Soon after the XX Congress of the CPSU, the desire to get out of the total control of the USSR manifested itself in Romania and even in Bulgaria - countries about whose loyalty Moscow had no doubts. Soon after that memorable party forum in Romania, they took a course of "forcing" Moscow to withdraw Soviet troops from Romania.
At the same time, Bucharest immediately decided to rely on support in this matter from Beijing, Belgrade and Tirana. This was also facilitated by unexpectedly harsh accusations from Khrushchev personally against the Romanian leadership about "insufficient" support for Soviet measures to overcome the consequences of the personality cult.
Interestingly, after the end of World War II, monarchic regimes could well have survived in these Balkan countries. Of course, in Bulgaria such a strong and popular leader as Georgiy Dimitrov would hardly have put up with the young Simeon of Saxe-Coburg on the throne, but for Romania such a scenario was quite likely. We must not forget that King Mihai timely, back in August 1944, left the German ally, ordered the arrest of the dictator Antonescu. As a result, the handsome Mihai even received the Soviet Order of Victory, went to cooperate with the communists, and in Moscow he was generally called the “Komsomol king”.
However, with the beginning of the Cold War, the USSR began to very consistently help establish the power of local communists in all countries of Eastern Europe. In 1948, members of the Romanian Communist Party, headed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, occupied leading posts in the country as well. It was he, the "sincere friend" of the Soviet Union, who at the end of May 1958 initiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania. Everything was done on the basis of the corresponding agreement signed on the same day in Bucharest.
In principle, the then Soviet leadership resigned itself to the withdrawal of troops primarily for economic reasons. Their stay abroad was too expensive, and Khrushchev had no doubts about the loyalty of the Romanian ally, no matter what. The withdrawal of troops was completed by the fall of 1958, but since that time the weakening of the military-political positions of the USSR in the Balkans and in general in South-Eastern Europe has accelerated.
It is characteristic that before this all the attempts of the Soviet special services to change the Romanian leadership, as well as to provoke the Transylvanian Hungarians-Szekeyev, had failed in separatist actions. And this with full, at least officially declared, confidence that the Romanian ally is fully devoted to Lenin's cause, already without Stalin.
In this photo, you can see the next Romanian leader - Nicolae Ceausescu (left)
Recall that the Soviet army entered Romania in March 1944 in the course of hostilities and remained there after it signed a peace treaty with the allies on February 10, 1947. The text of that treaty specifically noted that “Soviet troops remain in Romania to maintain communications with Soviet troops on the territory of Austria . However, on May 15, 1955, that is, even before the XX Congress of the CPSU, a state treaty was signed with Austria, and the troops of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France soon left this country.
Therefore, the Soviet military presence in Romania after May 1955 no longer had legal grounds. However, Georgiu-Dej unsuccessfully dissuaded Khrushchev from haste with the withdrawal of troops from Austria, believing that she would soon find herself in NATO orbit. But the well-known events in the USSR, as well as the failed coup attempt in Hungary in 1956, convinced the Romanian leadership that the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania is the main guarantee of its sovereignty even within the framework of the Warsaw Pact.
In addition, Bucharest reasonably hoped that Moscow would not dare to aggravate the disagreements with Romania at a time when relations between the USSR and Albania and China were deteriorating. It should be borne in mind that in those days the Soviet leadership did not manage to involve Yugoslavia not only in the Warsaw Pact, but also in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.
Therefore, shortly after the XX Congress of the CPSU, Georgiu-Dej decided to raise the question of the timing of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania. At first, the Soviet side refused to discuss this topic at all. In response, Khrushchev, and with his submission, the party ideologists headed by M. A. Suslov and his closest associate B. N. Ponomarev, who then headed the department for relations with foreign communist parties in the Central Committee, began to accuse Bucharest of "separatism" and "a desire to destabilize the Warsaw Pact." The Romanian authorities, without going into polemics on these issues, appealed to the aforementioned terms of the 1947 peace treaty with Romania.
At the same time, among the measures of pressure on Bucharest, the unannounced support by the new government of Hungary of the nationalist underground of the Transylvanian Hungarians-Szekeys was also used. Szekei are part of the Hungarian ethnic group living in Transylvania, which has always been the subject of territorial disputes between Hungary and Romania, and still require broad autonomy. As a super task, they invariably declare the reunification of the region with Hungary.
Soon after the Hungarian events of 1956, the Romanian counterintelligence eliminated the main "points" of the national underground in Transylvania, at the same time revealing the involvement of Budapest in their preparation. In Romania, they considered that Hungary was stimulated to do this from Moscow. At the same time, the oppression of the Romanian national minority arose in the Bulgarian sector of the Black Sea Dobrudja. In Bucharest, all this was considered the beginning of the "collective" pressure of the USSR on Romania.
The situation changed already in 1957, when a series of demonstratively solemn visits to Romania by government delegations from the PRC, Yugoslavia and Albania took place. These "comrades-in-arms" actually forced Khrushchev to ease the pressure on Romania, although there was no question of consent to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from there. But starting in the fall of 1957, Bucharest increasingly asked Moscow about the possible timing of the withdrawal of Soviet troops. On November 8, 1957, at a meeting in Moscow with Georgiu-Dezh, Khrushchev clearly took into account all the factors mentioned above and annoyed, but specifically stated: "Since you insist so much, we will try to resolve this issue soon."
Finally, on April 17, 1958, Khrushchev's letter to the Romanian leader said that "in view of international detente" and because "Romania has reliable armed forces, the USSR is convinced that there is no need for Soviet troops to stay in Romania." Already on May 24, a corresponding agreement was signed in Bucharest, and the document specifically stipulated that the withdrawal of troops would be completed by August 15 of the same year. And the USSR met the deadline clearly.
According to Romanian data, already on June 25, 1958, 35 thousand Soviet servicemen, most of the Soviet military contingent in Romania, left this country. But during 1958-1963. on the territory of Romania, Soviet military airfields and naval bases continued to operate - to the west of the bordering Iasi, near Cluj, Ploiesti, the Danube-Black Sea ports of Braila and Constanta. These objects were included in the basic register of the Warsaw Pact (VD) until its dissolution in 1990, but in reality the countries of the Treaty did not use them.
The Romanian authorities allowed the permanent deployment of military forces there only in the event of a direct military threat to the security of Romania or its neighbors in the military. But during the Caribbean crisis, Moscow decided not to ask Bucharest on this issue in order to avoid its "link" with the military-political alliance of the PRC and Albania.
About a third of the Soviet military contingent in Romania was in 1958-1959. redeployed to Bulgaria, where there were already about 10 military bases of the USSR (including the port ones in Varna and Burgas) with a permanent deployment of Soviet troops and weapons there. They were evacuated from the country only in 1990-1991.
But since the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania, Bulgaria's geographical contiguity with other Warsaw Pact countries has been virtually severed: the only "non-transit" route was communication between the Black Sea ports of the USSR and Bulgaria. To strengthen it, in November 1978, the trans-Black Sea ferry Ilyichevsk (Ukrainian SSR) - Varna was put into operation, bypassing Romania.
And in 1961-1965. Soviet missile systems of various ranges were deployed in Bulgaria. But Moscow preferred to locate all these objects in “inner” Bulgaria, and not near its borders. In order to avoid an escalation of the US-NATO military presence near the borders of Greece and Turkey with Bulgaria. And broader US military cooperation with Yugoslavia on the basis of their 1951 open-ended agreement on mutual security.
However, practically all Soviet missile systems in Bulgaria in the 1990s became the "property" of the United States and NATO. And for this we must say a special "thank you" to the then followers of the hapless anti-Stalinist Khrushchev.
