History IA
To what extent did Ceausescu succeed in establishing a totalitarian state?
To what extent was the Romanian Revolution the main cause the Romanian communism came to an end?
A comparison between life in Romania before and during Ceausescu’s rule.
- increase censorship and restrictions
- by the 1980s, information was controlled by the government and censors would erase compromising information.
- no one was trust worthy
- your conversations on the telephone were listened to
- 2 hours of television in the evenings only
- people were starving
- electricity was only turned on during winter for 2 hours.
- citizens knew nothing of their outside world
Extra information
- Ceausescu followed the North Korean model of creating a cult of personality around himself.
- intimidation and repression were a thing
- people lived in fear of being turned in to the Securitate.
- people were only allowed to trust the news the government gave and the newspaper written by communist people
- cult of personnality
- the Romanian revolution was the bloodiest revolutions of the revolutions in the Easter Bloc
- statistics: 1,142 people died, 3,138 were wounded, and 760 were arrested by Ceaușescu’s forces
- "rigid ideological orthodoxy"
- Ceausescu was following Stalin's ideal economic plan.