ECONOMIC AND LABOR CONDITIONS IN RUMANIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700190214-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 214
• Publication Date: July 14, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION CONFIDENTIAL
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT
INi 'RMATION FROM,
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
SUBJECT Economic - Food prices
Sociological - Labor
HOW
PUBLISHED Monthly periodical
WHERE
PUBLISNc.D Paris
DATE
PUBLISHED Jan 1954
LANGUAGE Rumanian
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MARKUP ON FOOD -- Paris, RomaniaMuncituare, Jan 54
An idea of the extent to which Communist governments fleece the people
can be gained from the following table, showing prices pei kilogram (unless
otherwise ndicatrd) and in lei:
Price Paid Retail Price, Retail Price, Retail,
Item to Producef rutlune6 - Free Markup Black Market
Beef (fat,
live weight) .90 5.00 3.00 .10 10-12
Beef (good) .30 4.80 ;.56 6.76 --
heel
(Coirmercial) .65 4.60 7.00 6.35 --
Beef (lean) .55 4.50 6.90 5.15 --
Hogs (fat) 1.75 6.00 9.00 7.25 12-15
Hogs
(medium) 1.60 5.40 8.36 6.76 --
Hogs (lean) 1.50 5.20 8.3C 6.80 --
Milk (per
liter) .40
Sheep cheese 3.50
Sheen cheese
(sharp, from
ECONOMIC AND LABOR CONDITIONS IN RUMANIA
DATE OF
INFORMATION 1954
DATE DIST. /`' Jul 1954
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
1.10 .70
11.00 7.50
12.5n
21.50
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11.50
14.50
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It must be remembered that the prices paid to the producer are those at
which the peasants must deliver their produce to the state, in accordance with
the decree of 13 December 1953, which, according to Gheorghiu-Deb, was to re-
sult in a vast improvement of the peasants' standard of living.
A VISIT TO BUCHAREST -- Paris, Romania Muncitoare, Jan 54
The following is part of an article which appeared in the first issue
of Vocea Libertatii, a newspaper issued in Athens by Greek emigrees prom
Rumania. The autnor, a traveling salesman who spent a week in Bucharest in
late fall 1953, reports that lie was amazed at the general sadness and miserable
appearance of a people he had known to be gay and prosperous in 1936. He could
do no business, since he could buy only lamp chimneys and storm lanterns.
He frequently tried to engage people in conversation in restaurants by
offering them drinks, but he was successful only once, when an elderly factory
worker accepted an offer of hot prune brandy. After the second drink, he be-
came more communicative and asked all sores of questions about life outsi%ne
the Iron """t"in but refused to answer any question-. He was most interested
in learning when Eisenhower would save them. His parting words were: "You
lucky people who live in free countries; here we are suffocating and starving."
DEVEIAPME,TS IN TRADE UNIONS IN 1953 -- Paris, Romania Muncitoare, Jun 54
Stelian Moraru, president of the Central Council of Trade Unions, reported
at the Rumanian Trade Union Congress of January 1953 that "the trade unicn
membership has reached 2,300,000 workers, technicians, employees, engineers,
and students; 600,000 workers, technicians, and employees [foremen, white-
collar workers, etc.] among them are active in trade union organs and committees.
These figures reflect the political and numerical growth of the Rumanian
working class."
In 1953, according to official statistics, the working class added another
200,000 workers, employees, and technicians to its ranks. Scanteia Tineretului
of 11 December 1953 wrote that in the third quarter of 1953 alone, trade, inter-
mediate, and higher schools had produced 82,000 new cadres for all branches of
the national economy, for cultural activities, and for the field of health.
One should therefore have expected a corresponding growth in trade union member-
ship, especially since there are about 200,000 old hands that had not yet
'9 - growing it that "at Joined. membersBut ncaGnro,6December 1953 gives away the fact that the trade
membership is almost 2,300,000, of whom 600,000 ,areracti eiinstrade unionror-nt,
gans and committees'. In othez words, membership dropped slightly during
the year.
The reason for the lack o' appeal of trade unions has oeen rev_aled by
Alexandru Moghioros, third-highest man in the Rumanian Communist Party and the
Central Committee's secretary for organizational problems. in his analysis of
the reasons for the lack of success of mass organizations, he wrote in. Scanteia
of 15 October 1953:
"Some of the trade union organs, and even the Central Council of Trade
Unions, do not satisfactorily accomplish their mission to enforce compliance
with the Labor Code and collective contracts to ensure the availability of
adequate housing and social una cultural institutions for the workers."
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The explanation for this situation is simple. In the Communist setup,
trade unions are mainly tools for the exploitation of workers, and this takes
precedence over welfare considerations. This was clearly demonstrated by a
recent statement of the secretary of the mass-production section of the Light
Industries Trade Union in connection with the new drive for increased produc-
tion of consumer goods. He explained that prices could only be reduced by
greater production,. and greater production must be achieved by better utili-
zation of internal resources, that is, "by executing ... in as short a time
as possible ... the various operations ... by more intensive utilization of
machine tools ... and more rational utilization of raw materials."
In other words, workers must work.harder. This is also the main
the recent "reform of the wage system in light industry)" which purpose of
provides, other means of squeezing more work out of the workers, foranv"improved
system of bonuses." Brigade leaders, toremen, their assistants etc., are to
receive substantial bonuses if they succeed in exhausting all internal re-
serves.. But this maneuver is just as unlikely to succeed in light industry
as in the coal industry, where it was introduced in June 1952 and did not
overcome the chronic failure to fulfill the plan.
Lupta de Clasa, too, has spoken of "the indifference of trade union
leadership to workers' needs."
HIGH PERCENTAGE OF UNPRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES -- Paris, Romania Muncitoare, Jan 54
Lupta de Class, No 10, of 1953 published a study by economist I. Rachmuth,
in which he claimed that labor productivity in 1950 had increased in Rumania
8..3 percent over the figure for 1949, 31.2 percent over 1949 in 1951, and 48 per-
cent over. 1949 in 1952. This is the main cause of the growth in the national
income over that period, which, according to Rachmuth, reached 73 percent.
The obvious question then is why the living standards of the workers have
not improved but declined? The answer is mainly to be found in the exorbitant
tribute levied by Moscow in return for Soviet-Rumanian friendship and the tre-
mendous number of parasites represented by government and party officials,
as well as by the supervisory apparatus in industry.
The Five-Year Plan provided for an increase in wage earners from 2,250,000
in 1951 to 3 million in 1955, of whom 1,800,000 were to be workers [laborers]
and 1,200,000 employees (all wage earners not engaged in production). More
than 150,000 new wage earners were to be recruited annually, including both
groups. But Miron Constantinescu specified in his plan that the number of manggl
workers alone was to ne increased by 760,000. Of these, 600,000 were to come
from the village population and the rest from the cities. It follows that
what industry needed was workers and that the number of employees was to be re-
duced by 10,000.
However, something seems to have gone wrong with the plan, for the annual
rate of increase of wage earners has been over 200,000, a phenomenon which wau
represented by Scanteia of 8 December 1953 as a success for the regime, on the
other hand, the government, in its decree of 18 November 1953, spoke of"the.
necessity of reducing the "unjustified growth in the number of employees."
But in practice this does not appear an easy thing to do. Speaking of the
industrial sector only, Rachmuth stated that the total number of workers and
employees in Rumanian industry had grown from 700,000 in 1949 to almost one
million in 1952, of which 792,000 were workers, compared with 534,000 in 1949.
It follows that the number of wage earners rose by 300,000 in 3 years, that is,
by 43 percent, but while the number of workers grew by 258,000, that is, by
48 percent, the number of employees grew by 42,000, or 25 percent.
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For every four productive workers hired, one additional employee is
therefore also hired, who, in his capacity of setting up norms, checker,
dispatcher, etc., receives a much higher wage than even a skilled worker.
It should be obvious that Rumanian industry is not in a position to support
an army of high-priced parasites and that if the miserable lot of the workers
is to be improved, most of those who are there to check, supervise, watch, and
police the workers should be dropped and their wages diverted to the real
workers. But it is difficult to conceive a Communist regime operating without
a vast police apparatus.
STAKHANOVISM IN RUMANIA -- Paris, Romania Muncitoare, Jan 54
Scanteia of 8 December 1953 announced that in the 2 years since the
introduction of Stakhanovisrn in Rumania, almost 25,000 workers and technicians
had earned this proud distinction and over 251,000 had earned the title of
leading worker, which is only slightly less honorable than the Stakhanovite
award.
However, Communist statistics are sometimes peculiar. Referr'-rg to
the number of women ayhanovites in Rumania, Viataa Clpitalei of 31 May 1953
put the figure at b50, out on 1 June 1953, Scanteia reproduced the report
of Mrs Raceanu to the Congress of Democratic isomer; in which she announced
there were 1,700.
As it is hardly believable that the number was almost tripled in 24 hours,
the conclusion must be drawn that Communist statistics are not very reliable,
and one may have soma uuuuts as to the accuracy of the statistics showing a
grand total of 25,000 Stakhanovites, despite the fact that this would only be
uoout 1 percent of the total labor force.
Munca of 24 November 1953 brugged about the numerous Stakhanovites,
such as Ceza Kopetin, Mihai Moraru, Mihai Stefan, Naidu Juliu, etc., in the
coal mines. However, on 8 December, the same paper carried a letter from
Geza Kopetin, revealing the true conditions in the Lonea III Mine and, for
that matter, in the entire coal industry: "There are some brigades," he
wrote," in which the latest methods are used, such as the cyclic-graph, the
Randin, and the Voroshin methods. But the efforts of only a few brigades
are not enough to fulfill the plan for the entire mine. In October, four
out of eight brigades working by cyclic graphs did not fulfill the cycles.
In November, there were still eight brigades listed, but actually only five
were using the graph."
LABOR PROBLEM _- Paris, Romania Muncitoare, Jan 54
Scanteia Tineretului of 20 November 1953 puts its finger on a new sore
spot of Communism. It complains that too many young workers have no liking
for their work and constantly change trades; whatever their work, they always
want to do something different.
The explanation, which the newspaper seems to miss is very simple: The
constant turnover is the result of the Communist system of forcing young men
to learn whatever trade is suffering from a labor shortage, instead of allowing
them to follow their natural inclinations. When, furthermore, the young men
find that work which they dislike is also badly paid, they seize the first op-
portunity tc try something else, and are again disappointed, especially since
they leek the time and the opportunit
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CONFIDB.J:CIAL
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