I got the idea of post with a question for the Glibs from a series of posts on this very site. I fear this will be repetitive and cover the same ground, but it has a slightly different flavor and less racism is involved, which muddies the waters these days.

“Is it permissible to use state power to rectify a previous abuse of state power?”

My post is in the same vein, but, I hope, sufficiently different.

Part 1: the abuse

In Eastern Europe, communism was a hard reset of existing societies, and no matter what some nostalgic assholes say, an utter disastrous one. One of the main things “not real communism” did was remove private property via collectivization.

In the particular case of Romania, this meant almost all agricultural land was taken from the owners and grouped in government farms called CAP – “Cooperativa Agricola de Productie”. This was done in stages, as the communist government managed to extend its power throughout society.

The Rural:

Overall, there was not a huge grassroots communist movement in Romania, the system was imposed by force by the Soviets. One of the effects of the situation was that the communist party was made of basically the worst people in the village, the lazy, the thieves, the bullies. Even poor peasants did not want to join. The people that did were often brutal and they had felt disrespected in the past. This was in part due to the fact that Romania was still mostly rural, and in rural villages people generally knew each other. They knew who were honest, hardworking people, and who were not. Those who were no were not seen in a good light.

The propaganda

The first stage was imposing massive quotas of produce to be handed over to the government in the hope of ruining the farmers.

The second stage was confiscating from the “wealthy landowners”, everyone with more than 50 hectares of land. This was done in 1949 and often meant going to houses in the middle of the night and kicking the people out and moving them to old adobo houses in different villages, while the land, house, livestock, farm machinery and most possessions were left behind.

One main hope was that all the poorer peasants would side with the government, but this did not really happen as many poor peasants wanted to work and extend their land holdings themselves. In general, the more prosperous people in the community were seen as community leaders and were respected. Furthermore, the government had imposed quotas on poor peasants as well, so they did not see the communist government in a good light.

The third stage started in 1957 when all property no matter how small was collectivized. Most people were left with basically a small vegetable garden that was attached to the house they lived in. There was some regional difference, as in high hills and mountain areas, where large scale agriculture was more difficult, the collectivization was not complete, as the government saw less economic value there.

In this final stage, the repression was also the worst, as the resistance was highest. Many peasants were arrested, some tortured and killed – especially the ones seen as respected in the community. In order to break communities and solidarity among people, some peasants were deported to different areas of the country, especially from Transylvania to Dobrogea. My father told me that in the village he grew up in multiple chiefs of police shot themselves, not even all commies could live with what they had done. There was also resistance, with some men taking up their hunting rifles which the state could not confiscate and going to the hills and mountains, but, in the end, they could only resist for a while. People were hoping the Western Europeans and Americans would come to kick the Russians out of the area as they did with the Germans, but this off course did not happen.

The reality

The collectivization officially ended in 1962, when the government reported 95% of agricultural land in government ownership. Romania was one of the worst countries for this, most others allowed more private property, only Albania being comparable. Peasants in CAP farms were poorly paid – in part to force them to move to the city for the rapid industrialization that the government wanted, compared to other communist countries in the area. This was also in part due to the fact that, in the absence of significant communist movements in the country, in the central government, just like the minor bureaucrats, the absolute worst people ended in power. As bad as the leadership was in all communist countries, in Romania it was worse.

My paternal grandparents on both sides, who were never boyars just moderately successful, lost pretty much everything.

The economy:

This was fairly straightforward: factories, shops, warehouses and all other elements were simply taken over by the state and given to party members to run. More were built by the state, partially financed by the expropriated wealth, partially funded by international loans. This was done without any real economic knowledge and was in the end disastrous. But, like much of socialism, it seemed to work at first, at least until we ran out of other people’s money, which is what all the modern tankies cling too.

The urban:

Here it was also pretty straightforward. The high-quality houses were mostly confiscated from their owners and given to party members. Much of the cheaper housing was confiscated and torn down to build the cramped brutalist apartment buildings which were to house the workers of the factories that were the pride of the socialist industry. Old owners got apartments in the new buildings or a bullet or a good workout digging the canals – depending on their luck.  Some higher quality housing was built for the party members who did not have room in the old high-quality housing.

Part 2: the rectification

While mass confiscation of property was a massive abuse of state power, I do not think that giving it back can count as abuse, and it is certainly not in the same realm as other reparations. So off course I, and every non-commie, support this. Communism ran from 1949 to 1989 so about 40 years.

But the proverbial devil is in the details. And “the details” are how the old commie ruling class stole much valuable stuff and became the new “capitalist” ruling class.

Off course, this was not without controversy. There were people living in houses that needed to be returned to the original owners who did not want to leave. Most of them paid negligible rents to the government for the privilege. Some claimed they lived for 20 years there, why should they move. Others expected the government to give them someplace else in similar conditions. Especially in the old mansions and fancy houses, these were connected people who were used to getting their way. As communism dragged on for 40 years, the original owners were often dead – the communists killed plenty themselves – or fled, and dead abroad from more natural causes, and the rights to the property should go to their next of kin, although that was not always easy to establish.

For rural land, there were no clear deeds of property before 1940, people had informal paper or generally knew who owned what. It was the way of the old village, no paperwork was needed, everyone knew what land belonged to whom. This was better in Transylvania as the Austro-Hungarians were better records keepers.  It was a struggle which implied many court dates, lawyers and shenanigans, though, in the end, most houses were returned to private property.

The return of the property was done in such a way as “the right people” – as in the corrupt and connected, often people who were part of the old communist elite and the secret police senior ranks, got a lion’s share. This was done in several ways.

The main one was making it legal for owners to sell the rights to their property, even though they did not yet have the property. So, the courts would drag on and on, until some exhausted owners who no longer afforded the cost sold their right cheap to certain people. After this happened, the trial was over soon and the new owner got himself a cheap property. Other times it was more direct mob death threats to sell rights. Or there were some laws to compensate owners by giving them some equivalent property, which was never equivalent. It was, over all, a shitshow.

Most of the agricultural land was given back in private property, but this was often done via compensation: e.g. someone connected got the land best suited to agriculture, and the people who should have gotten it received an equivalent amount of hectares of less than choice land. And when the big city suburbs started expanding in farmland, some of the owner made really good money, in fact that is how many rich people got rich.

Even beyond the shitshow, how the process should have been done was a different question. And it led to some debates by a proto-libertarian Pie in the comments of a blog I used to frequent in 2010 or so. I am not and never was a purist libertarian. In my view, in the real world, one needs to be pragmatic about some things. I am fully aware that bending principles to much for the sake of pragmatism can lead to those principles being completely compromised, and that it is a delicate balancing act that oft goes wrong. But I do not see an alternative.

One of the main points of debate was what happens to property that is in a completely different state than it was. An empty lot confiscated in 1949 by the communists is now a park in the middle of the city, a railway station, a road, a 10-story building. Most said in this case give monetary compensation to the old owners. Purist libertarians said no, give the original property back. I was in the former camp.

My view is, it is not possible to fully go back to status quo ante. Not all wrongs can be righted. Communism was a great reset, and ending it is another great reset. Any move to actual libertarianism, not that it will ever happen in Romania, needs be gradual. And we need to keep, for now, whatever infrastructure we had. So, no, I did not support suddenly privatizing all muh roads. I did support privatizing the railways, but as a whole not give bits and pieces to a million owners.

Especially when it comes to parks in good parts of Bucharest, that was a very valuable property to build on. And as parks are essential for the well-being of urbanites in high density apartment buildings – of the kind the commies tore down Bucharest to build and the kind that dominate the housing here, this was very contentious. It was additionally contentious when pieces of parkland were torn down by people who were more likely corrupt mobsters who got the property rights than the actual original owners. This did not matter to the purists. In my view, no piece of park should have been given back. This is still my view. Privatizing somewhat the whole park as long as it is kept a park was a different matter. But tearing pieces of park to make buildings should not happen in Bucharest. I am sure some here would agree with the purists, but this is my view. Giving back a large building or a railway station on what was once empty land is basically the same.

My view was: give the property back if it is in generally the same state. If it was, there should be no compensation or equivalent, just give it back. If someone occupies it, tough, move. Where? I don’t much care. If it cannot be given back, give financial compensation or in that case equivalent. Also, my view was returning should be to the original owner or direct line relatives 3 generations max. No long lost second cousins or uncles – the source of much theft was this. If the owner, children, or at most grandchildren did not exist, do not return it and auction it off.

There was another element to it. The people living in the communist apartment buildings. During communism you could get the chance – after some years on a list- to own an apartment outright by paying what was functionally equivalent to a 20 year mortgage. Or you could rent. Most people rented, and after the fall of communism they got the chance to buy the apartment for what was an almost symbolic sum of money, which most did. This led to 90% of people in Romanian cities owning their apartments, a higher rate than most countries. This was another way of creating private property after communism.

So, Glibs, how would you go about undoing the wrongs of communism in 1990 Romania?