Romania under Communism : Paradox and Degeneration

This book rectifies that omission by analysing the application of the totalitarian model in Romania, the mechanisms used by the party to carry out ‘the Communist revolution’ of the country and its population, the removal of the opposition and the role of the political police, the Securitate, in maintaining Communist control.

Communism has cast a long shadow over Romania. The passage of little over a quarter of a century since the overthrow in December 1989 of Romania’s last Communist leader, Nicolae Ceau?escu, offers a symbolic standpoint from which to penetrate that shadow and to throw light upon the entire period of Communist rule in the country. An appropriate point of departure is the observation that Romania’s trajectory as a Communist state within the Soviet bloc was unlike that of any other. That trajectory has its origins in the social structures, attitudes and policies in the pre-Communist period. The course of that trajectory is the subject of this inquiry.