The Intellectuals of Politics and the Policies of Intellectuals: The Role of the Ethnic Hungarian Workers' Council in the Political Integration of the Ethnic Hungarian Cultural Elite during the Ceausescu Regime

After Ceausescu's rise to power, in 1965 a new committee was set up within the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, which dealt with the issues pertaining to the ethnic minorities. The Ethnic Hungarian Workers' Council (EHWC) and the Ethnic German Workers' Council (EGWC) were created in a later stage, on 15 November 1968. The paper analyzes the activity of the EHWC, in its three main stages. During the years 1968-1974 the council managed to successfully and totally fulfill the function of interfacing with the party authorities. Starting with 1975 in the light of the July 1971 Theses one can observe a gradual erosion of the council, an over-ideologization of its activity and a limitation of the intellectuals' activity within the organization. From 1984, the council's activity was restricted to the dissemination of propaganda and the mobilization of the masses, and after several reorganizations and purges, the key members left the organization.