Smale’s Topological Program in Mechanics and Convexity

In the early seventies, the full impact of modern dynamical systems theory and the geometrization of mechanics have made themselves felt also in Romania. These ideas trickled in over a period of several years both from the West and the Soviet Union into a country which was, for all practical purposes, in complete intellectual isolation. The late sixties saw a slight respite from a very harsh rule and a few mathematicians were allowed to travel. They brought back into the country any material they could lay their hands on and made it readily available to their colleagues and their students. In July 1972, a Chinese-style cultural revolution was imposed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party with disastrous consequences, for mathematics in particular. A complete return to Stalinism occurred. By 1975, the Central Institute of Mathematics in Bucharest, the only in the country, was dissolved and mathematicians were looking for jobs. Those whose views were perceived to “infect” the Marxist indoctrination of students were fired from their university positions. This was just one of the many purges which periodically hit the higher education system, except that this time it took on an even more sinister twist: Ideological purity became again codified into various governmental regulations (before it was harshly applied but it had only a convoluted legal basis) and only those deemed worthy by the Communist Party were even allowed to register to the graduate study admission competitions at different universities and institutes. Membership in the party became a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to be admitted to the exam.