Welcoming a savage dog
lo 1891 the German ambassador to Romania wrote to Caprivi, the German Chancellor, that King Carol, the komanian ruler, operated on a single principle: 'To the most savage dog, the fattest morsel.' Plus ca change in the Balkans. Mr Nicolae Ceausescu, who arrived in London on a state visit on Tuesday, is a savage dog, and a wily one. He has held power longer than any Communist ruler except his neighbour, President Tito in Yugoslavia. His power — the fattest morsel — is absolute, exercised through a plethora of offices, President, General Secretary of the Communist party, Commander in Chief and half a dozen more. A good number of the other senior offices of state are held by Members of the President's family in what is even by the Curious standards of Eastern Europe an exceedingly corrupt and thegalitarian society.
There are more important, far more important, objections to the Ceausescu regime than nepotism. With some Iron Curtain countries it is possible to detect and to commend a relaxation of totalitarian repression. Yugoslavia is not a free country, but it is by almost any criterion 'fore free than Soviet Russia. Hungary is a dictatorship but Its people have much more liberty, not all of a trivial kind, than they did twenty years ago. Even in Bulgaria, yes, even in ,,,ast Germany, things are better than they were. By contrast Komania still sleeps through the Stalinist night. Perhaps there is less violence inflicted by the State than once, but the grIp of the police state is total as ever. The secret police is all-powerful. More specifically there is fierce repression of religious groups. The worst treated are minor religions, but the national faith too, the Greek Catholic Church, is perse cuted. Not only is there —needless to say — total censorship, a Complete absence of freedom of expression, but recently a few brave Romanians attempting to monitor the absurd Helsinki agreement (absurd because its Eastern signatories never had any intention of honouring it) have been brutally dealt with. On top of all that Romania exercises racial Persecution: most of her surviving Jewish population have fled to Israel, and many ethnic Germans have been driven out. There remains a large Hungarian minority which is consistently deprived of any national rights.
Such is the character of the Romanian regime and of its leaders. The question is, should Mr Ceausescu be here, feted at Buckingham Palace and awarded the Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (when will he wear it?) by the Queen. The argument for receiving MrCeausescu as a state visitor is obvious enough. Romania has demonstrated a striking independence in foreign affairs from Soviet Russia.
Not only has this independence been exercised in regard to the Middle East — Romania avoids the ritual Communist condemnation of Israel and has even voted on different sides from Russia on the matter at the United Nations — but Mr Ceausescu even disassociated his country from the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. When it is remembered that Dr Castro then slavishly followed the Soviet line, and that Cuba is a long way from Russia while Romania is on her borders, it must be admitted that Mr Ceausescu is a man of strong nerve.
Arguments such as this, to do with reasons of state, are not easily resolved. Most English people would not have wished their monarch to shake hands with Hitler or Stalin, however strong the reasons were. On balance though, Mr Ceausescu's visit is to be welcomed. Although a tyrant he is not quite a Mass murderer in the Stalin class. And his position in international affairs is one of high importance. It is an obvious Western interest that disunity within the Communist world should be encouraged. That is the reason why the Western Powers are rightly cultivating China, though she is not a less odious totalitarian tyranny than Russia: my enemy's enemy is my friend, even if I do not much care for his character. It is highly unsatisfactory for the Kremlin, and thus satisfactory for the West, that on Russia's south-western frontier there should be a strong and independent country, one where no Red Army troops are stationed and where no KGB agents operate. Romania's strategic position will become even more important when Tito dies and when Soviet Russia tries to regain control of Yugoslavia. Cultivating Mr Ceausescu's friendship may be distasteful, but it is necessary.
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