Ceausescu last words
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Nicolae Ceaușescu
Leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989
"Ceaușescu" redirects here. For other people, see Ceaușescu family.
Nicolae Ceaușescu (chow-SHESK-oo; Romanian:[nikoˈla.etʃe̯a.uˈʃesku]ⓘ; 26 January [O.S. 13 January] 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last communist leader of Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. Widely classified as a dictator, he was the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989, serving as President of the State Council from 1967 and as the first president from 1974. He was overthrown and executed in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 along with his wife Elena Ceaușescu, as part of a series of anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year.
Born in 1918 in Scornicești, Ceaușescu was a member of the Romanian Communist youth movement. He was arrested in 1939 and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order", spending the time during the war in prisons and internment camps: Jilava (1940), Caransebeș (1942), Văc
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The Rise and Fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, “the Romanian Fuehrer”
That night, security forces battled people on the streets of Bucharest. The next day protests had spread across the country. Ceausescu sought to address the gathered crowds again, only to be met by a barrage of stones and other objects. The Ceausescus then fled by helicopter from the building’s roof as crowds broke into the headquarters building. The fugitive couple left the capital behind but were captured on the run later that day.
Demonstrators were “overwhelmed by joy” as the regime disintegrated, one official observed. But the secret police, or Securitate, sought to regain control. However, the army turned on the Ceausescus and battled the police.
Whether the fight was an unscripted revolution or a pageant orchestrated by other communist party leaders determined to take power remains undecided. (The latter charge led to the indictment earlier this year of 89-year-old Ion Iliescu, the former communist official who became Romania’s first elected president, for crimes against humanity. He has yet to be tried.) N
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182. Report Prepared in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State1
Washington, August 18, 1977
CEAUSESCU’S LEADERSHIP POSITION
Summary
Romanian President and party boss Nicolae Ceausescu has concentrated more power in his own hands than has any other Warsaw Pact leader; his control of the party and state apparatus is seemingly unassailable. There have been indications, however, of a steady erosion in the extent of support he enjoys both within the party and among the population at large.
Ceausescu’s handling of the aftermath of the earthquake which struck Romania in March—he completely dominated the relief and reconstruction activities—highlighted and increased the gap between him and the rest of the party leadership. Since then, his intensification of an already blatant personality cult and his failure to modify unpopular economic policies have further alienated a dissatisfied public. The June 13 riot at Bucharest’s “August 23” stadium and the coal miners’ strike in western Romania in early August reflect a considerable degree of popular frustra
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