Quizzes & Puzzles15 mins ago
Ceaucescu
I know he was shot dead on TV in 1989. Could anyone tell me if the Romanians would have watched this? I would find it difficult to believe any of them would have a TV, but would any of them been able to have watched it live?
I would like to place one of my characters there at the time.
Thanks for your help.
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The revolution which happened in December 1989 was waiting to happen immintnetly because hundreds of people had been massacred a few days before in Timisoara by the police. A standard propaganda rally was taking place in the capital, Bucharest, on 22nd December (I think), where thousands of "joyous" workers and citizens were forced to go to the presidential palace and chant their praises for President Ceausescu.
A few people in the middle of the crowd overcame their fear, and started jeering and booing, and chanting "Timisoara!" and "Murderer!". It would have been unthinkable even a few weeks earlier, because the whole crowd could have been massacred. Ceausescu was in the middle of a speech on the balcony when the booing started, and he was taken aback because he genuinely did not understand why they were upset.
The crucial point is that the whole rally, and the speech and the booing, were being broadcast live on TV. A few seconds after the booing started, the TV transmission was cut off. But it was already too late, because the people had seen what had happened. Almost immediately, crowds of people came swarming onto the streets and stormed the presidential palace. Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena escaped (with moments to spare) by helicopter from the roof of the palace.
Two days later, they were captured in the countryside to where they had fled, they were taken to a military barracks, where on Christmas Day they were summarily tried and then taken out and executed.
Television was crucial in showing the people that the crowd was booing (without being too scared) and then in showing the executions (which was necessary in order to prevent the possibility of Ceausescu and his regime being restored to power). If he had been kept alive (waiting for a proper more detailed trial) then he would have been a focus for rebellion, and there would have been stronger incentive for the Secutitate to fight back to try to have himn restored. In other words, it was necessary to kill him quickly (and show his dead body on TV) to prove that he was dead, in order to prevent far more people being killed in the civil war.
I think that right up to the moment of his death, Ceausescu believed genuinely that his people loved him and that he would be rescued. He believed that the whole revolution had been arranged by the imperialist Americans and Russians, because he was so detached from reality that he had come to believe his own propaganda about how wonderful he was.
What started as a very small part of my book has now got me so interested, it could be a book in itself... Thanks very much for all your help again.