Motto:
"a coup d'etat that took place against the background of a popular revolt."
(Nicu Ceausescu)
In Romania, Party insiders were important figures in offering "alternatives" to the existing, traditional Communist regime. Unlike Hungary and Bulgaria, however, their influence was far less progressive, largely because Ceausescu's brand of Stalinism had suppressed imaginative thinking for so long, along with real dissent. Romania tolerated no movements like Charter 77 or Solidarity: the leaders of even minor strikes routinely disappeared.
The entire population had suffered under miserable conditions all through the 1980s, denied basic consumer goods while the foreign debt was repaid.
At the same time, ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania were singled out for second-class treatment. It was no coincidence that when the crisis broke in December 1989, it began with state efforts to arrest a Magyar priest in Transylvania.
In that episode, several people were killed by the Securitate secret police, but inaccurate rumors abut the massacre of thousands led to a nation-wide wave of unrest. Ceausescu's efforts to overawe his critics backfired when he was booed at a mass rally in Bucharest. Fighting then broke out between street crowds and the Securitate, in which some 5,000 people were killed and parts of the city destroyed
Manifestations took place in:
BRASOV
SIBIU
AND ALL THE COUNTRY
