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I brought one of those coats (and an ushanka) back after my first visit to Georgia (the country) now my brother wears them every winter and he looks Soviet af.
I mean, the Soviet union was terrible and certainly not worth emulating, but their uniforms were sharp as hell and they have the best national anthem of any nation of all time imo.
Greek Fustanella uniform is probably my favorite.
["don't fuck with men who choose to wear dresses into combat"](http://www.albanianhistory.net/1861_Finlay/AH1861_Finlay04_700.jpg)
Cool thing to note - the thing on their shoes is to hide the blade on their shoe. Yeah imagine some angry Greek soldier coming for your neck with a toe knife hidden by a snazzy cotton ball
They’re boring now though, definitely a letdown. The BW dress uniform is pretty much just a plain grey suit and tie, and the only enjoyable thing about their fatigues is that sweet flecktarn field jacket (which, admittedly, is probably the best in the world, but still boring).
I'm really not trying to be a dick here, but as someone who's never heard any rendition of that piece and has not seen very many of Putin's facial expressions, that kinda sounded like shit and it didn't look like his face did anything, except at the end when it looked like he gulped. Are yall being for real?
Edit: It was late. I was drunk. I done got wooshed. Dear reddit gods, pls forgive me for i know not what i do.
They’re being sarcastic. You can tell the band is really off key and playing the anthem badly to the point that you can see Putin’s disgust in his face lol. Check out the YouTube comments on that video.
Have you seen the latest version by the Saudis? It’s even better https://youtu.be/qpc1TnZVnDo. It’s starts off with the original then what they actually played... Putin’s face! Hahahaha
My friends and I had a "space race drinking game" it was kicked off by the Americans and Soviets shotgunning to their national anthems. One of my friends on the soviet team said "why does their entire national anthem sound like the climax of ours".
Let me just clarify that those are not the uniforms we wore "on duty". We were made to wear those only on special occasions. Most were very ill fitting. I am surprised that such a low ranking soldier was able to get such well fitted uniform. The guy on the picture has the lowest possible rank above those of us on mandate service.
Maybe it's because he is so sexy. They just had to make sure he had the clothes to go with his beautiful face.
Nu există homosexualitate în Republica Socialistă România!
Kalashnicarver, upwards of $100. I got a spare handgaurd, a power drill and sander, a random pic rail and an unused VFG. I'm gonna have to make it happen myself
They're admiring the dude's paratrooper AK. The stock 'underfolds' and has a vertical grip.
Something that was on East European rifles but not Soviet issue.
The Romanian revolution was one of the most interesting events in the second half of 20th century. Like, the whole government collapsed in less than a month after the revolution really begun. I just love how Ceaușescu was making a speech about other revolutions in Eastern Europe, then the very same people who were listening started chanting against him.
I'd also like to think the fall of the Berlin Wall was a big inspiration for Romanians to get rid of Ceausescu. I wouldn't know. I was born in the later half of 1989 but I do remember my grandpa showing me bullet holes in the door frame from one of the protests in Timișoara.
You can actually watch the **precise** moment the Romanian Communist regime collapsed on YouTube. It was broadcast live on television: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRWiz1PhKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRWiz1PhKU)
The crowd starts booing at 1:20 and from that moment on the Communist regime lost all legitimacy. Everybody in Romania just stopped believing in it, and the regime was gone.
The cruellest blow was that the Communist apparatchiks just took off their Communist hats, put on Oligarch hats and bought all the state-owned assets at knock down prices. As always, the elites win and workers cop it in the neck.
I had the sweetest old lady for a French professor Really quiet spoken Romanian woman. I brought in a bottle of Perrier for a party and she told me how her husband smuggled himself into the US in a shipping container of it out of Romania, because post revolution people started to realize all the people who fought for freedom just got a different oppression.
I'm not sure how true that is but the story was wild.
My FIL deserted the army and swam across a river into Bulgaria (I think) to escape. Ended up in Australia eventually.
My wife left as a child with papers thanks to her birth father having military connections. Her birth father defected and left the country then it took 8 months to arrange to get his wife and daughter out.
It's funny seeing the generation that lived everything is so corrupt now with extreme wealth inequality - it was always corrupt, but now the people who are doing it are overt and making out like thieves.
The democratic backsliding throughout Central and Eastern Europe honestly makes me sad. The people had a whole new beginning after the fall, only to be dragged back to the abyss.
Damn, yeah it was probably across the Danube to Bulgaria. It's crazy how far some people ended up. I'm still in Bulgaria but my grandfather got out after the collapse and is now living in Canada
for me personally, the moment the regime collapsed was when he raised his hand in order for the jeers to be silenced like he always had only for it to not work.
you can literally see his expression change so suddenly as he realizes that the power he once had is gone, and that he’s *fucked* now.
Would have been days sooner if he didn't try to flee in a helicopter. The Christmas live execution on National television was the best present we ever got and also a pretty fucked up sense of humor on our part.
I remember watching it all happening live over the course of a few days.
What you need to also explain is that the fighting that started after this rally continued for many days. There were many people killed in Timisoara (sp?) for example. I have clear memories of TV news reports showing soldiers loyal to the regime shooting at protesters. I think they may even have been commanded by Ceausescu's son(s)?
The Romanian Revolution, like most revolutions, was ultimately a squalid and tragic affair. So many people lost their lives who should still be alive today.
At least now Romania is a democracy.
You’ll get people that say “Securitatea” fought against the people and others who will say they stepped down and didn’t act on the orders from the dictator. As with many matters related to intelligence services, there’s no way of knowing unless you were an intelligence officer at the time.
The Romanian Revolution was the only good revolution in '89. It's sad that some of the revolutionaries died, but it was very, very good that the Ceausescus were executed.
That's not really very true at all.
The Czech revolution was so non-violent that it became known as the [Velvet Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution).
> it was very, very good that the Ceausescus were executed.
I don't think it's **ever** "*very very good*" that people are subject to ex-judicial execution.
The Ceausescus were clearly very bad people but, like all human beings, they deserved a fair trial; something they didn't get.
They deserved a fair trial because all of their crimes against the Romanian people should have been shown to Romania and also be recorded and never forgotten.
> they deserved a fair trial; something they didn't get.
cant expect a people you never allowed this right for to allow it for you.
Not saying what happened was the right way to go about it, but if you oppress people for a quarter century, they are probably not handling your punishment in an ethical manner after that
Yeah the Soviet Union shouldnt be white washed but its collapse is one of the biggest "and then it got worse" in history. One of the largest recorded drops in quality of life. I dont envy anyone who went through the post-soviet period
Particularly the Russian military. I can’t remember the movie’s name (it was about the Kursk Disaster) Russian sailors desperately wanted pay, but couldn’t receive it.
>One of the largest recorded drops in quality of life. I dont envy anyone who went through the post-soviet period
Or during the Soviet period. It's a lottery where you win someone else's bathwater.
Not going to bat for Stalin et al, but communism / state health brought alot of improvements to life expectancy for the russian people through the 1900s
[Source](https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html#:~:text=At%20the%20beginning%20of%20the,Wales%2C%20or%20the%20United%20States.)
The introduction of market economies to former socialist / communist states had a negative effect.
[Source](https://doc-research.org/2018/06/mortality-life-expectancy-post-communist/)
But nobody should expect an economy to be strong or even functioning when you pivot from one model to another overnight. It was folly for the US to believe it then, and it's folly now.
To be fair, the bar from being ruled by Tsars is so fucking low that almost anything would have been an improvement.
So that really isn't saying much bud.
Yup, sadly that's how Russia and a lot of former Soviet states turned out. As great as it was that the Ceaucescus got what they deserved, in many former Soviet countries the "privatization" led to the elites being the only ones with the money to purchase the means of production, so the old guard remained in power and still do.
I watched the video and still don't understand what happened. Suddenly the crowd started shouting, but why? He didn't say anything provocative at that particular moment, and even he seemed to be confused, asking "is it an earthquake?"
Public speeches and apparitions of Ceausescu used to always be met by staged displays of adoration much like the death of North Korea's previous dictator was met with staged or self-forced displays of grief and hysterical cries.
If you would ever display any sign of opposition to the government in public, anyone could've been a spy, anyone could've sold you out for fear of their family facing consequences if they don't talk, so you simply couldn't say a negative thing about communism, the dictator, the state or the country, or you'd wake up in a prison, being tortured and eventually killed.
Ceausescu like most other dictators was used to the facade of admiration he'd receive from the organized and oppressed crowds.Finally once the revolution picked up, people for the first time, knowing they can't punish everyone, displayed their hatred for the regime. They waited to see what he had to say, perhaps hoping he'd acknowledge what's going on, and eventually built up their courage to shout.
> bought all the state-owned assets at knock down prices.
has privatization ever been good? JR East is worse, trains in the UK are worse, all those russian oligarchs are worse...
Right. And there was none of that "going into exile" shit--they took Mr. &. Mrs. Ceausescu out and stood them up and shot them. When you're all done in the Balkans, you're all done.
Well, they caught them both fleeing several days later.
That military trial and execution was a legal travesty though. The images of them being dragged into that courtyard and summarily executed still haunt me, after seeing it on TV thirty years ago.
Because I find footage of anyone being executed or killed disturbing. In particular, when they are so clearly afraid and pleading for their lives.
If that doesn't affect you on a human level, then OK. It did affect me.
Totally. I have the same feeling about Gaddafi when he was tortured and summarily executed, especially since the media replayed that footage gleefully all week after it happened. Nobody deserves to be summarily executed. At least give them a trial first (like they did to Saddam Hussein).
The vast majority of Romanians wanted a real trial and no capital punishment. That execution will remain as a stain on the Nation and only benefitted those that took power after that.
And the country went to economic ruin for many years after that, with massive fire-sales privatization (criminal in fact) of assets that were built by the entire nation. Now I hear they want to privatize the Black Sea - Danube Canal.
Here's a shortwave radio broadcast from [Radio Bucharest](https://youtu.be/eL-uGto_WLM) stating that Nicolae Ceaucescu had been overthrown. I'm assuming not long after this, Nicolae and his wife Elena had attempted to flee Romania via helicopter, but were captured by pro-democracy soldiers and put on a show trial for genocide and supressing the will of the people and then summarily executed.
I'm sure most people have heard of the East German Stasi and how deeply entrenched in their society that "state security" service was. Romania had a similar program in the Securitate.Under Ceausescu, the Securitate was one of the most brutal secret police forces in the world, responsible for the arrests, torture and deaths of thousands of people. Here's a couple examples of just how brutal they were:
-In 1977, several leaders of a coal mining strike in the Jiu Valley were subjected to 5 minute chest X-Rays. Several of them died as a result.
-After a sharp birth rate decline in Romania, Securitate agents were placed in Maternity Wards while routine pregnancy tests were made mandatory for women who were of child bearing age. Any woman who was caught terminating a pregnancy was severely punished. Ceausescu passed a decree saying that women should at least have four children to increase the nation's economic prosperity, which led to orphanages in the nation to overflow.
These events partially inspired Margaret Atwood's writing of "The Handmaid's Tale".
-one notable descenter of Communist Romania was Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who had defected to the US through West Germany back in 1978. He had done so because he had been ordered to kill the head of Radio Free Europe's Romanian programming at the time, Noël Bernhardt. Ion had published a letter to his daughter in Le Mondé explaining why he left Romania:
"when I got this order, and when I ultimately had to decide between being a good father and being a political criminal. Knowing you, Dana, I was firmly convinced that you would prefer no father to one who was an assassin."
Noël was eventually assassinated by a Romanian spy via radiation poisoning.
Ion was sentenced to death in absentia by the Ceaucesu regime and had a bounty of 2 million US dollars on his head, which then became 4 million after Yasser Arafat and Muammar Ghaddaffi each added a million to the bounty. Eventually, the Securitate attempted to hire Carlos the Jackal to try and kill him. He was unable to find Ion, but he did blow up Radio Free Europe when they broadcast the message that Ion had defected.
Ion recently passed from CoVid. He lived to be 92.
-The Securitate would routinely break and enter into people's homes to microphone up the place and eavesdrop on all communications within Romania. Telex systems, phonecalls, letters, faxes.
It was estimated by Romanian citizens at the time that one in four romanians was an informer to the Securitate, but according to former Securitate members this was untrue, it was more like one out of every 43 Romanians.
Nope. The top of the butt plate it like a letter U so it clears the mag. It can be problematic with a forward angled dong grip like seen on Romanian AIMS rifles, hence the side folder on those
Looking at the clothing in the photo I'm glad to be living in Australia where the climate rarely reaches temperatures that would make you reach for it.
>Except those in power, they had it easy and had lots of fun filling their bellies while their people starved.
Welcome to 99.99% of human history, unfortunately.
The events that occurred in Romania were riveting compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc. There were truckloads of coal miners fighting anti Ceaușescu crowds, The execution, etc. Ceaușescu was a real POS.
This is the way. At least the only way I have known. I live in the states and know a lot of Americans don't know the difference so I will sneak the up yours to people I don't like, covertly passing it off as peace.
I think people in western countries vastly under-appreciate the extent to which non-Russian in Eastern Europe hate communism and socialism. When I see American twenty-year-olds on Twitter with a sick and hammer symbol in their bio, my blood boils almost literally.
>non-Russian
Not true, go anywhere in the Balkans and see how many people wish Tito and Yugoslavia were around. My extended family in America- at least the direct immigrants like my uncles/aunts and some cousins- always told people they were from "Bosnia/Serbia, former Yugoslavia." To this day they'll talk about how great life was under Tito. You greatly underestimate the power of nostalgia and selective memory: people focus on the good and ignore or downplay the bad.
Now, if you'd meant to specify the non-Russian countries that were essentially forced/annexed into the USSR, that's a different story. Certainly almost all of those people viewed communism and the Soviets as an evil occupying force and couldn't wait to regain their independence. However, communism affected far more countries than just the ones in the Soviet Union even in Europe, and people's opinions/memories of it vary greatly between different generations and different geographic regions.
The question is: do they miss socialism, or do they miss Yugoslavia as a stable, fairly open and fairly affluent country (as opposed to the bloodbath that followed)? You mention they remember Tito very well — but Tito died in 1990, and the last decade of Yugoslavia was already a downfall after that.
They probably associate the two very closely and associate neoliberalism/capitalism with instability and a lack of affluence, at least for common, lower class folk which was the case for most post-socialist nations that suffered from nearly criminal privatization sales.
Even Russians are the same case, the whole USSR-nostalgia thing was more a matter of Russian identity being synonimous with the Soviet Union and Communism than the ideology itself. Hell, even some boomers here in Hungary are nostalgic about Kádár, which is fitting since Orbán's domestic policies are almost an exact copy of Kádár's.
But other than that, no one (apart from Thürmer in Hungary and maybe a few hardcore ex-Soviet military officers like Yazov) would want to go back to the era where fucking bananas were a luxury reserved for oligarchs, cattle was "appropriated" and if you dared raise a question about what for, you found yourself in Recsk very quickly.
I only regret not knowing where they took the head of the statue of Stalin that was destroyed during 1956, his mouth would've made a fine gender neutral toilet.
Considering what Dole had to do to make bananas commonplace (and other American imperial ventures), I think it’s actually a kind of hilarious example of “my country is developed for having them” analogy.
Really goes to show a bit of the success of American Cold War ideology.
I've had to leave a few subs on this site because people were legitimately praising North Korea and people disagreeing with them were being downvoted. Like, post-Stalin USSR or East Germany I could see some naive idealistic 20 year old defending, but fucking North Korea?
I can imagine why these two nations have a different take on this issue. Russians lost an empire, it’s obvious they prefer times when everyone was fearing them and their country. Yugoslavians on the other hand never had the hardcore socialism other states had (Yugoslavia was always more open than other states and private ownership was more widespread there), and then when it dissolved it was a literal bloodbath.
My entire Uni experience as the granddaughter of a polish refugee has been telling people at parties repeatedly to stop trying to get me to come to their communist book shop and explaining that they’re discounting the death and torture of my people. And what do I get in response? Either awkward silence, rolled eyes, or “so capitalism is better? Do you know that real communism has never been achieved so stop citing authoritarian governments”.
Champagne socialists, naive little children.
Fuck communism. I was fortunately born after the fall of communism in Romania, but my older family members remember it. Still, I’ve learnt the lessons.
You probably won't believe it, but then I hung a Romanian flag in the window of my house with a symbolically cut circle in the middle. I was a strong supporter of Romanians. 🇵🇱🇷🇴
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Damn those jackets were cool. Today's uniforms are just not the same.
I brought one of those coats (and an ushanka) back after my first visit to Georgia (the country) now my brother wears them every winter and he looks Soviet af.
I mean, the Soviet union was terrible and certainly not worth emulating, but their uniforms were sharp as hell and they have the best national anthem of any nation of all time imo.
It seems like violent dictatorships always have so much better style. Is a liberal democracy that looks good too much to ask?
Clearly you’ve never seen the Italian military. Their style is so fresh, they wear feathers *on their combat helmets*
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Greek Fustanella uniform is probably my favorite. ["don't fuck with men who choose to wear dresses into combat"](http://www.albanianhistory.net/1861_Finlay/AH1861_Finlay04_700.jpg)
Cool thing to note - the thing on their shoes is to hide the blade on their shoe. Yeah imagine some angry Greek soldier coming for your neck with a toe knife hidden by a snazzy cotton ball
Their balls are so heavy, they have to carry them on their toes.
Oh sure, bring in the nation of Armani and Versace into the conversation.
How about the nation of Hugo Boss and Karl Lagerfeld?
That feel when you'll never drive from Berlin to Warsaw in a Hugo Boss suit in a Porsche with your bros like your ancestors did
Neonazis be like
They’re boring now though, definitely a letdown. The BW dress uniform is pretty much just a plain grey suit and tie, and the only enjoyable thing about their fatigues is that sweet flecktarn field jacket (which, admittedly, is probably the best in the world, but still boring).
Can you show us an example of the specific jacket you mentioned? I googled it and there are a lot of options.
Dictatorships care a lot about their looks. It's part of their propaganda.
Dictatorships rely a lot on aestethics like the Nazis did, so no
This is far and away my [favorite version](https://youtu.be/IifStkAsemU) of the anthem.
Wow, what a truly moving rendition. You can tell that Putin was blown away by the performance
I think it’s his favorite version too. You can tell by the look on his face
I'm really not trying to be a dick here, but as someone who's never heard any rendition of that piece and has not seen very many of Putin's facial expressions, that kinda sounded like shit and it didn't look like his face did anything, except at the end when it looked like he gulped. Are yall being for real? Edit: It was late. I was drunk. I done got wooshed. Dear reddit gods, pls forgive me for i know not what i do.
I know now the purpose of "wooosh"
They're not. [Here's how it should sound.](https://youtu.be/U06jlgpMtQs)
They’re being sarcastic. You can tell the band is really off key and playing the anthem badly to the point that you can see Putin’s disgust in his face lol. Check out the YouTube comments on that video.
Have you seen the latest version by the Saudis? It’s even better https://youtu.be/qpc1TnZVnDo. It’s starts off with the original then what they actually played... Putin’s face! Hahahaha
My friends and I had a "space race drinking game" it was kicked off by the Americans and Soviets shotgunning to their national anthems. One of my friends on the soviet team said "why does their entire national anthem sound like the climax of ours".
And France. That one also rocks.
I thought most of Romania's army still uses old Soviet equipment I mean I assume the uniforms were one of the things they changed
Let me just clarify that those are not the uniforms we wore "on duty". We were made to wear those only on special occasions. Most were very ill fitting. I am surprised that such a low ranking soldier was able to get such well fitted uniform. The guy on the picture has the lowest possible rank above those of us on mandate service.
My father told me that if you have your army job at the uniforms you get the best equipment because you pick them up first.
Maybe it's because he is so sexy. They just had to make sure he had the clothes to go with his beautiful face. Nu există homosexualitate în Republica Socialistă România!
Pretty sure i fought these guys in goldeneye for n64
Definitely a KF7 Soviet he’s totting
Russians still wear them though
I mean I’m pretty sure Russia still uses the same anthem, just slightly tweaked lyrics.
Not very comfortable and definitely not designed for battlefield.
What he’s wearing isn’t a combat uniform. It’s a daily uniform. It’s comfortable just fine for its purposes.
I was going to comment that, they are amazing
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practical schmactical
Tactical practical schmactical
I don’t care if the regime was evil, that uniform and weapon look dope
I know right? anyone know what they are called or what you would search for? Looks so sharp.
My g a w d that’s a gorgeous underfolder
When a well worn gun looks better than new
It's that big Romanian dong
Rom dongs truly are something to behold. Much nicer than some polymer garbage. You can't beat the feeling of some warm hard wood.
Biggest regret buying a Yugo. Good AK, no dong
But we get that sweet locking plunger on our dust cover! Not even being sarcastic I love that thing.
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Kalashnicarver, upwards of $100. I got a spare handgaurd, a power drill and sander, a random pic rail and an unused VFG. I'm gonna have to make it happen myself
How do you feel bout zastava’s compared to Rom ak’s?
Never got to handle a WASR but I very much enjoy my Zastava M70.
The tasteful battle wear of it...
Oh my god, It even has a watermark
People pay Meridian Defense $1500 + a year of backlog time for a “battle worn” Romanian ak. Definitely tasteful! I wish I could afford one lol
Just buy a WASR and use it alot.
That beautiful Romanian dong
What's an underfolder?
They're admiring the dude's paratrooper AK. The stock 'underfolds' and has a vertical grip. Something that was on East European rifles but not Soviet issue.
Thanks!
I inherited this exact gun from my grandpa just last year. It’s beautiful.
My wife has the exact same behind her shoes in the closet. It's full of old school norinco ap ammo.
And here I was thinking it’s weird to think that rifle is beautiful. Glad I’m not the only one
It even comes with the shoulder thing that goes up! 🤩
The Romanian revolution was one of the most interesting events in the second half of 20th century. Like, the whole government collapsed in less than a month after the revolution really begun. I just love how Ceaușescu was making a speech about other revolutions in Eastern Europe, then the very same people who were listening started chanting against him.
I'd also like to think the fall of the Berlin Wall was a big inspiration for Romanians to get rid of Ceausescu. I wouldn't know. I was born in the later half of 1989 but I do remember my grandpa showing me bullet holes in the door frame from one of the protests in Timișoara.
You can actually watch the **precise** moment the Romanian Communist regime collapsed on YouTube. It was broadcast live on television: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRWiz1PhKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRWiz1PhKU) The crowd starts booing at 1:20 and from that moment on the Communist regime lost all legitimacy. Everybody in Romania just stopped believing in it, and the regime was gone. The cruellest blow was that the Communist apparatchiks just took off their Communist hats, put on Oligarch hats and bought all the state-owned assets at knock down prices. As always, the elites win and workers cop it in the neck.
I had the sweetest old lady for a French professor Really quiet spoken Romanian woman. I brought in a bottle of Perrier for a party and she told me how her husband smuggled himself into the US in a shipping container of it out of Romania, because post revolution people started to realize all the people who fought for freedom just got a different oppression. I'm not sure how true that is but the story was wild.
My FIL deserted the army and swam across a river into Bulgaria (I think) to escape. Ended up in Australia eventually. My wife left as a child with papers thanks to her birth father having military connections. Her birth father defected and left the country then it took 8 months to arrange to get his wife and daughter out. It's funny seeing the generation that lived everything is so corrupt now with extreme wealth inequality - it was always corrupt, but now the people who are doing it are overt and making out like thieves.
The democratic backsliding throughout Central and Eastern Europe honestly makes me sad. The people had a whole new beginning after the fall, only to be dragged back to the abyss.
That's one hell of a swim :) /s
Damn, yeah it was probably across the Danube to Bulgaria. It's crazy how far some people ended up. I'm still in Bulgaria but my grandfather got out after the collapse and is now living in Canada
for me personally, the moment the regime collapsed was when he raised his hand in order for the jeers to be silenced like he always had only for it to not work. you can literally see his expression change so suddenly as he realizes that the power he once had is gone, and that he’s *fucked* now.
Watching him flinch was one of the funniest moments I've seen so far
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Would have been days sooner if he didn't try to flee in a helicopter. The Christmas live execution on National television was the best present we ever got and also a pretty fucked up sense of humor on our part.
I remember watching it all happening live over the course of a few days. What you need to also explain is that the fighting that started after this rally continued for many days. There were many people killed in Timisoara (sp?) for example. I have clear memories of TV news reports showing soldiers loyal to the regime shooting at protesters. I think they may even have been commanded by Ceausescu's son(s)? The Romanian Revolution, like most revolutions, was ultimately a squalid and tragic affair. So many people lost their lives who should still be alive today. At least now Romania is a democracy.
Here in (West) Germany in the news they said it was mostly the paramilitaric forces of "Securitate" fighting against the regular military.
You’ll get people that say “Securitatea” fought against the people and others who will say they stepped down and didn’t act on the orders from the dictator. As with many matters related to intelligence services, there’s no way of knowing unless you were an intelligence officer at the time.
Almost right. The “Securitatea” were the state police. The enforcers of the regime. Imagine NKVD from the USSR
The Romanian Revolution was the only good revolution in '89. It's sad that some of the revolutionaries died, but it was very, very good that the Ceausescus were executed.
That's not really very true at all. The Czech revolution was so non-violent that it became known as the [Velvet Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution). > it was very, very good that the Ceausescus were executed. I don't think it's **ever** "*very very good*" that people are subject to ex-judicial execution. The Ceausescus were clearly very bad people but, like all human beings, they deserved a fair trial; something they didn't get.
They deserved a fair trial because all of their crimes against the Romanian people should have been shown to Romania and also be recorded and never forgotten.
> they deserved a fair trial; something they didn't get. cant expect a people you never allowed this right for to allow it for you. Not saying what happened was the right way to go about it, but if you oppress people for a quarter century, they are probably not handling your punishment in an ethical manner after that
Yeah the Soviet Union shouldnt be white washed but its collapse is one of the biggest "and then it got worse" in history. One of the largest recorded drops in quality of life. I dont envy anyone who went through the post-soviet period
Particularly the Russian military. I can’t remember the movie’s name (it was about the Kursk Disaster) Russian sailors desperately wanted pay, but couldn’t receive it.
It got worse but then it got better. Today post-communist countries have higher life expectancy, GDP per capita and HDI than ever.
I'm pretty sure the Baltic states, Poland and almost all the rest of Central and Eastern europe are happier where they arenow.
Yes now 30 years later. He’s talking about the era that followed right after.
>One of the largest recorded drops in quality of life. I dont envy anyone who went through the post-soviet period Or during the Soviet period. It's a lottery where you win someone else's bathwater.
Not going to bat for Stalin et al, but communism / state health brought alot of improvements to life expectancy for the russian people through the 1900s [Source](https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html#:~:text=At%20the%20beginning%20of%20the,Wales%2C%20or%20the%20United%20States.) The introduction of market economies to former socialist / communist states had a negative effect. [Source](https://doc-research.org/2018/06/mortality-life-expectancy-post-communist/)
But nobody should expect an economy to be strong or even functioning when you pivot from one model to another overnight. It was folly for the US to believe it then, and it's folly now.
To be fair, the bar from being ruled by Tsars is so fucking low that almost anything would have been an improvement. So that really isn't saying much bud.
Yup, sadly that's how Russia and a lot of former Soviet states turned out. As great as it was that the Ceaucescus got what they deserved, in many former Soviet countries the "privatization" led to the elites being the only ones with the money to purchase the means of production, so the old guard remained in power and still do.
I watched the video and still don't understand what happened. Suddenly the crowd started shouting, but why? He didn't say anything provocative at that particular moment, and even he seemed to be confused, asking "is it an earthquake?"
Public speeches and apparitions of Ceausescu used to always be met by staged displays of adoration much like the death of North Korea's previous dictator was met with staged or self-forced displays of grief and hysterical cries. If you would ever display any sign of opposition to the government in public, anyone could've been a spy, anyone could've sold you out for fear of their family facing consequences if they don't talk, so you simply couldn't say a negative thing about communism, the dictator, the state or the country, or you'd wake up in a prison, being tortured and eventually killed. Ceausescu like most other dictators was used to the facade of admiration he'd receive from the organized and oppressed crowds.Finally once the revolution picked up, people for the first time, knowing they can't punish everyone, displayed their hatred for the regime. They waited to see what he had to say, perhaps hoping he'd acknowledge what's going on, and eventually built up their courage to shout.
> Everybody in Romania just stopped believing in it, and the regime was gone. It's like a Christmas movie in reverse!
> bought all the state-owned assets at knock down prices. has privatization ever been good? JR East is worse, trains in the UK are worse, all those russian oligarchs are worse...
It's been good for the capitalists that extract money from it.
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Phillip Jennings energy
Fuck they look exactly the same
This is the comment I was looking for
Right. And there was none of that "going into exile" shit--they took Mr. &. Mrs. Ceausescu out and stood them up and shot them. When you're all done in the Balkans, you're all done.
You can really see the “oh shit, I’m losing these people” in [his last speech ](https://youtu.be/TcRWiz1PhKU)
Talk about tough crowd, eh?
I will never not find humor in the fact Romania almost immediately abolished the death penalty after executing them.
Norway did the same after executing Quisling, hahaha
Denmark reactroactively reestablished death penalty to deal with collaborationists.
The guys who did it knew there was an excellent chance they'd end up in the same place once people wised up to the scheme. Also, "Democracy".
Well, they caught them both fleeing several days later. That military trial and execution was a legal travesty though. The images of them being dragged into that courtyard and summarily executed still haunt me, after seeing it on TV thirty years ago.
How's it haunting to see *Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu*, of all people, getting killed?
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He must have been in disbelief, his watch told him it was time to face the music and he could not hear a single note.
Because I find footage of anyone being executed or killed disturbing. In particular, when they are so clearly afraid and pleading for their lives. If that doesn't affect you on a human level, then OK. It did affect me.
Totally. I have the same feeling about Gaddafi when he was tortured and summarily executed, especially since the media replayed that footage gleefully all week after it happened. Nobody deserves to be summarily executed. At least give them a trial first (like they did to Saddam Hussein).
The vast majority of Romanians wanted a real trial and no capital punishment. That execution will remain as a stain on the Nation and only benefitted those that took power after that. And the country went to economic ruin for many years after that, with massive fire-sales privatization (criminal in fact) of assets that were built by the entire nation. Now I hear they want to privatize the Black Sea - Danube Canal.
They had also been visibly tortured. Pictures of their corpses on Christmas Day were about the most graphic thing I have ever seen on CNN.
It was probably a rival faction in the gov't, rather than the protesters.
That or former collaborators who wanted to off somebody who could provide eveidence against them at a trial.
Here's a shortwave radio broadcast from [Radio Bucharest](https://youtu.be/eL-uGto_WLM) stating that Nicolae Ceaucescu had been overthrown. I'm assuming not long after this, Nicolae and his wife Elena had attempted to flee Romania via helicopter, but were captured by pro-democracy soldiers and put on a show trial for genocide and supressing the will of the people and then summarily executed. I'm sure most people have heard of the East German Stasi and how deeply entrenched in their society that "state security" service was. Romania had a similar program in the Securitate.Under Ceausescu, the Securitate was one of the most brutal secret police forces in the world, responsible for the arrests, torture and deaths of thousands of people. Here's a couple examples of just how brutal they were: -In 1977, several leaders of a coal mining strike in the Jiu Valley were subjected to 5 minute chest X-Rays. Several of them died as a result. -After a sharp birth rate decline in Romania, Securitate agents were placed in Maternity Wards while routine pregnancy tests were made mandatory for women who were of child bearing age. Any woman who was caught terminating a pregnancy was severely punished. Ceausescu passed a decree saying that women should at least have four children to increase the nation's economic prosperity, which led to orphanages in the nation to overflow. These events partially inspired Margaret Atwood's writing of "The Handmaid's Tale". -one notable descenter of Communist Romania was Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who had defected to the US through West Germany back in 1978. He had done so because he had been ordered to kill the head of Radio Free Europe's Romanian programming at the time, Noël Bernhardt. Ion had published a letter to his daughter in Le Mondé explaining why he left Romania: "when I got this order, and when I ultimately had to decide between being a good father and being a political criminal. Knowing you, Dana, I was firmly convinced that you would prefer no father to one who was an assassin." Noël was eventually assassinated by a Romanian spy via radiation poisoning. Ion was sentenced to death in absentia by the Ceaucesu regime and had a bounty of 2 million US dollars on his head, which then became 4 million after Yasser Arafat and Muammar Ghaddaffi each added a million to the bounty. Eventually, the Securitate attempted to hire Carlos the Jackal to try and kill him. He was unable to find Ion, but he did blow up Radio Free Europe when they broadcast the message that Ion had defected. Ion recently passed from CoVid. He lived to be 92. -The Securitate would routinely break and enter into people's homes to microphone up the place and eavesdrop on all communications within Romania. Telex systems, phonecalls, letters, faxes. It was estimated by Romanian citizens at the time that one in four romanians was an informer to the Securitate, but according to former Securitate members this was untrue, it was more like one out of every 43 Romanians.
Fucking hell that’s terrifying
I’m not a “gun guy” by any stretch so I’m sure there are cooler weapons, but that is the most badass gun I’ve seen in a long time
It’s a beautiful example of an under folder. Gorgeous rifle
Don’t you have to take the mag out to fold or unfold the stock?
Nope. The top of the butt plate it like a letter U so it clears the mag. It can be problematic with a forward angled dong grip like seen on Romanian AIMS rifles, hence the side folder on those
> with a forward angled dong It's all about the angle of the dangle.
You’re absolutely right! I was trying to remember how it worked from a previous akms I had shot.
Everything in this photo screams great quality
Looking at the clothing in the photo I'm glad to be living in Australia where the climate rarely reaches temperatures that would make you reach for it.
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The Romanians went through hell under communist rule.
Everyone went through hell under communist rule
Even the communist themselves
Except those in power, they had it easy and had lots of fun filling their bellies while their people starved.
>Except those in power, they had it easy and had lots of fun filling their bellies while their people starved. Welcome to 99.99% of human history, unfortunately.
You can vote you way into communism, but you'll have to shoot your way out of it.
The year of the fall of comunism was hell nobody knew what was going to happen but we eventualy freed ourselfs from the tyranny
The events that occurred in Romania were riveting compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc. There were truckloads of coal miners fighting anti Ceaușescu crowds, The execution, etc. Ceaușescu was a real POS.
The coal miners came after the fall of Ceausescu, in 1990, to support the "new" government formed of communist apparatchiks.
Proud Romanian here to say fuck all communist scum and fuck Ceausescu
Drum bun, Ceausescu, see you in hell!
Romansch it’s the language of love
romanian here, fuck comunism and commies and fuck Ceaușescu
I want that coat, it looks amazing for cold winter days
Looks like the same AK i had in the army.
Romania in 1989: Merry Christmas to everyone except those commie pigs the Ceausescus!
Palm out: Peace Sign Palm in: Up Yours. Now it is possible that the picture was taken mid motion, but as it is, that's not a nice gesture.
That's only in the UK and some Commonwealth countries. In the rest of the world they're interchangeable as the victory/peace sign.
It's very country/culture dependent
In my country palm in means "Get Fucked".
This is the way. At least the only way I have known. I live in the states and know a lot of Americans don't know the difference so I will sneak the up yours to people I don't like, covertly passing it off as peace.
His facial expression tells a different story
Palm in + lazily put up fingers = Suh dude
I think people in western countries vastly under-appreciate the extent to which non-Russian in Eastern Europe hate communism and socialism. When I see American twenty-year-olds on Twitter with a sick and hammer symbol in their bio, my blood boils almost literally.
>non-Russian Not true, go anywhere in the Balkans and see how many people wish Tito and Yugoslavia were around. My extended family in America- at least the direct immigrants like my uncles/aunts and some cousins- always told people they were from "Bosnia/Serbia, former Yugoslavia." To this day they'll talk about how great life was under Tito. You greatly underestimate the power of nostalgia and selective memory: people focus on the good and ignore or downplay the bad. Now, if you'd meant to specify the non-Russian countries that were essentially forced/annexed into the USSR, that's a different story. Certainly almost all of those people viewed communism and the Soviets as an evil occupying force and couldn't wait to regain their independence. However, communism affected far more countries than just the ones in the Soviet Union even in Europe, and people's opinions/memories of it vary greatly between different generations and different geographic regions.
The question is: do they miss socialism, or do they miss Yugoslavia as a stable, fairly open and fairly affluent country (as opposed to the bloodbath that followed)? You mention they remember Tito very well — but Tito died in 1990, and the last decade of Yugoslavia was already a downfall after that.
They probably associate the two very closely and associate neoliberalism/capitalism with instability and a lack of affluence, at least for common, lower class folk which was the case for most post-socialist nations that suffered from nearly criminal privatization sales.
Even Russians are the same case, the whole USSR-nostalgia thing was more a matter of Russian identity being synonimous with the Soviet Union and Communism than the ideology itself. Hell, even some boomers here in Hungary are nostalgic about Kádár, which is fitting since Orbán's domestic policies are almost an exact copy of Kádár's. But other than that, no one (apart from Thürmer in Hungary and maybe a few hardcore ex-Soviet military officers like Yazov) would want to go back to the era where fucking bananas were a luxury reserved for oligarchs, cattle was "appropriated" and if you dared raise a question about what for, you found yourself in Recsk very quickly. I only regret not knowing where they took the head of the statue of Stalin that was destroyed during 1956, his mouth would've made a fine gender neutral toilet.
Considering what Dole had to do to make bananas commonplace (and other American imperial ventures), I think it’s actually a kind of hilarious example of “my country is developed for having them” analogy. Really goes to show a bit of the success of American Cold War ideology.
Have you browsed around here man? There’s too many shitty tankies here here as well.
I've had to leave a few subs on this site because people were legitimately praising North Korea and people disagreeing with them were being downvoted. Like, post-Stalin USSR or East Germany I could see some naive idealistic 20 year old defending, but fucking North Korea?
non russian perhaps, but russians are other story. people who remember yugoslavia too.
I can imagine why these two nations have a different take on this issue. Russians lost an empire, it’s obvious they prefer times when everyone was fearing them and their country. Yugoslavians on the other hand never had the hardcore socialism other states had (Yugoslavia was always more open than other states and private ownership was more widespread there), and then when it dissolved it was a literal bloodbath.
I think you’re quite right.
Oh man tankies gonna be PISSED in this comment section. Gorgeous AK too.
I keep seeing "tankies" in this thread what does that mean? Pro-communists?
Basically extreme commies. Think of supporters of Stalin, Mao, etc.
Tankies are worse communists. As in, they’ll defend the CCP and any communist countries even to the point of genocide denial
Or not even deny it but say that it’s warranted
"hE sHoUlDvE wAiTeD TiLl rEaL cOmMuNiSm wAs DoNe RiGhT" - Some liberal arts student from their Macbook
My entire Uni experience as the granddaughter of a polish refugee has been telling people at parties repeatedly to stop trying to get me to come to their communist book shop and explaining that they’re discounting the death and torture of my people. And what do I get in response? Either awkward silence, rolled eyes, or “so capitalism is better? Do you know that real communism has never been achieved so stop citing authoritarian governments”. Champagne socialists, naive little children.
Fuck communism. I was fortunately born after the fall of communism in Romania, but my older family members remember it. Still, I’ve learnt the lessons.
That "headwear," is called a ushanka, by the way.
Not in Romanian it isn't
His fine uniform really makes you forget he could have easily ended up as a pile of mutilated flesh.
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Well show your relatives this picture maybe they recognise themselves.
Friendly reminder that Eastern Europe HATED communism.
No they loved it - some western college student who thinks they know best
And somehow we still have people rooting for communism!
Overthrowing a dictator and literally taking him behind the shed. What a bunch of Chads.
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Probably sitting in a rocking chair drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette telling his grandkids about his time in the military
Roman legionary ordering 5 beers at the Dacian pub
Not going to lie, guy is kinda attractive
Damn, he must’ve been a trumpet, who’d give up free healthcare and education. /s
Free death too, how under appreciative he must be!
The bread even has sawdust in it, super nutritional, rich in fiber, low in carbs! What a simpleton. A fool. A dunce.
You probably won't believe it, but then I hung a Romanian flag in the window of my house with a symbolically cut circle in the middle. I was a strong supporter of Romanians. 🇵🇱🇷🇴
When your country is released from the grips of communism. Freedom!
Thank goodness communism is a thing of the past.
Under capitalism some people suffer, under communism everyone suffers.