
; the uranium concentrate was then used exclusively by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
By 1952, 85% of Romanian export was directed at the Soviet Union. The total value of goods passed by Romania to the Soviet Union surpassed by far the demanded war reparations, being estimated at 2 billion dollars.
Special circumstances also enhanced the negative effects of SovRoms on
Romanian economy: the severe
drought
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
and
famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accom ...
outbreaks of 1946, coupled with the severe
devaluation
In macroeconomics and modern monetary policy, a devaluation is an official lowering of the value of a country's currency within a fixed exchange-rate system, in which a monetary authority formally sets a lower exchange rate of the national cur ...
of the
leu — culminating in a forced
stabilization through
monetary reform
Monetary reform is any movement or theory that proposes a system of supplying money and financing the economy that is different from the current system.
Monetary reformers may advocate any of the following, among other proposals:
* A return ...
(1947).
Ending
The SovRoms' end, evidence of the relative emancipation of the
Romanian Workers' Party
The Romanian Communist Party ( ro, Partidul Comunist Român, , PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro- Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that ...
from Soviet control, ran parallel to the
De-Stalinization process; it was approved by
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev ...
and carried out by
Miron Constantinescu (head of the
Planning Board).
Discussions aimed at winding down the SovRoms began in March 1953. The first measure was taken in 1954 (through accords signed in March and September):
Soviet shares in 12 of the 16 enterprises were taken over by the Romanian state, in exchange for a sum to be paid in installments of merchandise exports (in 1959, the debt was set at over 35 billion
lei).
[Alexandrescu, p.40] Payments were completed in 1975.
The initial sum at which the Soviet side estimated its contribution was 9.6 billion lei, in contrast to the 2.9 billion lei at which it had been valued by Romanian sources;
[Alexandrescu, p.41] discussions on the matter reduced the sum to a total of 5.3 billion lei, which was construed by the two sides not as a corrected result, but as a concession owing to past irregularities in SovRom activities.
At the same time, the Soviet Union announced that it gave up interests in formerly German-owned enterprises and equipment on Romanian soil, for which Romania paid 1.5 billion lei as compensation (deducted from the total 5.3 billion).
The last two remaining SovRoms, ''Sovrompetrol'' and ''Sovromcuarț'', were disbanded in 1956. However, the Romanian government signed an agreement that would replace ''Sovromcuarț'' with a new state-owned company which was to carry on the mining and processing of uranium ore, delivering its entire output to the Soviet Union. This successor company was itself dissolved in 1961.
Soviet investment in ''Sovromcuarț'' was evaluated to a debt of 413 million
Rbls, which were to be paid by Romania over a 10-year period (starting with 1961).
The gesture was used by
First Secretary First Secretary may refer to:
* First minister, a leader of a government
* Secretary (title), a leader of a political party (especially Communist parties), trade union, or other organization
* First Secretary (diplomatic rank), a role within an emba ...
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (; 8 November 1901 – 19 March 1965) was a Romanian communist politician and electrician. He was the first Communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party ...
, who had previously ensured the SovRom's efficiency, as a means to gain popularity with Romanian citizens and, in parallel, to advertise the fact that Romania had developed the majority of
Marxian requirements for Socialism after completing
nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to priv ...
.
[Cioroianu, p.71, 74-76; Rîjnoveanu, p.1]
See also
*
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along wi ...
Notes
References
"Soviet-Rumanian Relation in the Light of Recent Events in Hungary and Poland", November 1956 at the
Blinken Open Society Archives
Blinken Open Society Archives (abbreviated as Blinken OSA) is an archival repository and laboratory that aims to explore new ways of assessing, contextualizing, presenting, and making use of archival documents both in a professional and a conscio ...
* Ion Alexandrescu, "1945-1956: Din «cleştele» German — în braţele «fratelui» de la răsărit. Societăţile mixte sovieto-române (Sovrom)" ("1945-1956: From the German's «Tongs» — into the Eastern «Brother»'s Arms. Mixed Soviet-Romanian Societies (Sovrom)"), in ''Dosarele Istoriei'', 3/1996
* Florian Banu, "Uraniu românesc pentru «marele frate»" ("Romanian Uranium for the «Big Brother»"), in ''Dosarele Istoriei'', 9/2005
*
Adrian Cioroianu, ''Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc'' ("On Marx's Shoulders. An Introduction into the History of Romanian Communism "),
Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005.
* Peter Diehl
"Uranium Mining in Europe", Chapter 1 1995
*
Sergei Khrushchev
Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev (russian: Сергей Никитич Хрущёв; 2 July 1935 – 18 June 2020) was a Russian engineer and the second son of the Cold War-era Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev with his wife Nina Petrovna Khrushcheva ...
,
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev ...
, ''Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev'',
Penn State University Press
The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Uni ...
, University Park, 2004.
* Carmen Rîjnoveanu
"Romania's Policy of Autonomy in the Context of the Sino-Soviet Conflict", in ''NATO and the Warsaw Pact — The Formative Years 1948-1968'', 2003 Conference comments and papers, Czech Republic Military History Institute, Militärgeschichtliches Forscheungamt*Stephen D. Roper, ''Romania: The Unfinished Revolution'',
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, 2000.
Ilarion Țiu, "Deputatul Ceaușescu a votat entuziast naționalizarea" ("Deputy Ceaușescu Enthusiastically Voted for Nationalization") in ''
Adevărul
''Adevărul'' (; meaning "The Truth", formerly spelled ''Adevĕrul'') is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in Iași, in 1871, and reestablished in 1888, in Bucharest, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published du ...
'', September 16, 2011
External links
*{{in lang, ro}
Grecu Dan, ''Salvate de la coșul de gunoi'' ("Rescued from the Garbage Bin")— Sovroms in
postal history
Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of the use of postage stamps and covers and associated postal artifacts illustrating historical episodes in the development of postal systems. The term is at ...
1945 establishments in Romania
1956 disestablishments in Romania
Socialist Republic of Romania
Romania–Soviet Union relations
Foreign trade of the Soviet Union