A member of the Writers' Union leadership board after 1965, he was editor of the influential literary magazine "Viața Românească". Despite his official status, Bogza himself was critical of the adoption of nationalist themes in official discourse after the ascendancy of Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1960s. The new doctrine, eventually consecrated in Ceaușescu's "July Theses", saw him taking the opposing side: during the early 1970s, Bogza published pieces in which he voiced covert criticism of the new policies. Tismăneanu cited him among the most important intellectuals of various backgrounds to have done so, in a class also comprising members of the Oniric group, as well as the cultural figures Jebeleanu, Ion Caraion, Ștefan Augustin Doinaș, Dan Hăulică, Nicolae Manolescu, Alexandru Paleologu, and Mircea Zaciu. His nonconformist stance drew comparisons with that assumed by his generation colleague, the ethnic Hungarian poet and prominent Writers' Union member József Méliusz. In 1976, Bogza discussed the issue of disappointment, stating: "Life is not like a tournament, but like an outage. From the first to the last day." In reference to such an attitude, which believed was related the political context, literary critic and novelist B. Elvin, himself a former leftist and dissident, saw in Bogza a symbol of "verticality, refusal, contempt".