Petre Borila
Encyclopedia
Petre Borilă was a Romania
n communist
politician who briefly served as Vice-Premier under the Communist regime
. A member of the Romanian Communist Party
(PCR) since his late teens, he was a political commissar
in the Spanish Civil War
and a Comintern
cadre afterwards, spending World War II
in exile to the Soviet Union
. Borilă returned to Romania during the late 1940s, and rose to prominence under Communist rule, when he was a member of the PCR's Central Committee
and Politburo
.
Initially close to the faction formed around Ana Pauker
and Vasile Luca
, Borilă rallied with their adversary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
, thus ensuring his own political survival. He subsequently endorsed the official policies, and played a part in ousting Gheorghiu-Dej's newly-found rival, Iosif Chişinevschi
, but was progressively marginalized after Nicolae Ceauşescu
emerged as Romania's ruler. Objecting to Ceauşescu's nationalism
, he also had a notorious personal conflict with the new leader, after the latter's son Valentin
married Borilă's daughter.
parents in the Southern Dobruja
n city of Silistra
, which was at the time part of the Bulgarian Principality
and, between 1913 and 1940, part of the Kingdom of Romania
. He joined the newly-outlawed PCR in 1924, and became known under his adoptive name at some point in the 1930s. The party appointed him commissar with the International Brigades
fighting for the Republican
side in Spain
, whence he returned after the Nationalist victory.
During World War II, Petre Borilă resided in the Soviet Union
, where he was still present as Romania joined the Axis Powers
in their 1941 invasion
. He worked for the Comintern before its 1943 dissolution, being a personal collaborator to its leaders Georgi Dimitrov
and Dmitry Manuilsky
. At the time, he also had close contacts with other prominent Romanian communist exiles, including Luca, Pauker, Leonte Răutu, and Valter Roman
— this nucleus, representing a distinct faction inside the PCR, planned to take over the entire party upon their return to Romania. In this, they were opposed by the "prison faction", whose members, including its main figure Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, had been arrested and were serving time in Romania. According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
, Borilă had grown aware that support for his faction was fragile, and, in order to ensure his political survival, maintained close contacts with Gheorghiu-Dej.
Borilă returned to Romania with the Red Army
after the start of Soviet occupation
. As the Luca-Pauker group ensured a main role in leading the reunited PCR (known for a while afterwards as the Romanian Workers' Party or PMR), he himself rose to prominence: following the establishment of a Communist regime
(1947), he was a member of the Central Committee
(1948-1969) and of the Politburo
(1952-1965). He was also among those charged with politically supervising its secret police
, the Securitate
. During the early 1950s, he and fellow PCR members Dumitru Coliu and Ion Vincze
organized political repression through a series of violent measures.
Reputedly, his relations with Pauker and Luca grew tense as early as 1950, when the former two began a campaign aimed at removing Spanish Civil War volunteers from the PMR leadership, in view of subjecting them to a show trial
. At the time, Gheorghe Vasilichi and Valter Roman were singled out as "spies", and Borilă himself seems to have been considered as a victim of the purge. His renewed contacts with Gheorghiu-Dej were taken as a sign that the International Brigades veterans were ready to play a role in ousting the Pauker-Luca faction, and as such granted protection by the other main group.
In 1952, Borilă aligned with other PMR leaders and facilitated the fall of the Pauker-Luca faction (initiated by Vasile Luca's arrest). He remained a relatively important figure during Gheorghiu-Dej's supremacy, serving as Vice-Premier in 1954-1965.
In 1956, he was, alongside Gheorghiu-Dej, Miron Constantinescu
and Iosif Chişinevschi
, one of Romania's delegates to the famous 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party
, where, to their surprise, Nikita Khrushchev
condemned Joseph Stalin
and announced a path to De-Stalinization. As a consequence of this move, Gheorghiu-Dej made a claim to have De-Stalinized the PCR years before Khrushchev, and linked Stalinism
exclusively to the fallen Pauker-Luca faction: Petre Borilă played a significant part in this process, rallying with the Romanian leader as the latter purged the PMR of members who advocated increased liberalization
. Later in the same year, together with Gheorghiu-Dej, Vincze, Constantin Pîrvulescu
and Alexandru Moghioroş, he engaged in talks with Pauker, who was by then released from detention by placed under close Securitate surveillance — they attempted to have her confess to political crimes, but she defiantly continued to deny the bulk of the charges.
Despite the ideological conflict between the PCR and Khrushchev, Romania supported Soviet intervention against the 1956 Revolution in Hungary
, and Gheorghiu-Dej agreed to have dissident Hungarian leader Imre Nagy
kept under arrest in Snagov
. Alongside Valter Roman, Nicolae Goldberger, and others, Borilă came to Snagov and played a personal part in pressuring Nagy and other members of his fallen cabinet to confess (1957). During the following years, he backed Gheorghiu-Dej in his conflict with Chişinevschi and Miron Constantinescu, both of whom were ousted from the PMR leadership after being publicly exposed to criticism. This was especially the case during a 1961 plenum meeting of the Workers' Party, when he voiced harsh criticism of Chişinevschi, but also Pauker and Luca, whom he depicted as enforcers of Soviet directives.
Between 1965 and 1969, under Romania's new leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu
, he was a member of the Executive Committee (the reformed Politburo of the PCR, as the latter discarded its PMR name). Nevertheless, he came to clash with Ceauşescu over various issues, the most important of which being the open encouragement of nationalism
and claims of independence inside the Eastern Bloc
(policies to which the pro-Soviet Borilă was strongly opposed).
A particular point of contention between Ceauşescu and Borilă was the personal life of their children. Borilă, who was married to Ecaterina Abraham, a Romanian communist of Jewish
origin, was father to Iordana (or Dana), who fell in love with and married Ceauşescu's oldest son, Valentin
. Both families objected to their wedding, and their relations grew notably tense.
, Petre Borilă had gained an ill notoriety for being involved in "the most secretive of political affairs", and was considered "a distant and suspicious figure". Tismăneanu also referred to Borilă as a "Soviet agent", who, alongside Iosif Chişinevschi
, was used by Gheorghiu-Dej to supervise lower-ranking PCR members and enforce a local variant of Stalinism
(while ensuring close links with Soviet officials). His reelection in the 1954 Politburo after Ana Pauker
's fall was seen as a sign of his importance and close relation to Gheorghiu-Dej. Both he and Valter Roman
enforced their commitment to the new leader in 1961, when they publicly claimed that their survival was entirely owed to his victory in the inner-party clash.
Shortly before his death, Borilă reportedly authored a letter condemning Ceauşescu, who was by then President
, for "nationalism". According to dissident Mircea Răceanu
, whose father Grigore Răceanu
was a prominent PCR member, the document was known to party officials, but was deliberately not made public.
The negative reaction to the Valentin Ceauşescu-Iordana Borilă marriage was believed by commentators to be a reflection of xenophobia
on the part of Nicolae Ceauşescu's wife, Elena Ceauşescu
(an ethnic Romanian
, she allegedly resented the non-Romanian origins of her in-laws). Such views were rejected by Andrei Lupu, a person close to the Ceauşescus whose parents were important members of the PCR — Lupu argued that the two families did not get along on account of Petre Borilă's aloofness. On the other hand, Petre Borilă himself is known to have opposed their wedding, probably due to Nicolae Ceauşescu's ideology. In a 2007 interview, Constantin Roguschi, who was employed as an architect by the dictator, claimed that Iordana Borilă was not allowed to set foot in any house owned by Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu.
The couple eventually divorced in 1988, one year before the Romanian Revolution
toppled and executed Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu. In the early 1990s, Iordana, together with Daniel Ceauşescu, her son by Valentin, emigrated to Israel
and later to the United States
. Daniel is the former dictator's only grandson (see Ceauşescu family
).
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
politician who briefly served as Vice-Premier under the Communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
. A member of the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
(PCR) since his late teens, he was a political commissar
Political commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and a Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
cadre afterwards, spending World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in exile to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Borilă returned to Romania during the late 1940s, and rose to prominence under Communist rule, when he was a member of the PCR's Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
and Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
.
Initially close to the faction formed around Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
and Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
, Borilă rallied with their adversary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
, thus ensuring his own political survival. He subsequently endorsed the official policies, and played a part in ousting Gheorghiu-Dej's newly-found rival, Iosif Chişinevschi
Iosif Chisinevschi
Iosif Chişinevschi , born Iosif Roitman, was a Romanian communist politician. The leading ideologue of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to 1957, he served as head of its Agitprop Department from 1948 to 1952 and was in charge of propaganda and culture from 1952 to 1955...
, but was progressively marginalized after Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
emerged as Romania's ruler. Objecting to Ceauşescu's nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, he also had a notorious personal conflict with the new leader, after the latter's son Valentin
Valentin Ceausescu
Valentin Ceaușescu is a Romanian physicist.Valentin is the son of former President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu...
married Borilă's daughter.
Biography
Borilă was born to ethnic BulgarianBulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
parents in the Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja is an area of north-eastern Bulgaria comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of Dobrich and Silistra...
n city of Silistra
Silistra
Silistra is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country's border with Romania. Silistra is the administrative centre of Silistra Province and one of the important cities of the historical region of Southern Dobrudzha...
, which was at the time part of the Bulgarian Principality
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
and, between 1913 and 1940, part of the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
. He joined the newly-outlawed PCR in 1924, and became known under his adoptive name at some point in the 1930s. The party appointed him commissar with the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....
fighting for the Republican
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
side in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, whence he returned after the Nationalist victory.
During World War II, Petre Borilă resided in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, where he was still present as Romania joined the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
in their 1941 invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. He worked for the Comintern before its 1943 dissolution, being a personal collaborator to its leaders Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...
and Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky was an important Bolshevik. He was the son of an Orthodox priest from a Ukrainian village. After secondary school he enrolled in the University of St...
. At the time, he also had close contacts with other prominent Romanian communist exiles, including Luca, Pauker, Leonte Răutu, and Valter Roman
Valter Roman
Valter or Walter Roman , born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish Communist parties as well as being a Comintern cadre...
— this nucleus, representing a distinct faction inside the PCR, planned to take over the entire party upon their return to Romania. In this, they were opposed by the "prison faction", whose members, including its main figure Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, had been arrested and were serving time in Romania. According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
, Borilă had grown aware that support for his faction was fragile, and, in order to ensure his political survival, maintained close contacts with Gheorghiu-Dej.
Borilă returned to Romania with the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
after the start of Soviet occupation
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
. As the Luca-Pauker group ensured a main role in leading the reunited PCR (known for a while afterwards as the Romanian Workers' Party or PMR), he himself rose to prominence: following the establishment of a Communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
(1947), he was a member of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
(1948-1969) and of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
(1952-1965). He was also among those charged with politically supervising its secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
. During the early 1950s, he and fellow PCR members Dumitru Coliu and Ion Vincze
Ion Vincze
Ion Vincze was a Romanian communist politician and diplomat...
organized political repression through a series of violent measures.
Reputedly, his relations with Pauker and Luca grew tense as early as 1950, when the former two began a campaign aimed at removing Spanish Civil War volunteers from the PMR leadership, in view of subjecting them to a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
. At the time, Gheorghe Vasilichi and Valter Roman were singled out as "spies", and Borilă himself seems to have been considered as a victim of the purge. His renewed contacts with Gheorghiu-Dej were taken as a sign that the International Brigades veterans were ready to play a role in ousting the Pauker-Luca faction, and as such granted protection by the other main group.
In 1952, Borilă aligned with other PMR leaders and facilitated the fall of the Pauker-Luca faction (initiated by Vasile Luca's arrest). He remained a relatively important figure during Gheorghiu-Dej's supremacy, serving as Vice-Premier in 1954-1965.
In 1956, he was, alongside Gheorghiu-Dej, Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
and Iosif Chişinevschi
Iosif Chisinevschi
Iosif Chişinevschi , born Iosif Roitman, was a Romanian communist politician. The leading ideologue of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to 1957, he served as head of its Agitprop Department from 1948 to 1952 and was in charge of propaganda and culture from 1952 to 1955...
, one of Romania's delegates to the famous 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, where, to their surprise, Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
condemned Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and announced a path to De-Stalinization. As a consequence of this move, Gheorghiu-Dej made a claim to have De-Stalinized the PCR years before Khrushchev, and linked Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
exclusively to the fallen Pauker-Luca faction: Petre Borilă played a significant part in this process, rallying with the Romanian leader as the latter purged the PMR of members who advocated increased liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
. Later in the same year, together with Gheorghiu-Dej, Vincze, Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu
Constantin Pîrvulescu was a Romanian communist politician, one of the founders of the Romanian Communist Party , and, eventually, an active opponent of Communist Romania's leader Nicolae Ceauşescu...
and Alexandru Moghioroş, he engaged in talks with Pauker, who was by then released from detention by placed under close Securitate surveillance — they attempted to have her confess to political crimes, but she defiantly continued to deny the bulk of the charges.
Despite the ideological conflict between the PCR and Khrushchev, Romania supported Soviet intervention against the 1956 Revolution in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and Gheorghiu-Dej agreed to have dissident Hungarian leader Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
kept under arrest in Snagov
Snagov
Snagov is a commune, located 40 km north of Bucharest in Ilfov County, Romania. According to the 2002 census, 99.2% of the population is ethnic Romanian and 0.4% are Roma...
. Alongside Valter Roman, Nicolae Goldberger, and others, Borilă came to Snagov and played a personal part in pressuring Nagy and other members of his fallen cabinet to confess (1957). During the following years, he backed Gheorghiu-Dej in his conflict with Chişinevschi and Miron Constantinescu, both of whom were ousted from the PMR leadership after being publicly exposed to criticism. This was especially the case during a 1961 plenum meeting of the Workers' Party, when he voiced harsh criticism of Chişinevschi, but also Pauker and Luca, whom he depicted as enforcers of Soviet directives.
Between 1965 and 1969, under Romania's new leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, he was a member of the Executive Committee (the reformed Politburo of the PCR, as the latter discarded its PMR name). Nevertheless, he came to clash with Ceauşescu over various issues, the most important of which being the open encouragement of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and claims of independence inside the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
(policies to which the pro-Soviet Borilă was strongly opposed).
A particular point of contention between Ceauşescu and Borilă was the personal life of their children. Borilă, who was married to Ecaterina Abraham, a Romanian communist of Jewish
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
origin, was father to Iordana (or Dana), who fell in love with and married Ceauşescu's oldest son, Valentin
Valentin Ceausescu
Valentin Ceaușescu is a Romanian physicist.Valentin is the son of former President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu...
. Both families objected to their wedding, and their relations grew notably tense.
Legacy
According to Vladimir TismăneanuVladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
, Petre Borilă had gained an ill notoriety for being involved in "the most secretive of political affairs", and was considered "a distant and suspicious figure". Tismăneanu also referred to Borilă as a "Soviet agent", who, alongside Iosif Chişinevschi
Iosif Chisinevschi
Iosif Chişinevschi , born Iosif Roitman, was a Romanian communist politician. The leading ideologue of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to 1957, he served as head of its Agitprop Department from 1948 to 1952 and was in charge of propaganda and culture from 1952 to 1955...
, was used by Gheorghiu-Dej to supervise lower-ranking PCR members and enforce a local variant of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
(while ensuring close links with Soviet officials). His reelection in the 1954 Politburo after Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker
Ana Pauker was a Romanian communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
's fall was seen as a sign of his importance and close relation to Gheorghiu-Dej. Both he and Valter Roman
Valter Roman
Valter or Walter Roman , born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish Communist parties as well as being a Comintern cadre...
enforced their commitment to the new leader in 1961, when they publicly claimed that their survival was entirely owed to his victory in the inner-party clash.
Shortly before his death, Borilă reportedly authored a letter condemning Ceauşescu, who was by then President
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
, for "nationalism". According to dissident Mircea Răceanu
Mircea Raceanu
-Early life:He was the son of two Transylvanian members of the underground Romanian Communist Party in the 1930s: a Romanian worker named Ileana Pop and a Jewish carpenter named Andrei Bernat, who was killed by Fascists during World War II. Mircea was born in Văcăreşti prison, where his mother was...
, whose father Grigore Răceanu
Grigore Raceanu
Grigore Ion Răceanu was a Romanian communist politician and opponent of Nicolae Ceauşescu.Born in Cojocna, Cluj County, he became a train driver for Căile Ferate Române. He was also a trade union leader, being one of the organizers of the strikes of Cluj in 1929-1933. He became a member of the...
was a prominent PCR member, the document was known to party officials, but was deliberately not made public.
The negative reaction to the Valentin Ceauşescu-Iordana Borilă marriage was believed by commentators to be a reflection of xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
on the part of Nicolae Ceauşescu's wife, Elena Ceauşescu
Elena Ceausescu
Elena Ceaușescu was the wife of Romania's Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Deputy Prime Minister of Romania.-Background:She was born Elena Petrescu into a peasant family in Petrești commune, Dâmboviţa County, in the informal region of Wallachia. Her family was supported by her father's job...
(an ethnic Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, she allegedly resented the non-Romanian origins of her in-laws). Such views were rejected by Andrei Lupu, a person close to the Ceauşescus whose parents were important members of the PCR — Lupu argued that the two families did not get along on account of Petre Borilă's aloofness. On the other hand, Petre Borilă himself is known to have opposed their wedding, probably due to Nicolae Ceauşescu's ideology. In a 2007 interview, Constantin Roguschi, who was employed as an architect by the dictator, claimed that Iordana Borilă was not allowed to set foot in any house owned by Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu.
The couple eventually divorced in 1988, one year before the Romanian Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
toppled and executed Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu. In the early 1990s, Iordana, together with Daniel Ceauşescu, her son by Valentin, emigrated to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and later to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Daniel is the former dictator's only grandson (see Ceauşescu family
Ceausescu family
Nicolae Ceauşescu, who led Romania from 1965 to 1989, had a large family, several members of which wielded influence in Communist Romania. Below are given outlines of his immediate family members' lives, with links to those who have separate articles about them....
).