During the 1980s, dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu pursued an austerity policy in order to pay foreign debts, leading to a decade-long stagnation and negatively affecting the living standards of the Romanians.

[3] The lack of organization post-war (much of it due to the political struggle and the agitation among the workers), together with a foreign exchange crisis (which led to shortage of materials and spare parts) meant lower industrial production.

The small farmers were encouraged to join these collective farms, but the brutality with which this program was implemented led to resistance which was, occasionally, even violent.

The pressure from these quotas, combined to the attractiveness of industrial jobs in the cities led to a decline of agriculture's share of the labor force from 74.1% in 1950 to 69.5% in 1955.

[7] The second five-year plan (1956–1960) was supposed to accelerate the pace of industrialization again, but, in the context of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Romanian Communist Party cautiously reduced the investment to half of the original amount and, instead, increased the workers' wages by 15%.

The cities grew as new jobs were created in factories, but the inhabitants of these urban areas suffered overcrowding and lack of services, as not enough funds were allocated to building housing.

[9] The high level investment in industry meant that, although consumption increased in absolute terms, it was the lowest among the Eastern Bloc countries.

[10] The Soviet Union showed dissatisfaction with Romania's investment in heavy industry; symbolically it did not provide any assistance in the building of the massive Galați steel works.

[11] Since Romania could no longer rely on the Soviet economic assistance, the government began establishing trade relations with the capitalist West.