Nicolae Ceausescu would have been 100 years old today. In the year of marking the first centenary of the Great Union on December 1, 1918, through a strange play of history, Romania has not yet forgotten the birthday of the most famous and, at the same time, crueler of the leaders who led its destinies in the last age. And January 26, 2018 also means the day when Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu would have fulfilled, had he not been executed on Christmas Day of 1989, fixed 100 years.
Her older sister, Niculina, reported in her memoirs a discussion between her two brothers, Marin and Nicholas: "My brother Marin, who liked to be an officer, seeing one day the gendarme of the commune by passing on our street, tells Nicholas: "When I am great, this is what I will do." Nicholas, after a moment of thinking, answers: "Well, me, but see what I will do when I am great." " Not only did his brother see, but a whole world witnessed the emergence and evolution of one of the most charismatic political figures of the twentieth century, who ruled communist Romania for almost a quarter of a century, and 100 years after Ceausescu's birth, the subject is far from exhausted. The present article has as a stake the determination of the factors that underpin the fulfillment of his dream and less known aspects of his life.
Nicolae Ceausescu was born on January 26, 1918 (according to his own autobiography), in the village of Scorniceşti, Olt County. He was the third born of a family of ten children of Andruta and Alexandru Ceausescu. The other nine were Niculina, Marin (older brothers), Rita, Florea, Ilie, Nicu, Lina, Costel and Ion.
The large family had to live in a house without electricity that had only three small rooms.
"Nicholas was a good disciple: he was very hardworking, obedient"
Because of these extremely difficult conditions and living conditions in a commune in Romania at the beginning of the 20th century, Nicholas finished only four classes. Niculina Ceausescu, her older sister (Niculina Rusu), reported in her memoirs the following about the education received by the Ceausescu brothers:
"I did the primary school in Scorniceşti commune. We had to go every two kilometers a day and two kilometers back to school (...) too well we were not wearing clothes, but instead we were diligent students and we learned quite well. After completing the primary course, because of the lack of material possibilities, none of us could follow the lesson. "
After completing the primary cycle, Nicholas had to engage and work as an adult, only 11 years old when he had his first apprenticeship job at a shoemaker in Bucharest.
Niculina also tells how he arrived in Bucharest and brought his younger brother:
"In the autumn of 1930, I brought Nicholas to Bucharest, to the same patron (...) When he saw me with him in the house, he asked," This is your brother? " I replied, "this is" (...) Nicholas was a good disciple: he was very hardworking, obedient. One year after Nicholas's arrival in Bucharest, Marin came and for almost two years I worked at the workshop all three. "
After a while, Niculina married, and Nicholas, only 15 years old, began her revolutionary activity. Communism was a forbidden doctrine in the 1930s and early 1940s, which meant for Nicholas more arrests. In fact, from 1933 to 1944, he was arrested 5 times and spent 7 years after bars. The first arrest took place in the autumn of 1933, reaching the Doftana Penitentiary.
1933, Nicolae Ceausescu at 15 years at Doftana. Credit: Online Photo Library of Romanian Communism
Niculina tells about this period:
"I remember that the administration of the prison allowed Nicholas to go to Campinita several times for the procurement of handicrafts (...) He was released in 1939, but there was not much free time left because in 1940 was arrested again (...) After this arrest, Nicoale was released on August 23, 1944. "
Between these episodes of detention and release, she meets Elena Petrescu, who will become Elena Ceausescu, and also becomes the protector of Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, who was to become the first communist leader.
The detention period also left other traces. The Doftana Prison in Braşov was known for the brutality of the detainees. Ceausescu was no exception, and the physical abuse endured left him with permanent speech problems.
During this period, Ceausescu climbed the Communist Youth Union (UTC) scale and was already at the age of 27 at the head of this organization.
As for his frequent arrests, Jilava was the last prison in which he suffered, and this time, from amorous. Niculina recounts in her memoirs the following:
"Another episode of Jilava's imprisonment was the following: Nicholas suffered from teeth and under the pretext of being treated, he often came to Bucharest, accompanied by a soldier. Some of them had become closer, and even one of them was photographed (...) In one of his days he came as usual with a sergeant (...) as he had arranged with the sergeant, for convincing him to he left for a while in the city and went to look for my brother-in-law, Lenuţa, who was then working at a factory (...) Nicholas returned with my brother-in-law and when he saw the assistant sergeant accompanying him very much."
Ascension to power
Nicholas' luck did not stop just for love. In 1944, with Axis powers beginning to lose ground, followed by the invasion of Soviet troops, Ceausescu escaped from prison. In just one year, as it became increasingly clear that Communist ideology would dominate Romanian politics, the young UTC leader began climbing to (true) power.
Since then, along with his old companion, Gheorghiu-Dej, who would become the dictator of Romania, the young Nicholas with modest beginnings will continue to play an increasingly important role.
In 1948, at the age of 30, Ceausescu was appointed sub-secretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture and, a year later, the Deputy Minister of Defense.
"I thought then that the only one who had the courage to give a reply to a Soviet ruler is Ceausescu. Even if he lied, he said something. Like the others, nothing. Neither lie nor truth "
However, the most important person who marked Ceausescu's rise was not Dej, but Ion Gheorghe Maurer, prime minister in the Dej regime, and the main candidate for the country's leadership at the death of the communist dictator. But he refused, stating that he had German origins and, above all, intellectual, and the Romanian Workers' Party (PMR) needed to lead a worker. He was the man who imposed Nicholas Ceausescu on the position of first secretary, although he did not have a very good opinion of him. "We bring Ceausescu to government and give him a ministry, perhaps even the Ministry of Agriculture, to learn something. He is not good at anything, "Maurer said to the vice-president of the Council of Ministers, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, shortly before the death of Gheorghiu-Dej.
One factor behind Maurer's decision was an event two years earlier that showed Ceausescu's anti-Soviet attitude, which was in line with the policy of independence from Moscow. Nikita Khrushchev publicly criticized the entire PMR leadership in Bucharest in 1962, and Maurer complained to the other party leaders about the Kremlin leader's speech at that time. A year later, during a meeting between Romania and the USSR at Scroviştea on June 24-25, 1963, Khrushchev attacked Maurer directly because he had dared to complain about his criticism last year. Being present at the meeting, Ceausescu was the only one who said something against Khrushchev.
"Except Ceausescu. Who replied, "It's not true!" He said it was not true that I had criticized Khrushchev. I mean he lied. But he had the boldness to say something to Khrushchev while the others were all silenced (...) I thought then that the only one who had the courage to give a reply to a Soviet ruler is Ceausescu. Even if he lied, he said something. Like the others, nothing. Neither lie nor truth, "Maurer reported.
Maurer added after 1989 that "(The gesture that he made before Khrushchev n.r.) made me count Ceausescu as a possible ruler of Romania, with a strong position against the Russians."
Gheorghe Maurer considered that Ceausescu could become his puppet and supported him for the country's leadership against Gheorghe Apostol, the first vice-president of the Council of Ministers, who claimed Dej nominated him for succession. With the support of Emil Bodnaras, who had a significant influence on the Romanian politics of that period, Ceausescu became the main candidate for succession, which was revealed by a happening at Dej's death. Ceausescu was the first to kiss him for the late Romanian dictator. Alexandru Barladeanu said that the gesture confirmed that Ceausescu is the successor.
"On March 19, 65 I receive a phone call:" Come right away! Comrade Dej went into a coma! " I quickly went to his home. (...) Half of the members of the Political Bureau were already here. Give, on a hospital bed, exalted, the horchia of death. We were helpless, we were waiting for the end. Dej died ... And the first one who went to kiss Dej was Ceausescu! Immediately, at that point, pointing out that he is the first of all, "remembers Barladeanu.
Nicolae Ceausescu's election took place on March 22, 1965. Just 47 years old, the former Nicolae shoemaker, born in a family of peasants and the teenager who created agitation in the street demonstrations of the Antonescu regime, became the youngest political leader in Europe and opened, with the ascension on the heights of the Romanian political power, a new era.
Dictator Ceausescu, "rebellious" with Moscow and friend with the West
One of the most important features was its extremely open relationship with countries outside the Warsaw Pact. Due to this attitude of the "black sheep" of the Soviet bloc, culminating in the refusal of military participation in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Ceausescu attracted the sympathy of Western leaders. At that time, Romania received US President Richard Nixon, Charles de Gaulle, the President of France, and Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister.
In 1978, the Ceausescu spouses were received in Great Britain with great honors and became the only Romanian to walk with the queen of Queen Elizabeth II.
In the short time, however, the megalomania he suffered attracted the attention of foreigners. The artist Salvador Dali sends him a satirical telegram to the Romanian dictator, ironizing the reception of the scepter by Ceausescu. Without understanding the subtlety, Ceausescu demanded that the painter's message be published in full.
Another reason for irony was his wife, Elena, who was a "renowned scholar," though she barely knew how to write and read. As is well known, his wife would become practically the second man in the state, always appearing in official visits with Nicholas.
decline
His dream of paying all the country's external debts, coupled with the decline of the URSS in the 1980s, and the tyrannical nature of communist dictatorships (especially Ceausescu's Stalinist dictatorship) led to the December 1989 events. many articles, journals, and documentaries covering this period, here it is important to say that on December 25, 1989, on Christmas Day, he was executed by shooting with his wife after a brief process representing the violent end of a Revolution violent, who has ended a brutal regime.
If today he lived, Ceausescu would have been 100 years old, and in this hypothetical case, the influence on the current political scene is the subject of many speculations. It is certain that the shoemaker with modest, semi-illiterate and speech-defective beginnings remains one of the most prominent characters in the history of the modern state of Romania, which, ironically, was born in the same year that the Great Union was made.