Vin americanii!
Encyclopedia
Vin americanii! was a slogan used in Romania
in the 1940s and 1950s, encapsulating the hope that an American
-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet
-backed, Communist
-dominated government installed in early 1945. This notion helped sustain an anti-communist resistance movement
and emboldened the civilians who aided it.
would be driven out by the US Army with help from the local resistance. Groups in Transylvania
were prepared to eliminate communist officials as soon as war began, and take control of their particular region. They built supply lines with the local population, gathered armaments, munitions and money, and developed plans to attack institutions and communications networks. They were a prime target of the Securitate
, which viewed them as agents of the American imperialists seeking to destabilize the regime.
There were smaller groups who fled to the mountains simply to avoid persecution, without plans to topple the government, but they too hoped their efforts would be rewarded by America. For instance, the Arnota group hid in the mountains of northern Oltenia
in winter 1949, planning to resist until a US invasion, which they expected that summer. After their capture in April, one of their members told Securitate investigators, "the goal of setting up in the mountains was to remain until around June, when we were told... an armed intervention by the Americans would take place, which would overthrow the regime, the only ones who would do it, because a domestic intervention has no chance of succeeding..."
Resistance groups uniformly saw American aid as vital to their success. One of the accusations put forth at the trial of the Sumanele Negre group was that its members had developed contacts with American intelligence officers, together studying the possibility of collaborating and coming up with a plan to overthrow the regime. This accusation was repeated for most groups captured later on.
American sources confirm the fact that the CIA tried to develop links with Romanian partisans at the end of the 1940s. The Office of Policy Coordination
recruited Romanian refugees in Western Europe starting in 1949. The latter were ready to establish contacts with resistance groups, whom they intended to supply with light arms, munitions, radio transmitters and medicines. To this end, the OPC created training camps in Italy, France and Greece, where recruitees learned how to use radio transmitters and make parachute jumps.
Exiled former Iron Guard
members, working with American and French officers, developed a plan of their own, involving the parachuting of 50 men into Romania who would then contact mountain resistance groups. Preparations took place in the French Occupation Zone
of Germany, around Paris, and in the south of France, with a focus on parachute jumping, night-time orientation, and shooting. Parachute jumps happened especially in Transylvania between 1950 and 1953, but many of those who dropped in were caught by the Securitate. 10 or 13 of them were executed in 1953, and recruitment ceased the following year.
The mountain groups placed great hope on the parachutees, awaiting money, arms, and munitions, but especially the signal that America was about to go to war. For instance, in the early 1950s, the Ioan Gavrilă group in the Făgăraş Mountains
tried contacting the Romanian National Committee in the US, sending them a letter with the geographic coordinates where food and arms should be dropped. The group also tried sending a letter to the American legation in Bucharest
in 1955, describing its harsh living conditions. American planes were also eagerly awaited by peasants and shepherds who helped the partisans, not only for political reasons, but also because the latter took food from them, promising to pay using money found in parachuted parcels. In 1953, for instance, the Gavrilă and Arsenescu
-Arnăuţoiu groups promised local shepherds they would pay the considerable sum of 100 lei
per kilogram of cheese if a package containing 250,000 lei were found. This shows that as late as 1953, resistance groups and those who helped them were still motivated by the hope that America had not forgotten them. The Securitate was aware of this: in 1953, a report on the Gavrilă group claimed it was aided by "enemy elements, with a philo-American mentality".
The activity of the resistance groups was directly linked to the hope that "the Americans are coming". Many Romanians believed these groups had close links to representatives from Washington and that an action leading to the regime's fall was only a matter of time. Western radio stations, first Voice of America
and the BBC
, and later Radio Free Europe
, long maintained hope in an American intervention to free Eastern Europe. For resistance members, this conviction helped them continue their fight in dire conditions.
, and hyperbolically presented the "benefits" of the bombing of Bucharest
: "We waited for a long time and most of us thought we had waited in vain... But behold, something did come. These planes. Apparently destructive, they in fact brought salvation. Each American bomb was dropped in the service of high ideals of humanity, freedom, respect for human dignity and security".
The Soviet occupation, de facto begun in late August 1944, launched the "vin americanii" hope in earnest, but this was accentuated after November 1946, when the Communists won an election
through intimidation and probable fraud, liquidated the opposition National Peasants' Party
in July 1947, and forced King Michael
to abdicate that December. These events made them realise that Communism could only be defeated through outside intervention. As American envoy Rudolf E. Schoenfeld reported in August 1948, "The most frequently heard question addressed by a Romanian to an American, when he dares speak to one, is: Why don't you do anything?" According to archives of the Interior Ministry, which took the possibility of intervention seriously, anti-communist and anti-Soviet statements by people were common in 1946-47, and truly widespread in 1948. Quite often, these statements expressed hope that the King and the historic political parties would come back to rule after an American intervention. In 1946, rumour that war would begin was persistent, and would be continually recorded until 1950. Some believed the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty
in February 1947 meant war; in May that year, it was thought Americans had bombed Soviet troops near Buzău; while that summer, rumours of an imminent war were prevalent in the northwest of the country. In advance of the farcical 1948 election, numerous pro-American leaflets and graffiti were discovered, which continued into the next year. Among the messages found were "long live the republicans until the arrival of the Americans" and, written in Hungarian
in Miercurea-Ciuc
, "long live the American and British armies that will free the people from communist dictatorship".
Invasion rumours were often very precise, specifying the date and manner armed intervention would take. One scenario involved troops disembarking en masse at Constanţa
on the Black Sea
, brought over from Greece or Turkey. Another saw as many as 60,000 airplanes bombing strategic targets and driving out the Communists. Voice of America reports were amplified or distorted: for instance, when news of King Michael's meeting with President Harry S. Truman
was broadcast in April 1948, it was said in Brăila
that the latter had assured him he would soon regain his throne, and in Bucharest, that he would be back home before Easter
.
At the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students
in 1953, a number of young Romanians approached Western journalists, given a rare opportunity to make their opinions known to the outside world. They tended to be discouraged but still awaited American help, a hope boosted by the Korean War
. One of them gave a written message to a US journalist: "Romanians put all their hopes in the American people. Everyone has understood that 1953 is the year of liberation. The Romanian people remains silent, with an open wound. But at the first chance we get, we will erupt. You have already seen the misery in which Romanian peasants live. They are ready to destroy communism at the first opportunity. Please transmit to the American people the greetings of Romanians subjugated by the red beasts".
' and only after the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by the Red Army in 1956, beneath the passive gaze of the West, did Eastern Europeans, among them Romanians, begin to abandon their hopes and face reality". People turned to different ways of coping: flight, or the hope of flight; mental escape (Western music, yoga, bridge); and adopting Western lifestyles, to the extent this was possible.
In 2005, the Americans did finally announce they would come when an accord was reached allowing them a permanent base at Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport
near Constanţa. The Communist regime had long since been overthrown, however, and the expression "vin americanii!" was used in a more jocular or ironic fashion this time around. The 2007 film California Dreamin' also plays on the theme: one of its protagonists suffered as a boy during the bombing of Bucharest and his parents, who eagerly awaited the Americans, were instead arrested by the Soviets, so he is quite resentful toward the American troops who finally arrive in his village in 1999 to take part in operations for the Kosovo War. Additionally, the phrase was heard in 1995 when Romania's first McDonald's
opened in Bucharest.
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...
in the 1940s and 1950s, encapsulating the hope that an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet
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....
-backed, Communist
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...
-dominated government installed in early 1945. This notion helped sustain an anti-communist resistance movement
Romanian anti-communist resistance movement
An armed resistance movement against the communist regime in Romania was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime...
and emboldened the civilians who aided it.
Resistance groups
The great expectation of the resistance groups that had withdrawn into the mountains was that a new world war would break out between the British and the Americans on one side, and the Soviets on the other. Under this scenario, the Soviet troops then occupying RomaniaSoviet 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...
would be driven out by the US Army with help from the local resistance. Groups in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
were prepared to eliminate communist officials as soon as war began, and take control of their particular region. They built supply lines with the local population, gathered armaments, munitions and money, and developed plans to attack institutions and communications networks. They were a prime target of 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...
, which viewed them as agents of the American imperialists seeking to destabilize the regime.
There were smaller groups who fled to the mountains simply to avoid persecution, without plans to topple the government, but they too hoped their efforts would be rewarded by America. For instance, the Arnota group hid in the mountains of northern Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
in winter 1949, planning to resist until a US invasion, which they expected that summer. After their capture in April, one of their members told Securitate investigators, "the goal of setting up in the mountains was to remain until around June, when we were told... an armed intervention by the Americans would take place, which would overthrow the regime, the only ones who would do it, because a domestic intervention has no chance of succeeding..."
Resistance groups uniformly saw American aid as vital to their success. One of the accusations put forth at the trial of the Sumanele Negre group was that its members had developed contacts with American intelligence officers, together studying the possibility of collaborating and coming up with a plan to overthrow the regime. This accusation was repeated for most groups captured later on.
American sources confirm the fact that the CIA tried to develop links with Romanian partisans at the end of the 1940s. The Office of Policy Coordination
Office of Policy Coordination
The Office of Policy Coordination was a United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. Created as an independent office in 1948, it was merged with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951....
recruited Romanian refugees in Western Europe starting in 1949. The latter were ready to establish contacts with resistance groups, whom they intended to supply with light arms, munitions, radio transmitters and medicines. To this end, the OPC created training camps in Italy, France and Greece, where recruitees learned how to use radio transmitters and make parachute jumps.
Exiled former Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
members, working with American and French officers, developed a plan of their own, involving the parachuting of 50 men into Romania who would then contact mountain resistance groups. Preparations took place in the French Occupation Zone
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945–49. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, US forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the...
of Germany, around Paris, and in the south of France, with a focus on parachute jumping, night-time orientation, and shooting. Parachute jumps happened especially in Transylvania between 1950 and 1953, but many of those who dropped in were caught by the Securitate. 10 or 13 of them were executed in 1953, and recruitment ceased the following year.
The mountain groups placed great hope on the parachutees, awaiting money, arms, and munitions, but especially the signal that America was about to go to war. For instance, in the early 1950s, the Ioan Gavrilă group in the Făgăraş Mountains
Fagaras Mountains
Făgăraș Mountains , are the highest mountains of the Southern Carpathians, in Romania. The highest peaks are Moldoveanu , Negoiu , Viștea Mare , Lespezi , Vânătoarea lui Buteanu , and Dara .They are bordered in the north by the Făgăraș Depression, through which the Olt river flows, and in the west...
tried contacting the Romanian National Committee in the US, sending them a letter with the geographic coordinates where food and arms should be dropped. The group also tried sending a letter to the American legation in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
in 1955, describing its harsh living conditions. American planes were also eagerly awaited by peasants and shepherds who helped the partisans, not only for political reasons, but also because the latter took food from them, promising to pay using money found in parachuted parcels. In 1953, for instance, the Gavrilă and Arsenescu
Gheorghe Arsenescu
Gheorghe Arsenescu , was a Romanian army officer who led an anti-communist resistance movement in post-World War II Romania. He was born in Câmpulung....
-Arnăuţoiu groups promised local shepherds they would pay the considerable sum of 100 lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
per kilogram of cheese if a package containing 250,000 lei were found. This shows that as late as 1953, resistance groups and those who helped them were still motivated by the hope that America had not forgotten them. The Securitate was aware of this: in 1953, a report on the Gavrilă group claimed it was aided by "enemy elements, with a philo-American mentality".
The activity of the resistance groups was directly linked to the hope that "the Americans are coming". Many Romanians believed these groups had close links to representatives from Washington and that an action leading to the regime's fall was only a matter of time. Western radio stations, first Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and later Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, long maintained hope in an American intervention to free Eastern Europe. For resistance members, this conviction helped them continue their fight in dire conditions.
General population
A January 1946 article in the popular magazine Viaţa Românească suggested that Romanians had been awaiting Americans' arrival since World War IIWorld 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...
, and hyperbolically presented the "benefits" of the bombing of Bucharest
Bombing of Bucharest in World War II
The Bucharest World War II bombings were primarily Allied bombings of railroad targets and those of the Oil Campaign of World War II, but included a bombing by Nazi Germany after the royal coup. Bucharest stored and distributed much of Ploiești's refined oil products....
: "We waited for a long time and most of us thought we had waited in vain... But behold, something did come. These planes. Apparently destructive, they in fact brought salvation. Each American bomb was dropped in the service of high ideals of humanity, freedom, respect for human dignity and security".
The Soviet occupation, de facto begun in late August 1944, launched the "vin americanii" hope in earnest, but this was accentuated after November 1946, when the Communists won an election
Romanian general election, 1946
The Romanian general election of 1946 was a general election held on November 19, 1946, in Romania. Officially, it was carried with 79.86% of the vote by the Romanian Communist Party , its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties , and its associates — the Hungarian People's Union , the...
through intimidation and probable fraud, liquidated the opposition National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
in July 1947, and forced King Michael
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
to abdicate that December. These events made them realise that Communism could only be defeated through outside intervention. As American envoy Rudolf E. Schoenfeld reported in August 1948, "The most frequently heard question addressed by a Romanian to an American, when he dares speak to one, is: Why don't you do anything?" According to archives of the Interior Ministry, which took the possibility of intervention seriously, anti-communist and anti-Soviet statements by people were common in 1946-47, and truly widespread in 1948. Quite often, these statements expressed hope that the King and the historic political parties would come back to rule after an American intervention. In 1946, rumour that war would begin was persistent, and would be continually recorded until 1950. Some believed the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
in February 1947 meant war; in May that year, it was thought Americans had bombed Soviet troops near Buzău; while that summer, rumours of an imminent war were prevalent in the northwest of the country. In advance of the farcical 1948 election, numerous pro-American leaflets and graffiti were discovered, which continued into the next year. Among the messages found were "long live the republicans until the arrival of the Americans" and, written in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
in Miercurea-Ciuc
Miercurea-Ciuc
Miercurea-Ciuc is the county seat of Harghita County, Romania. It lies in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, and is situated in the Olt River valley.The city administers three villages:* Ciba / Csiba...
, "long live the American and British armies that will free the people from communist dictatorship".
Invasion rumours were often very precise, specifying the date and manner armed intervention would take. One scenario involved troops disembarking en masse at Constanţa
Constanta
Constanța is the oldest extant city in Romania, founded around 600 BC. The city is located in the Dobruja region of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of Constanța County and the largest city in the region....
on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, brought over from Greece or Turkey. Another saw as many as 60,000 airplanes bombing strategic targets and driving out the Communists. Voice of America reports were amplified or distorted: for instance, when news of King Michael's meeting with President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
was broadcast in April 1948, it was said in Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
that the latter had assured him he would soon regain his throne, and in Bucharest, that he would be back home before Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
.
At the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students
4th World Festival of Youth and Students
The Fourth World Festival of Youth and Students was held in 1953, in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.The World Federation of Democratic Youth organized this festival against a background of what it described as persecution of communists, such as in West Germany, where Philipp Müller, a delegate...
in 1953, a number of young Romanians approached Western journalists, given a rare opportunity to make their opinions known to the outside world. They tended to be discouraged but still awaited American help, a hope boosted by the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. One of them gave a written message to a US journalist: "Romanians put all their hopes in the American people. Everyone has understood that 1953 is the year of liberation. The Romanian people remains silent, with an open wound. But at the first chance we get, we will erupt. You have already seen the misery in which Romanian peasants live. They are ready to destroy communism at the first opportunity. Please transmit to the American people the greetings of Romanians subjugated by the red beasts".
Disillusionment
Anticipation gradually gave way to resignation and disappointment as the 1950s wore on, but it was only after the failure of the United States to intervene during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 that hope for similar action in Romania was swept away. As historian Florin Constantinescu notes, "A strange phenomenon of collective psychology was the strong and enduring belief that the West and above all the USA would pull Romania from beneath the Soviet boot. 'Vin americanii' was an expression that summarized a political attitude but also a state of mind. These resisted all proof of disinterest in Western capitals toward the countries left behind the 'Iron CurtainIron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
' and only after the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by the Red Army in 1956, beneath the passive gaze of the West, did Eastern Europeans, among them Romanians, begin to abandon their hopes and face reality". People turned to different ways of coping: flight, or the hope of flight; mental escape (Western music, yoga, bridge); and adopting Western lifestyles, to the extent this was possible.
In 2005, the Americans did finally announce they would come when an accord was reached allowing them a permanent base at Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport
Mihail Kogalniceanu International Airport
Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport is situated in south-east Romania, in the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu, north northwest of Constanţa. It is the main airport of Dobrogea region and it provides access to the Constanţa County, the Constanţa city port and Black Sea Romanian resorts...
near Constanţa. The Communist regime had long since been overthrown, however, and the expression "vin americanii!" was used in a more jocular or ironic fashion this time around. The 2007 film California Dreamin' also plays on the theme: one of its protagonists suffered as a boy during the bombing of Bucharest and his parents, who eagerly awaited the Americans, were instead arrested by the Soviets, so he is quite resentful toward the American troops who finally arrive in his village in 1999 to take part in operations for the Kosovo War. Additionally, the phrase was heard in 1995 when Romania's first McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
opened in Bucharest.