Communism favoured by half of Romanians

The Diplomat ^ | October 2010 | Unknown

[Caipirabob]

Let me guess: This is a CNN poll?

[csmusaret]

The US was at war with Romania from 1942-1947. Maybe we should have kept at it a little longer.

[ScottinVA]

Around 49 per cent of Romanians believe that life was much better in the country before 1989.

I am willing to bet the lion's share of that 49% is comprised of people too young to remember life under Ceausescu. That regime was very similar to Saddam Hussein's regime, only that Saddam's allowed more personal liberties.

Under Ceausescu, the Securitate secret police agency was absolutely everywhere. Children were encouraged to report to them any talk of "sedition" in the home and as a result, people were snatched from their homes with no warning, never to be heard from again.

Economically, the Georghiu-Dej and Ceausescu years (post WWII to 1989) were devastating to the Romanians' national psyche. Those governments "provided" the bare minimum for the lowest level of subsistence, but the lack of freedom to build private enterprise destroyed their desire to improve their lot in life.

And about those orphans... faced with growing Hungarian and Roma minorities, the Ceausescu regime decided it wanted to add to the numbers of ethnic Romanians, encouraging large numbers of children in each family. He offered additional payments and better apartments to those families with more than two children.. the result of which was hundreds of thousands of children who, after the 1989 revolution, ended up in deplorable conditions in orphanages (converted from hospitals) across the country.

Romania is still digging out from the deep damage the communist regimes foisted upon it, and having a semi-marxist like Ion Iliescu "lead" the first few post-revolution years didn't help matters. He turned out to be little more than "Ceausescu-lite."

Like I mentioned, this sentiment -- a dynamic that seems to be taking place in many countries, including our own -- toward the "lure" of socialism is catching on with young people even more than before. This is unfortunate, because, in the case of Romania, anyone who would want to re-insert the communist cancer into that society has no clue as to what happened there until 1989.

[Cronos]

Well, what do you want to do to the Roma? Pojramos?

[Cronos]

One other thing we must remember is that for those who lived under communism, they never learnt the basics which we who grew up in capitalist societies know. I live now in Poland and some of the older generation don’t know how to bargain, for instance, they don’t know how to search for deals, they don’t understand banking, etc. So for these, the nanny state may have nostalgia, 20 years later, when even the sickness of the C regime is a distant memory