OUR
COMMENT.
Almost
27 years have passed since the counterrevolutionary events in Romania
and the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena. On
December 25, 1989, after a hasty, parody trial before a Kangaroo
court, the Ceausescu couple were executed in Targoviste, north of
Bucharest. According to the head of the firing squad, Nicolae
Ceaușescu sang "The
Internationale"
while being led up against the wall. The
execution of Ceausescu marked the end of the counter-revolutionary
overthrow of Socialism in Romania and the beginning of a “new
order” in the country.
Ceausescu
is an exemplary case of how western media manipulate the image of a
politician. When, for example, Romania did not participate in the
intervention of the Warsaw Pact armies in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the
West praised Ceausescu as a “good pal” within the eastern bloc.
When Romania accepted to participate in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad
(which was boycotted by the other Socialist countries), western media
again praised Nicolae Ceausescu for his “disobedience towards
Moscow”. However, this changed when the Romanian leader distanced
himself from Gorbachev's counter-revolutionary line of “compromise”
with Imperialism. Then, the directed western media propaganda started
to present Ceausescu as the “Dracula”, demonizing his leadership.
The “good guy” of the eastern bloc rapidly transformed into a
“brutal dictator” in the eyes of the so-called international
community.
 |
| Bucharest, December 1989. |
In
1989, Romania was the only Socialist country (except from Albania)
which had no standing debts. That, because on March 1989 Romania had
repaid all of her external debt which had been accumulated mainly in
the 1970s. Romania had become debt-free and independent from
Imperialism- that was Ceausescu's crime that the imperialists
couldn't forgive. The western media, in collaboration with Romanian
counter-revolutionaries and traitors, created the “monster” of
“Securitate” (the notorious secret police of Romania). What has
been said in the West about “Securitate” could definitely exist
as an outrageous Hollywood movie scenario.
However, according to the 1989 reports of western international non-governmental organisations, like “Amnesty International” (which is certainly not communist-friendly), there were just 27 (twenty seven) non-violent political detainees and just 1 (one) detainee died from mistreatment. Nothing more is written in the official report of “Amnesty International” about the so-called “Securitate's reign of terror”.
However, according to the 1989 reports of western international non-governmental organisations, like “Amnesty International” (which is certainly not communist-friendly), there were just 27 (twenty seven) non-violent political detainees and just 1 (one) detainee died from mistreatment. Nothing more is written in the official report of “Amnesty International” about the so-called “Securitate's reign of terror”.
We
could refer to the imperialist-backed, counter-revolutionary plot
which created the December 1989 events and the overthrow of
Ceausescu, but that will be the subject of a future article. In the
following lines, we present how romanian people perceive the living
capitalist hell which was created after the overthrow of Socialism in
Romania, as it is reflected in polls, articles and analysis of
bourgeois sources. The people of Romania are still paying for
Capitalism's restoration: rapid increase of public debt, high
unemployment, extended privatizations, complete destruction of the
welfare state, rise of poverty and homelesness, persecutions against
communists, etc.
LET'S SEE SOME FACTS ABOUT LIFE IN CAPITALIST ROMANIA.
Child
poverty in Romania has worsened since EU accession
70%
of the country's rural population are living below
the poverty
line according to the World Bank
Source: Independent, 2 December 2015.
More than half of all children (51%) under 18 in Romania are at risk of poverty, more so than when the Eastern European country joined the EU in 2007 (50.5%), data has revealed.
The
research by Eurostat,
which was carried out over all 28 EU countries, positions Romania
with the highest threat to children at risk of poverty in the EU,
ahead of Bulgaria, which has seen a 16.2% drop from 61% to 45.2%.
[…]
Poverty rates in Romania tend to be highest in rural areas, where 45% of the country’s population live - the highest proportion in the EU - and where a lack of infrastructure blights the countryside, affecting everything from schools to medical facilities. Romania’s highest point of child poverty risk was in 2012 with 52.3%.
70% of this rural population, according to The World Bank, are living in poverty due to authorities’ inability to intervene appropriately.
Poverty rates in Romania tend to be highest in rural areas, where 45% of the country’s population live - the highest proportion in the EU - and where a lack of infrastructure blights the countryside, affecting everything from schools to medical facilities. Romania’s highest point of child poverty risk was in 2012 with 52.3%.
70% of this rural population, according to The World Bank, are living in poverty due to authorities’ inability to intervene appropriately.
 |
| Capitalist Romania: Searching in the garbage for food... |
Survey:
66% of the Romanians would vote for Ceausescu
Source:
Romanian Journalist.
More
than two thirds of the Romanians believe “their lives are now worse
than before 1989”, when Romania was ruled by the communist dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu, according to the newest opinion poll,
newswebsite digi24.ro reported. The poll shows also 66% would
vote for Nicolae Ceausescu in Presidential elections. Ceausescu was
executed in 1989.
The
percent of “Ceausescu’s potential voters” is higher than
in 2010, when it was 41%.
Sociologists
believe it is not surprising saying the answers reflect, in fact, the
extremely critical atitude to the lack of performance of the
Romania’s leaders after 1989; while the number of authentic
nostalgic Romanians is much smaller, no more than 25% of the
population, according to sociologist Vasile Dancu, representative of
IRES, the institute that made the new poll.
The
main reason for nostalgia is the nowadays jobs are not secure, while
before 1989, they were (23%). But also, true that in a
smaller proportion, lack of freedom during communism was criticized
by the poll respondents. Romania is going to the wrong direction,
also stated 73% of the Romanians.
“I regret the demise of Communism—not for me, but when I see how much my children and grandchildren struggle. We had safe jobs and decent salaries under Communism. We had enough to eat and we had yearly vacations with our children”.
- 68-year-old retired Romanian mechanic, quoted in George Jahn, “In Romania, Turmoil Fuels Nostalgia for Communism,” Washington Post, January 11, 2011.
Life
was better under Nicolae Ceausescu
Source: INSCOPResearch, November 2014.
The
INSCOP Research poll revealed that
44.4 percent of the respondents believed that living conditions were
better under communism, 15.6 said that they had stayed the same,
while only 33.6 claimed that life was worse back then.
When asked
about Nicolae Ceausescu, 47.5 of the respondents claimed that
he had a relatively positive role in Romania’s recent history,
while 46.9 said that his role was rather negative. The recent poll
was conducted between November 7 and 14, 2014, on a sample of 1,055
participants, with a 3 percent margin of error at the 95 percent
confidence level.
This
is not the first survey suggesting Romanians’ communist nostalgia.
A 2010 poll conducted by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and
Strategy provided similar results. Of the 1,460 respondents, 54
percent claimed that
they had better living standards during communism, while 16 percent
said that they were worse. Moreover, 49 percent claimed that
Ceausescu was a good leader, 30 percent believed he was neither good
nor bad, while 15 said he was bad. The survey has a 2.7 percent
margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.
 |
| Anti-government demonstration in Bucharest. |
Nostalgia for Communism in Romania
Source: crimelecomunismului.ro
In 2010 and 2011, the Centre for the Study of Market and Opinion (CSOP), commissioned by the Institute for the Investigation of the Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) conducted three opinion polls with regard to the Romanian public perception of communism. The surveys were taken in:
26
August-2 September 2010 from a sample of 1.133 people over 15 years
old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);
22
October-1 November 2010, from a sample of
1.123 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);
26
April-2 May 2011, from a sample of 1.125 people over 15 years old
(error margin of plus/minus 2.9%
According
to these surveys, about 60% of the Romanian population believes that
communism was a good idea, and only 25-29% believes that it was a bad
idea.
Communism
was
a good idea
poorly applied
%
|
Communism
was a good
ideacorrectly applied %
|
Communism
was
a bad
idea %
|
Don’t
know/Don’t answer %
|
|
August
2010
|
47
|
14
|
27
|
12
|
October
2010
|
44
|
18
|
29
|
12
|
April
2011
|
43
|
18
|
25
|
14
|
In
2011, some 38 % of respondents considered that the installation of
communism in Romania after WWII was a good thing, while another 38%
said that it was a bad thing. Half of the respondents believe that
they were better off under communism. 74% of those older than 60, and
64% of those aged 40-59 consider communism a good idea, compared to
49% of those aged 20-39, and 31% of those younger than 20.
