This book analyses the nationalist rebellion which emerged in
Romania following the Second World War. The first two decades after the end of
the war were times of rebellion in imperial peripheries. Armed movements,
sometimes communist but nearly always nationalist in orientation, rose in
opposition to retreating or advancing imperial powers. One such armed revolt
took place in Romania, pitting nationalist partisans against a communist
government. This book is an analysis of how the authorities crushed this
rebellion, set in the context of parallel campaigns fought in Europe and the
Third World. It focuses on population control through censorship, propaganda
and deportations. It analyses military operations, particularly patrols,
checkpoints, ambushes and informed strikes. Intelligence operations are also
discussed, with an emphasis on recruiting informants, on interrogation, torture
and infiltration. Bullets, brains and barbwire, not “hearts and minds”
approaches, crushed internal rebels in post-1945 campaigns.