Cassian, who recalls that the book Georgescu reviewed was "my most proletkultist", and her attempt to recover from being marginalized by communist politicos, accuses the critic of having "compromised" her, of pursuing "an indication from the Party [...], coupled with his own well-known cynicism", and of resorting to "ad hominems". According to political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu, Georgescu stood alongside Crohmălniceanu, Baconsky, Geo Bogza, Geo Dumitrescu, Petru Dumitriu, Gheorghe Haupt, Eugen Jebeleanu, Mihail Petroveanu and Nicolae Tertulian as one of the few genuine left-wing intellectuals associated with the regime during the 1950s. The researcher emphasizes their failure to join the pro-liberalization initiatives of Miron Constantinescu, Mihail Davidoglu, Alexandru Jar and Vitner, all of whom had called for De-Stalinization at a time when PCR general secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was refusing to enforce it. In Tismăneanu's view, the stance adopted by Georgescu and his colleagues, together with their silence during the repressive measures adopted following the Hungarian Revolution, helped Leonte Răutu and his subordinate Mihai Beniuc maintain a grip on the Writers' Union. A particularly controversial text Paul Georgescu wrote for a May 1956 issue of "Gazeta Literară" reaffirmed that the Communist Party had a moral duty to exercise its "guidance" ("îndrumare") on literary matters. At the Union Congress of 1956, Georgescu voiced the official condemnation of De-Stalinization in Romanian culture, calling attention to writers whose work, he argued, had strayed away from Socialist Realist guidelines and into "formalism", "idealism", "subjectivism", or "art for art's sake". In this context, the ideologue spoke of fellow critics who adopted "vulgar sociologism", which meant discussing the work of past authors independent of their social context. He called attention to supposed attempts at reviving the conservative and neoclassical tenets of the 19th century literary group "Junimea" through the works of its leader Titu Maiorescu, making similar claims about the legacy of post-"Junimist" and modernist critic Eugen Lovinescu, founder of "Sburătorul" review.