Ceausescu: the final showdown

[Kamil]

I've done a couple of these threads already, the last big one was Kim Il Sung, and the Nicolae got brought up. I watched that documentary "King of Communism" when I was really fucked up and the shows looked really cool gotta admit, but......... Anyways! I'm sure this has been done to death but lets focus on a few specific inqueries.....
Can anyone share what it was like personally back then?
Was there any genuine love for him by the masses at anypoint?
I read that he presided over an initial boom, what went wrong?
What lessons can be learned from the Romanian revolutionary experienance?
Can anyone explain the idiosynratic nuances of his ideology and party line? What was "multilateral socialism" or whatever?

PEACE HOMIES!!!!!

[North Star]

Ceausescu was initially popular because he presented himself as a liberal and liberalized some cultural activities in the mid to late 60's. However by the 70's he had reversed himself and called for a return to socialist realism combined with Romanian nationalism. He was able to boost the economy by appealing to the West for loans because he was seen as a maverick in the Eastern Bloc who had opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The economy started to tank when he decided to repay the loans as fast as he could leading to shortages and rationing for the population in the 1980's. So he was initially popular but fell out of favour quickly in the 1980's leading to the December 1989 overthrow. Today there might be a little more nostalgia for him given that Romania struggles with unemployment. However unlike some nostalgia for the Eastern Bloc in places like East Germany and Hungary, Ceausescu's horrible social policy of restricting abortion and divorce and persecution of the Hungarian minority led to social problems in Romania that were absent in other Eastern Bloc nations so nostalgia probably isn't as strong in Romania as it is in the former GDR, SFRY and USSR or even Hungary for that matter.
As for the lessons of Romania, well it shows the problems of Stalinism and nationalism, that's for sure.

[Rafiq]

His overthrowing was not by a popular majority. I know a Romanian man who I met a couple months ago who was there the whole time, in the capital city. He told me, first, never to believe anything in the media (over exagguration, but you can see where he is coming from) and that when the time came, Ceausescu was overthrown by a group of thugs, and that's it. He said the masses were too afraid to do anything. And he wasn't popular, at all. The guy told me he hates Ceausescu, but he would rather live under him than shitty romania today.

[Ismail]

As the user "neo-bolshevik" said, Ceaușescu was praised as a "liberal communist" in the West. He also enjoyed good relations with Tito and joined the IMF. Enver Hoxha hated him and really disliked the Chinese trying to court him simply because he was a leader who asserted Romanian nationalism and more importantly "independence" from the Soviets.

But yeah, Romania in the 1960's and 70's wasn't terrible. In the 80's when severe austerity measures were implemented to appease the West, that's when it went downhill.

[Weezer]

From what I know, he enjoyed a lot of funding from the Nixon administration.

[Apoi_Viitor]

http://www.actmedia.eu/2010/09/27/top%20story/opinion%20poll:%2061%%20of%20romanians%20consider% 20communism%20a%20good%20idea/29726

Here's a link I posted before about communist nostalgia in Romania

[A.J.]

I've done a couple of these threads already, the last big one was Kim Il Sung, and the Nicolae got brought up. I watched that documentary "King of Communism" when I was really fucked up and the shows looked really cool gotta admit, but......... Anyways! I'm sure this has been done to death but lets focus on a few specific inqueries.....
Can anyone share what it was like personally back then?
Was there any genuine love for him by the masses at anypoint?
I read that he presided over an initial boom, what went wrong?
What lessons can be learned from the Romanian revolutionary experienance?
Can anyone explain the idiosynratic nuances of his ideology and party line? What was "multilateral socialism" or whatever?

PEACE HOMIES!!!!!

Now I wouldn't say I'm fan of either The Great Conductor or The Great Leader but.....

xt8PZNSoKGc

WOW!!!!!:drool:

[Sun at Eight]

No wonder Ceausescu was fascinated by Juche. I mean, imagine going to North Korea and getting a personalized arirang show that starts around you as you wave from a car roof window and there's even a rainbow bridge with further choreographed people. Could his Romanian subjects be choreographed in such a way at the time?

I don't know if this was the initial meeting, but for some reason I underestimated how much spectacle might have played in that interest.

[Ismail]

No wonder Ceausescu was fascinated by Juche. I mean, imagine going to North Korea and getting a personalized arirang show that starts around you as you wave from a car roof window and there's even a rainbow bridge with further choreographed people. Could his Romanian subjects be choreographed in such a way at the time?

I don't know if this was the initial meeting, but for some reason I underestimated how much spectacle might have played in that interest.Zaire's very own Mobutu was also very interested in Juche for a bit in the early 70's when he was in his brief "radical" stage. He liked the discipline of North Korean advisors and children and many of Mobutu's assistants began reading Kim Il Sung's works on Juche.

Of course Mobutu's security also tortured communists to death and Mobutu himself was picked by the CIA to overthrow Lumumba, so yeah.

Check this one out with Tito (skip to 0:46):
hsrNP3QD3YI

[Rooster]

Now I wouldn't say I'm fan of either The Great Conductor or The Great Leader but.....

WOW!!!!!:drool:

They should get North Korea to do the opening to the Olympics ceremony.

[Kamil]

oh fuck!!!! That tito song is fucken killer man!!!!!!!!!!! BEST COMMUNIST ANTHEM EVAAAA. ANd Kim looks so HAPPY, like a panda :lol:

But more about Ceasescus policies and ideas. I keep hearing about something called multilateral socialist society- what is that?

[Ismail]

But more about Ceasescus policies and ideas. I keep hearing about something called multilateral socialist society- what is that?That would be the "multilaterally developed socialist society." From what I understand it basically just meant promoting an urban mentality among the peasantry and converting agricultural towns to agro-industrial ones.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

That would be the "multilaterally developed socialist society." From what I understand it basically just meant promoting an urban mentality among the peasantry and converting agricultural towns to agro-industrial ones.

Indeed, this was an attempt at realising the merger of town and country to allow further social development of rural regions, but it was unfortunately not much proceeded with due to traditional opposition, and I think it was more or less abandoned without much work being done in most areas.

[Kamil]

Ah! So it seems that Ceausescu and co. put heavy ideological emphasis on the abolition of town and country. Would you all agree? Why would they focus on this idea in particular? On another note, we all know about his relationship with Kim Il Sung. Did Ceausescu ever come up with own idea in response to Juche? In what specific ways did the DPRK influence Romania in party work, ideology ect.? And wasn't there some sort of romanian cultural revolution as well? Or am I thinking of Albania? If the former is correct, what took place during the "romanian cultural revolution" as it were.

[Ismail]

Ah! So it seems that Ceausescu and co. put heavy ideological emphasis on the abolition of town and country. Would you all agree? Why would they focus on this idea in particular?Because the interests of the average peasant and the interests of the average worker tend to not coincide that well. The government also probably wanted to increase agricultural production.


On another note, we all know about his relationship with Kim Il Sung. Did Ceausescu ever come up with own idea in response to Juche?It's assumed his "radical" posturing came from his visits to China and the DPRK.


And wasn't there some sort of romanian cultural revolution as well? Or am I thinking of Albania? If the former is correct, what took place during the "romanian cultural revolution" as it were.You're probably thinking of Albania's "Cultural and Ideological Revolution," which was influenced by the Chinese GPCR but totally independent of it.

[Kiev Communard]

Zaire's very own Mobutu was also very interested in Juche for a bit in the early 70's when he was in his brief "radical" stage. He liked the discipline of North Korean advisors and children and many of Mobutu's assistants began reading Kim Il Sung's works on Juche.

Considering the militaristic and nationalist essence of the North Korean ideology, I am not at all surprised that Mobutu would view it favourably, especially as the Juche proponents did not even try to pretend that they were for the international socialist revolution.

[Red_Struggle]

Ceausescu was overthrown because of the widening gap between the political and economic base. I've heard his economy even featured a sort of state-owned stock market where state leaders could buy, sell, and exchange stock. I don't have a source for this though. I heard it from a Maoist, so who knows.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Ceausescu was overthrown because of the widening gap between the political and economic base. I've heard his economy even featured a sort of state-owned stock market where state leaders could buy, sell, and exchange stock. I don't have a source for this though. I heard it from a Maoist, so who knows.

The economy suffered greatly because of the Ceaucescu government plan to get rid of the debt incurred to foreign governments, which were being used to pressure the Romanian government. To pay this back and get rid of the debt, a plan that essentially entailed exporting as much as possible was enacted, which lead to decreasing living standards and a dramatic rise in social problems, a dramatic austerity period followed, which cemented popular discontent.

The debt had finally been repaid, I think, something like two weeks before he was deposed in the coup.

[Ismail]

the debt had finally been repaid, i think, something like two weeks before he was deposed in the coup.Capitalism: FLAWLESS VICTORY.