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The Securitate (Romanian for Security; official full name Departamentul Securităţii Statului, State Security Department), was the secret police force of Communist Romania. Previously the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa statului (Safety of the State). The Securitate was, in proportion to Romania's population, the largest secret police force in the Eastern bloc.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Founding 1.2 Campaign against "class enemies" 1.3 "Appealing to the people's conscience" 1.4 Downfall 2 Subdivisions 2.1 General Directorate for Technical Operations 2.2 Directorate for Counterespionage 2.3 Directorate for Penitentiaries 2.4 Directorate for Internal Security 2.5 National Commission for Visas and Passports 2.6 Directorate for Security Troops 2.7 Directorate for Militia 2.8 Directorate V 3 See also 4 External link

The General Direction for the Security of the People (Romanian initials: DGSP, but more commonly just called the Securitate) was officially founded on August 30, 1948 by Decree 221/30. However, it had effectively existed since 1944, when communists began to infiltrate the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a large scale. The Securitate was created by SMERSH, an NKVD unit charged with demolishing existing intelligence agencies and replacing them with Soviet-style bodies in the Soviet-occupied countries of Eastern Europe. The SMERSH unit in Romania, called Brigada Mobilă, was led until 1948 by the NKVD colonel Boris Grünberg, also known in Romania as Alexandru Nicolschi.

Its stated purpose was to "defend democratic conquests and guarantee the safety of the Romanian Peoples' Republic against both internal and external enemies."

The first Director of the Securitate was the NKVD general Panteleimon Bondarenko, who used in Romania the name Gheorghe Pintilie, nicknamed Pantiuşa. Alexandru Nicolschi (by then a general) and another Soviet officer, Major General Vladimir Mazuru (born Mazurov), held the deputy directorships. Wilhelm Einhorn was the first Securitate secretary.

Initially, many of the agents of the Securitate were former Royal Security Police (named General Directorate of Safety Police—Direcţia Generală a Poliţiei de Siguranţă in Romanian) members. However, before long, Pantiuşa ordered anyone who had served the monarchy's police in any capacity arrested, and in the places of the Royal Security Policemen, he hired ardent members of the Communist Party, to ensure total loyalty within the organisation.

The first budget of the Securitate in 1948 stipulated a number of 4,641 positions, out of which on February 11, 1949, 3,549 were filled: 64% were workers, 4% peasants, 28% clerks, 2% persons of unspecified origin, and 2% intellectuals.

By 1951, the Securitate's staff had increased fivefold, in line with the escalation of class warfare in Romania. In that year, the Securitate, at the instigation of the Party, began to systematically exterminate opponents of the regime. Special prisons were set up for "class enemies" to be sent to, usually without warrant, trial or inquiry. In these camps, prisoners were either worked to death or simply shot. One of these prisons, at Sighet, is today a museum to the oppression of the communist regime.

In 1964, the government declared a general amnesty, and 10,014 (according to official Securitate statistics^{[citation needed]}) were released from these prison camps. However, propaganda declared (falsely) that there were no political prisoners any more in Romania, even while arrests for "conspiring against the social order" or just "plotting" were frequently made.

After this amnesty, the Securitate claimed to be "appealing to the people's conscience", which actually meant a massive increase in the organisation's use of informants. Many Romanians were forced to inform on friends and family by way of blackmail, although many informed out of spite. Informants signed a contract promising to "signal threats to the state".

In the 1980s, the Securitate launched a massive campaign to stamp out dissent in Romania, manipulating the country's population with vicious rumors (such as supposed contacts with Western intelligence agencies), machinations, frameups, public denunciations, encouraging conflict between segments of the population, public humiliation of dissidents, toughened censorship and the repression of even the smallest gestures of independence by intellectuals.

Forced entry into homes and offices was another tactic the Securitate used to extract information from the general population.

The Securitate was abolished in late 1989, after the Communist ruler Nicolae Ceauşescu was ousted.

Until 2005 it was generally accepted that to the very end of Nicolae Ceauşescu's rule, the Securitate was fiercely loyal to the government. Allegations were also made that at a speech by Ceauşescu to a handpicked crowd of 100,000, the Securitate opened fire on the defenceless crowd after some anti-Ceauşescu shouts were heard.

However, articles published in Romanian newspapers after the post-communist leader Ion Iliescu ended his second presidential mandate suggest that large segments of the Securitate were actually involved in Ceauşescu's fall. This is a theory supported by the fact that there was a strong anti-Ceauşescu movement in the Securitate (see Ion Mihai Pacepa).

Today a number of millionaires in Romania are suspected or confirmed to have been high-ranking members or collaborators of the Securitate.

The DSS lived on until 1991 when Parliament approved a law reorganizing the DSS into a few special and secret services like the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) (with internal tasks such as counterespionage), the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Service), the SPP (Protection and Guard Service) (the former Directorate V), the STS (Special Telecommunications Service) (the former General Directorate for Technical Operations), etc.

The General Directorate for Technical Operations was a key part of the Securitate. Created with Soviet assistance in 1954, it monitored all voice and electronic communications in and out of Romania. They bugged telephones and intercepted all telegraphs and telex messages, as well as placing microphones in both public and private buildings. Nearly all conversations conducted in Communist Romania would be listened to by this department.

The Directorate for Counterespionage surveyed all foreigners in Romania, and did their utmost to impede contact between foreigners and Romanians. Contact that was impossible to stop was instead monitored. It enforced a variety of measures to prevent Romanians living with foreign nationals, one of these being the requirement to report any known foreigners to the Securitate within 24 hours. This Directorate also stopped Romanians seeking asylum in foreign embassies.

The Directorate for Penitentiaries operated Romania's prisons, which were notorious for their horrendous conditions. Prisoners were routinely beaten, denied medical attention, had their mail taken away from them, and sometimes even administered lethal doses of poison.

The Directorate for Internal Security was charged with rooting out dissent in the Communist Party itself. It almost acted as a Securitate for the Securitate, and was responsible for bugging the phones of other Securitate officers to ensure total loyalty.

The National Commission for Visas and Passports controlled all travel and emigration in and out of Romania. In effect, emigration was impossible for anyone but highly placed Party officials, as any normal Romanian who applied for it would immediately be placed under surveillance. Many Jews and Germans were given passports and exit visas through tacit agreements with the Israeli and West German governments, whereby Romania would receive a payment of 5 to 10 thousand USD per exit visa. Regular people who were not Jewish, German, Baptist, or highly placed Party Members were also able to apply for emigration to the West. The drawback was that the average waiting period was 3 to 4 years between an application to emigrate was filed and until a Romanian passport was issued. This waiting period amounted to nothing more than a light prison sentence as applicants would be immediately fired from their jobs, thus deprived of their right to earn and live, and were subject to harassment by Securitate personel. When emigration laws were relaxed in 1988, 40,000 Romanians fled to Hungary.

The Directorate for Security Troops acted as a 20,000 strong paramilitary force for the government, equipped with artillery and armoured personnel carriers. They guarded television and radio stations, and Party buildings. To ensure total loyalty amongst these crack troops, there were five times as many political officers in the Directorate for Security Troops than there were in the regular army. In the event of a coup, this Directorate would be called in to protect the regime. Security troops enjoyed special treatment, and often lived in far superior conditions to their countrymen.

The Directorate for Militia controlled Romania's standard police force, carry out tasks such as traffic control.

Directorate V were bodyguards for important governmental officials.

• Ion Mihai Pacepa - defector

• Romania - Ministry of Interior and Security Forces