Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was president of Romania for more than 20 years. I was going to flee the country, there was no time. The communist regime was indeed in decline.
35 years ago, the Romania he was starting his New Year in a (very) different way than previous years. From other previous decades, even.
Practically since the end of World War II, Romania became a regime communist. Michael I would become the last king of Romania; He abdicated in 1947 and there Romania even changed its name: People’s Republic of Romania (until 1965) and from then on, until 1989.
We jump exactly to 1989, more precisely to the last days of that historic year in Europe.
On December 21st, almost Christmas, the president Nicolae Ceaușescu appeared to speak to the crowd:
From the balcony of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, in front of thousands of people with Romanian flags, it would be another annual speech, to announce supposed good news for the quality of life of Romanians – at the time it was the rise in the minimum wage – and to convey an idea of unanimous support for the regime.
That’s not what happened that Thursday.
Right at the beginning of his speech, when he was still thanking the event organizers, Nicolae Ceaușescu realized that something was going on in the middle of the crowd. They heard each other shouting, a great deal was created confusion, on your right.
He stopped talking.
“Someone is shooting!“, he immediately warned his wife, Elena Ceaușescu.
The security guards told the president to leave the balcony and enter the office immediately.
Moments of affliction, of screams from the president himself and his wife. He, clearly surprised and without understanding what was happening, shouted into the microphone: “So? Comrades! Be quiet!” and she demands silence.
But it was difficult to talk. Spirits were really high. The Romanian television channel, obviously, did not film the riots.
Indeed, something was happening: some report that all it took was someone saying “Liar!” for others to follow and repeat the word; others say a group started shouting “Rua, Ceausescu!”; others will have screamed “Timișoara”, the city that had been the scene of a protest against the regime, just five days earlier.
And scenes of violence began, a heavy police charge on the protesters. Hundreds of people died that day, in that large square in Bucharest.
Romanian Revolution
That square is now called… Revolution Square.
It was actually happening Romanian Revolution. Nicolae Ceaușescu didn’t know it, but that was his last speech.
A uprising in Timișoarawhich had even started because of a hungarian father deported by the regime (and which even had the support of military and officers), it had been just the first sign – bloody, yes.
The people were really against Nicolae Ceaușescu.
And with reasons for this: Romania was a very poor country, Romanians were cold and hungry daily, food was rationed through vouchers, the regime was very repressive, there were no free unions or press.
In a few days, everything changed: protest in Timișoara on December 16th, this remarkable moment in the president’s speech on the 21st and the death of the president on the 25th.
Sim, on Christmas Day.
After the speech, and after being informed of what was happening, what reality was, Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu tried to escape immediately from the country. But they weren’t there in time.
As the helicopter with the couple departed from the roof, the protesters, the people, began to control the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Romania.
It is not known very well why, helicopter had to land halfway through the trip, the couple asked for help, got a ride… but it was soon after caught by the recent Revolutionary Guard.
“Judgment”
At trial, Nicolae and Elena were accused of crimes such as genocide e undoing of the economy. The president assured that he had not left the Romanians hungry and repeated the word “treason”. Elena said that those soldiers should be “ashamed” because she had taken care of them “like a mother”.
“No one will help you now”, reacted one of the soldiers.
They were 90 minutes of an unusual trialwhere the outcome was already known.
There were still lawyers suggesting that the couple claim mental problems, to escape the death penalty.
They refused. They were shot. Nicolae and Elena.
“If you want to kill us, kill both of us. We have the right to die together. Together”, repeated Elena Ceaușescu.
Minutes later, the shots.
Nicolae Ceaușescu, president/dictator for 22 years and the face of a regime of almost 50 years, was shot dead. With a camera filming. On December 25, 1989.
O communist regime fell same.
Unlike the Democratic Republic of Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary, Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country to violently overthrow the communist regime.
For history, that image remains of a surprised, disoriented Nicolae Ceaușescu in his last speech.
It was an iconic image of the fall of a historic regime.
Nuno Teixeira da Silva, ZAP //
