Romanian Revolution

The disintegration of Warsaw Pact Communist regimes before the Romanian Revolution. Countries in pink removed the leading role of the Communist Party from their constitutions. Countries in light red disbanded their party militias. The Soviet Union - in dark red - had one republic which removed the leading role of the Communist Party from its constitution. Countries in darkest red had fully-functioning Communist regimes.

On 20 November 1989 (the day when Ceaușescu was reelected as leader of the Romanian Communist Party[33]) almost all of the Warsaw Pact Communist regimes were institutionally intact. The leading role of the Communist Party was enshrined in their constitutions and the party militia was active. The lone exception was Hungary, where - in October 1989 - the leading role of the party was rescinded from the constitution and the party militia was abolished. However, very soon after Ceaușescu's reelection, the other communist regimes in the Warsaw Pact began to crumble as well. The party militia was abolished in Poland on 23 November and then in Bulgaria on 25 November. The leading role of the party was rescinded from the constitution of Czechoslovakia on 29 November and from that of East Germany on 1 December.[34][35][36] Even the Soviet Union's Communist regime started to unravel while Ceaușescu was still in power: on 7 December 1989, one of the 15 Union Republics - Lithuania - removed the leading role of the Communist Party from its constitution.[37][38]

People detained after 22 December 1989 in Timişoara

Riots and protests resumed the following day, 17 December. The rioters broke into the district committee building and threw party documents, propaganda brochures, Ceaușescu's writings, and other symbols of Communist power out of windows.[42]

The military was sent in to control the riots, because the situation was too large for the Securitate and conventional police to handle. The presence of the army in the streets was an ominous sign: it meant that they had received their orders from the highest level of the command chain, presumably from Ceaușescu himself. The army failed to establish order and chaos ensued, including gunfire, fights, casualties, and burned cars. Transportor Amfibiu Blindat (TAB) armoured personnel carriers and tanks were called in.[42]

After 20:00, from Piața Libertății (Liberty Square) to the Opera, there was wild shooting, including the area of Decebal bridge, Calea Lipovei (Lipovei Avenue) and Calea Girocului (Girocului Avenue). Tanks, trucks and TABs blocked the accesses into the city while helicopters hovered overhead. After midnight the protests calmed down. Colonel-General Ion Coman, local Party secretary Ilie Matei, and Colonel-General Ștefan Gușă (Chief of the Romanian General Staff) inspected the city. Some areas looked like the aftermath of a war: destruction, rubble and blood.[42]

T-55 tank in front of Opera House

On the morning of 18 December the centre was being guarded by soldiers and Securitate agents in plainclothes. Ceaușescu departed for a visit to Iran, leaving the duty of crushing the Timișoara revolt to his subordinates and his wife. Mayor Moț ordered a party gathering to take place at the university, with the purpose of condemning the "vandalism" of the previous days. He also declared martial law, prohibiting people from going about in groups of larger than two.[42]

Defying the curfew, a group of 30 young men headed for the Orthodox cathedral, where they stopped and waved a Romanian flag from which they had removed the Romanian Communist coat of arms leaving a distinctive hole, in a manner similar to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Expecting that they would be fired upon, they started to sing "Deșteaptă-te, române!" ("Awaken thee, Romanian!"), an earlier patriotic song that had been banned in 1947 (but then partially co-opted by the Ceaușescu regime once he fashioned himself as a nationalist). Hungarian protesters also chanted "Români, veniți cu noi!" ("Romanians, come with us", to convey that the protest was by and for all citizens of Romania, not an ethnic minority matter). They were, indeed, fired upon; some died and others were seriously injured, while the lucky ones were able to escape.[42]

On 19 December, local Party functionary Radu Bălan and Colonel-General Ștefan Gușă visited workers in the city's factories, but failed to get them to resume work. On 20 December, massive columns of workers entered the city. About 100,000 protesters occupied Piața Operei (Opera Square – today Piața Victoriei, Victory Square) and chanted anti-government slogans: "Noi suntem poporul!" ("We are the people!"), "Armata e cu noi!" ("The army is on our side!"), "Nu vă fie frică, Ceaușescu pică!" ("Have no fear, Ceaușescu is falling!")[42]

Meanwhile, Emil Bobu (Secretary to the Central Committee) and Prime Minister Constantin Dăscălescu were sent by Elena Ceaușescu (Nicolae being at that time in Iran) to resolve the situation. They met with a delegation of the protesters and agreed to free the majority of the arrested protesters. However, they refused to comply with the protesters' main demand (resignation of Ceaușescu) and the situation remained essentially unchanged.[42]

The next day, trains loaded with workers from factories in Oltenia arrived in Timișoara. The regime was attempting to use them to repress the mass protests, but after a brief encounter they ended up joining the protests. One worker explained, "Yesterday our factory boss and a party official rounded us up in the yard, handed us wooden clubs and told us that Hungarians and 'hooligans' were devastating Timișoara and that it is our duty to go there and help crush the riots. But I realised that wasn't the truth."[42]

Upon Ceaușescu's return from Iran on the evening of 20 December, the situation became even more tense, and he gave a televised speech from the TV studio inside the Central Committee Building (CC Building) in which he spoke about the events at Timișoara in terms of an "interference of foreign forces in Romania's internal affairs" and an "external aggression on Romania's sovereignty."[42]

The country, which had no information about the Timișoara events from the national media, heard about the Timișoara revolt from Western radio stations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and by word of mouth. A mass meeting was staged for the next day, 21 December, which, according to the official media, was presented as a "spontaneous movement of support for Ceaușescu," emulating the 1968 meeting in which Ceaușescu had spoken against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces.[42]

On the morning of 21 December, Ceaușescu addressed an assembly of approximately 100,000 people to condemn the uprising in Timișoara. Party officials took great pains to make it appear that Ceaușescu was still immensely popular. Several busloads of workers, under threat of being fired, arrived in Bucharest's Piața Palatului (Palace Square, now Piața Revoluției – Revolution Square) and were given red flags, banners and large pictures of Ceaușescu. They were augmented by bystanders who were rounded up on Calea Victoriei.[28]

The balcony where Ceaușescu delivered his last speech, taken over by the crowd during the Romanian Revolution of 1989

The speech was typical of most of Ceaușescu's speeches over the years. Making liberal use of Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, he delivered a litany of the achievements of the "socialist revolution" and Romanian "multi-laterally developed socialist society". He blamed the Timișoara uprising on "fascist agitators". However, Ceaușescu was out of touch with the people and completely misread the crowd's mood. The people remained unresponsive, and only the front rows supported Ceaușescu with cheers and applause. About two minutes into the speech, some in the crowd began to jeer, boo, whistle and yell insults at him, a reaction unthinkable for most of his rule. Workers from a Bucharest power plant started chanting "Ti-mi-șoa-ra! Ti-mi-șoa-ra!", which was soon picked up by others in the crowd. In response, Ceaușescu raised his right hand in hopes of silencing the crowd; his stunned expression remains one of the defining moments of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. He then tried to placate the crowd by offering to raise workers' salaries by 200 lei per month (about 19 U.S. dollars at the time, yet a 5–10% raise for a modest salary) and student scholarships from 100 to 110 lei while continuing to praise the achievements of the Socialist Revolution. However, a revolution was brewing right in front of his eyes.[28]

As Ceaușescu was addressing the crowd from the balcony of the Central Committee building, sudden movement came from the outskirts of the massed assembly, as did the sound of (what various sources have reported as) fireworks, bombs or guns, which together caused the assembly to break into chaos. Initially frightened, the crowds tried to disperse. Bullhorns then began to spread the news that the Securitate was firing on the crowd and that a "revolution" was unfolding. This persuaded people in the assembly to join in. The rally turned into a protest demonstration.

Protesters in Cluj-Napoca on the morning of 21 December. This photo was taken by Răzvan Rotta after security forces opened fire.

The entire speech was being broadcast live nationwide. Censors attempted to cut the live video feed and replace it with Communist propaganda songs and video praising the Ceaușescu regime, but parts of the riots had already been broadcast and most of the Romanian people realised that something unusual was in progress. Ceaușescu and his wife, as well as other officials and CPEx members, panicked; Ceaușescu's bodyguard hustled him back inside the building.

The jeers and whistles soon erupted into a riot; the crowd took to the streets, placing the capital, like Timișoara, in turmoil. Members of the crowd spontaneously began shouting anti-Ceaușescu slogans, which spread and became chants: "Jos dictatorul!" ("Down with the dictator"), "Moarte criminalului!" ("Death to the criminal"), "Noi suntem poporul, jos cu dictatorul!" ("We are the People, down with the dictator"), "Ceaușescu cine ești?/Criminal din Scornicești" ("Ceaușescu, who are you? A criminal from Scornicești").[42]

Protesters eventually flooded the city centre area, from Piața Kogălniceanu to Piața Unirii, Piața Rosetti and Piața Romană. In one notable scene from the event, a young man waved a tricolour with the Communist coat of arms torn out of its centre while perched on the statue of Mihai Viteazul on Boulevard Mihail Kogălniceanu in the University Square. Many others began to emulate the young protester, and the waving and displaying of the Romanian flag with the Communist insignia cut out quickly became widespread.[42]

As the hours passed many more people took to the streets. Later, observers claimed that even at this point, had Ceaușescu been willing to talk, he might have been able to salvage something. Instead, he decided on force.[28] Soon the protesters—unarmed and unorganised—were confronted by soldiers, tanks, APCs, USLA troops (Unitatea Specială pentru Lupta Antiteroristă, anti-terrorist special squads) and armed plainclothes Securitate officers. The crowd was soon being shot at from various buildings, side streets and tanks.[42]

There were many casualties, including deaths, as victims were shot, clubbed to death, stabbed and crushed by armoured vehicles. One APC drove into the crowd around the InterContinental Hotel, crushing people. A French journalist, Jean-Louis Calderon, was killed. A street near University Square was later named after him, as well as a high school in Timișoara. Belgian journalist Danny Huwé was shot and killed on 23 or 24 December 1989.[43][44]

An ABI armoured car used by the USLA in December 1989

Firefighters hit the demonstrators with powerful water cannons, and the police continued to beat and arrest people. Protesters managed to build a defensible barricade in front of the Dunărea ("Danube") restaurant, which stood until after midnight, but was finally torn apart by government forces. Intense shooting continued until after 03:00, by which time the survivors had fled the streets.[42]

Records of the fighting that day include footage shot from helicopters that were sent to raid the area and record evidence for eventual reprisals, as well as by tourists in the high tower of the centrally located InterContinental Hotel, next to the National Theatre and across the street from the university.

It is likely that in the early hours of 22 December the Ceaușescus made their second mistake. Instead of fleeing the city under cover of night, they decided to wait until morning to leave. Ceaușescu must have thought that his desperate attempts to crush the protests had succeeded, because he apparently called another meeting for the next morning. However, before 07:00, his wife Elena received the news that large columns of workers from many industrial platforms (large communist-era factories or groups of factories concentrated into industrial zones) were heading towards the city centre of Bucharest to join the protests. The police barricades that were meant to block access to Piața Universității (University Square) and Palace Square proved useless. By 09:30 University Square was jammed with protesters. Security forces (army, police and others) re-entered the area, only to join with the protesters.[42]

By 10:00, as the radio broadcast was announcing the introduction of martial law and a ban on groups larger than five persons, hundreds of thousands of people were gathering for the first time, spontaneously, in central Bucharest (the previous day's crowd had come together at Ceaușescu's orders). Ceaușescu attempted to address the crowd from the balcony of the Central Committee of the Communist Party building, but his attempt was met with a wave of disapproval and anger. Helicopters spread manifestos (which did not reach the crowd, due to unfavourable winds) instructing people not to fall victim to the latest "diversion attempts," but to go home instead and enjoy the Christmas feast. This order, which drew unfavourable comparisons to Marie Antoinette's haughty (but apocryphal) "Let them eat cake", further infuriated the people who did read the manifestos; many at that time had trouble procuring basic foodstuffs such as cooking oil.[42]

Following Ceaușescu's second failed attempt to address the crowd, he and Elena fled into a lift headed for the roof. A group of protesters managed to force their way into the building, overpower Ceaușescu's bodyguards and make their way through his office before heading onto the balcony. They were unaware they were only a few metres from Ceaușescu. The lift's electricity failed just before it reached the top floor, and Ceaușescu's bodyguards forced it open and ushered the couple onto the roof.[28]

At 11:20 on 22 December 1989, Ceaușescu's personal pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Vasile Maluțan, received instructions from Lieutenant General Opruta to proceed to Palace Square to pick up the president. As he flew over Palace Square he saw it was impossible to land there. Maluțan landed his white Dauphin, #203, on the terrace at 11:44. A man brandishing a white net curtain from one of the windows waved him down.[45]

Maluțan said, "Then Stelica, the co-pilot, came to me and said that there were demonstrators coming to the terrace. Then the Ceaușescus came out, both practically carried by their bodyguards ... They looked as if they were fainting. They were white with terror. Manea Mănescu [one of the vice-presidents] and Emil Bobu were running behind them. Mănescu, Bobu, Neagoe and another Securitate officer scrambled to the four seats in the back ... As I pulled Ceaușescu in, I saw the demonstrators running across the terrace ... There wasn't enough space, Elena Ceaușescu and I were squeezed in between the chairs and the door ... We were only supposed to carry four passengers ... We had six."[45]

According to Maluțan, it was 12:08 when they left for Snagov. After they arrived there, Ceaușescu took Maluțan into the presidential suite and ordered him to get two helicopters filled with soldiers for an armed guard, and a further Dauphin to come to Snagov. Maluțan's unit commander replied on the phone, "There has been a revolution ... You are on your own ... Good luck!". Maluțan then said to Ceaușescu that the second motor was now warmed up and they needed to leave soon but he could only take four people, not six. Mănescu and Bobu stayed behind. Ceaușescu ordered Maluțan to head for Titu. Near Titu, Maluțan says that he received the national flights denial and had to land to not get shot down by the army.[46]

He did so in a field next to the old road that led to Pitești. Maluțan then told his four passengers that he could do nothing more. The Securitate men ran to the roadside and began to flag down passing cars. Two cars stopped, one of them driven by a forestry official and one a red Dacia driven by a local doctor. However, the doctor was not happy about getting involved and, after a short time driving the Ceaușescus, faked engine trouble. A bicycle repairman was then flagged down and drove them in his car to Târgoviște. The repairman, Nicolae Petrișor, convinced them that they could hide in an agricultural technical institute on the edge of town. When they arrived, the director there guided the Ceaușescus into a room and then locked them in. They were arrested by local police at about 15:30, then after some wandering around, transported to the Târgoviște garrison's military compound and held captive for several days until their trial.[47][42]

On 24 December Ion Iliescu, head of the newly formed Council of the National Salvation Front (FSN), signed a decree establishing the Extraordinary Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial to try the Ceaușescus for genocide and other crimes. The trial was held on 25 December, lasted for about two hours and delivered death sentences to the couple. Although nominally the Ceaușescus had a right of appeal, their execution followed immediately, just outside the improvised courtroom, being carried out by three paratroopers with their service rifles.

Footage of the trial and of the executed Ceaușescus was promptly released in Romania and to the rest of the world. The actual moment of execution was not filmed; the cameraman only managed to get into the courtyard just as the shooting ended.[48]

In footage of the trial, Nicolae Ceaușescu is seen answering the ad hoc tribunal judging him and referring to some of its members—among them Army General Victor Atanasie Stănculescu and future Romanian Secret Service head Virgil Măgureanu—as "traitors". In the same video, Ceaușescu dismisses the "tribunal" as illegitimate and demands his constitutional rights to answer to charges in front of a legitimate tribunal.

Petre Roman speaking to the crowd in Bucharest.

However, the seizure of power by the new political structure FSN, which "emanated" from the second tier of the PCR leadership with help of the plotting generals, was not yet complete. Forces considered to be loyal to the old regime (spontaneously nicknamed "terrorists") opened fire on the crowd and attacked key points across the city: the television, radio and telephone buildings, as well as Casa Scânteii (the nation's print media center, which serves a similar role today under the name of the "House of the Free Press", Casa Presei Libere) and the post office in the district of Drumul Taberei; Palace Square (site of the Central Committee building, but also of the Central University Library, the national art museum in the former Royal Palace, and the Ateneul Român (Romanian Athaeneum), Bucharest's leading concert hall); the university and the adjoining University Square (one of the city's main intersections); Otopeni and Băneasa airports; hospitals and the Ministry of Defence.[42]

During the night of 22–23 December, Bucharest residents remained on the streets, especially in areas under attack, fighting (and ultimately winning, at the cost of many lives) a battle with an elusive and dangerous enemy. With the military confused by contradictory orders, actual battles ensued, with many real casualties. At 21:00 on 23 December, tanks and a few paramilitary units arrived to protect the Palace of the Republic.[42] Meanwhile, messages of support were flooding in from all over the world: France (President François Mitterrand); the Soviet Union (General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev); Hungary (the Hungarian Socialist Party); the new East German government (at that time the two German states were not yet formally reunited); Bulgaria (Petar Mladenov, General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party); Czechoslovakia (Ladislav Adamec, leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and Václav Havel, the dissident writer, revolution leader and future president of the Republic); China (the Minister of Foreign Affairs); the United States (President George H. W. Bush); Canada (Prime Minister Brian Mulroney); West Germany (Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher); NATO (Secretary General Manfred Wörner); the United Kingdom (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher); Spain; Austria; the Netherlands; Italy; Portugal; Japan (the Japanese Communist Party); SFR Yugoslavia government and Moldavia.[42]

USAF C-130 Hercules unloads medical supplies at the Bucharest airport on 31 December.

In the following days, moral support was followed by material support. Large quantities of food, medicine, clothing, medical equipment, and other humanitarian aid were sent to Romania. Around the world, the press dedicated entire pages and sometimes even complete issues to the Romanian revolution and its leaders.[42]

On 24 December, Bucharest was still a city at war. Tanks, APCs and trucks continued to patrol the city and surround trouble spots in order to protect them. At intersections near strategic objectives, roadblocks were built; automatic gunfire continued in and around University Square, the Gara de Nord (the city's main railroad station) and Palace Square. Yet amid the chaos, some people were seen clutching makeshift Christmas trees.[42] Doctors at one Bucharest hospital reported not sleeping for days and treating as many as 3,000 civilians due to the fighting.[2] "Terrorist activities" continued until 27 December, when they abruptly stopped. Nobody ever found out who conducted them, or who ordered them stopped.[42]

The Central University Library was burned down in uncertain circumstances and over 500,000 books, along with about 3,700 manuscripts, were destroyed.[52][53]

The Revolution brought Romania vast attention from the outside world. Initially, much of the world's sympathy went to the FSN government under Ion Iliescu, a former member of the CPR leadership and a Ceaușescu ally prior to falling into the dictator's disfavour in the early 1980s. The FSN, composed mainly of former members of the second echelon of the CPR, immediately assumed control over the state institutions, including the main media outlets such as the national radio and television networks. They used their control of the media in order to launch attacks against their political opponents, newly created political parties that claimed to be successors to those existing before 1948.

Much of that sympathy was squandered during the Mineriads. Massive protests erupted in downtown Bucharest as political rallies organised by the opposition parties during the presidential elections, with a small part of the protesters deciding to stand ground even after Iliescu was re-elected with an overwhelming majority of 85%. Attempts by police to evacuate the remaining protesters resulted in attacks on state institutions, prompting Iliescu to appeal to the country's workers for help. Infiltrated and instigated by former Securitate agents, in the following days a large mass of workers, mainly miners, entered Bucharest and attacked and fought with anti-government protesters and gathered bystanders.[54][55]

On the eve of the first free post-communist elections day (20 May 1990), Silviu Brucan—who was part of the FSN—argued that the 1989 Revolution was not anti-communist, being only against Ceaușescu. He stated that Ion Iliescu made a "monumental" mistake in "conceding to the crowd" and banning the PCR.[56]

While other former ruling Communist parties in the Soviet bloc reconfigured themselves into social democratic or democratic socialist parties, the PCR melted away in the wake of the revolution, never to return. However, a number of former PCR politicians remain prominent on Romania's political scene. Iliescu, for example, remained the central figure in Romanian politics for more than a decade, losing the presidency in 1996 before regaining it in 2000; he retired for good in 2004.

The FSN chose between the two economic models that political elites claimed were available to post-Communist Eastern European countries: shock therapy or gradual reforms. The FSN chose the latter, slower reforms, because it would have not been possible to convince the people who were already "exhausted" after Ceaușescu's austerity to undergo further sacrifices.[57]

Nevertheless, the neoliberal reforms were implemented, although not all at once: by the end of 1990, the prices were liberalised and a free currency exchange rate, devaluing the leu by 60%. The land of the state-owned collective farms was distributed to private owners[58] and a list of 708 large state-owned enterprises to be privatised was devised.[59]

In 1991 Romania signed an agreement with the IMF and began the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, with the first privatisation law being passed in 1991.[60] In 1992, the Stolojan government began an austerity plan, limiting wages and further liberalising prices. The economic situation deteriorated and inflation as well as unemployment increased substantially.[61] The austerity measures, which by 1995 included a decrease in social spending, led to an increase in poverty.[62]

The neoliberal reforms were accelerated after the Democratic Convention won the 1996 elections, the government using its prerogatives to pass a package of laws, removing subsidies, passing reforms on unemployment benefits and greatly increasing the number of privatised companies.[63]

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  A Romanian sub-officer gives the victory sign on New Year's Eve 1989. He has removed the insignia of communist Romania from his ushanka.
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  "Empty" Romanian flags with the communist insignia cut out, from an exhibit at the Military Museum, Bucharest
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  Buildings marked by fire and bullet holes on the northern edge of Revolution Square, Bucharest, July 1990