Translation of an article by the ISp affiliate in Romania, Socialist Action Group (GAS)
On the 25th of December 2025 the Save Romania Union (USR) party submitted a legislative project that proposes banning communist organizations, symbols and propaganda. The project was initiated by MPs Corina Atanasiu, Cristian Ghinea, Remus Negoi and Narcis Mircescu. This is not the first attempt at legally suppressing the fight (to cite the authors) for a classless society, similar initiatives having been attempted by USR in 2019 and by the National Liberal Party (PNL) in 2016.
Its initiators consider the law necessary due to the “reemergence of a nostalgic discourse” which is, according to the speeches filled with pathos specific to gentle souls “not a harmless melancholy” but a “mental illness long cultivated by the post-1989 security services apparatus”. The speech continues and warns us that “although [communism’s] head was rightfully shot, we were left with an army of little Ceaușescus [e.n. in refference to Nicolae Ceaușescu, the last President of Socialist Republic of Romania] that yearned to be like him”. Said army is not clearly defined anywhere within the text of the law, which makes us wonder who the real targets are.
It is worth mentioning that in the form presented to the public on social media the law seems more interested in “stopping the glorification of those [e.n. “communists”] responsible for crimes against humanity” and mostly symbolic interdictions on erecting statues or memorial plaques for notable communist figures, or on naming parks or other public spaces after such figures. However a careful reading of the law draws our attention to the following articles that describe the punishments for breaking it:
- 3 months to 3 years in prison and the restriction of some rights for those who publicly promote, in any manner, communist ideas, concepts, or doctrines;
- 3 to 10 years in prison and the restriction of some rights for initiating or forming a communist organization, joining, or supporting such a group in any manner.
In its public post USR refrains from clarifying what communist propaganda means but they inform us that it will be punished harshly. Our curiosity is only satisfied in the actual text of the proposal where the authors define communist organizations and propaganda as follows:
“communist organization – any group formed by three or more people operating temporarily or continuously in the public domain with the purpose of promoting communist ideas, principles, or doctrines, such as a classless social order, the banning of private property and initiative in any field, the dissolution of political parties, the common ownership of the means of production, the distribution of goods according to needs, state control of the press and other forms of mass media, the use of violence for the purpose of overthrowing the constitutional order or the democratic institutions specific to the rule of law. This category includes both formal and informal organizations, the political movements and parties, associations, foundations, and companies governed by Law nr. 31/1990 regarding companies, republished, with subsequent amendments and completions, as well as any other legal entities that meet the criteria of this article.”
We can briefly congratulate USR’s ideologues since through this text they openly admit, for just a second, that capitalist society is divided into classes and that they want it to stay that way. We note however that even reformist demands, or ones that would be considered modest in countries where social and political struggles are more advanced, can fall under the incidence of this law. For example the law can be interpreted as an interdiction on state monopoly in some branches of production, on public housing (“the distribution of goods according to need”), or on cooperatives (“the common ownership of the means of production”).
It is less important if these objectives or the meanings of these words were conceived by the authors as being those characteristic of a Marxist organization, which has the express purpose of abolishing capitalist society. What matters most is the ambiguity of the text. From here we can deduce that the attack is not just against explicitly Marxist organizations that, if this law is adopted, would be forced to operate clandestinely or face repression.
The ground is being laid for attacking demands put forward by much less radical organizations within Romanian society. These organizations, which formally would not be viewed as “communist” (a label that many of them outright reject) could find themselves being seen as enemies of the constitutional order by the criminal justice system and be forced to either give up on certain demands or risk harsh punishments. For that matter the law does not even propose any alternative to imprisonment even for activities that take place online.
We note the increasing presence of demands that can or do go against the interests of capital from ever more parts of society. They can be found among students that organized against austerity in the higher education system, as well as among workers from various branches of the economy, the initiatives for the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and feminist marches against femicide, all of which are starting to more clearly including these struggles in the wider class struggle. These are clear signs that the effects of austerity, of the distructive ways in which capital is trying to resolve its contradictions and the effort of local organizations have created the conditions for a strengthening of class consciousness among the working population, which represents a threat to capital.
Obviously we cannot be certain regarding the motivations of the authors of the legislative project, however it should not be analyzed in a vacuum, but rather in the context of the adaption of similar laws in other states, such as the banning of communist organizations and propaganda in Poland, the designation of Antifa and Palestine Action in the US and UK respectively as terrorist organizations, the arrest of militants that were organizing Marxist reading circles in Russia, or the attempt to define Marxism as “unconstitutional”in Germany. Consciously or not the initiators of this law are part of a wider current of repression of movements that threaten capitalist society, be they revolutionary or reformist.
As many studies show, the population of Romania has lost its faith in the current political parties, seeing them as unrepresentative and desiring new political forces. A recent INSCOP study, which among other things showed that the majority of Romanians see Nicolae Ceaușescu as having been a good President and largely view the Socialist period positively (in all categories other than “freedom”), represented the subject of panic and hate filled reactions towards the working masses from the moment it was published, thus laying the groundwork for projects of this type.
Even though this is not the first attempt at banning communist organizations in Romania’s history we can’t help but notice that this time the proposal is being launched in the context of a narrowing of the scope of democratic options and actions, both at the national and international level, its acceptance putting pressure on any left-wing project.
For this reason communists in particular and left-wing organizations more broadly must be aware of the bourgeois state’s willingness to attack their initiatives even before they become existential threats to the capitalist system, as well as that, for the bourgeoise, what matters isn’t whether or not you call yourself a “Communist”, but rather the danger that an organized working class represents even if it is around modest demands against capital.
It is important to continue our work of building a working class mass party, that can not only abolish human on human exploitation, but also fight decisively against such reactionary initiatives in the meantime.
