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Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romanian: [nikoˈla.e ttʃeea.

uˈʃesku] (About this sound listen); 26 January


1918[1][2] – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian Communist politician. He was general
secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and hence the second and last
Communist leader of Romania. He was also the country's head of state from 1967, serving as
President of the State Council, from 1974 concurrently as President of the Republic, until his
overthrow in the Romanian Revolution in 1989.

Born in 1918 in Scornicești, Olt County, Ceaușescu was a member of the Romanian Communist
youth movement. Ceaușescu rose up through the ranks of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's Socialist
government and, upon the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in 1965, he succeeded to the leadership of
Romania’s Communist Party as General Secretary.[3]

Upon his rise to power, he eased press censorship and openly condemned the Warsaw Pact
invasion of Czechoslovakia in his 21 August speech of 1968, which resulted in a surge in his
popularity. The period of stability was very brief, however; his government very shortly later
became severely repressive and authoritarian, and was considered by far the most Stalinist in
Eastern Europe.[citation needed] His secret police, the Securitate (which was founded in 1948
under Gheorghiu-Dej), was responsible for mass surveillance as well as severe repression and
human rights abuses within the country, and he suppressed and controlled the media and press
implementing methods that were among the harshest, most restrictive and brutal in the world.
[citation needed] Economic mismanagement due to failed oil ventures during the 1970s led to
skyrocketing foreign debts for Romania; in 1982, he exported much of the country's agricultural
and industrial production in an effort to repay the debts.[citation needed] The shortages that
followed drastically lowered living standards, leading to heavy rationing of food, water, oil, heat,
electricity, medicine, and other necessities.[citation needed] His cult of personality experienced
unprecedented elevation, followed by extensive nepotism and the intense deterioration of
foreign relations, even with the Soviet Union.[citation needed]

The liberalization of other regimes in the Eastern Bloc did not affect Ceaușescu, who continued
his Stalinist policies.[4] An attempt by the government to evict Hungarian pastor László Tőkés in
December 1989 resulted in protests, mainly in Timișoara, which the Securitate violently put
down at Ceaușescu's orders, killing several protesters and wounding numerous. The suppression
of the protests resulted in massive rioting and unrest throughout Romania, which forced
Ceaușescu and his wife Elena to flee by helicopter after a riot in Bucharest escalated into a
revolution.[5] The helicopter was forced to land and the military, which had joined the
revolution, arrested the couple. After a show trial in Târgoviște on 25 December 1989,[6] the
tribunal sentenced the couple to death and executed them shortly after in a shooting range.[7]
Ion Iliescu, leader of the National Salvation Front, took over as President and capital punishment
was abolished shortly after.

Contents [hide]

1 Early life and career

2 Leadership of Romania

2.1 The 1966 decree

2.2 Speech of 21 August 1968

2.3 July Theses

2.4 President of the Socialist Republic of Romania

2.5 Oil embargo, strike and foreign relations

2.6 Pacepa defection

2.7 Foreign debt

2.8 1984 failed coup d'état attempt

3 Revolution and death

3.1 Timișoara

3.2 Overthrow

3.2.1 Speech on 21 December

3.2.2 Flight on 22 December

3.3 Death

3.3.1 Exhumation and reburial

4 "Ceaușism": Ceaușescu's policies

4.1 Non-aligned policy feats

4.1.1 Bessarabia

4.2 Personality cult and authoritarianism

5 Legacy
6 Cultural depictions

7 Honours and awards

8 Selected published works

9 Gallery

10 See also

11 References

12 Sources

13 External links

Early life and career[edit]

Arrested in 1936 when he was 18 years old, Ceaușescu was imprisoned for two years at Doftana
Prison for Communist activities.

Ceaușescu was born in the small village of Scornicești, Olt County, on 26 January 1918, being one
of the nine children of a poor peasant family (see Ceaușescu family). His father, Andruță, owned
3 hectares (7.4 acres) of agricultural land and a few sheep, and he supplemented his large
family's income through tailoring.[8] Nicolae studied at the village school until at the age of 11,
when he ran away from his extremely religious, abusive and strict father to Bucharest. He
initially lived with his sister, Niculina Rusescu, and then became an apprentice shoemaker.[8]

He worked in the workshop of Alexandru Săndulescu, a shoemaker who was an active member
in the then-illegal Communist Party.[8] Ceaușescu was soon involved in the Communist Party
activities (becoming a member in early 1932), but as a teenager, he was given only small tasks.
[8] He was first arrested in 1933, at the age of 15, for street fighting during a strike and again, in
1934, first for collecting signatures on a petition protesting the trial of railway workers and twice
more for other similar activities.[9] By the mid-1930s, he had been in missions in Bucharest,
Craiova, Câmpulung, and Râmnicu Vâlcea, being arrested several times.[10]

The profile file from the secret police, Siguranța Statului, named him "a dangerous Communist
agitator" and "distributor of Communist and antifascist propaganda materials".[10] For these
charges, he was convicted on 6 June 1936 by the Brașov Tribunal to 2 years in prison, an
additional 6 months for contempt of court, and one year of forced residence in Scornicești.[10]
He spent most of his sentence in Doftana Prison.[10] While out of jail in 1939, he met Elena
Petrescu, whom he married in 1947 and who would play an increasing role in his political life
over the years.[9]

Ceaușescu and other Communists at a public meeting in Colentina, welcoming the Red Army as
it entered Bucharest on 30 August 1944

Soon after being freed, he was arrested again and sentenced for "conspiracy against social
order", spending the time during the war in prisons and internment camps: Jilava (1940),
Caransebeș (1942), Văcărești (1943), and Târgu Jiu (1943).[10] In 1943, he was transferred to
Târgu Jiu internment camp, where he shared a cell with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, becoming his
protégé. Enticed with substantial bribes, the camp authorities gave the Communist prisoners
much freedom in running their cell block, provided they did not attempt to break out of prison.
[11] At Târgu Jiu, Gheorghiu-Dej ran "self-criticism sessions" where various Party members had
to confess before the other Party members to misunderstanding the dogma of Marx-Engels-
Lenin-Stalin as interpreted by Gheorghiu-Dej; journalist Edward Behr claimed that Ceaușescu's
role in these "self-criticism sessions" was that of the enforcer, the young man allegedly beating
those Party members who refused to go with or were insufficiently enthusiastic about the "self-
criticism" sessions.[12] These "self-criticism sessions" not only helped to cement Gheorghiu-
Dej's control over the Party, but also endeared his protégé Ceaușescu to him.[12] It was
Ceaușescu's time at Târgu Jiu that marked the beginning of his rise to power. After World War II,
when Romania was beginning to fall under Soviet influence, Ceaușescu served as secretary of
the Union of Communist Youth (1944–1945).[9]

After the Communists seized power in Romania in 1947, he headed the ministry of agriculture,
then served as deputy minister of the armed forces under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, becoming a
major-general. In 1952, Gheorghiu-Dej brought him onto the Central Committee months after
the party's "Muscovite faction" led by Ana Pauker had been purged. In the late 1940s-early
1950s, the Party had been divided into the "home communists" headed by Gheorghiu-Dej who
remained inside Romania prior to 1944 and the "Muscovites" who had gone into exile in the
Soviet Union. With the partial exception of Poland, where the Polish October crisis of 1956
brought to power the previously imprisoned "home communist" Władysław Gomułka, Romania
was the only Eastern European nation where the "home communists" triumphed over the
"Muscovites". In the rest of the Soviet bloc, there were a series of purges in this period that led
to the "home communists" being executed or imprisoned. That Stalin decided in favor of the
"home communists" in Romania stemmed largely out of anti-Semitism as Pauker, the leader of
the "Muscovites" was Jewish, and thus unacceptable to an increasingly anti-Semitic
Stalin[citation needed]. Like his patron Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceaușescu was a "home communist" who
benefited from the fall of the "Muscovites" in 1952. In 1954, Ceaușescu became a full member
of the Politburo and eventually rose to occupy the second-highest position in the party
hierarchy.[9]

Leadership of Romania[edit]

When Gheorghiu-Dej died on 19 March 1965, Ceaușescu was not the obvious successor despite
his closeness to the longtime leader. However, widespread infighting by older and more
connected officials made the Politburo turn to Ceaușescu, as a compromise candidate.[13] He
was elected general secretary on 22 March 1965, three days after Gheorghiu-Dej's death.

One of his first acts was to change the name of the party from the Romanian Workers' Party back
to the Communist Party of Romania and to declare the country a socialist republic, rather than a
people's republic. In 1967, he consolidated his power by becoming president of the State
Council, making him de jure head of state. His political apparatus sent many thousands of
political opponents to prison or psychiatric hospitals.[14]

Initially, Ceaușescu became a popular figure, both in Romania and in the West, because of his
independent foreign policy, which challenged the authority of the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, he
eased press censorship and ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact, but
Romania formally remained a member. He refused to take part in the 1968 invasion of
Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces and even actively and openly condemned that action in
his 21 August 1968 speech. He travelled to Prague a week before the invasion to offer moral
support to his Czechoslovak counterpart, Alexander Dubček. Although the Soviet Union largely
tolerated Ceaușescu's recalcitrance, his seeming independence from Moscow earned Romania a
maverick status within the Eastern Bloc.[13]

Ceaușescu's main aim as leader was to make Romania a world power, and all of his economic,
foreign and demographic policies were meant to achieve Ceaușescu's ultimate goal: turning
Romania into one of the world's great powers.[15] For the Conducător (the "Leader"), as
Ceaușescu liked to call himself, "demography was destiny" and countries with rising populations
were rising powers.[15] In October 1966, Ceaușescu banned abortion and brought in one of the
world's harshest anti-abortion laws.[16]

Ceaușescu spending time with French prime minister Jacques Chirac at the Romanian seaside in
Neptun (1975)

During the following years Ceaușescu pursued an open policy towards the United States and
Western Europe. Romania was the first Warsaw Pact country to recognize West Germany, the
first to join the International Monetary Fund, and the first to receive a US President, Richard
Nixon.[17] In 1971, Romania became a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Romania and Yugoslavia were also the only Eastern European countries that entered into trade
agreements with the European Economic Community before the fall of the Eastern Bloc.[18]

The presidential couple is received by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in June 1978

A series of official visits to Western countries (including the US, France, the United Kingdom, and
Spain) helped Ceaușescu to present himself as a reforming Communist, pursuing an independent
foreign policy within the Soviet Bloc. He also became eager to be seen as an enlightened
international statesman, able to mediate in international conflicts, and to gain international
respect for Romania.[19] Ceaușescu negotiated in international affairs, such as the opening of US
relations with China in 1969 and the visit of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977.
Also Romania was the only country in the world to maintain normal diplomatic relations with
both Israel and the PLO. In 1980, Romania participated in the 1980 Moscow Olympics with its
other Soviet bloc allies, but in 1984 was one of the few Communist countries to participate in
the 1984 Summer Olympics when most of the Eastern Bloc's nations boycotted this event.[20]

The 1966 decree[edit]

In 1966, Ceaușescu, in an attempt to boost the country's population, made abortion illegal and
introduced Decree 770 to reverse the low birth rate and fertility rate. Mothers of at least five
children would be entitled to significant benefits, while mothers of at least ten children were
declared "heroine mothers" by the Romanian state. Few women ever sought this status. Instead,
the average Romanian family during the time had two to three children (see Demographics of
Romania).[21]

The government targeted rising divorce rates, and made divorce more difficult—it was decreed
that a marriage could be dissolved only in exceptional cases. By the late 1960s, the population
began to swell. In turn, a new problem was created by child abandonment, which swelled the
orphanage population (see Cighid). Transfusions of untested blood led to Romania accounting
for many of Europe's pediatric HIV/AIDS cases at the turn of the 21st century despite having a
population that only comprises 3% of Europe's population.[22][23]
Speech of 21 August 1968[edit]

Main article: Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968

Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968 represented the apogee of Ceaușescu's rule.[24] It


marked the highest point in Ceaușescu's popularity, when he openly condemned the Warsaw
Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

July Theses[edit]

Main article: July Theses

Ceaușescu meeting with North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung in 1971

Ceaușescu visited China, North Korea, the Mongolian People's Republic and North Vietnam in
1971. He took great interest in the idea of total national transformation as embodied in the
programs of North Korea's Juche and China's Cultural Revolution. He was also inspired by the
personality cults of North Korea's Kim Il-sung and China's Mao Zedong. Journalist Edward Behr
claimed that Ceaușescu admired both Mao and Kim as leaders who not only totally dominated
their nations, but had also used totalitarian methods coupled with generous shots of ultra-
nationalism mixed in with communism in order to transform both China and North Korea into
major world powers.[25] Furthermore, that Kim and even more so Mao had broken free of
Soviet control were additional sources of admiration for Ceaușescu. According to Behr, Elena
Ceaușescu allegedly bonded with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing.[25] The British journalist wrote that
the possibility that what Ceaușescu had seen in both China and North Korea were "vast
Potemkin villages for the hoodwinking of gullible foreign guests" was something that never
seemed to have crossed his mind.[25] Shortly after returning home, he began to emulate North
Korea's system. North Korean books on Juche were translated into Romanian and widely
distributed inside the country.

On 6 July 1971, he delivered a speech before the Executive Committee of the PCR. This quasi-
Maoist speech, which came to be known as the July Theses, contained seventeen proposals.
Among these were: continuous growth in the "leading role" of the Party; improvement of Party
education and of mass political action; youth participation on large construction projects as part
of their "patriotic work"; an intensification of political-ideological education in schools and
universities, as well as in children's, youth and student organizations; and an expansion of
political propaganda, orienting radio and television shows to this end, as well as publishing
houses, theatres and cinemas, opera, ballet, artists' unions, promoting a "militant,
revolutionary" character in artistic productions. The liberalisation of 1965 was condemned and
an index of banned books and authors was re-established.

The Theses heralded the beginning of a "mini cultural revolution" in Romania, launching a Neo-
Stalinist offensive against cultural autonomy, reaffirming an ideological basis for literature that,
in theory, the Party had hardly abandoned. Although presented in terms of "Socialist
Humanism", the Theses in fact marked a return to the strict guidelines of Socialist Realism, and
attacks on non-compliant intellectuals. Strict ideological conformity in the humanities and social
sciences was demanded. Competence and aesthetics were to be replaced by ideology;
professionals were to be replaced by agitators; and culture was once again to become an
instrument for political-ideological propaganda and hardline measures. In a 1972 speech,
Ceaușescu stated he wanted " a certain blending of party and state activities...in the long run we
shall witness an ever closer blending of the activities of the party, state and other social
bodies."[26] In practice, a number of joint party-state organizations were founded such as the
Council for Socialist Education and Culture, which had no precise counterpart in any of the other
communist states of Eastern Europe, and the Romanian Communist Party was embedded into
the daily life of the nation in a way that it never had been before.[27] In 1974, the party
programme of the Romanian Communist Party announced that structural changes in society
were insufficient to create a full socialist consciousness in the people, and that a full socialist
consciousness could only come about if the entire population was made aware of socialist values
that guided society.[26] The Communist Party was to be the agency that would so "enlighten"
the population and in the words of the British historian Richard Crampton "...the party would
merge state and society, the individual and the collective, and would promote 'the ever more
organic participation of party members in the entire social life'".[26]

President of the Socialist Republic of Romania[edit]

Standard as President of Romania

In 1974, Ceaușescu converted his post of president of the State Council to a full-fledged
executive presidency. He was first elected to this post in 1974, and would be reelected every five
years until 1989.

Although Ceaușescu had been nominal head of state since 1967, he had merely been first among
equals on the State Council, with his real power coming from his status as party leader. The new
post, however, made him the nation's top decision-maker both in name and in fact. He was
empowered to carry out those functions of the State Council that did not require plenums. He
also appointed and dismissed the president of the Supreme Court and the prosecutor general
whenever the legislature was not in session. In practice, from 1974 onward Ceaușescu
frequently ruled by decree.[28] For all intents and purposes, Ceaușescu now held all governing
power in the nation; virtually all party and state institutions were subordinated to his will.

Oil embargo, strike and foreign relations[edit]

Starting with the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo against the West, a period of prolonged high oil
prices set in that characterised the rest of the 1970s. Romania as a major oil-producer greatly
benefited from the high oil prices of the 1970s, which led Ceaușescu to embark on an ambitious
plan to invest heavily in oil-refining plants.[29] Ceaușescu's plan was to make Romania into
Europe's number one oil refiner not only of its oil, but also of oil from Middle Eastern states like
Iraq and Iran, and then to sell all of the refined oil at a profit on the Rotterdam spot market.[29]
As Romania lacked the money to build the necessary oil refining plants and Ceaușescu chose to
spend the windfall from the high oil prices on aid to the Third World in an attempt to buy
Romania international influence, Ceaușescu borrowed heavily from Western banks on the
assumption that when the loans came due, the profits from the sales of the refined oil would be
more than enough to pay off the loans.[29] A major problem with Ceaușescu's oil-refining plan
which led to Romania taking enormous loans was the low productivity of Romanian workers,
which meant that the oil-refining plants were finished years behind schedule.[29] The 1977
earthquake which destroyed much of Bucharest also led to delays in the oil plan.[29] By the time
the oil refining plants were finished in the early 1980s, a slump in oil prices had set in, leading to
major financial problems for Romania.[29]

In August 1977 over 30,000 miners went on strike in the Jiu river valley complaining of low pay
and poor working conditions.[15] The Jiu valley miners' strike was the most significant
expression of opposition to Ceaușescu's rule prior to the late 1980s. The striking miners were
inspired by similar strikes along Poland's Baltic coast in December 1970, and just as in Poland in
1970, the striking Romanian miners demanded face-to-face negotiations with their nation's
leader.[15] When Ceaușescu appeared before the miners on the third day of the strike, he was
greeted in the words of the British historian Richard Crampton "... once again á la polonaise,
with cries of 'Down with the Red Bourgeoisie!'".[15] Hearing reports that his soldiers were
reluctant to fire on fellow Romanians led Ceaușescu to negotiate a compromise solution to the
strike.[15] In the years after the strike, the majority of its leaders died of cancer. After 1989, it
was revealed that the Securitate had doctors give the strike leaders 5-minute chest X-rays to
ensure the development of cancer.[15]
He continued to follow an independent policy in foreign relations—for example, in 1984,
Romania was one of few communist states (notably including the People's Republic of China, and
Yugoslavia) to take part in the American-organized 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife with Emperor Hirohito during a visit in Tokyo in 1975

Also, the Socialist Republic of Romania was the first of the Eastern bloc nations to have official
relations with the Western bloc and the European Community: an agreement including Romania
in the Community's Generalised System of Preferences was signed in 1974 and an Agreement on
Industrial Products was signed in 1980. On 4 April 1975, Ceaușescu visited Japan and met with
Emperor Hirohito.

In June 1978, Ceaușescu made a state visit to the UK where a £200m licensing agreement was
signed between the Romanian government and British Aerospace for the production of more
than eighty BAC One-Eleven aircraft. The deal was said at the time to be the biggest between
two countries involving a civil aircraft.[30]

Pacepa defection[edit]

In 1978, Ion Mihai Pacepa, a senior member of the Romanian political police (Securitate, State
Security), defected to the United States. A three-star general, he was the highest ranking
defector from the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. His defection was a powerful blow against
the administration, forcing Ceaușescu to overhaul the architecture of the Security. Pacepa's 1986
book, Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief (ISBN 0-89526-570-2), claims to
expose details of Ceaușescu's government activities, such as massive spying on American
industry and elaborate efforts to rally Western political support.

Foreign debt[edit]

Main article: 1980s austerity policy in Romania

By the 1980s, a personality cult had developed around the Ceaușescus

Ceaușescu's political independence from the Soviet Union and his protest against the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968 drew the interest of Western powers, whose governments briefly
believed that he was an anti-Soviet maverick and hoped to create a schism in the Warsaw Pact
by funding him. Ceaușescu did not realise that the funding was not always favorable. Ceaușescu
was able to borrow heavily (more than $13 billion) from the West to finance economic
development programs, but these loans ultimately devastated the country's finances. He also
secured a deal for cheap oil from Iran, but that deal fell through after the Shah was overthrown.

In an attempt to correct this, Ceaușescu decided to repay Romania's foreign debts. He organised
a referendum and managed to change the constitution, adding a clause that barred Romania
from taking foreign loans in the future. According to official results, the referendum yielded a
nearly unanimous "yes" vote.[31]

In the 1980s, Ceaușescu ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial
production in order to repay its debts. The resulting domestic shortages made the everyday life
of Romanians a fight for survival as food rationing was introduced and heating, gas and
electricity blackouts became the rule. During the 1980s, there was a steady decrease in the
Romanian population's standard of living, especially in the availability and quality of food and
general goods in shops. During this time, all regional radio stations were closed, and television
was limited to a single channel broadcasting for only two hours a day.

The debt was fully paid in the summer of 1989, shortly before Ceaușescu was overthrown.[13]
However, heavy exports continued until the revolution in December.

1984 failed coup d'état attempt[edit]

A tentative coup d'état planned in October 1984 failed when the military unit assigned to carry
out the plan was sent to harvest maize instead.[32]

Revolution and death[edit]

Main article: Romanian Revolution

Ceaușescu in 1988

In November 1989, the XIVth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) saw Ceaușescu,
then aged 71, re-elected for another five years as leader of the PCR. During the Congress,
Ceaușescu made a speech denouncing the anti-Communist revolutions happening throughout
the rest of Eastern Europe. The following month, Ceaușescu's government itself collapsed after a
series of violent events in Timișoara and Bucharest.

Timișoara[edit]

Demonstrations in the city of Timișoara were triggered by the government-sponsored attempt to


evict László Tőkés, an ethnic Hungarian pastor, accused by the government of inciting ethnic
hatred. Members of his ethnic Hungarian congregation surrounded his apartment in a show of
support.

Romanian students spontaneously joined the demonstration, which soon lost nearly all
connection to its initial cause and became a more general anti-government demonstration.
Regular military forces, police and Securitate fired on demonstrators on 17 December 1989,
killing and injuring men, women and children.

On 18 December 1989, Ceaușescu departed for a state visit to Iran, leaving the duty of crushing
the Timișoara revolt to his subordinates and his wife. Upon his return to Romania on the evening
of 20 December, the situation became even more tense, and he gave a televised speech from the
TV studio inside 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".

The country, which had little or no information of the Timișoara events from the national media,
learned about the Timișoara revolt from radio stations such as Voice of America and Radio Free
Europe, and by word of mouth. On the next day, 21 December, Ceaușescu staged a mass
meeting in Bucharest. Official media presented it 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.

Overthrow[edit]

Speech on 21 December[edit]

Main article: Ceaușescu's final speech

The mass meeting of 21 December, held in what is now Revolution Square, began like many of
Ceaușescu's speeches over the years. Ceaușescu spoke of the achievements of the "Socialist
revolution" and Romanian "multi-laterally developed Socialist society." He also blamed the
Timișoara riots on "fascist agitators who want to destroy socialism."[33]

However, Ceaușescu had misjudged the crowd's mood. Roughly eight minutes into his speech,
several people began jeering, booing and others began chanting "Timișoara!" He

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