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The Letter of the Six (Romanian: Scrisoarea celor șase) was an open letter signed in March 1989 by Silviu Brucan, together with five other Romanian Communist dignitaries (Gheorghe Apostol, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Grigore Răceanu, Corneliu Mănescu, and Constantin Pîrvulescu).
Contents
Planning
The six communist politicians met and discussed the letter in parks in Bucharest, in order to prevent the Securitate from hearing the details. They were however, not isolated, but they were followed and had contacts with Soviet, American, British and Romanian intelligence officers and diplomats.
The initiative came from Brucan, who discussed the plan with Apostol and then discussed it with Bîrlădeanu, the architect of Romanian economic development of the 1960s.
After these first contacts, Brucan paid visits to the embassies of the United States and of the United Kingdom in Bucharest. In an exceptional way, the Securitate does not arrest him and the government allows him to visit the United States in June 1988. The Department of State was enthusiastic about the letter, but he was advised to publish it after returning to Romania, or else he would be forced to remain in exile. After this followed a tour of the United Kingdom, where he held conferences in Oxford, at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and had meetings at the Foreign Office; Brucan then went to Moscow, where he met Gorbachev (or according to other accounts, Alexander Yakovlev) in an hour-long meeting, being given assurances that in case of ousting Ceaușescu, the Soviet Union would not intervene. During his return by train in November 1988, Brucan was arrested at the border, but he was let go.
Bîrlădeanu disputed the account of Brucan, arguing that, while they discussed the letter, it was called off after it proved impossible to gather enough signatures. Bîrlădeanu claims that Brucan betrayed the other co-signatories by going to the American embassy without telling the others.
The letter's content
Addressed to President Nicolae Ceaușescu, the letter was a left-wing critique of the policies of the president Nicolae Ceaușescu/ The letter appealed to the type of humanism supported by Mikhail Gorbachev, but who is not named in the letter.
The text of the letter was very clear in its pragmatic demands and set a menacing tone, particularly the part in which they compare Romania with Africa, hinting to a future of underdevelopment.
Broadcast
The document was immediately broadcast on Radio Free Europe, BBC Radio, and Voice of America.
Authorities' reaction
The broadcast of the letter led to the swift arrest and interrogation of the signatories by the Securitate (the secret police), and then to their house arrest at various locations. Between 11 March and 7 May 1989, Brucan was interrogated 51 times. The Securitate depicted Brucan as one of several "hostile, inveterate, elements" and "the agent of foreign imperialist secret services".
Four of the six were moved from their houses in the exclusivist district of Primăverii to places like the outskirts of Bucharest and the other two were detained:
Despite increased pressure, most contributors to the protest refused to withdraw their statement. Brucan later accused Apostol of having given in to pressures.
Importance
Although lacking in actual popular support, the letter was argued to be the among most important and influential acts of opposition during its period, and a notorious break with the tradition of strict obedience and party discipline.
Nevertheless, political scientist Michael Shafir argues that the act of collective dissent within the Party was "too little, too late" and that if it had been done in the mid-1970s, it might have had some consequences and could have been a starting point for some real changes.