Mihail Roller (, first name also Mihai, also known as Rolea or Rollea; Mihai Stoian, "Mihail Roller între 'nemuritorii' de ieri și de azi", România Literară, 32/1999 6 May 1908 – 21 June 1958) was a Romanian communist activist, historian and propagandist, who held a rigid ideological control over Romanian historiography and culture in the early years of the communist regime. During his training in engineering, he rallied with the communist cells in Romania and abroad, joining the Romanian Communist Party while it was still an underground group. He collaborated with the Agitprop leaders Leonte Răutu and Iosif Chișinevschi, spent time in prison for his communist activity, and ultimately exiled himself to the Soviet Union, where he trained in Marxist historiography.
Returning to Romania upon the close of World War II, Roller carried out communist assignments in the field of culture. Under Răutu, he helped draft the official history textbook, monopolizing the historical narrative for over a decade. Turning the focus away from nationality and on class struggle, Roller's work sought to reeducate the traditionalist public, and depicted Romania as strongly linked to Slavic Europe. In advancing such theses, Roller censored out historical events, and, in one instance, recounted events that never took place in real life.
In the later 1950s, Roller found himself shut out by his communist peers. He was branded a deviationist by the party leadership members, probably because he had unwittingly exposed their secondary roles in early communist history. Roller died in mysterious circumstances, which do not exclude the possibility of suicide.
Biography
Early life and activity Roller was born in Buhuși, then a commune in Neamț County, to a Jewish family; as reported by Roller himself, his father was a rabbi,Văratic et al., p.450 though some sources identify him as a functionary.Pleșa, p.166 The boy completed his secondary education in Bacău, and soon became a sympathizer of far left causes. The date of his affiliation with the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), later Workers' Party (PMR), remains disputed. The formerly communist writer Mihai Stoian gives 1926, noting that it coincided with a strike action in Buhuși. Other sources suggest that he only joined in 1931. "Mihail Roller, 'fantoma roșie' a istoriografiei românești", Evenimentul Zilei, 18 March 2011 Historian Lucian Boia writes that Roller, like other communist men of his generation, could not have been a card-carrying member at that stage, since that would have formed material proof of conspiratorial activity. More likely, Roller was inducted through a verbal statement.Boia, Capcanele istoriei, p.87-8
A student at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin) and ParisTech between 1925 and 1931, Roller became a member of the Roter Frontkämpferbund. He also joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1926 and the French Communist Party in 1928, working on their publications.Pleșa, p.166; Văratic et al., p.450 According to his autobiographical notes, he also served as leader of the Romanian Communist Group in France. Professionally, he qualified as a road and highway superintendent.Vasile, p.136 After returning to the country in 1931, Roller was made editor of the PCdR's main gazette, . Roller described his beginnings with the party's Agitprop section (1931–1933) as the start of his life as a "professional revolutionary".
As later noted by researcher Victor Frunză, the PCdR's clandestine nature and inner struggles make it impossible to know for sure who was in charge of by that moment in time. Frunză believes that Roller was one of the young men working under senior activist Ana Pauker; the others were Răutu, Chișinevschi, Vasile Luca, Gheorghe Stoica, Sorin Toma, Gheorghe Vasilichi and Ștefan Voicu.Frunză, p.241 Another fellow communist, Belu Zilber, later noted that Roller was already designated the PCdR historian, and promised an official post in the event of a communist takeover. Such historiographic ambitions prompt historian Adrian Cioroianu to call Roller a "fantasizer" in the field.Cioroianu, p.287 According to political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu, Roller was also one of the Jewish and Bessarabian "déclassés" who gained top PCdR positions in the Chișinevschi–Răutu faction, and in fact a staunch anti-intellectual.Tismăneanu, p.102, 149-50, 212
Arrests and declining health Known as "engineer Roller" or "Rolea" in files kept by the Kingdom of Romania's secret police, he first attracted the authorities' attention following the discovery of a secret printing press in Bucharest. In the early months of 1933, Roller was an ideological instructor in the Green Sector, and worked there until October, when he was arrested. Released by November, he was dispatched to his native region of Western Moldavia. Roller himself recalled having then served as regional secretary for Oltenia in March–April 1934 and July 1934–May 1935.Văratic et al., p.450-51 He was again arrested in 1934 and 1938, although never sentenced due to lack of evidence. According to PCdR documents, between his arrests Roller negotiated popular front alliances with other socialist groups: in 1934, he was one of several "antifascist committee" members who carried out fusion talks with the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) of Constantin Popovici.Vasile G. Ionescu, "Activitatea desfășurată în România pentru făurirea Frontului Unic Muncitoresc ca bază a unui larg front patriotic antifascist (1933—1936)", in Petre Constantinescu-Iași (ed.), Din lupta antifascistă pentru independența și suveranitatea României, Editura Militară, Bucharest, 1971, p.18. See also Văratic et al., p.451
Roller, who also supervised the creation of workers' antifascist sections in Bucharest in September 1934,Georgescu, p.337 is mentioned as one of the PCdR and PSU activists who signed a formal protest against "the numerous abusive and illegal acts perpetrated by the organs of repression".Petre Constantinescu-Iași, În anii socialismului victorios, Editura Politică, Bucharest, 1976, p.193-4 In May–October 1935, he served as chief ideological instructor for the communist party.Văratic et al., p.451 He was them moved to another position, serving as the party secretary for the Lower Danube committee (Galați), following which he served on the Committee of Defense for Antifascist Prisoners, part of the International Red Aid (MOPR) network. In this capacity, Roller mobilized support for Pauker, at a time when she was facing trial for sedition.
His works of the time included political articles such as Fascismul și baza sa socială ("Fascism and Its Social Basis").Georgescu, p.343 A note of May 1937 mentions the publication of his first standalone brochure, titled ("From the History of the Rights of Man") and prefaced by philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru. It was largely a posthumous homage to activist Constantin Costa-Foru.Boia, Capcanele istoriei, p.89 Police mentioned that it was already being sold in bookstores and by distributors of PCdR publications, and believed it was partly financed by the city's Baptist community, to whom a chapter was dedicated. As Roller himself explained, the brochure was meant to test the limits of Romanian censorship, and was part of his work for the MOPR. Din istoria was still found by the police to contain "extremist" passages, and only being purchased by persons "suspected of communism". Once they found that it had not been approved by the state censorship apparatus, it was banned and all copies on sale ordered confiscated. A note from that October indicates that Roller was planning a new work about the 1920 general strike, to be financed by the party. As Roller reports, the work was published, albeit "massacred by censorship", then taken out of circulation entirely. The same year, he issued another concise tract, ("A Contribution to the Social History of Romania").
Having attended MOPR summits in Paris and Prague during 1937 and 1938, Roller served for just three days as head of the Romanian branch. In 1938, he spent a brief term at Jilava Prison. In his autobiography, Sorin Toma notes that conditions there were not as bad as at Doftana, but that 26 prisoners were given two buckets per day of drinking water and two to use as chamber pots. Roller, suffering from a chronic disease later diagnosed as diabetes insipidus, would drain one of the buckets himself and fill the other. Roller himself claimed to have spent 1938–1940 mostly in specialized hospitals, "completely inactive". His only works in agitprop were occasional articles in and a feuilleton on labor history, taken up by Deșteptarea, the Romanian American newspaper. He finally checked himself out of hospital and resumed clandestine work against his colleagues' advice. He returned to campaigning among the workers of the Green Sector, and was also appointed co-editor of an illegal newspaper, Viața Muncitoare.Văratic et al., p.451-52
Soviet exile and return In July 1940, Roller, having narrowly escaped re-arrest by the Romanian authorities, left for Bessarabia, which had been recently occupied by the Soviets. He was for a while at Reni, in the Ukrainian SSR.Văratic et al., p.452 Roller subsequently moved to the Moldavian SSR, at Chișinău, where he began working for the city's Tobacco Plant. In June 1941, just days before the start of Operation Barbarossa, he sent his résumé to Boris Stefanov, asking to be considered for membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Văratic et al., p.450, 452 Drawn into the PCdR group in Moscow, Roller continued working under Pauker, who had also joined the Romanian exile community. He also attended the History faculty of Moscow State University. Little is known about Roller's activity in early 1944, when the change of fortunes on the Eastern Front signaled a Soviet victory over the Axis powers. Reputedly, he stopped paying his PCdR membership fee, which may indicate that he was busy with party work, and prepared for a career in communized Romania. After spending some time at Institute No. 205 (formerly a Comintern school), in December 1944 he was the only Romanian native teaching prisoners of war at Krasnogorsk's Central Antifascist School. While here, he suggested employing Alexandru Bârlădeanu and Haia Grinberg to assist him with specialized classes.Văratic et al., p.449, 450
Following the coup of summer 1944, Roller, using his Soviet ideological training to his advantage, could join the party's propaganda structures. In 1945 he became deputy head of science and education at the central committee's Agitprop directorate, led by Leonte Răutu, remaining in that post until 1955. The team comprising Roller, Răutu, Chișinevschi, Toma, Nicolae Moraru and Ofelia Manole was effectively in control of the entire directorate until 1953, and helped reconfigure Romanian culture in conformity with the Zhdanov Doctrine.Tismăneanu, p.148, 195, 212, 220, 304, 342-3. See also Boia, Capcanele istoriei, p.326 According to Tismăneanu, Roller had become a "scribe" of Romanian communism,Tismăneanu, p.148 one of several "fanatics" and "dilettantes" pushed up through PCdR promotions.Tismăneanu & Vasile, p.17
Mihail Roller signaled his return to Romanian historiography with the 1945 essay ("Pages Ignored from the History of Modern Romania"). It announced that the communist effort to reinterpret history had gained momentum: "The outlook of dialectical and historical materialism also arms us with the basic principles of scientific historical research." Roller went on to state that the capitalist historians had turned history into an occult science, since "it was in the interest of imperialism abroad, and of the exploiting classes within, that the history of the people and its struggles become public." This process, he proposed, was reversible.