These "carnets de rencontre" (meeting notebooks) connect the projects we run with the people who lead them, contribute to them, and inspire us. It's a way of getting to know the people around us better, of understanding their stories, motivations, quotes, faces... For this one, we're introducing you to Mihai Sandu, who recently spoke with Jeanne. Enjoy the read! 😊
Hello, this is Jeanne from BWL Colina (an initiative led by la Coop des Territoires)!
I'm continuing here the series of short conversations recorded at the European Learning Summit 2026, organized by Commonland and the Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective in Romania, in Oltenia de Sub Munte last April. Last time, I told you about my conversation with Harry Long, and the idea — which can be found in various sources, including Sebastian Junger's book Tribe, the notions of mutual aid developed by Pablo Servigne, as well as my own personal experiences ^^ — that difficult moments experienced collectively can bring people closer together and create cooperation.
"Can"...
That's an important word in the sentence: difficult conditions can create / strengthen bonds... or not.
And that "or not" depends on: the general context, on how the stakeholders take hold of the situation (deciding to move past the difficulty to stay connected, or remaining at a conflictual level), and so on.
And here is a concrete example to illustrate it.
This time, I'm introducing you to a conversation I had with Mihai Sandu, a member of the Oltenia de Sub Munte team, which confirms that "difficult context" doesn't mean "automatic mutual aid / cooperation."
It all started with something one of his colleagues, Irina, shared with us during a call between BWL bioregions: according to her, Soviet communism actually killed or severely damaged cooperation in the country. I was curious to understand why, and Mihai, who lived through the last years of communism in Romania, agreed to talk with me about it.
I'll let you listen to the recording, keeping in mind, as always, that I'm not a professional podcaster, historian, or expert on the subject — which is the reason why I sometimes ask questions that may seem a bit naive, but which were genuinely on my mind. And for the more impatient among you, here below are the key takeaways I got from this conversation.
The following conversation is in English
Key takeaways
1. Communism didn't drive mutual aid...
Following the logic of the previous post, I would have assumed that "since communism was a difficult period in Romania, it probably strengthened / may have strengthened bonds." And yet, when I ask Mihai whether this difficult period brought people closer together, his answer surprises me: mutual aid between neighbors existed well before communism: "it comes from ancient times." Indeed, the lack of resources — and therefore difficult conditions — had already made cooperation necessary for survival, for generations. Farmers helped each other work their plots of land, for lack of money to pay for labor.
This reminded me of something Pablo Servigne said in an episode of the Sismique podcast (October 2025) that had caught my attention: "being able to say 'fuck you' to your neighbor is a luxury." And that luxury hasn't always existed!
But coming back to Soviet communism : according to Mihai, it did not, then, really strengthen bonds.
2. ...but it did contribute to a real upheaval through industrialization and rural exodus...
For Mihai, communism's strongest impact on cooperation ultimately doesn't come from the collectivization of land, but from the brutal industrialization imposed on the country. The regime built factories "overnight" all over the place, and a large part of the population left the villages to move to the cities.
This massive displacement emptied the countryside of its inhabitants, making traditional mutual aid between villagers all the harder: fewer people on the ground to organize and work the land together, a dynamic that came along with a growing distance in community ties.
And despite the years, this trend continues, as we'll see with Gabriela Poiană in an upcoming article about her short film "The Last Time I Harvested the Vineyard," which explores the depopulation of the countryside and the gradual disappearance of peasant traditions = a growing distance in ties (stay tuned ^^).
3. ...within a climate of suspicion
For Mihai, if there is one direct impact of Soviet communism on social bonds, it's this: the regime actively encouraged informing on others, which damaged trust within communities. Reporting negative words or behavior about someone else could be rewarded — with money, a promotion. A logic of "divide and rule," as Mihai puts it, which durably instilled mistrust between people.
For him, this mistrust inherited from the regime still exists in some places, but it's far from the norm today: the last 30 years, marked by joining the European Union, have in his view brought real, visible change.
This conversation complements what I took away from my discussion with Harry Long. Shared hardship doesn't automatically bring people closer together: here, peasant mutual aid predated communism, and it was less the material hardship itself than two other specific mechanisms — the geographic fragmentation of communities on one hand, and the culture of suspicion deliberately cultivated by an authoritarian regime on the other — that damaged cooperation.
A few additional notes :
- Mihai and I were speaking as two human beings, sharing our thoughts at a given moment and each carrying our own biases.
- Mihai is speaking here from his personal experience and his own analysis of communist Romania: it does not claim to be exhaustive or to represent everyone's experience of that period.
- By communism, understand "Soviet communism."
Written by: Jeanne Allard
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