Background

Nicolae Ceaușescu was born on January 26, 1918, in Scornicești, Olt County, Kingdom of Romania. Nicolae, the third of ten children, grew up poor. His father, Andruță Ceaușescu was a farmer who also worked as a tailor in his spare time to supplement his income; he was also an abusive alcoholic. Tired of his abusive father, he ran away from home at the age of 11 and went to live with his sister.

Education

Nicolae Ceaușescu only managed to finish 4 classes in school, representing the elementary school.

Career

As a teenager, Nicolae Ceaușescu became an apprentice shoemaker in the workshop of Alexandru Săndulescu. His master was an active member of the Communist Party which was then illegal. Soon Ceaușescu too became involved in the activities of the Communist Party which he joined in 1932.

By the mid-1930s, Ceaușescu was a rising leader in the Union of Communist Youth. After joining the underground Communist Party, he was arrested and sentenced to 30 months in prison. He served his time at Doftana Prison in Brașov, a harsh facility where authorities were known for their brutal handling of the inmates. Ceaușescu did not escape their wrath, and the physical abuse he endured there left him with a permanent stutter.

Between 1936 and 1938 Ceaușescu was imprisoned several times for his revolutionary, patriotic, and antifascist activities. He was released in 1940 though he was arrested again and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order". After spending time in prisons at Jilava, and Văcărești, he was transferred to Târgu Jiu internment camp where he shared a cell with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, a well-known communist activist who took Nicolae Ceaușescu as his protégé.

Gheorghiu-Dej took Ceaușescu under his wing, introduced him to other party elders, and instructed him in Marxist-Lenin theories. Ceaușescu took part in organizing the huge antiwar demonstration in Bucharest on May 1, 1939, in defense of Romania's independence against the Nazi danger. He then was elected member and secretary of the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth (1939-1940).

In 1944, with the Axis powers starting to lose ground, followed by the Soviet invasion of Romania, Ceaușescu escaped from prison. Within a year, as Romania fell under Communist rule, the young leader began his climb to power. By 1945, Ceaușescu was made a brigadier general in the Romanian Army. Over the next two decades, with his old friend, Gheorghiu-Dej - having claimed power as the country's top ruler - Ceaușescu took on an increasingly prominent role in the country's government and Communist Party.

In 1947, Gheorghiu-Dej and Prime Minister Petru Groza forced King Michael to abdicate, and Gheorghiu-Dej seized power in Romania. He appointed Ceaușescu as the head of the ministry of agriculture. Being a trusted associate of the leader, he was promoted to the post of a major-general and he became the deputy minister of the armed forces under the Gheorghiu-Dej regime. He became a member of the Central Committee in 1952, again at the behest of his mentor. By 1954 he became a full member of the Politburo and eventually rose to occupy the second-highest position in the party hierarchy, holding important posts in the Politburo and the Secretariat.

In 1955, he was made a full-time member of the Politburo and was soon managing the party's organizational structure and cadres. Just before Gheorghiu-Dej died of cancer in 1965, he tapped Ceaușescu as his successor. Three days after Gheorghiu-Dej's death, Nicolae Ceaușescu was elected General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party. Although many in the party felt Ceaușescu was weak enough to be controlled, he used his new power to weaken his rivals. Subsequently, on December 9, 1967, the Grand National Assembly elected him president of the State Council of the Socialist Republic of Romania, thus making him head of state.

Ceaușescu's first years of authority were good for the country and people believed he was a bright ruler. When he boycotted the Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, he won international support. However, these times belied his true nature. Armed with complete power, he began to impose his version of the ideal Communist society on the Romanians: rapid industrialization in the manner of Stalin, the pursuit of Puritanism concerning individual and family life, and systemization, which included destroying churches and housing the population in concrete high-rise buildings.

He soon won popular support for his independent, nationalistic political course, which openly challenged the dominance of the Soviet Union over Romania. Initially, he became popular for openly challenging the dominance of the Soviet Union over Romania and for his independent foreign policy. He eased press censorship and ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact. As Romania's supreme ruler, Ceaușescu sought closer ties to the West. He welcomed newly elected President Richard Nixon in 1969 and traveled extensively. He also fostered more agricultural and industrial development and tried to foster a better relationship with China.

But his grand endeavors to help his country's domestic situation, hurt more than helped Romania's people. Brought on by Ceaușescu's ambitious building projects of the 1970s, the country faced severe debt levels in the 1980s. Ceaușescu managed to cut the deficit in half, but in doing so, plunged his country's standard of living to levels that put the country near the bottom of Europe. In 1974, he elevated the presidency of the State Council to a full-fledged executive presidency, thus creating the office of President. First elected to this post in 1974, he would be reelected every five years until 1989.

Presiding with his wife Elena, whom he tapped as deputy prime minister, Ceaușescu turned his back on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his calls for broad economic reform, and instead voiced his preference for traditional central planning. Shortly before losing power, Ceaușescu caused panic throughout the country when he threatened to bulldoze rural settlements of less than 2,000 people so that large agro-industrial centers could be constructed. His domestic rule also included surveillance of his citizens and violent reprisal against any dissent.

During the 1980s his popularity began to wane as he became increasingly dictatorial and implemented policies that severely restricted the personal freedom of the people. His export policies led to domestic shortages of basic necessities like food, medicines, and fuel and the living conditions of the Romanians declined considerably. As Romania's standard of living failed to improve, Ceaușescu grip on power started to weaken. In November 1987, in a scene that would have been unthinkable just a few years before, thousands of workers stormed the Communist Party headquarters in Brașov. Records were destroyed, as was a grand portrait of Ceaușescu.

Ceaușescu’s regime collapsed after he ordered his security forces to fire on anti-government demonstrators in the city of Timișoara on December 17, 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the Romanian army defected to the demonstrators. That same day Ceaușescu and his wife fled the capital in a helicopter but were captured and taken into custody by the armed forces. On December 25 the couple was hurriedly tried and convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of mass murder and other crimes. Ceaușescu and his wife were then shot by a firing squad.

Achievements

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  Nicolae Ceaușescu was Europe’s youngest political leader during those times and appreciated for his political views, especially the external policies and industrial advancements in the country. He was the only communist leader in the world to have diplomatic relations with Germany and also the only communist leader to be part of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank.
  
  Nicolae Ceaușescu held lots of titles, medals, and decorations, but almost all of them were revoked at the time of the collapse of Ceaușescu's rule.

Religion

Despite his extremely religious father, Ceaușescu despised religion and had more than 20 Bucharest churches torn down to make way for his white marble People's Palace. All religious cults were infiltrated by Securitate agents and were under the strict control of the Department of Cults.

Politics

When he was very young Ceaușescu became a Marxist. According to him, society went through an inevitable series of stages ending in Communism. The industrial workers, he said, would inevitably rise up against the capitalists and Capitalism would be replaced by Socialism in which the state would own industry. However, the state would "wither away" leaving a classless society of Communism. Needless to say, the promised utopia never materialized. Marxism was a foolish dream. When he was 15 Nicolae Ceaușescu joined the Communist Party.

He participated in the social movements at the beginning of the 1930s and joined the revolutionary working-class movement in 1932. The following year Ceaușescu became a member of the Union of Communist Youth and of the Romanian Communist Party. He was successively secretary of Prahova and Oltenia regional committees of the Union of Communist Youth and was a representative of the democratic youth in the Antifascist National Committee (1934). In 1965 Nicolae Ceaușescu became Secretary-General of the Romanian Communist Party. In 1967 he became President of the State Council. He now held 2 powerful positions. Finally, in 1974, Ceaușescu became president of Romania.

Ceaușescu's first years of authority were good for the country and people believed he was a bright ruler. When he boycotted the Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, he won international support. While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceaușescu adhered ever more closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration at home. His secret police maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media and tolerated no internal dissent or opposition. Ceaușescu was a diehard Bolshevik. He and his comrades never meant to liberalize or democratize the Romanian political system.

Views

Hoping to boost Romania’s population, in 1966 Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, a measure that effectively outlawed contraception and abortion. Doctors monitored women of childbearing age to ensure that they were not taking steps to curtail their fertility, but maternal mortality rates skyrocketed as women sought unsafe and outlawed means to terminate their pregnancies. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated through its mismanaged industrial ventures in the 1970s, Ceaușescu in 1982 ordered the export of much of the country’s agricultural and industrial production.

The resulting extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drastically lowered living standards and intensified unrest. Ceaușescu also instituted an extensive personality cult and appointed his wife, Elena, and many members of his extended family to high posts in the government and party. Among his grandiose and impractical schemes was a plan to bulldoze thousands of Romania’s villages and move their residents into so-called agrotechnical centers.

Quotations: "We want to ensure a multilateral development of society, the thriving of all sides of social life, economy, science and culture, the improvement of management, the molding of the new man and the promotion of socialist ethics and equity."

"It is a lie that I made the people starve. A lie, a lie in my face. This shows how little patriotism there is, how many treasonable offenses were committed.… At no point was there such an upswing, so much construction, so much consolidation in the Romanian provinces. I guaranteed that every village has its schools, hospitals, and doctors. I have done everything to create a decent and rich life for the people in the country, like in no other country in the world."

Personality

Ceaușescu cynically used the crushing of the Prague Spring as an excuse to enhance his own personality cult. He insisted on imposing a unified domestic front to counter any supposed Soviet attack. He created self-serving mythology in which he was the fearless hero, the symbol of the unity of party and nation.

Ceaușescu enjoyed a cult of personality. The mass adulation surrounding him (and his wife, Elena) developed on "fertile land" as Communist power structures and promotion practices encouraged the dictator to style himself "the Carpathian genius," "a lighthouse of the Communist regime," "a world-renowned politician" or "the much beloved and esteemed leader."

Ceaușescu’s appetite for seeing and hearing himself praised grew simultaneously and exponentially with the increase of his personal power and reached its paroxysm in the 1980s. The birthdays of the Ceauşescus represented occasions for pompous ceremonies when the two "geniuses" were showered with innumerable gifts. The range of accolades was extremely wide: grandiose manifestations on stadiums - which involved tens of thousands of people -, a never-ending stream of messages of gratitude, works of prose and poetry were written especially for the occasion, celebratory editions of the National Festival Cântarea României (The Praise of Romania), hymns, odes, songs, dances, paintings and sculptures produced by armies of artists.

Nicolae Ceaușescu irritated foreign leaders he visited by bringing all his food with him - Tito, head of the neighboring state of Yugoslavia, was shocked by his insistence on drinking raw vegetable juice through a straw, avoiding all solids. Ceaușescu notoriously avoided eating food that was not properly screened. He would throw the food served to him at formal events onto the floor and kick it as far as possible. Ceaușescu also never traveled without a high-ranking Securitate officer, who was also a chemist, equipped with a mobile food-testing laboratory.

One of Ceaușescu’s life-long phobias was that of getting shot - and that’s exactly how his life ended. He was executed after a brief trial in December 1989, together with his wife. While he was standing in front of the squad, he was singing the hymn of the communist countries. His final words were: "Long live the Socialist Republic of Romania! History will revenge me!"

Physical Characteristics: For the last 10 years of his life, Ceaușescu suffered from diabetes. His treatment was all about keeping a strict diet, taking pills, and drinking teas from plants. Because of this, in April 1989, his health got worse because he refused to take insulin.

Ceaușescu was in a hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state and the only solution to save him was to start the insulin treatment. His wife, Elena Ceaușescu, hesitated because neither she nor he wanted for the dictator to become insulin dependent just like his brother. Ultimately, she agreed to administer the insulin, and his health significantly improved in just a couple of days, which saved his life.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He was a hard man who really wanted to win, all the time. He wanted to win at chess. It's well known that in chess when you touch a piece, you've got to move it. That's in the rules. But Ceausescu would touch a piece and see that it was a bad move and say, "No, no, wait, wait. I haven't thought long enough." - Gheorghe Apostol

Interests

• chess, billiards

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Karl Marx

• Writers

  Mihai Eminescu

• Sport & Clubs

  volleyball

• Music & Bands

  Ioana Radu, Mia Braia

Connections

Nicolae met Elena Petrescu in 1940 and was immediately attracted to her. She too reciprocated his feelings but their relationship was interrupted by Ceaușescu's frequent stints in prison. The couple ultimately got married in 1946 and had three children. Elena would play a significant role in her husband’s political life and the two would remain deeply in love till the very end.

Father:

Andruță Ceaușescu

Mother:

Alexandrina Ceaușescu

Spouse:

Elena Ceaușescu

Elena Ceaușescu was the part of the Ceaușescu family before the dictator-to-be married her. She was actually the lover of one of Ceaușescu’s brothers before falling in love with Romania’s leader.

Since the dictator can do whatever he wants, he turned his wife into a world-renowned scientist. She "published" various scientific papers, being the leader of the country’s Chemistry research team.

However, she could barely write and was even unable to speak Romanian correctly, just like her husband. Many jokes circulated during the time, highlighting the mistakes she was making.

Son:

Valentin Ceaușescu

Valentin lives a modest life and is now forced to live with his wife and daughter on a property belonging to his father-in-law. He rarely gives interviews and stays out of the limelight. He has a small circle of close friends and has worked at the same institute of atomic physics for some 40 years.

Daughter:

Zoia Ceaușescu

Son:

Nicu Ceaușescu

Nicu, youngest of the three Ceaușescu children, often staged elaborate parties at a palatial villa in central Bucharest. His playboy lifestyle, against a background of cruel poverty and shortages of food and other basic goods, symbolized the corruption of his father's rule.

Friend:

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was a communist activist and one of the first socialist leaders of Romania. In 1933 he was arrested for organizing strikes and spent more than a decade in prison. While behind bars Gheorghiu-Dej was able to maintain his political involvement, forging alliances with men like Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Acquaintance:

Elizabeth II

The Ceaușescus stayed with the Queen and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace, and the Queen later shared how she hid in a bush to avoid running into the couple while she was walking her corgis.

References

• Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite: The Rise and Fall of the Ceaușescus
  1991
• The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceaușescu
  1991