Post by cruororism on Oct 11, 2003 10:12:39 GMT
Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989) was a communist official who was leader of Romania from 1965 until he was overthrown and executed during the events of 1989.
A member of the Romanian communist youth movement during the 1930s, Ceausescu was imprisoned in 1936 and in 1940 for his communist party activities. In 1939 he married Elena Petrescu. While in prison Ceausescu became a protégé of his mate, the future communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, who would become the communist leader of Romania beginning in 1952. Ceausescu subsequently served as secretary of the Union of Communist Youth (1944-1945). After the communists' full accession to power in Romania in 1947, he headed the nation's ministry of agriculture, and then, from 1950 to 1954, he served as deputy minister of the armed forces. Under Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceausescu eventually came to occupy the second highest position in the party hierarchy, holding important posts in the Politbureau.
With the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in March 1965, Ceausescu succeeded to the leadership of Romania's Communist Party as first, and then general secretary; with his assumption of the presidency of the State Council (December 1967), he became head of state as well. He soon won popular support for his independent political course, which openly challenged the dominance of the Soviet Union over Romania. In the 1960s Ceausescu ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact military alliance, and he condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces (1968) and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union (1979). In 1974 Ceausescu became president of Romania as well.
While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceausescu resisted all pressures for liberal reforms, and he adhered closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration at home. His secret police (Securitate) maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media, and tolerated no internal opposition. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated in the 1970s, Ceausescu ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial production. The resulting drastic shortages of food, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drove Romania from a state of relative economic well-being to near starvation. Ceausescu also instituted an extensive personality cult and appointed his wife, Elena, and some members of his family to high posts in the government. Among his grandiose schemes was a plan to bulldoze thousands of Romania's villages and large areas of the city of Bucharest, and move their residents into new apartment buildings. Over one fifth of the built area of central Bucharest, including churches and historic buildings, was demolished during Ceausescu's rule in the '80s.
Ceausescu's regime collapsed after he ordered armed and security forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Timisoara in December 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the army defected to the demonstrators. That same day Ceausescu and his wife fled the capital in a helicopter, but were captured by the armed forces. On December 25 the couple were hurriedly tried and convicted by a military tribunal on charges of mass murder. Ceausescu and his wife were then shot by a firing squad at Târgoviste.
