History
The administrative reorganisation was followed by a new territorial division of Romania. Preparations began in January 1949, with the opportunity of discussing the law about the so-called Sfaturi Populare (People's Councils), when the leaders of the Romanian Communist Party (PMR) decided to call on the help of the Soviet counselors for the raionation of the territory of RPR. Until then, Romania had been divided into judeţe (counties), organised into plăşi and rural and urban comune (communes). The county, as a local administration form, has its origins in the medieval divisions of Wallachia. After the formation of modern-day Romania, the name extended over Moldavia also (1859), following Dobrudja (1878) and Transylvania (1923). In the period of King Carol's dictatorship (1938–1940), the counties were abolished by forming 10 ţinuturi (lands).
The chiaburi (the Romanian equivalent of kulaks) were the direct "target" of the administrative reforms. Discussions regarding the raionation were retaken at the Plenara CC (the Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party) between 15 and 17 May 1950, in the context of preparing the elections for the People's Councils. Some members of the CC were of the opinion that the division into counties should be maintained, because Romania didn't have the territory of the USSR to be divided into "regions". But Miron Constantinescu sustained that: "the term of raionation is the correct one, because it underlines the characteristic of this reorganisation and the expression used in Stalin's quote is raionation". Also, he presented the Report regarding the raionation to the Session, where he underlined the fact that "all of the content of the criteria proposed here is drawn up after the study of the Soviet material, on the basis of the Soviet teachings and on the basis of the concrete support that the Soviet counselors gave to us, to whom we thank for their help." At the end of July a central commission of the Communist Party (including Soviet counselors) was established to prepare the raionation of the territory.
The raionation law was published on September 6, radically changing the administrative division of Romania. Instead of the 58 counties, 424 plăşi and 6,276 communes, the territory of the RPR was divided into 28 regions, 177 raions, 148 cities and towns and 4,052 communes. The process of raionation once finished, the governors organised the elections for the People's Councils on December 3, 1950.
Read more about this topic: Administrative Divisions Of The People's Republic Of Romania
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