There was no revolution in Romania. It was a coup by disgruntled members of the RCP. You see it was one thing to take orders from Nikolai - he was uncultured, uneducated and of low thinking but actually did have some sense of how politics worked. He played a decent game for the most part. His downfall was Elena. It was one thing to be bullied by him, but to be bullied by her? And she used to put him up to a lot of idiocy as well which just antagonised everyone.
I don't remember if it was 88 or 89 but Gorbachev visited Romania and given the state of the eastern bloc told him soviet troops would not intervene or shoot civilians to prop up these regimes. Traditionally the Romanians looked more towards Red China or North Korea and flirted with the west and Yugoslavia playing off different factions against each other. Nikolai probably had a hand in convincing Mao to meet Nixon. It all went wrong though.
There was serious economic hardship in the 1980's. Nikolai bankrupted the country and instead of dealing with the IMF and making cuts and economic reforms he decided to do it all himself without their emergency finance to tide the country over. Heating and hot water in many communal blocks was limited to 1 hour a day even in the depths of winter. Malnutrition was common. The country was so poor chicken legs were a currency.
Nikolai had already booted some RCP and army officers for challenging his authority. Elena told him to murder them but he refused.
In 89 he essentially decided to end all traditional rural life in the country and force its peasant farmers into communal farms and tower blocks to increase their production (because the country was starving) but actually it resulted in some serious disorder. Wild rumours spread I believe about churches being destroyed.
Nikolai went on the roof and addressed the crowd to try and repeat the crowning moment of his political career when he rallied the crowds after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 when they put an end to the Prague spring. Romanian leaders were never entirely sold on Moscows policies. In any case it didn't go to plan. Disorder spread in the crowd and in the major cities. The minister of defence on being ordered to use force shot himself, the army believed he had been murdered. He actually did commit suicide but the army started fighting with the Securitate the Romanian secret police. Nikolai and Elena tried to flee. No one knew what was going on. The next morning some of his former enemies who had been "retired" basically took command of the situation in the capital taking advantage of the chaos and conducted a coup.
It wasn't that hard - the real stroke of genius was the realisation that the end of communism and liberal economic reforms meant they could help themselves to enormous quantities of state owned industry and assets in the glorious new capitalist Romania. The same thing happened in Ukraine in the dying days of the USSR - an unholy alliance between rabid nationalists and communist officials who realised independence would allow them to help themselves to vast amounts of state property for their own enrichment.
Given the hardship in the country and the end of the old regime they didn't have to do much to become the most beloved Romanian government in all of history given how dire things were. Much the same people who controlled the country under communism continued to control the country afterwards.
Nikolai bankrupted the country and instead of dealing with the IMF and making cuts and economic reforms he decided to do it all himself without their emergency finance to tide the country over.
a translation: nicoale loaned from the IMF to build industry to the point of replacing the horses on the capital roads with locally-produced automobiles, and instead of then selling those roads to the IMF to pay for the loans, he made cuts and economic reforms to pay them back the regular way.
after the "revolution", despite romania's debt being a square 0, all the industry was turned to scrap, all the natural resources were sold off to canada and others, and now the french own Dacia. go figure.
Well the real problem was Romania decided to invest a lot of its capital in heavy industry even though it was part of a bloc which had no end of it, I mean the country was run by a former railway worker and Nikolai had been in prison with him as a delinquent youth and had been his helper in prison between that and communist economic doctrine it was never going to turn out well. Romania did have its own oil fields and access to the black sea. They maybe should have tried to be a little more like East Germany or Yugoslavia and buy in their cheap raw materials on favoured terms from the other soviet bloc countries to focus on some higher end industry. They mismanaged their economy so badly they were having to import oil to power all their heavy industry and that is what really got them into trouble even though their industries were horribly loss making on top of that. It would have probably been better if they hadn't bothered with any of it.
I would never own a Dacia but they are actually quite a clever company. Renault ships all their old plant designs to Romania and have them build cheap bare bones slightly updated looking versions of old vehicles. They have sold quite well in England and they are better than they used to be. Some of the early ones were shit but I can see why people have them now.
There was no revolution in Romania. It was a coup by disgruntled members of the RCP. You see it was one thing to take orders from Nikolai - he was uncultured, uneducated and of low thinking but actually did have some sense of how politics worked. He played a decent game for the most part. His downfall was Elena. It was one thing to be bullied by him, but to be bullied by her? And she used to put him up to a lot of idiocy as well which just antagonised everyone.
I don't remember if it was 88 or 89 but Gorbachev visited Romania and given the state of the eastern bloc told him soviet troops would not intervene or shoot civilians to prop up these regimes. Traditionally the Romanians looked more towards Red China or North Korea and flirted with the west and Yugoslavia playing off different factions against each other. Nikolai probably had a hand in convincing Mao to meet Nixon. It all went wrong though.
There was serious economic hardship in the 1980's. Nikolai bankrupted the country and instead of dealing with the IMF and making cuts and economic reforms he decided to do it all himself without their emergency finance to tide the country over. Heating and hot water in many communal blocks was limited to 1 hour a day even in the depths of winter. Malnutrition was common. The country was so poor chicken legs were a currency.
Nikolai had already booted some RCP and army officers for challenging his authority. Elena told him to murder them but he refused.
In 89 he essentially decided to end all traditional rural life in the country and force its peasant farmers into communal farms and tower blocks to increase their production (because the country was starving) but actually it resulted in some serious disorder. Wild rumours spread I believe about churches being destroyed.
Nikolai went on the roof and addressed the crowd to try and repeat the crowning moment of his political career when he rallied the crowds after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 when they put an end to the Prague spring. Romanian leaders were never entirely sold on Moscows policies. In any case it didn't go to plan. Disorder spread in the crowd and in the major cities. The minister of defence on being ordered to use force shot himself, the army believed he had been murdered. He actually did commit suicide but the army started fighting with the Securitate the Romanian secret police. Nikolai and Elena tried to flee. No one knew what was going on. The next morning some of his former enemies who had been "retired" basically took command of the situation in the capital taking advantage of the chaos and conducted a coup.
It wasn't that hard - the real stroke of genius was the realisation that the end of communism and liberal economic reforms meant they could help themselves to enormous quantities of state owned industry and assets in the glorious new capitalist Romania. The same thing happened in Ukraine in the dying days of the USSR - an unholy alliance between rabid nationalists and communist officials who realised independence would allow them to help themselves to vast amounts of state property for their own enrichment.
Given the hardship in the country and the end of the old regime they didn't have to do much to become the most beloved Romanian government in all of history given how dire things were. Much the same people who controlled the country under communism continued to control the country afterwards.
a translation: nicoale loaned from the IMF to build industry to the point of replacing the horses on the capital roads with locally-produced automobiles, and instead of then selling those roads to the IMF to pay for the loans, he made cuts and economic reforms to pay them back the regular way.
after the "revolution", despite romania's debt being a square 0, all the industry was turned to scrap, all the natural resources were sold off to canada and others, and now the french own Dacia. go figure.
Well the real problem was Romania decided to invest a lot of its capital in heavy industry even though it was part of a bloc which had no end of it, I mean the country was run by a former railway worker and Nikolai had been in prison with him as a delinquent youth and had been his helper in prison between that and communist economic doctrine it was never going to turn out well. Romania did have its own oil fields and access to the black sea. They maybe should have tried to be a little more like East Germany or Yugoslavia and buy in their cheap raw materials on favoured terms from the other soviet bloc countries to focus on some higher end industry. They mismanaged their economy so badly they were having to import oil to power all their heavy industry and that is what really got them into trouble even though their industries were horribly loss making on top of that. It would have probably been better if they hadn't bothered with any of it.
I would never own a Dacia but they are actually quite a clever company. Renault ships all their old plant designs to Romania and have them build cheap bare bones slightly updated looking versions of old vehicles. They have sold quite well in England and they are better than they used to be. Some of the early ones were shit but I can see why people have them now.