OpenTube

Rise and Fall of Ceaușescu - Cold War DOCUMENTARY

The Cold War

160,237 views

Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on the rise and fall of the Romanian dictator Ceaușescu.

How did Mongolia Survive Between Stalin's USSR and Mao's China? How did Mongolia Survive Between Stalin's ...
Taiwan Under the Kuomintang Dictatorship: Taiwan Under the Kuomintang Dictatorship -...
What Happened to the German and Japanese POWs?: What Happened to the German and Japanese P...
Operation Paperclip: Operation Paperclip - COLD WAR SPECIAL
German Expulsions: German Expulsions After WWII - Cold War DO...
Soviet Education System: Soviet Education System - Cold War DOCUMEN...
How Khrushchev Fed the Soviet People: How Khrushchev Fed the Soviet People
Novocherkassk Massacre 1962: Novocherkassk Massacre 1962 - Soviet Army ...
Soviet Tourism: Soviet Tourism: How did People Get In and ...
Soviet Passport System: New Serfdom or Reform?: Soviet Passport System: New Serfdom or Ref...
Kaliningrad: How Russia Got a Stronghold in Europe: Kaliningrad: How Russia Got a Stronghold i...
How the Soviets Won the Early Space Race: How the Soviets Won the Early Space Race -...
Soviet Television and Radio: Soviet Television and Radio - COLD WAR DOC...
Top-5 Myths About the Soviet Union: Top-5 Myths About the Soviet Union - Cold ...

Support us on Patreon: Patreon: TheColdWar
Youtube membership @thecoldwartv

✔ Merch store ► https://teespring.com/stores/thecoldwar
✔ Patreon ► Patreon: thecoldwar
✔ Facebook ► Facebook: thecoldwartv
✔ Instagram ►Instagram: thecoldwartv

#ColdWar #Ceausescu #Romania

Sources:
Ban, C. (2012). Sovereign debt, austerity, and regime change: the case of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania. East European Politics and Societies, 26(04), 743-776.
Deletant, D. (2016). Ceausescu and the Securitate: Coercion and dissent in Romania, 1965-1989. Routledge.
Gabanyi, A. U. (1989). The Romanian revolution. The Revolutions of, 199-220.
GHIMISI, A. S. (2023). Nicolae Ceaușescu and his cult of personality. Key moments in shaping and defining the leader cult. Polis. Journal of Political Science, 11(3 (41)), 155-169.
Marinković, A. S. (2017). Elena Ceauşescu’s personality cult and Romanian television. Balcanica, (48), 343-360.
Petrescu, C., & Petrescu, D. (2007). Resistance and dissent under communism: the case of Romania. Totalitarismus und Demokratie, 4(2), 323-346.
Stanciu, C. (2013). The end of liberalization in communist Romania. The Historical Journal, 56(4), 1063-1085.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/24/wo...

20 Comments

@danculea7865 1 year ago

My dad mentioned another saying: "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work." (Original: "Ei se fac ca ne platesc, noi ne facem ca muncim.")

@Jaris84R 1 year ago

An interesting joke right after the 1989 revolution: A Romanian working abroad returns home and asks a peasant: Hey, did your slaughter your pig for Christmas? The peasant says: No, we shot him.

@jollyjohnthepirate3168 1 year ago

When they laid out the subway system they had to make changes to it because his wife decided that University students were getting too fat. So they canceled the subway station at the school. But the planners got the last laugh. They built the station anyway but hid it. So as soon as Ceaucescu was deposed, they quickly opened a "new" station.

@tng2057 1 year ago

At least I was ‘fortunate’ enough to have travelled in Ceaucescu’s Romania in the early 80s as a young backpacker relatively freely, without the NK style strict scrutiny. Famine, poverty, repression and infrastructure falling apart being observed everywhere, restaurants serving only lousy food, and amd bookshops sold only HIS writings and nothing else. I never expected that his regime would violently collapse in only a few years time.

@pinpunk13 1 year ago

1. Would have been interesting to mention the fact that when Ceausescu was inaugurated as president, in 1974, the president of the parliament handed him a scepter, and he later received another scepter from the army. In order to make fun of the absurd situation, Salvador Dali sent Ceausescu a letter congratulating him for inauguration the "presidential scepter", letter which was later published in Scanteia as a compliment to Ceausescu. The party members that took that decision were also not aware of the irony.
2. The prosecutor (Ranco Pitu) of the revolution penal case mentioned in interviews what he found in the archives regarding the shootings between 22nd and 25th of December 1989. He said that army and paramilitary (patriotic guards) units received orders and false information from the army generals. They were told they were encountering terrorists. So basically you had units shooting at each other. This was for the generals to portray themselves as defending the revolution and avoid being sent to trial for the murder of civilians prior to the 22nd of December, as these generals were the ones that gave the orders to the army to shoot in Timisoara and Bucharest.

@wernervanderwalt8541 1 year ago

Not really sure who was worse, him or his despicable wife. They really screwed over Romania between them.

@stephenconroy5908 1 year ago

Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, or Romanians about what they did for Christmas 1989.

@fredrikcarlstedt393 1 year ago (edited)

Romania certainly had a very
merry Christmas in 1989. It
sure indeed really lifted their
holiday spirits .

@freiria13 1 year ago

Anyone knows who said "we will complete the five year plan in four years and half even if it takes us decade"?

@Korporaal1 1 year ago

I was in Romania in early 1992 on a ~~very early~~ school exchange... Certainly adventurous to see that country that had been so closed for so long. There was still damage everywhere from the 'revolution.' We were in- and around Timisoara and stood on the balcony where Ceaucescu 'lost power.'

@jliller 1 year ago

Ceaușescu's ego was so massive I'm surprised it didn't alter the rotation of the Earth.

@JZTC 1 year ago

Do you ever plan to cover the short-lived Karelo-Finnish SSR or Soviet Karelia in general?

@blitzerblazinoah6838 1 year ago

You should do a post-Cold War history channel called "After The Thaw".

@ALASKAFANYT-xg6rb 1 year ago

I’d like to see a video about Singapore in this series, even tho I’m not Singaporean.

@robertdruga-tache2008 1 year ago

Also, the soviets propped up the communist party in romania, which was unknown. They gained power by rigging the elections. They switched the 40% obtained in the last free elections before communism by the oposition to their side. In reality they had around 10%

@antifashionistasf 1 year ago

Hi there brother! Great Channel, great content! So, I'm from Cuba and in 1986 Fidel visited North Korea and he was soooo impress with the meticulous pageantry, organization, the obedience and reverence that the people had for comrade Kim Il Sun that when he came back from the trip he could not shut up about it on TV (So impress was he that two years later Cuba was one of the few fringe nations that boycoted the Seoul Olympic games at a time when we were the only non european and 3rd world country that had a chance at being on the top 10 medal count) I believe that it derrail us from following a more Perestroika like path (This was 1986 after all) with consecuences that we (The Cuban People) have to live with still.

@AlecStanley 1 year ago

Great that you've given some attention to Romania. Will you do a video about the Pitești Experiment?

@finchborat 1 year ago

My HS valedictorian's father was a part of the revolution in Romania, fighting against the communists. Her parents fled to Germany after he regained power (and she was born while they were in Germany; born 4.5 months after the Soviet Union collapsed). They later went to Canada before coming to the U.S.

@Артур-ц2э4и 1 year ago

You should do one on Thatchers Britain.

@gypsykang7545 1 year ago

Ceausescu was briefly a darling of the West, after he refused to participate in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He met western leaders like Richard Nixon and the Queen of England and took many loans from the West to develop the country's infrastructure. Things only started turning very bleak in the late 70s.