All of them were required to express "self-criticism", while Gheorghiu-Dej was condemned for having "initiated and overseen" the measures. Ceaușescu profited on the enduring perception of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu's activities as patriotic and verging on dissidence, while shadowing his fundamental role in the creation of the new penal system in Romania. In fact, although he was frequently quoted and displayed by the regime, Pătrășcanu's life was usually described in brief and vague sentences. In popular discourse, Pătrășcanu was also largely identified with positive causes, and remained among the most popular Communist figures after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 toppled the regime. In his most important volumes (most of which attracted public attention only after 1944), Pătrășcanu combined his commitment to Marxism-Leninism with his sociological training, producing an original outlook on social evolution (focusing on major trends in Romanian society from the time of the Danubian Principalities to his day). Aside from its support for communist tenets, his work shared many characteristics with the prominent currents of the Romanian sociological school (notably, the attention paid to prevailing social contrasts in a peasant-dominated environment), and made occasional use of material provided by Dimitrie Gusti's comprehensive surveys. According to Pătrășcanu, Moldavia and Wallachia had forsaken feudalism by the mid 18th century, maintaining instead a form of serfdom which had not been affected by the reforms of "Hospodar" Constantine Mavrocordatos. He argued that, whereas feudalism was supported by "metayage", legislation passed by Mavrocordatos had endorsed and prolonged "corvées", a system consecrated in the 1830s by the new Organic Statute. In his view, capitalism had manifested itself mainly as a reactionary force inside Romanian economy during the time of Phanariote rules. Thus, despite characteristic underdevelopment (which he also noted), the local economy had not contrasted with the stages postulated by Marxian economics. Pătrășcanu contended that the first relevant social conflict had occurred in 1821, at the time of Tudor Vladimirescu's Wallachian uprising. He rejected the notion that, despite Vladimirescu's statements to the contrary, the rebellion had a peasant character, and argued instead that it was evidence of low-ranking boyars and merchants ("the embryo of a class, that was to become the bourgeoisie") attempting to emancipate themselves from Ottoman pressures.