Henri H. Stahl – a social‑democratic sociologist

The following paper is an attempt to reveal Henri H. Stahl’s political views and the means by which he managed to work and publish during the Romanian communist regime. We thus uncover a social-democratic sociologist, concerned with the problems of Romania’s peasant class, interested mostly in socialist theories of social change and viewing historical materialism as a powerful methodological tool. His political beliefs are anti-bolchevik and his works on the social history of the peasantry challenge Stalin’s version of history, reviving the delicate and potentially subversive subject of oriental despotism. Apparently privileged, he in fact strives to overcome the numerous constraints and challenges that he faces during the communist era