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| The Anticommunist Revolution of December 1989 22/12/2010 |
| (2010-12-22) |
| Last updated: 2010-12-23 18:11 EET |
21 years ago, Romania, today a functional democracy, a NATO and EU member seemed a doomed country under the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, standing no chance to break free and overthrow one of the most hermetical of the communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe.
Cold, hunger, fear-all these were constant elements in the Romanians’ daily lives. Like in a fake mirror game, the oversized, primitive, but aggressive propaganda apparatus was making efforts to build a parallel reality, the image of a happy and prosperous country, led by a president that it ungracefully called the genius of the Carpathians.
With the notable exception of several monitored, harassed and isolated dissidents, no one dared to protest. The Securitate, the former political police of the regime managed to inoculate fear by cultivating the myth of its ubiquitous presence and omnipotence, thus annihilating any virtual form of opposition. With all links with the real world severed, a refugee of his own utopia, the septuagenarian dictator had completely isolated himself at international level.
He had been abandoned not only by the Western world, terrified by Romania’s infringement of basic human rights but also by his former comrades from behind the Iron Curtain, who got bored with his maniacal opposition to the moderated reforms started by Mikhail Gorbachev, at the Kremlin. Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and East Berlin had already overthrown dictatorial regimes in 1989, by carrying out non-violent revolutions.
Romania was the only East European country where communism was overthrown by bloodshed. The flame of the Romanian revolution was kindled in Timisoara, western Romania, in mid December, when several timid protests against the abuse committed by the power gradually took the city in their grip. Initially, the army opened fire at the protesters, but it later gave up on the reprisal of the protesters, the military withdrew in barracks and the revolutionaries took control of the whole city.
The revolt spread at a fast pace to the whole country, to culminate on December the 22nd in Bucharest, where hundreds of thousands of people assaulted and occupied the headquarters of the single party. Captured and tried summarily, Ceausescu was executed on December the 25th. Over one thousand people were killed in December 1989, most of them fallen victim to the so-called terrorists, loyal to Ceausescu, who have never been identified.
By the sacrifice of those people, the new power legitimated itself, although it was nothing but an inhomogeneous gathering of authentic revolutionaries and second ranking communists, led by former minister Ion Iliescu.
Impoverished by a transition which did not abide by any rules or regulations in the 1990’s, now struggling with the economic crisis, many Romanians are nostalgic for their monotonous life under communism, opinion polls show. They also indicate that the majority however rejects the sinister idea of a hypothetical return to a dictatorial regime.
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2025-04-03
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