REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

ASPECTS OF THE „CREATIVE RESISTANCE”
IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA
Manuela MARIN 1,2
The problem in studying the masses within extreme right and extreme left regimes came
to the attention of foreign historians after the Second World War, when the totalitarian
model was formulated. Challenging this model’s assumptions regarding the nature of the
relations between the masses and the political regimes and using the methods of social
history in the context of the historical evolution of the Soviet Union in the interwar
period, the revisionist school brought into discussion besides the topics concerning the
social basis of Stalinism, the conflict between the center-periphery and the administrative
weakness of the Soviet Union, as well as that of the resistance. Thus, the active forms of
resistance came into the attention of the representatives of this school and especially those
of the passive resistance of the population against the Soviet regime, analyzed in the
context of the actions of different social classes (peasants, workers). If for active
resistance, its forms are clearly defined (eg, demonstrations, protest meetings, strikes,
petitions) and it places its subjects in open, direct opposition to authority, in the case of
the passive resistance things are not always as clear. Obviously influenced by the works
of James C. Scott, historians who have addressed this topic have made a distinction from
two different perspectives: the first includes passive resistance as part of the behavior of
subordinate classes / groups, while the second makes it clear that passive forms of
opposition are characteristic to the category of ordinary people (related to this aspect,
some authors even make a clear distinction between dissent, the specific form of
intellectuals’ opposition and the passive resistance that characterizes the way in which the
simple individual relates to the authoritarian political regime).
Consequently, passive resistance refers to those forms of everyday resistance in the
sense of the term provided by James C. Scott. They allow individuals to pursue their own
interests in their current activity, manipulating, reinterpreting and adapting the official
game’s rules, without providing justifiable grounds for a confrontation or direct
intervention of the authority against which these acts of passive resistance are directed.
Among these forms of passive opposition, James C. Scott has included delays in initiating
actions (foot-dragging), negligence, sabotage, theft, concealment, false compliance,
feigned ignorance, rumors, gossip, songs, jokes, gestures, etc. All these are part of what
he called hidden transcripts. They represent those speeches, gestures, informal practices
employed by subordinate groups that contradict, modify or reinterpret similar practices
initiated in the public space and which characterize all their relations with those who they
are subject to. In Scott's opinion, that specific interaction in the public space of the
subordinated groups with those who behold the power and which contradicts their
1 Research for this paper was supported by CNCS-UEFISCU, project number PN II-RU 410/2010.