The Theses
Ceauşescu visited the People's Republic of China, North Korea, North Vietnam and Mongolia in 1971 and was inspired by the hardline model he found there. He took great interest in the idea of total national transformation as embodied in the programs of the Korean Workers' Party and China's Cultural Revolution. Shortly after returning home, he began to emulate North Korea's system, influenced by the Juche philosophy of North Korean President Kim Il Sung. Korean books on Juche were translated into Romanian and widely distributed in the country.
Upon his return, he issued the Theses, which contained seventeen proposals. Among these were: continuous growth in the "leading role" of the Party; improvement of Party education and of mass political action; youth participation on large construction projects as part of their "patriotic work" (muncă patriotică); an intensification of political-ideological education in schools and universities, as well as in children's, youth and student organisations (like the Union of Communist Youth and its affiliates); and an expansion of political propaganda, orienting radio and television shows to this end, as well as publishing houses, theatres and cinemas, opera, ballet, artists' unions, etc., promoting a "militant, revolutionary" character in artistic productions. The liberalisation of 1965 was condemned, and an Index of banned books and authors was re-established.
Although presented in terms of "Socialist Humanism", the Theses in fact marked a return to socialist realism, reaffirming an ideological basis for literature that, in theory, the Party had hardly abandoned. The difference was the addition of Romanian Communist Party-sponsored nationalism in historiography; quoting Nicolae Iorga in another speech in July 1971, Ceauşescu asserted that "the man who does not write for his entire people is not a poet", and presented himself as the defender of Romanian values (an intensification of the personality cult).
Read more about this topic: July Theses