Leonte Răutu
| Leonte Răutu (Lev Nikolayevich Oigenstein) |
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|---|---|
Răutu's official photograph
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| Head of Agitprop | |
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In office 1948–1965 |
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| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Dumitru Popescu-Dumnezeu |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 28, 1910 Bălți (Byeltsi) |
| Died | 1993 (aged 83) Bucharest |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Political party | Romanian Communist Party |
| Spouse(s) | Natalia Redel |
| Children | Anca Oroveanu Lena Coler |
Leonte Răutu (until 1945 Lev Nikolayevich (Nicolaievici) Oigenstein; February 28, 1910 – 1993) was a Bessarabian-born Romanian communist activist and propagandist. He was chief ideologist of the Romanian Communist Party ("Workers' Party") during the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and one of his country's few high-ranking communists to have studied Marxism from the source. His adventurous youth, with two prison terms served for illegal political activity, culminated in his self-exile to the Soviet Union, where he spent the larger part of World War II. Specializing in agitprop and becoming friends with communist militant Ana Pauker, Răutu made his way back to Romania during the communization process of the late 1940s, and became a feared potentate of the Romanian communist regime. As head of the Communist Party's new Agitprop Section, he devised some of the most controversial cultural policies, and managed to survive Pauker's downfall in 1952.
As Gheorghiu-Dej's assistant, Răutu played a leading part in all the successive avatars of Romanian communism: he was a Stalinist and Zhdanovist before 1955, an anti-revisionist until 1958, and a national communist since. During this long transition, he instigated (and gave a Marxist backing to) the successive campaigns against Gheorghiu-Dej's political adversaries, selectively purged academia of suspected anti-communists, and deposed some of his own supporters. He became widely hated for his perceived lack of scruples, depicted by disgraced communist writers as "the perfect acrobat" or "Malvolio".
Răutu preserved some of his influence after his national communist friend Nicolae Ceaușescu took over the party leadership. He lost his Agitprop prerogatives, but became instead rector of the party's own Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy, and still played a part in defining the official dogmas. He was eventually deposed in 1981, as punishment for his daughter's decision to emigrate. He spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity, witnessing the fall of communism in 1989.
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