Communism
\nsettled in in Central and Eastern Europe in the same way, but, when it fell, it
\nfell differently. The first were Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the
\ncountries where communism was toppled without violence and with no human
\nvictims. The second category included the German Democratic Republic and
\nBulgaria, where violence was limited. One last category was that of Romania, where
\nCommunism fell violently and with victims. The case of the former Yugoslavia, where
\nthe bloodiest fall of Communism occurred, is a special case that has several
\nimplications.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
1142 dead, 3138
\nwounded and 760 arrested; that was the bloody record that the Ceausescu regime
\nleft behind. In the 30 years that have passed since the 1989 Revolution, historians
\nhave tried to understand why Romania was special as compared to the other central and east-European countries. We
\nasked historian Dragos Petrescu, a professor at the Political and
\nAdministrative Studies Faculty of Bucharest University if, looking at Romania
\nas it was in the 1980s, somebody could have guessed that the regime change
\nwould be a violent one:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It’s
\neasier to make a post-factum analysis, but there are some elements that show
\nus, with the help of compared political theory, that the truth is extremely
\nsimple. Those types of communism that were independent or which were trying to
\ngo along a line that was independent from Moscow broke out violently from the
\nregime. And we are not talking only about Romania, we include here both Albania
\nand Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, the separation from Communism was followed by a
\ncivil war and by ethnic cleansing, and terrible things happened there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Violence was a
\nconstitutive element of communism and very few countries were capable of giving
\nit up. Dragos Petrescu believes that are two possible explanations for what
\nhappened in Romania in December 1989:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I
\nbelieve there are two fundamental elements that can explain this violent exit
\nfrom communism, which occurred not only in Romania, but also in Albania and
\nYugoslavia. As regards Romania, it had a monolithic ruling elite. Let’s not
\nforget that in November 1989, at the 14th Communist Party Congress,
\nCeausescu was unanimously re-elected, although everybody knew back than that
\ncommunism had fallen in Poland, Hungary, East Germany and things were not that
\ngood in Czechoslovakia either. Despite
\nall that, the Romanian communists decided, in an act of collective opportunism
\nand subservience, to reelect Ceausescu. That was a clear indication of the fact
\nthat there was no reformist faction, not even like the one in Bulgaria, where
\nimmediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Todor Jivkov was replaced by a
\nsupporter of the Gorbaciov regime, the former foreign minister Petar Mladenov.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The second
\nexplanation would be the existence of a sort of independence from Moscow. There
\nwere leaders, such as Ceausescu, who would defy anything coming from the
\nleadership of the Soviet Union. To Ceausescu, the beginning of this attitude of
\ndefiance was August 21st, 1968, when he condemned the invasion of
\nCzechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies, who wanted to remove the reformist
\nregime of Alexandr Dubcek. Here is Dragos Petrescu:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nsecond aspect was that independence from Moscow, which Ceausescu cultivated as
\nof August 21st, 1968, his charismatic moment. Ceausescu had his hour
\nof glory when he managed to do something that nobody believed it was possible
\nin Romania, namely to render the Communist party legitimate in the eyes of the
\npopulation. But that legitimacy was not a real one, it was based on a sort of
\nconsensus between the population and the leader. The living standard in Romania
\nhad grown back then, and as of 1967 Romanians were allowed to travel abroad, under
\na more relaxed legislation. There would be many things to stress here, but what
\nis certain is that in Romania’s case, thinks unfolded differently from the
\nother countries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The slogan: no
\ninterference in a country’s domestic affairs, which Ceausescu turned into a
\nforeign policy principle, isolated Romania even further. Romania’s turning
\ntowards the third world, closing the borders and resuming the Stalinism of the
\n1950s, while denouncing the reforms promoted by the Soviet leader Mihail
\nGorbachov, left no room for intervention when Romanian people’s economic and
\nspiritual situation became dramatic. Here is Dragos Petrescu one more time:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nindependence from Moscow and the monolithic party leadership made Ceausescu
\nbelieve he could do whatever he wanted in his country. And the first thing he
\ndid when the protests started in Timisoara was to order the army to shoot at
\nthe protesters, using real, war ammunition. There followed the operation under
\nwhich the revolutionaries’ bodies were carried to Bucharest to be incinerated
\nand thus erase any trace of the slaughter that had occurred in Timisoara. That
\nwas a very clear sign that Romania could not break away from Communism in a
\npeaceful way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In December
\n1989, Ceausescu’s communist regime fell down violently and with a lot of noise.
\nAnd the victims were the price that Romania had to pay in order to escape the
\nvicious circle of communist dictatorship. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Communism settled in in Central and Eastern Europe in the same way, but, when it fell, it fell differently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":130776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-130775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n