THE ROMANIAN STUDENT MOVEMENT OF 1956 AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

The Romanian student protests of 1956 took place during a tumultuous period for the Eastern Bloc. In June 1956, Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin was already leaked to the international press and by the end of the month protests were starting in Poland. Khrushchev's report cannot be considered a definitive cause of the protests, but it encouraged a form of opposition to the Soviet Union that somehow combined liberal and national ideals. The Polish protests were followed by the best-known event of 1956: the Hungarian revolution. At the same time, the Romanian student protests did not achieve the same level of success, even if they followed the same outline. This paper aims to identify the links to the prior events of 1956, the fundamental differences that caused the different outcomes and the impact of the protests in Romania. The most obvious connections are related to the Hungarian revolution, as it also began as a student movement. The Romanian authorities also formulated their strategy of preventing protests, taking into account the international context.