Day 9 – Romania: Proof Communism Sucks
“”The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we’ll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.”" | |
– Ronald Reagan, May 17, 1981 | |
 | |
The picture above is the Palace of the People, or, as it was renamed after the revolt, the Palace of the Parliament. It’s the largest building in Europe and 3rd largest in the world (behind the Pentagon & Chicago’s Merchandise Mart). Some 70% of Romania’s GNP was dedicated to its construction, all the while its population in the throes of poverty. In the mold a modern-day Nero, Nicolae Ceauşescu, demolished at least four neighborhoods to build his grandiose monstrosity. Ceauşescu wasn’t satisfied there either. As communist dictator of Romania, he ruled the country with an iron-first. With his people starving, but wanting to maintain face to the world, Ceauşescu exported his country’s harvests. | |
 | |
Finally, enough was enough. In late ‘89, the people began to revolt. During one of Ceauşescu’s final speeches, the crowd began to protest & chant anti-communist slogans. Ceauşescu’s solution? Machine gun into the crowd of people. Bullet holes remain in the plaza today, with scattered crosses remembering those who died. | |
 |  |
A few days latter, on Christmas Day, Ceauşescu & his wife was quickly tried & executed. | |
December 18th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Keep in mind, also, that as the people began to revolt in ‘89, the spontaneous action of the masses was very quickly co-opted by the *other* communists (meaning: those with 2nd level power in the Communist Party, subservient to Ceauşescu).
Essentially, the Communist Party ended up overthrowing its dictator. Then declared itself “not communist” but still very much in charge of the nation. The renamed themselves PSD and ruled for the better part of the next 15 years, which is where Romania gets its current reputation for corruption: the “non-communist” Communists!
At the risk of being entirely to rosey, Basescu is the current president and he is opposed to the communist PSD leaders and their filthy networks of corruption. Things are headed in the right direction and positive change is happening at breakneck pace.
February 23rd, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Ronald Reagan is my idol.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Im romanian and i have to inform you that the people under communsim lived better then they do now. I am for democray and i think it will creat romania into a better place but i dont want people to belive that there were people starving under communsim.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Octavian,
why wouldnt you want them to know the truth? people did starve. they starved in romania, they starved in russia (kulaks), they starved with mao, and now that america is very socialist, the world is going to experience starvatio again. socialism has a feast on seed corn and then doesnt understand why the people starve.
the starvations are well recorded…
being from romania, and perhaps from that era, you might want to start reading history again. communists were and are revisionists (stalinist), and so the history you know is not valid…
here is a piece that covers the kinds of things done by communists to capture hearts and minds
http://www.epi-centre.com/reports/9802bcs.html
July 28th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Maybe Romanians didn’t starve under communism, but they certainly were emaciated.