Romania - 23 August 1944 [antikvár]

foreword i Forty years have elapsed since the event of August 23, 1944. It has ushered in a new epoch in the history of the Romanian people, an epoch of deep restructuring and transformations within the framework of a revolutionary process, the main stages of which were the antifascist and anti-imperialist revolution for social and national liberation — triggered off by the armed insurrection —, the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the building up — under way — of the multilaterally developed socialist society. August 23, 1944 was not only the beginning of a new era in Romania's history but, through its strategic-political consequences, it was "one of the decisive events of World War II" ; this fully justified assertion belongs to one of the most reputed specialists in the history of Eastern Europe, the English historian Hugh Seton-Watson. ' The rapid se-•quence of military-political developments during the great world conflagration of 1939—1945, often attributed a spectacular halo with powerful emotional connotations by the public opinion, has not always allowed a correct assessment ¦of their true share in the issue of World War 11. To take one well-known example, let us remember that the precipitated evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk — called to the present the "miracle" of Dunkirk — was initially considered a "triumph of improvisation amidst •chaos" only to appear, as soon as facts could be reconstituted on the basis of an attentive study of the sources, as the ' Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, Ed. F. A. Prae-;ger. New York, 1961, p. 89. 9 )