Patriotic Guards (Romania)
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The Patriotic Guards (Romanian: Gărzile Patriotice) were Romanian paramilitary formations formed during the Communist era, designed to provide additional defence in case of a foreign attack.
History
The Patriotic Guards were formed in 1968, after the
Although the threat was over by the end of the year, the Patriotic Guards remained a feature of the republic's communist structure. They became a permanent addition to the
No longer backed by enthusiasm as they had been in the early 1970s, the Patriotic Guards nonetheless were the basic line of defence against projected invasions. The threat posed by the latter seemed to increase as the regime plunged into isolation, especially after it lost the support of the Western Bloc in the mid-1980s. From that point on, the Patriotic Guards were to become part of the State's apparatus of repression against its own people.
During the
Function
The Patriotic Guards was an all-inclusive
Place in the official ideology
In the 1980s,
Organization
The Patriotic Guards were staffed by about 700,000 citizens in 1989, both men and women. In keeping with the doctrine of "War of the Entire People", the Patriotic Guards were a combined territorial defence or national guard and civil defence organization, which was established immediately after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Patriotic Guards worked closely with the Ministry of National Defence but were directly subordinated to the PCR and its youth organization. Relying more on ordinary citizens than on the professional military, the Patriotic Guards served as a potential counterweight to or check on the power and influence of the regular armed forces.
In 1989 the Patriotic Guards were organized into company- and platoon-sized units in almost every județ, municipality, town, village, and industrial or agricultural enterprise. Under the command of the first secretary of the local PCR apparatus, they conducted basic and refresher training in small-arms handling, demolition, mortar and grenade-launcher firing, and small-unit tactics. In wartime they had responsibility for local antiaircraft defence, providing early warning of air attack, defending population centers and important elements of national infrastructure, and conducting civil engineering work as needed to reestablish essential military production after an attack. They would reconnoiter and attack enemy flanks and rear areas, combat airborne units and special forces penetrating deep into Romania, and mount resistance operations against occupying forces. In keeping with their guerrilla image, the Patriotic Guards wore plain uniforms with no insignia or badges of rank.
See also
Similar formations:
- Combat Groups of the Working Class
- ORMO
- People's Militias (Czechoslovakia)
- Worker-Peasant Red Guards
- Workers' Militia
- Munkásőrség (Hungary)
References
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2015) |
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division.
- Jurnalul. 4 September 2009. Archived from the originalon 1 December 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
- Lucian Boia, Istorie şi mit în conştiinţa românească ("History and myth in the Romanian conscience"), Bucharest, Humanitas, 1997.
- Mihai Retegan, 1968 - Din primăvară până în toamnă ("1968 - From spring to autumn"), Bucharest, RAO, 1998.