BBC Four - The King of Communism (2003)

thanks

given the ineptitude of western media in bombarding us with the same old boogyman let us play a little the devil's advocate and present the lesser dark side of Ceausescu

First of all he was a Builder. Basically all of todays romanian housing is built in his 25 years in power. He invented the romanian industry from scrap and it was not little thing, also he did all the national projects: roads, railroads, bridges, power plants (one nuclear and one huge danube hydro in coop with the yougoslaves), A Danube-Black sea channel, the Bucharest subway, intensive agriculture, mines and so on.

His builder side comes especially handy when compared with the orange right-winger kleptocracy that ruin romania since '89 that built absolutely nothing, not a single new subway station, or one km of the long-awaited east-west highway to place Romania on the map.

Then he was a smart tradesman, he developed a global, (especially third world countries), network of commercial relations, out of the traditional CAER (the economic bloc of the socialist countries). Romania had a solid commercial fleet and everything went to the exports, and we're not talking only raw materials, food or resources but well rounded products ranging from steel to cars even weapons.

Romania was also a hub of international affairs and diplomacy. It is well known the quite independent stand of Ceausescu against the russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that brought him int'l praise, that later materialised by orbiting Ceausescu in the position of middleman linking diplomatically east to west, most of the Vietnam negotiations took place in Romania for instance and Henry Kissinger was an ubiquitous presence in Bucharest. He was also active in harboring israel-palestinian talks.

This was Ceausescu'z Zenith, around the '75s.
Then, in the midsts of glory he borrowed ~5 billions from the IMF to pump some more industries. Sadly he ignored the small font disclaimer saying while you're in debt, you pass the ball. That, in his ego, Ceausescu found embarrassing and also not very profitable economic-wise so he decided to return the loan, by an effort of the whole population.

That proved to be his nemesis, the shortages he submit the citizens during a 10 years plan, seen as an unnecessary and random punishment lost much of his initial popular support, combined with growing paranoia of an aging Ceausecu, the cult of personality the obedient media manufactured, and the change of the int'l climate during the Gorby era, the west needed a middleman no longer.

And thats the image he went down the history channel with, and not that of someone who freed all political prisoners, was a nexus of the Thaw in the 70s and one who provided free health and education, full employment and fast-forwarded an grossly undeveloped Romania into the XX century.

A good document of the fall of Ceausescu is "Videogramme einer Revolution" by Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, it can be found in http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/108091761/Videogramas+de+Uma+Revolu%C3%A7%C3%A3o?tab=summary . Don't believe every ideological piece you see about "real socialism", fight beurocracy and capitalism!

to begin from the end,
"the unbearable lightness of being" is a good book, BUT enough is enough! it has been 20 years now!
it is too easy for the petit bourgeois to "enhance" their shallow perceptions for the exoticism of the eastern block without reading even a little bit of history.

This film is building up the anxiety about letting capitalism to sink to its shit.
shallow minds armed with kundera-like expressions.

Be human - be exact!

gratian I've been to Romania a couple times and live in the region. (not that that makes me an expert in anything)

But, looking at the effects of Ceausescu and the Ceausescu Cult that loyally followed him, economic development would be the last thing I'd praise him for.

Any 'economic development' I could see was poorly constructed, crumbling today and ugly as sin. 20 years later, people still spit when they say Ceausescu's name.

Blaming his downfall on the IMF rather praising his downfall seems strange to me if you consider yourself to be pro-human rights.

sometimes causes are not exactly straight-forward as it might seem from this film
complexity IS the rule of thumb.
not that monsters do not exist, but they thrive in a particular setting, which has more complex structure than just "bizarreness".
cheers

It's worth bearing in mind that Ceausescu was "our" (the west’s) communist leader -Légion d'honneur. Order of the Bath, etc. Romania was NOT a Warsaw Pact country under Ceausescu, and hence he was supported by the west for many years regardless of what he did. There seems to have been substantial revisionism about Ceausescu since the fall of the U.S.S.R. (or at least the modern western establishment position differs starkly from the position western leaders and commentators took when he was in power).

Ceausescu was not 'ours' - he was firmly with the Soviets, but he was smart enough to play games and pit west and against east and vice-versa to get what he wanted.

and,
'Romania was NOT a Warsaw Pact country under Ceausescu'

Yes Romania was a Warsaw Pact country...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact

Ceausescu was a thug, period.

period. did i hear a fist on the table?

if ceausescu turned into paranoid thug, i'm more inclined to think that there were very real reasons for that...(3 letter abbreviations mostly)
after the 10 year plan it was very easy for the CIA to remove internal support and the ascend of the Gorby-mob removed the only real external support for Romania.
as for the repressions, please acknowledge, that anything bordering on russia has made them customary. Humanitarian considerations are not very common in our neighborhood.
have an opinion, but consider conditions. or is that not idealistic enough for you?

A few days ago a romanian born german, Herta Mueller got the 2009 literature Nobel prize for her work over Ceausescu's oppressive Romania. There's much to say about these final years, about the schizofrenical, delusional, kafkian system we lived in. Romanians are people with a great stoic sense of humour dealing with the absurd part of life, (remember Dada, Surrealism and Eugen Ionesco came from Romania) and the presidential couple were the main target of the uncountable jokes that enlightened those grey times. They were portrayed as blatantly ignorant, megalomanic nouveau riches:

Nicolae Ceusescu, puzzled after talking the first romanian cosmonaut to fly in orbit, asked the first lady, Elena (officialy a PhD in chemistry):
-Elena, can you remember when have I pass this Law of gravitation?
-Don't know, Nicolae, you know you're with the laws, I'm into science...

Other jokes portrayed Ceausescu in company of USA and USSR leaders as a sort of global triumvirate as in Carter, Brejnev and Ceausescu are doing this, then Reagan, Brejnev and Ceausescu are doing that, later Bush, Gorbatchev and Ceausescu were doing that...

Many romanians identified themselves with the guy, and there was a great pride when Queen Elizabeth walked him the walk, presumably about 10% of the population joined ranks of the communist party after that, to a total of 20%, legitimizing every bit of his actions, poets cheered enthusiastically and the propaganda machine this movie shows started its drums.