Metadata: Collection of records concerning the workers’ movement in Arad county
Collection
- Country:
- Romania
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Romania, Arad county directorate
- Holding institution (official language):
- Arhivele Nationale Române. Direcţia judeţeană Arad
- Postal address:
- Strada Piotr Ilici Ceaikovski 2-6, 310052 Arad
- Phone number:
- 0040-257-233818
- Reference number:
- 68
- Title:
- Collection of records concerning the workers’ movement in Arad county
- Title (official language):
- Colecţia Documente referitoare la mişcarea muncitorească din judeţul Arad
- Creator/accumulator:
- National Archives of Romania, Arad county directorate
- Date(s):
- 1910/1976
- Language:
- Hungarian
- Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan
- Extent:
- 153 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The fonds comprises the records preserved by the Arad county directorate of the Romanian National Archives concerning the workers’ movements and organisations beginning with the years immediately preceding the First World War, through the inter-war period, World War Two and the period of time after 1945. It contains documents concerning workers’ organisations, trade unions, strikes in the Austro-Hungarian regime, then those referring to the Communist Party, organisations of left-wing youth, of the so-called Red Support, of the trade unions in the interwar decades and during the Second World War in Arad county and the strikes, demonstrations, propaganda actions, sabotage of the war which took place in those years. The fonds also includes declarations given by former members of the Communist Party beginning with 1975 about the period of time when they carried out their activities illegally. All of these records include information about Jewish participants in the activities of the Communist Party and other left-wing organisations in Arad county.
- Archival history:
- The collection was created in 1968 by archivists of the Arad county directorate of the Romanian National Archives, who gathered existing documents concerning the workers and left-wing movements from Arad county and inventoried them.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In the years before the First World War, the Social Democratic Party of Workers from Hungary and trade unions were active in Arad county, organising strikes and other actions for the benefit of workers and other categories of employees. In 1921 the Communist Party of Romania was founded, which also had local organisations in Arad county. In 1924, the Communist Party was banned by the Romanian government because it did not recognise the territorial unity of Greater Romania, instead supporting the right of provinces with a large minority population to separate from the Romanian state. During the inter-war period and the Second World War the Communist Party continued to exist illegally, using some legal legal left-wing organisations and trade unions for its propaganda and activities such as demonstrations, strikes and sabotage of the war. Jewish party members made up a substantial proportion of the Communist Party and they had an important role in these activities. In 1944, the Communist Party was a member of the coalition which overthrew the Antonescu dictatorship and after the parliamentary elections in 1946 gradually installed its own regime which lasted until 1989.
- Access points: locations:
- Arad
- Subject terms:
- Communism
- Jewish political activity
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds is organised in thematic sections, within which the files are arranged in chronological order.
- Finding aids:
- Inventory no.91, held by the Arad county directorate of the Romanian National Archives.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Romanian Institute for the Research of National Minorities
- Author of the description:
- Attila Gidó, researcher, Institute for Study of National Minorities Cluj-Napoca - 2019; Ladislau Gyémánt, emeritus professor - 2019