Open letter to the editors of the Transylvanian Review, ISSN 1221-1249

Transylvanian Review

ISSN 1221-1249

Centre for Transylvanian Studies,

Romanian Academy,

Cluj-Napoca, Romania

https://centruldestudiitransilvane.ro/

secretariat.cst@acad-cj.ro

Dear Editors of the Transylvanian Review (ISSN 1221-1249),

In its last issue (spring, no 1/2024), https://centruldestudiitransilvane.ro/magazine/vol-xxxiii-no-1-spring-2024/, Transylvanian Review published an article entitled ‘Forging Europe under Communist Eyes. The European Community, the COMECON, and Socialist Romania’ by Alexandru Cistelecan. This 22 pages long article discusses my previously published work in a manner that is, in my opinion, unethical, misleading, misrepresenting and subpar. Therefore, I need to invite you to investigate this case and let me know what you decide: is this piece of published text in accordance with the quality criteria of the Transylvanian Review or should it be retracted?

In the table below I try to explain my concern.

open letter table.word

Title and abstract	My comments and explanations
Title of the article:  ‘Forging Europe under Communist Eyes. The European Community, the COMECON, and Socialist Romania’	Why is an article on such a topic published in an academic journal (one indexed by Clarivate no less) that says that it ‘features studies, articles, debates and book reviews pertaining to various cultural fields, with direct reference to Transylvania, seen as a multicultural space of ethnic, linguistic, religious contacts’? (Source: the CEEOL page of the Transylvanian review at  https://www.ceeol.com/search/journal-detail?id=1460 ).
	There is absolutely no relation between the title of the article, the abstract of the article and the content of the article. Thus, the title itself is misleading, indicating that it is about something but it is not.
Abstract of the article: ‘This article aims to critically discuss the foreign policy of communist Romania, especially towards Western Europe and the socialist bloc. It does this firstly by reviewing Elena Dragomir’s recent ample analyses of communist Romania’s foreign policy. Its second section consists in a critical problematization of the allegedly “pragmatic” and “adaptative” nature of communist Romania’s dealings with its Western and Eastern partners, as established both by Dragomir’s recent contributions, as well as the traditional scholarship. The paper ends with some more general methodological and conceptual reflections on the role, weight, and meaning of “pragmatism,” “realism,” “context” and “ideology” in historiographical reconstructions.’	Again, no connection between the title of the article and its abstract. The abstract says the ‘article aims to critically discuss the foreign policy of communist Romania’. Maybe critically discuss the scholarship on the foreign policy…? It also says or suggests that while discussing the previous scholarship (!) on communist Romania it focuses on my ‘recent ample analyses’. That would indicate a discussion about how my work fits or not within the current more general historiography. However, nothing of that appears in the text.  There is no historiographical context provided. There is absolutely no discussion about Romania’s foreign policy in the article or about the historiography of the topic (which the author does not know at all, as proven by his article). In fact this is a 22 pages long negative review of my two books. The text is published however as an original research article. And this is I believe the purpose of the title, to mislead the readers that this is actually an original research article when in fact it is not. Is this ethical behaviour in your assessment? Your journal has a ‘book review section’. The right approach would have been for you to publish a 3-4 pages long review, as negative as you would have liked, not a research article that, in my opinion, parasitizes my work.
Examples from the article	My comments and explanations
‘Due to its sheer reality, the historical fait accompli of the EU’s existence, there are very few critical perspectives on the process of European integration that can count at the same time as alternatives to it. In other words, quite few of the critical approaches to the European Union can claim to be addressed from a similarly real—or realizable— historical process of continental integration. Most of EU’s critiques, whether they are expressed in a more populist, trashy way,1 or in a more sober one, be it right2 or left leaning,3 can be easily dismissed or ignored by the EU’s establishment as mere intellectual exercises, addressed from a moral or theoretical high ground deprived of realism. In this strict sense, there is probably only one critique that is—or rather was—at the same time the expression of an alternative project of European integration, and that is the perspective of the East-European socialist bloc and of its own attempt at supranational or sub-continental integration—the COMECON. This perspective has not only the merit of being articulated from a rival, critical, and similarly real project of European integration, but also of being strictly contemporary to the first, decisive phases of Western integration, thus capable of throwing a precious light, nowadays lost, on the origins and early dynamics of what eventually became the European Union.’(p. 119-120)	This is how the article begins. WHAT? Clearly the author does not know what he is talking about, do you not agree? Any scholar of Western or Eastern integration would be simply shocked to read such nonsense considerations in a Clarivate indexed journal/article. I know I am. Why COMECON and not CMEA? Is the author aware of the discussion in this regard? Why the EU if the text is about the time of communist/socialist Romania? ‘…being strictly contemporary to the first, decisive phases of Western integration…’: there were no decisive first phases of the Western integration, but the author does not know that, of course. I recommend him reading, for instance, a wonderful book called ‘Project Europe’, by Kiran Klaus Patel.
‘the reconstruction of the comecon’s perspective on the process of West-European integration is beyond the scope of this article (end note 4: See on this Marsh 1984; Romano 2014; Kansikas 2014; Broad and Kansikas 2020;and especially Godard 2014)’. (p. 120)	Here, the author uses the references incorrectly. Kansikas or Romano did not ‘reconstruct’ the CMEA’s perspective (I rather not use the term COMECON) on the process of the West European integration’. In her article, entitled ‘Acknowledging Economic Realities: The CMEA Policy Change vis-a-vis the European Community, 1970–3’ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13507486.2014.893997 , Kansikas discusses how the CMEA responded to the EEC’s trade policies from the early 1970. Very different things.  Romano ‘argues that the EEC’s pro-active Eastern policy was pivotal in loosening Cold War constraints in Europe and engendering instead a new kind of intra-European relations.’ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682745.2013.791680.
‘What I intend to do here, instead, is merely to probe into this horizon by focusing on the peculiar role and perspective of one of the most unique actors caught in this historical process of continental rival integration and disintegration—namely, the perspective of socialist Romania on both the comecon and the West European nascent eec. Due to its unique trajectory, having started as a faithful Soviet pupil and then developed into a staunch internal oppositionist of the socialist bloc, communist Romania’s perspective can highlight—through its contrasts and shifting alliances—the content, scope and aims of the socialist critique of European integration, thus providing a fertile entry point into this whole topic.’ (p. 120)	I am trying very hard to understand what the author thinks he is doing here. It seems that he intends to ‘probe’(???) the ‘horizon’ of… I do not know of what, maybe the horizon of the interrelation between the CMEA and the EEC, ‘by focusing’ on socialist Romania. WHAT? Romania was ‘one of the most unique actors caught in this historical process of continental rival integration and disintegration’. WHAT? What ‘contrasts? , what ‘shifting alliances’, what disintegration…?  What? How could one use the word ‘alliances’ as in ‘alliances of socialist Romania’ so lightly?
‘I will first discuss Dragomir’s archival reconstruction of this topic, focusing on her two recent monographs—Opoziția din interior: România și politicile caer față de cee (The internal opposition: Romania and the ceaa policies towards the eec), 2019; O relație asimetrică: România și Piața Comună (An asymmetrical relation: Romania and the Common Market), 2022. The second part of the article will be devoted to some critical considerations on the allegedly pragmatic, adaptative, and non-ideological nature of Romania’s foreign policy stance during this period, as established by Dragomir, but also by previous scholarship on this topic. The article will conclude by briefly bringing back into focus the “ideological” aspect of this foreign policy relationship and strategy, which is rather neglected in these recent reconstructions of this topic.’ (p. 120)	What is ‘archival reconstruction’? I feel that I did no such thing. I did extensive multi-archival research but I do not have the time or the patience to explain what that is to someone that never set foot in an archive.
‘covering, in her latest two monographs, more than 1,000 pages (including the two volumes that gather all the relevant archival documents)’ (p. 121)	No, not 1000 pages of monograph. That is false and misleading. The first monographs is 336 pages and it is about  Romania’s views (mostly opposition) in the CMEA with regard to the CMEA’s policies towards the EEC, between 1957 and 1989 , a topic never before investigated by the previous scholarship. The second monograph is 364 pages long and is about Romania’s relations with the EEC between 1957 and 1989, another topic never before investigated. There are also two volumes of published selected documents (not ‘all the relevant archival documents’; I did not have access to all, access to archive sources is still a problem, and researcher’s time and financial resources are another problem; and archives are huge!!! How could anyone imagine that I published ‘all relevant archival documents’ is beyond me). By saying ‘1000 pages’, the author probably wanted to imply that it is about quantity, but not quality.
The author admonishes me that I did not do one or another. For instance, he says I discussed the ‘real relations between the Socialist Republic of Romania (SRR), the EEC (and the COMECON)’, but I dismissed to ‘a few dozen pages’ the ideological critiques of the EEC’ (p. 121) or that ‘Dragomir does not give much importance to the concept of “state monopoly capitalism” (and, in general, to the ideological critiques of the EEC formulated by Romanian authors and rulers’ (p. 133).	The author never looks at how I defined the concepts I operated with, such as ideology and pragmatism, or how I defined my research topic or my research questions. He discusses my work without any kind of consideration for what I said I want to do, and for how I said I would do it. He does not seem of having the basic grasp of the research methodology of the field or the basic grasp of how a book review should be done (as critical as he wants).
End note 11: ‘I leave here aside the whole discussion about the supranational nature of the eec and the intergovernmental one of the comecon. On the one hand, the Romanians were quite sensitive to this distinction—witness their repeated attempts, documented by Dragomir, to address the European Council (thus the intergovernmental body of eec) only to be repeatedly sent to the Commission (its supranational body). But on the other hand, for what concerned the comecon, the distinction did not matter at all for Romanian negotiators, since everything pertaining to the comecon, any small step towards inter-governmental coordination was perceived as a supranationalist menace.’	The entire article is like this: one cannot know what Cistelacan says as his original idea and what Cistelecan says as a summary of my research, generally a very perverted summary that misrepresents my work. He says that Dragomir documented Romania’s attempts to discuss with the Council. But in fact, the entire note 11 parasitizes my work without any kind of direct reference. There are many paragraphs in the article without references and one could imagine that they belong to Cistelecan, but they are parasitizing my work (in a rather misrepresenting way, I must insist).
‘the cause of Romania’s insistent courtship of the former [EEC] was her irreducible distrust of the latter [CMEA]. (p. 122)	This is false and I never said it. It was not a cause-effect relation.
As Dragomir shows, the very project of socialist integration under the umbrella of the comecon came—or was revived, under Khrushchev—as a reaction to the first signs of European integration in the mid–50s.	I did not say that. It was about specialization, something discussed from 1949 when the CMEA was created.  European integration in the mid-1950s?…
Romania instead had a different opinion from the get-go, arguing, on the one hand, that Western integration cannot function as a model for socialist integration, being suited only to monopoly capitalist formations; and, on the other hand, that its menace was not so serious for the socialist states, which could still count on developing bilateral relations with the Western states, notwithstanding the integrationist push in the West. How legitimate was this optimism, this faith in the perdurance and development of bilateral relations with the member states of the eec will be seen later. For now, it should be remembered that, as stated before, for communist Romania, and in contrast to the stance of the other members of the socialist bloc, the nascent eec was clearly not seen as a menace or as the main menace—since for Bucharest the main menace was the projected socialist integration in the East, and the only chance of resisting this was through developing commercial ties with the Western states and the Common Market.	What is the ‘nascent EEC’? No sources, no references provided. Parasitizing my work (which the author did not understand). I never said that ‘the only chance of resisting this was through developing commercial ties with the Western states and the Common Market’.
Romania’s repeated, staunch opposition to any attempt at socialist integration of the Eastern bloc is amply documented by Dragomir’s first two-volumes monograph—Opoziția din interior: România și politicile caer față de eec (1957–1989). This is quite a spectacular, yet monotonous reading. What is disconcerting is Romania’s consistency in opposing, for more than 30 years, any initiative that might have made even the smallest step towards regional integration, using the same arguments and the same tactics, even though the external, continental context had changed dramatically in the meantime. This certainly throws a dubious light on Romania’s allegedly “adaptative” strategy—which is, pace Dragomir, the second most important characteristic of Romania’s foreign policy in this period, after its already praised “pragmatism.”	There is 1) a monograph and there is 2) a volume of published documents. One would call a volume of published documents a monograph? I talk about Romania’s foreign policy actions as being pragmatic and adaptive (not ‘adaptative!’ but not in the book ‘Opoziția din interior’. I talk about that in my book about Romania’s relations with the EEC. Is it right, ethical, moral what Cistelacan does here? Besides, he criticizes my stance on pragmatism and on being adaptive, but never reveals to the reader how I defined those terms, how I reduced their meaning for my book. I said: Romania’s relations with the Common Market were characterised  by ‘pragmatism’ and I explained what that meant many times. For instance: ‘Pragmatismul românesc în domeniul relațiilor sale cu Piața Comună înseamnă, așadar, voința și capacitatea de adaptare la situația dată, astfel încât interesele sale să fie atinse într-un grad cât mai mare cu putință. Cu alte cuvinte, pragmatismul a pus accent pe realitatea dată (așa cum a fost ea percepută, înțeleasă, interpretată), iar nu pe ideologie, pe respectarea mecanică a unor precepte ideologice. Deciziile României în materie de relații cu Piața Comună au avut la bază o concepție care a presupus disponibilitatea de a face compromisuri, de a colabora în interesul unor obiective comune, în ciuda dezacordurilor și diferendelor din alte domenii, de a privi jumătatea plină a paharului, de a obține maximum posibil într-o situație dată, oricât de neavantajoasă ar fi fost aceasta. Pragmatismul a presupus o abordare flexibiă, adaptabilă, fixată pe găsirea de soluții care funcționează.’ To sum it up, I said that being pragmatic in its relations with the EEC, Romania was practical, was willing to compromise, to accept minor concessions when it could not achieve more. It meant that Romania was concerned with very practical matters (such as exporting one specific item) not with ideological dogma. Romania’s behaviour was guided by practical experience and practical objectives, not by dogma and ideology. This is how I defined pragmatism and my take on pragmatism is explained throughout the book, but Cistelacan ignores them completely and assesses my take on pragmatism based on things I never said, based on twisting my work until is against what I said. About ideology, in the introduction I discussed the many aspects and meaning of ideology (a fact that Cistelecan ignores again). In a constant dialogue with the previous scholarship, when I said that ‘in Romania’s relations with the EEC ideology mattered less than previously thought’ I actually said that the previous literature explained everything through ideology. ‘Why did Romania do or did not do something? Because of its shared ideology with Moscow’ – that was the view of the previous scholarship. In conclusion when discussing my view of pragmatism and ideology, the author completely ignores how I defined and used those concepts.
‘Over the ensuing decades, Romania consistently persisted in this “pragmatic” approach, resisting any proposals for socialist integration on any occasion: by rejecting the “Prague Program” in 1962; by basically emptying out the “Minimal Program” proposed in 1964 and then sabotaging its implementation. But also, more awkwardly, after 1968 and the coming into force of the eec’s common agricultural policy, which implemented tariffs and negatively affected 90% of the socialist states’ exports towards the eec; in 1971, by rejecting the “Complex Program,” at a time when the Common Commercial Policy of the eec came into force, gradually ending all bilateral relations and forcing the socialist states to deal directly with the protectionist behemoth of the enlarged eec; and then, from the 1970s onwards, as the issue of the recognition of the eec by the socialist bloc and its member states repeatedly came on the agenda, by making sure that the mutual recognition between the eec and the comecon was deferred sine die, or at least that it would come only after the establishment of official relations between the individual socialist states and the eec17—a position extremely convenient to the eec, which did not have any interest in recognizing the comecon as an equal partner and preferred, instead, to approach each socialist state separately, from a much stronger position.(Note 18: See Kansikas 2014 for a brilliant reconstruction of this process at the turn of the 1970s.) (p. 123-124)	The paragraph reference is to Kansikas. Kansikas is my dear friend. She inspired me and convinced me to look into Romania’s views on the CMEA’s policy towards the EEC in the first place. But Kansikas never talked about the Prague program or the minimal program; I was the first one who discussed these programs in the literature (to my knowledge).
However, from Dragomir’s reconstruction, the case of Romania, in this whole field, appears in a quite different, unique light: in its case, “socialism went global” only because it refused to go regional. Or, rather, it was its undermining of any chance of building a regional socialist system—in a word, its anti-socialist foreign policy—, coupled with its failure to court any favors from the capitalist bloc, that forced communist Romania to “go global.” Moreover, this turn towards the Global South did not have much to do with a presumed anti-colonial solidarity,24 being instead grounded in more “pragmatic” concerns. Romania’s request to be recognized as a “developing country” was actually, in its concrete effects, quite un-solidary towards the developing countries themselves: as Dragomir shows,25 most of the other East-European socialist states were seen, and accepted to be seen, as developed countries, hence they were generally donors of preferential treatments and tariffs to their Third World partners, not receivers.	This is wrong and false! I never said that. Romania was not a beneficiary of preferences granted by the developing countries. (!!!) The author knows nothing of the subject, clearly. I never said anything to support such a bogus conclusion. The author operates with the cause-effect relation with great ease.
‘By asking to be recognized as a developing country, Romania was instead hoping to achieve not only better terms of trade with the eec and Western capital, but also with the Global South, by receiving, and not giving, preferential treatment in their mutual trade. Note 26.’ (p. 126) Note 26, p. 137: “Both in the West and in the East, it was argued or suggested that Romania was a developed socialist country, which should therefore be a donor and not a beneficiary of preferences. Bucharest responded with its own concept of generalized customs preferences. According to it, Romania was a socialist developing country entitled to preferential treatment on the same terms as the rest of the developing countries. As a developing country itself, Romania was not a donor of preferences to other developing countries” (Dragomir 2022, 1: 178).	This is false. Romania never wanted or asked for preferences from the developing countries or ‘Global South’ (!!!). My work is quoted incorrectly. This is how I said it: ‘Both in the West and in the East, it was argued or implied that Romania was a developed socialist country, which should therefore be a donor and not a beneficiary of preferences. Bucharest responded with its own conception in terms of generalized customs preferences. According to this conception, Romania was a socialist developing country entitled to preferential treatment in the same conditions as the rest of the developing countries; a developing country itself, Romania was not a donor of preferences for other developing countries; its relations with the developing countries were based on the principle of mutual advantage; Romania took measures to support the export of the less developed states among the developing states  through bilateral agreements (not through a system of granting preferences)’. Thus, I presented Romania’s conception, which was a four point conception. By cutting off the quote, my entire argument was perverted. Moreover, this conception was presented to Western and Eastern states alike in the context of Romania trying to become a beneficiary of the EEC’s preferences. The context is very important, it should never be ignored.
The author says that I merely repeat what the previous literature already said in terms of Romania’s foreign policy, that I simply use different words (such as pragmatism) just to show off.	This merely proves that the author knows nothing about the previous scholarship. The previous scholarship says (very simply put it) that after the war, until the early 1960s, Romania was the most loyal Soviet ally (for ideological reasons); in the early 1960s, Romania detached from Moscow, mostly for elites’ personal reasons (such as staying in power during destalinization); afterwards, after detachment, in terms of foreign or domestic policy, Romania was either autonomous or independent from the Soviets; but, many insist, despite detachment, Romania remained a member of the CMEA and of the Warsaw Pact. Was there true independence or autonomy if it remained within the CMEA and the Warsaw Pact, scholar often ask? Many also observe that Romania sometimes opposed the USSR, but other times supported Soviet project, that sometimes Romania signed agreements with Western states, but other times confronted those western states. Thus, nobody could really make sense of Romania’s foreign policy.  As a result, different authors proposed terms such as ‘space of manoeuvre’, ‘independence in a number of areas’, ‘maverick Romania’, ‘economic independence’, ‘economic sovereignty’ and so on. All these terms are completely futile analytically; utterly useless, I argued. I also stated that this ‘beautiful mess’ in terms of historiography of socialist Romania’s foreign policy is explained by two interrelated factors: the Soviet factor (everything is explained through the Russian glass first) and the ideological factor (everything that Romania did or did not do is based in ideology).  My thesis, simply put it, is that if we shake off  these two factors, these two lenses and look at the archive evidence, we see a very pragmatic Romanian state dealing with one issue at the time, trying to do the best it could in given circumstances, acting in accordance with its own interests (as defined by its elites) etc. If we look at Romania’s foreign policy through this pragmatic lens, then one can explain Romania’s policy as a whole, I also said. No further need for concepts such as ‘maverick Romania’, ‘spaces of manoeuvre’, ‘independence in a number of areas’ (nobody knowing which areas and why only some areas). I still stand by my conclusion and I do invite people to read my work (books and articles). Moreover, my idea of pragmatism was formulated only in connection to Romania’s relations with the EEC. It is true though that I said that, in my opinion, this can be extrapolated most likely to other aspects of Romania’s foreign policy, but that is an idea that remains to be tested. Moreover, these were merely simple conclusive considerations, which one may accept or not. But the main focus of the two books was on documenting two completely ignored research topics.  But, there is nothing about that, of course.

I cannot comment on all 22 pages of this text…I do not know how to call this piece, what it is. In my opinion, it is not a research article; it is not a review article on a given topic in the field. What is this I dare ask you, the editors of the journal? Why is this article in your journal, when the journal’s subject category is Transylvania’s history and culture? How did this article pass the peer review process? Do you think that this content is reliable and deserves to be published in a Clarivate indexed journal?

This is my research profile: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/1714303 or

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7848-2896.

Please, be advised that I will publish all further correspondence on this topic.

Looking forward to your decision,

Elena Dragomir