The Photographs of the Political Crimes in Communist Romania. The case of the Peasant Riots in Banat (1949)
At the beginning of the communist regime a few peasant riots against the communist regime took place in different regions of the country. Among the most important were the ones from the summer of 1949 from Banat, a region situated near the border of Yugoslavia. At that time, one of the characteristics of the area was a powerful contest of the communist authority and the existence of numerous anti-communist fighters groups. When the process of collectivization officially started, peasants from many villages from the counties of Arad and Bihor rose in rebellion, which led even to direct confrontations with the troupes of Securitate and Militia and from this to the lynching of certain party activists. The reaction of the Securitate was an extremely rough one. At the same time, after a brutal repression of the riots, and the extrajudicial executions of the leaders, the Securitate took pictures of the participants and of the buildings from the villages where the riots took place. All of them allow the researchers to analyze the way in which the Romanian Communist Party interpreted those anti-communist actions. Starting from the analysis of these pictures and of the earmarks made on them, this paper tries to identify and to analyze the way in which the authorities interpreted these riots, what were their justifications for the crimes they committed and how the discontents of the peasants and the socio-economic situation are presented in the documents of the period. At the same time, the paper will try to show if these photos of the crimes could represent valid sources for writing the history of the communist repression.