The Romanian anti-communist resistance movement was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime, which in turn regarded the fighters as "bandits". It was not until the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in late 1989 that details about what was called "anti-communist armed resistance" were made public. It was only then that the public learned about the several small armed groups, which sometimes termed themselves "hajduks", that had taken refuge in the Carpathian Mountains, where some hid for ten years from authorities. The last fighter was eliminated in the mountains of Banat in 1962. The Romanian resistance was one of the longest lasting armed movements in the former Eastern Bloc.
Some academics argue that the extent and influence of the movement is often exaggerated in the post-communist Romanian media, memoirs of the survivors, and even historiography, while the authoritarian, anti-Semitic and/or xenophobic ideology of part of the groups are generally overlooked or minimized. Others, generally civic associations and former dissidents, argue that had external circumstances been different, and had the Western powers not permitted the Soviet Union to incorporate Romania and other countries from Eastern Europe into its sphere of domination, the anti-communist armed resistance could have led a successful war of national liberation. Still others, mainly former officials, former members of the Securitate secret police, as well as sympathizers of the communist regime, label these clandestine groups as fascist, criminal, or anti-national elements subordinate to foreign Western interests seeking to destabilize the country. Some former resistance fighters (such as Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu, Gavrilă Vatamaniuc, and Lucreția Jurj) acknowledged after 1989 that they never posed a real threat to the communist regime, and that their role was rather limited in maintaining an anti-communist climate in their local communities in the event of an American intervention.
Preliminaries
Early resistance
In March 1944, the Red Army set foot in Bukovina, advancing into Romania, at the time an ally of Nazi Germany. Hundreds of people went into the forests forming anti-Soviet guerrilla groups of 15–20 people. A battalion was created and trained by the Wehrmacht to fight the NKVD; consisting exclusively of local volunteers, this unit, which reached up to 1,378 fighters, could not stem the tide. By August 1944, most were captured by the NKVD, who considered them "political war criminals", and deported them to forced labor camps in Siberia; the surviving partisans were killed or captured by March 1945. Scholar Andrei Miroiu notes that at least part of the partisans may have actually been German troops trapped behind enemy lines. As soon as September 12, 1944, the Romanian authorities were actively cooperating with the NKVD in capturing the partisans, surrendering them to the Soviet Army.
After the Allied armistice with Romania (11–12 September 1944), the Red Army had a free run in Romania and the Romanian government did not have authority over Northern Bukovina. In late 1944 and early 1945, some small armed groups were formed in Romania, with a mission of harassing the Red Army in a future war between the Soviets and the West. After the war, most of these groups dissolved while others remained in the mountains until 1948 when they became active. In May 1946, General Aurel Aldea, the former Minister of the Interior of the first Sănătescu cabinet, was arrested and charged with "bringing together various subversive organizations under his command". It appears, however, that the "National Resistance Movement", which he coordinated, posed little threat, if any, to the establishment of the communist regime.