Most of the small Slavic minorities belong to the Orthodox faith, and the few remaining Muslims—Turks and Tatars—retain their adherence to Islam and have their principal mosque in the port city of Constanta. Relatively small numbers of Romanians are Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Unitarians. Officially, the communist-ruled country advocates atheism, but the Constitution allows for freedom of religion or freedom to profess no religion. Atheism does not seem to have made any great inroads into the established religions during the first quarter century of communist rule.

The activities of all religions are supervised by the government through its Department of Cults. The separation of church and state is constitutionally guaranteed, but in practice this guarantee serves to impose limitations on the churches and clergy but does not in any manner restrict government interference in religious activities.

Though the Communists were unsuccessful in eradicating religion in the country, they have been successful in transforming the politics, society, and economy. With the promulgation of the 1948 Constitution, based on the Soviet Constitution of 1936, and the establishment of the Romanian People's Republic, the new rulers were ready to construct a socialist state. Out of this transformation, the leaders were confident that a "new socialist man" would ultimately evolve, just as Marx and Lenin had prophesied.

In more pragmatic areas the Communists altered the form of government, the social structure, and the economy. The 1948 Constitution established a form of government much like that of the Soviet Union and other communist-ruled states in that the government is structured to be the instrument through which the party runs the country. There is an interlocking of party and government positions that ensures party control over every facet of Romanian life. There are no competing political parties, but there are several mass organizations, thoroughly PCR dominated, in which the people are urged to participate. These include labor unions, youth leagues, women's organizations, and sports societies, which serve to involve the people in national and local affairs while the party hierarchy retains absolute authority in all areas.

The 1948 Constitution was superseded by another in 1952 that brought no significant changes and did not greatly alter the structure that had been established earlier. The Constitution of 1965, however, changed the name of the country to the Socialist Republic of Romania, and, in communist jargon, this change was of particular importance because it signified that the transition from bourgeois capitalism to socialism had been achieved and that Romania could now proceed on its path toward communism. Significant also in the 1965 Constitution was the absence of any mention of the Soviet Union, which had been featured prominently in the previous documents as a model to be copied and as the liberator of Romania.

The most prominent feature of the Romanian political system is its extreme centralization in both the party structure and the government organization. The people vote for their representatives at all levels of government from a single list of party-approved candidates. Local governments always look for direction from a higher level or from the center. The PCR has a similar pyramidal structure, the topmost organs being self-selecting and self-perpetuating. The concentration of power in the hands of the party hierarchy has prevented the rise of any overt opposition groups, and there has been no observable coalition of dissenters within the party ranks.

In the transformation of the social structure, the Communists brought down the former aristocracy and anyone else who they considered might be opposed to the new order. They then attempted to elevate the status of the former lower classes—that is, the workers and peasants—but because of the elitist structure of the party the great leveling process faltered, and new classes were created despite the prescribed ideology of a classless society. The party elite became the new upper class, and immediately below them was a growing group of lesser party functionaries, technocrats, managers, scientists, teachers, and other professionals. The privileges, life-styles, and aspirations of these groups ran far ahead of those of the workers and peasants who once again found themselves at the bottom of the social pyramid.

Upward mobility is possible, and the key to it is education; the key to educational opportunity, however, is most often political influence, which also plays a large role in the accessibility to jobs that lead to higher social status. A stabilizing of the social structure that became apparent toward the end of the 1960s, although it did not block upward mobility, would seem to indicate that such social movement will be more difficult in the future. Children of workers and peasants will not be denied opportunity for higher education, but it would appear that the path to opportunity will be easier for children of the party elite and the professional classes.

To the people, education is important as a means of social advancement; to the regime, however, the educational system is the prime means through which it inculcates socialist ideals and trains the professionals, technicians, and skilled workers needed to run the country. The first great goal under the Communists was the eradication of illiteracy, which, according to the government, had been achieved by 1958. A concurrent and continuing goal was the training of skilled technicians, foremen, and middle-level managers. The country's rapid industrialization and economic growth caused severe shortages in these categories and, in the early 1970s, the educational and training programs still had not met the demands for the upgrading of unskilled workers.

Modifications of the educational system have been concentrated on the extension of basic primary education from the four-year program that existed after World War II to a compulsory ten-year program that is expected to be fully operative by 1973. Along with the expansion of curricula and the extension of the time spent in primary grades, the regime has also reemphasized the importance of ideological and political indoctrination for the nation's youth. Adult education has also been stressed by the government in its efforts to raise the overall educational and skill levels of the entire population.