Articles are written every holiday season that half-heartedly remind us of how well-off we are as Americans. But 2009 has been a year where almost all Americans have been affected in some way by the innumerable economic maladies afflicting the nation. Many families will find less presents around their Christmas tree this year. Some people may even detect a significant absence of joy in the air. This truly may be the first year in a long time where we actually need to be reminded of how well-off we are. If you find yourself among the many disheartened by this holiday season, then I ask that you take a little time to just remember the Romanians.

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall received an abundance of media coverage. This coverage overshadowed the fact that communism fell in several countries during 1989. Romania was one of those countries. Communism was, in fact, in the process of falling at this exact moment twenty years ago, and I think this makes Romania’s problems under the leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu especially poignant for us today.

On December 15, 1989, Romania began its bloody ten-day revolution that culminated with the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu. Nicolae Ceauşescu became Romania’s leader in 1965, and he was largely responsible for turning his country into one of the most impoverished nations in Europe. Ceauşescu aroused Western hopes when he took control of Romania. For a communist leader, many of his early policies seemed to contain decidedly Western elements. He encouraged the arts and sciences, and he proved unflinching in his criticism of the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu was one of the rare communist leaders within the Soviet sphere of influence who actively challenged Moscow’s decisions. He was the only leader of a Warsaw Pact country who retained diplomatic ties with Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. Ceauşescu even flatly refused to send Romanian troops to aid in the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring.

Ceauşescu seemed to be steering Romania on a course that would make the nation a great hope for Eastern Europe, but everything changed virtually overnight. In 1971, Ceauşescu, his wife Elena, and an entourage of several prominent Romanian Communist Party figures embarked on a diplomatic trip to China and North Korea. One present Central Committee member recalled that Nicolae Ceauşescu “was literally fascinated by Korea” because it represented “the perfect model of an absolute totalitarianism.” The personality cult of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung mesmerized Ceauşescu. The vast crowds in the city of Pyongyang cheered enthusiastically for Ceauşescu simply because he was a guest of the North Korean leader. Ceauşescu craved this type of power. North Korea, and to a lesser extent China, gave Ceauşescu a model of rule that would haunt Romania for decades.

When Ceauşescu returned to Romania, he began his authoritarian takeover by issuing a declaration that formally revoked all of the cultural freedoms he had granted. He also began to create a personality cult by having people organized to turn out in mass numbers to laud their dear leader. Reveling in this contrived praise, Ceauşescu used the power of his position to take full control of his image. In post-1971 Romania, all forms of media became mediums for the incessant praise of both Ceauşescu and his wife. He effectively began to create what historian Gale Stokes calls “a cult of personality to end all cults of personality.”

Romanians could have probably lived somewhat normally had the personality cult and the revoking of intellectual laws been the most drastic of Ceauşescu’s post-1971 changes. However, these were not the worst changes. One of the most egregious of the changes implemented after 1971 was Ceauşescu’s increased reliance on his dreaded secret police (Securitate). Ceauşescu adroitly used the Securitate to ensure that no form of opposition could arise.

There has been a long-running debate as to how many people the Securitate scared into becoming informants during his rule. Some conservative estimates put the number of informants at one in every ten Romanians. Other estimates put the number at one in every four Romanians. Regardless of the exact number, the Securitate’s heavy-handed tactics proved crucial in creating a political climate where people were afraid to speak candidly with each other. No opposition to Ceauşescu could arise while people feared the repercussions of simply speaking candidly.

This political climate explains why there was so little dissent when Ceauşescu’s economic policies destroyed Romania. In the post-1971 era, economic decisions that affected all Romanians were increasingly made on the whims of Ceauşescu who was strongly encouraged by his domineering wife. Neither of them had a background that taught them how to run an economy. In fact, neither of them actually finished the Romanian equivalent high school. Power changes everything, though. He was heralded as a genius leader, and she was purported to be a world-class scientific mind. This unchecked power allowed Ceauşescu to run the Romanian economy in the capricious manner that characterized his time as Romania’s leader.

Having had little formal education, Ceauşescu’s understanding of economics revolved predominantly around the communist standard of heavy industry. Romania is a land of bountiful natural resources, but the country does not contain the raw materials necessary for the heavy industries that Ceauşescu pursued. Ceauşescu’s answer to this problem was to import all of the needed raw materials. An exorbitant amount of money was spent so Romanian industries could produce goods of such low-quality that only a fraction of the final products could actually be sold. The world market was largely disinterested in Romania’s industrial products, and this led to a quick growth in Romanian debt.

Ceauşescu’s emphasis on heavy industry drastically increased Romania’s use of oil to the point where the country could no longer rely on its own significant reserves. The Soviet Union’s disapproval of Ceauşescu’s criticism lost Romania the opportunity to procure cheap Soviet oil, and Romania was desperate for oil by the mid-1970s. The only viable option was to import oil. The country’s need for imported oil coincided with the 1970s surge in prices, but Ceauşescu made the decision to import foreign oil regardless of the cost. Ceauşescu’s arbitrary economic decisions led to the country amassing over 10 billion dollars in foreign debt by 1981.

The plan that Ceauşescu developed in order to draw Romania out of its economic tailspin was even worse than the plans that instigated the country’s economic woes. Ceauşescu believed that he could eliminate Romania’s debt in an obscenely short amount of time by ending almost all of the country’s imports and drastically increasing its exports. The most salient problem of Ceauşescu’s plan to repay his country’s debt was his decision to use Romanian food as a major export. His focus on heavy industry had already wrought significant damage on the agricultural industry. Production had already rapidly decreased after Ceauşescu shifted farmers into industrial work. It was only a matter of time before disaster struck.

The rationing of food inevitably began in 1981. Soon after rationing began, Romanians had no other option but to wait in line for hours to procure food. During the food shortages, the increasingly delusional Ceauşescu had the temerity to make claims such as “Romanians eat too much.” He made such statements while his people were literally starving. 1985 saw Ceauşescu’s introduction of a state-imposed diet that was supposed to allocate a specific amount of food to every Romanian citizen. This plan might have been successful had Romania actually contain the necessary supply of food the proposed diet promised.

Ceauşescu never showed any compassion for the value of human life during his country’s suffering. Not only did he starve his own people, but he allowed many other tragic fates to befall them. To conserve energy for heavy industry, Ceauşescu refused to let heating be readily available within people’s homes. Some of those forced to live without heating actually died during the extreme winter temperatures of 1984. Another Ceauşescu decision was to build a House of the Republic in Bucharest. To facilitate this grandiose plan, Ceauşescu evicted thousands of people out of their homes in order to create space for the undertaking. These are just two of his most diabolical decisions. Ceauşescu spearheaded innumerable plans that garnered Romania the title of “the Ethiopia of Europe.”

Despite all of Ceauşescu’s destructive plans, the most troubling aspect is that his personality cult never wavered. He was still heralded in the press as a great and genius leader while his country suffered, and his wife still reassured him that he was loved by the people. Vast crowds were still compelled to cheer on their leader. Ted Koppel called Ceauşescu’s Romania “a madhouse in which the lunatics were running the asylum and the inmates were punished for their sanity.” As the 1980s neared their conclusion, almost all of the inmates were unified in hating the Ceauşescus. This is why the Romanian Revolution of 1989 was nasty, brutish, and short.

It is impossible to read about the reign of Nicolae Ceauşescu and not feel a profound sense of sadness for the people of Romania. Despite all of our economic woes, we simply cannot begin to fathom having to stand in the hope of just surviving. We especially cannot fathom being forced to praise the ones who caused all of our economic problems. Until we have to stand in line for food on a daily basis, we should not fear that there are less presents under the Christmas tree than last year. Economic indicators say that we will pull out of this crisis. But if the government proves incapable of streamlining this process, then we possess the ability to vote them out of office. The Romanians did not gain any of these luxuries until Christmas Day of 1989. So if you feel a profound sense of sadness this holiday season, might I suggest you try to remember the Romanians.



Jared Peoples

UAB Graduate Student

Odenville, Alabama