View source for Nicolae Ceaușescu

{{Short description|Leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989}}
{{Redirect|Ceaușescu|his family|Ceaușescu family}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2025}}{{Use British English|date=October 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Nicolae Ceaușescu
| image = Nicolae Ceaușescu (3x4 cropped).jpg
| caption = Official portrait, 1965

| office = [[Romanian Communist Party#General Secretaries (1921–1989)|General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party]]
| term_start = 22 March 1965
| term_end = 22 December 1989
| predecessor = [[Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej]]
| successor = ''Position abolished''

| office1 = [[President of Romania|President of the Socialist Republic of Romania]]
| term_start1 = 28 March 1974
| term_end1 = 22 December 1989
| predecessor1 = ''Position established''
| successor1 = {{ubl|[[List of members of the National Salvation Front Council|National Salvation Front Council]] (interim)|[[Ion Iliescu]] (as President of Romania)}}
| primeminister1 = {{ubl|[[Manea Mănescu]]|[[Ilie Verdeț]]|[[Constantin Dăscălescu]]}}

| office2 = [[State Council of Romania#Presidents of the State Council|President of the State Council]]
| term_start2 = 9 December 1967
| term_end2 = 28 March 1974
| predecessor2 = [[Chivu Stoica]]
| successor2 = ''Office transformed'' <!-- replaced by the presidency in 1974 -->
| party = Romanian Communist Party (1932–1989)
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1918|01|26|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Scornicești]], Romania
| death_date  = {{Death date and age|1989|12|25|1918|01|26|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Târgoviște]], Romania
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Elena Ceaușescu|Lenuța Petrescu]]|1947}}
| children = {{hlist|[[Valentin Ceaușescu|Valentin]]|[[Zoia Ceaușescu|Zoia]]|[[Nicu Ceaușescu|Nicu]]}}
| relatives = [[Ceaușescu family]]
| signature = Nicolae Ceaușescu Signature.svg

| module = {{Infobox criminal
 | embed = yes
 | conviction = [[Genocide]]
 | trial = [[Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu]]
 | conviction_penalty = [[Capital punishment in Romania|Execution by firing squad]]
 | victims = Romanian dissidents
 }}
}}
'''Nicolae Ceaușescu'''{{efn|{{IPA|ro|ni.koˈla.e t͡ʃe̯a.uˈʃesku}}}} ({{OldStyleDateNY|26 January|13 January}} 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician  who led the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]]. He served as [[General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party]] from 1965 to 1989 and as the first [[President of Romania|president of Romania]] from 1974 to 1989.

Born in [[Scornicești]], Ceaușescu joined the banned [[Romanian Communist Party]] in his teens and was repeatedly imprisoned under the pre-war and wartime regimes for his communist activism. After [[World War&nbsp;II]], he rose through the party ranks under [[Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej]], the country’s [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] leader, whom he succeeded as general secretary.

Upon taking power, Ceaușescu eased [[Censorship in Communist Romania|press censorship]] and condemned the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]] in his [[Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968|speech of 21 August 1968]], which resulted in a surge in popularity. However, this period of liberalisation was brief, as his regime soon became [[totalitarian]] and was widely considered to be one of the most repressive in the [[Eastern Bloc]]. His [[secret police]], the [[Securitate]], was responsible for [[mass surveillance]] as well as [[Securitate#Method|severe repression]] and human rights abuses within the country, and controlled the media and press. Ceaușescu's attempts to implement [[Decree 770|policies that would lead to a significant growth of the population]] led to a growing number of illegal abortions and increased the number of orphans in state institutions. Economic mismanagement due to failed oil ventures during the 1970s led to very significant foreign debts for Romania. In 1982, Ceaușescu directed the government to export much of the country's agricultural and industrial production in an effort to repay these debts. [[Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality|His cult of personality]] experienced unprecedented elevation, followed by the deterioration of foreign relations, even with the [[Soviet Union]].

By the end of 1989, mounting discontent over the state of the nation and Ceaușescu’s totalitarian rule erupted into the [[Romanian Revolution]]. Ceaușescu perceived the demonstrations in [[Timișoara]] as a threat and ordered military forces to open fire on 17 December, causing many deaths and injuries. The demonstrations reached the capital [[Bucharest]], forcing Ceaușescu and his wife [[Elena Ceaușescu|Elena]] to flee in a helicopter, but were soon captured after the armed forces turned on them. After being [[Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu|tried and convicted]] of economic sabotage and [[genocide]], both were sentenced to death, and they were immediately [[Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu|executed by firing squad on 25 December]], bringing an end to [[Socialist Republic of Romania|four decades of communist rule in Romania]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.biography.com/people/nicolae-ceausescu-38355 |title=Nicolae Ceaușescu |website=Biography.com |date=December 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu |title=Nicolae Ceaușescu – president of Romania |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |date=10 May 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thetimes.com/best-law-firms/profile-legal/article/ceausescu-looked-in-my-eyes-and-he-knew-that-he-was-going-to-die-n07wcxv22k9 |location=London |work=[[The Times]] |first=Roger |last=Boyes |title=Ceaușescu looked in my eyes and he knew that he was going to die |date=24 December 2009 }}</ref><ref>Ratesh, N. (1991). Romania: The Entangled Revolution. Praeger Publishers.</ref>

==Early life==
[[File:001.Nicolae Ceausescu la varsta de 15 ani in 1933.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6|Ceaușescu, at age 15, detained at [[Doftana prison]], 1933]]
{{Nicolae Ceaușescu series}}
Ceaușescu was born in the small village of Scornicești, Olt County, being the third of nine children of a poor peasant family (see [[Ceaușescu family]]). Based on his birth certificate, he was born on {{OldStyleDate|23 January|1918|10 January}},<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gandul.ro/stiri/unul-dintre-cele-mai-bine-pazite-secrete-inainte-de-1989-data-reala-a-nasterii-lui-nicolae-ceausescu-foto-13786598|title=Unul dintre cele mai bine păzite secrete înainte de 1989: data reală a nașterii lui Nicolae Ceaușescu. Foto|date=27 January 2015|access-date=14 August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalul/ceausescu-intre-legenda-si-adevar-data-nasterii-si-alegerea-numelui-de-botez-576781.html |title=Ceaușescu, între legendă și adevăr: data nașterii și alegerea numelui de botez |work=[[Jurnalul Național]] |access-date=8 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141049/http://jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalul/ceausescu-intre-legenda-si-adevar-data-nasterii-si-alegerea-numelui-de-botez-576781.html |archive-date=12 June 2018  }}</ref> rather than the official {{OldStyleDate|26 January|1918|13 January|}}—his birth was registered with a three-day delay, which later led to confusion. According to the information recorded in his autobiography, Nicolae Ceaușescu was born on 26 January 1918.<ref name=":2">{{cite web | url=  https://infocultural.eu/cataloagele-scolare-si-autobiografia-lui-nicolae-ceausescu-facute-publice-de-arhivele-nationale | title=  Cataloagele școlare și autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu, făcute publice de Arhivele Naționale | publisher=Info Cultural| language=Romanian |trans-title=  Nicolae Ceaușescu's school catalogs and autobiography, made public by the National Archives  | date=26 January 2022| access-date=6 March 2022}}</ref> His father Andruță (1886–1969) owned {{convert|3|ha}} of agricultural land and a few sheep, and Nicolae supplemented his large family's income through tailoring.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Gruia|first=Cătălin|title=The Man They Killed on Christmas Day|publisher=Createspace Independent Pub|year=2013|isbn=978-1-4922-8259-4|location=United Kingdom|page=42}}</ref> He studied at the village school until the age of 11, when he left for [[Bucharest]]. The Olt County Service of National Archives holds excerpts from the catalogs of Scornicești Primary School, which certifies that Nicolae A. Ceaușescu passed the first grade with an average of 8.26 and the second grade with an average of 8.18, ranking third, in a class in which 25 students were enrolled.<ref name=":2" /> Journalist Cătălin Gruia claimed in 2007 that he ran away from his supposedly extremely religious, abusive and strict father. He initially lived with his sister, Niculina Rusescu.

He became an [[apprentice]] [[shoemaker]],<ref name=":0" /> working in the workshop of Alexandru Săndulescu, a shoemaker who was an active member in the then-illegal Communist Party.<ref name=":0" /> Ceaușescu was soon involved in the Communist Party activities (becoming a member in early 1932), but as a teenager he was given only small tasks.<ref name=":0" /> He was first arrested in 1933, at the age of 15, for street fighting during a strike and again, in 1934, first for collecting signatures on a petition protesting against the trial of railway workers and twice more for other similar activities. By the mid-1930s, he had been in missions in Bucharest, [[Craiova]], [[Câmpulung]] and [[Râmnicu Vâlcea]], being arrested several times.<ref name="Gruia43">Gruia, p. 43</ref>

The profile file from the secret police, [[Siguranța Statului]], named him "a dangerous Communist agitator" and "distributor of Communist and antifascist propaganda materials".<ref name="Gruia43"/> For these charges, he was convicted on 6 June 1936 by the Brașov Tribunal to two years in prison, an additional six months for [[contempt of court]], and one year of forced residence in Scornicești.<ref name="Gruia43"/> He spent most of his sentence in [[Doftana Prison]].<ref name="Gruia43"/> While out of jail in 1939, he met Lenuța (Elena) Petrescu, whom he married in 1947 and who would play an increasing role in his political life over the years.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Nicolae Ceaușescu |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |access-date=14 October 2025}}</ref>

[[File:1944soviet1.png|thumb|right|Ceaușescu and other Communists at a public meeting in [[Colentina, Bucharest|Colentina]], welcoming the Red Army as it entered Bucharest on 30 August 1944]]
Soon after being freed, he was arrested again and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order", spending the time during the war in prisons and [[Internment|internment camp]]s: [[Jilava Prison|Jilava]] (1940), [[Caransebeș]] (1942), [[Văcărești, Bucharest|Văcărești]] (1943), and Târgu Jiu (1943).<ref name="Gruia43" />

In 1943, he was transferred to [[Târgu Jiu]] [[Internment|internment camp]], where he shared a cell with [[Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej]], becoming his [[Protege|protégé]].

Enticed with substantial bribes, the camp authorities gave the Communist prisoners much freedom in running their cell block, provided they did not attempt to break out of prison.<ref>Behr, Edward ''Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite'', New York: Villard Books, 1991 pp. 180–181.</ref> At Târgu Jiu, Gheorghiu-Dej ran "[[Self-criticism (Marxism–Leninism)|self-criticism]] sessions" where various Party members had to confess before the other Party members to misunderstanding the teachings of [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], and [[Joseph Stalin]] as interpreted by Gheorghiu-Dej; journalist [[Edward Behr (journalist)|Edward Behr]] claimed that Ceaușescu's role in these "self-criticism sessions" was that of the enforcer, the young man allegedly beating those Party members who refused to go with or were insufficiently enthusiastic about the "self-criticism" sessions.<ref name="Behr, Edward pages 181-186">Behr, Edward ''Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite'', New York: Villard Books, 1991 pp. 181–186.</ref> These "self-criticism sessions" not only helped to cement Gheorghiu-Dej's control over the Party, but also endeared his protégé Ceaușescu to him.<ref name="Behr, Edward pages 181-186" /> It was Ceaușescu's time at Târgu Jiu that marked the beginning of his rise to power. After [[World War II]], when Romania was beginning to fall under [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] influence, Ceaușescu served as secretary of the [[Union of Communist Youth]] (1944–1945).<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 July 2017 |title=Pagina de istorie: Ascensiunea şi decăderea unui dictator |url=https://www.rfi.ro/politica-96599-pagina-de-istorie-nicolae-ceausescu-ascensiunea-decaderea-dictator |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=RFI România: Actualitate, informaţii, ştiri în direct |language=ro |archive-date=4 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230704220035/https://www.rfi.ro/politica-96599-pagina-de-istorie-nicolae-ceausescu-ascensiunea-decaderea-dictator |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[File:Ceausescu-Comisar-1954.jpg|right|thumb|Ceaușescu giving a speech in 1954]]
After the Communists seized power in Romania in 1947, and under the patronage of Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceaușescu was elected a member of the [[Great National Assembly (Socialist Republic of Romania)|Great National Assembly]], the new legislative body of communist Romania.

In May 1948, Ceaușescu was appointed Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, and in March 1949 he was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister.<ref>{{Cite web |title=10 lucruri de ştiut despre... Nicolae Ceauşescu |url=https://historia.ro/sectiune/portret/10-lucruri-de-stiut-despre-nicolae-ceausescu-579544.html |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=historia.ro |language=ro}}</ref> From the Ministry of Agriculture and with no military experience, he was made Deputy Minister in charge of the armed forces, holding the rank of Major General. Later, promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, he became First Deputy to the defence ministry and head of the Army's Higher Political Directorate.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Catalan |first=Alexandru |date=25 October 2020 |title=Cum a devenit Nicolae Ceaușescu general-maior al Armatei Române |url=https://www.impact.ro/cum-a-devenit-nicolae-ceausescu-general-maior-al-armatei-romane-100085.html |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=IMPACT.ro |language=ro}}</ref>

In 1952, Gheorghiu-Dej brought him onto the [[Central Committee]] months after the party's "Muscovite faction" led by [[Ana Pauker]] had been purged. In the late 1940s-early 1950s, the Party had been divided into the "home communists" headed by Gheorghiu-Dej who remained inside Romania prior to 1944 and the "Muscovites" who had gone into exile in the Soviet Union. With the partial exception of Poland, where the [[Polish October]] crisis of 1956 brought to power the previously imprisoned "home communist" [[Władysław Gomułka]], Romania was the only Eastern European nation where the "home communists" triumphed over the "Muscovites". In the rest of the Soviet bloc, there were a series of purges in this period that led to the "home communists" being executed or imprisoned. Like his patron Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceaușescu was a "home communist" who benefited from the fall of the "Muscovites" in 1952. In 1954, Ceaușescu became a full member of the Politburo, effectively granting him one of the highest positions of power in the country.

=== Role in the collectivisation process ===
A high-ranking official in the agricultural and defence ministries, Ceaușescu had an important role in the forced collectivisation; according to [[Romanian Communist Party#Romanian Workers' Party (1948–1965)|Romanian Workers' Party's]] own data, between 1949 and 1952 there were over 80,000 arrests of peasants, with 30,000 receiving prison sentences.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=29 May 2009 |title=Muzeul Sighet: Sala 18 - Colectivizarea. Rezistenţă şi represiune |url=https://www.memorialsighet.ro/sala-18-colectivizarea-rezistenta-si-represiune/ |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=Memorialul Victimelor Comunismului şi al Rezistenţei |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=15 December 2007 |title=ZIUA |url=http://www.ziua.net/display.php?data=2007-12-14&id=230718 |access-date=4 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071215131405/http://www.ziua.net/display.php?data=2007-12-14&id=230718 |archive-date=15 December 2007 }}</ref> One example of these arrests is the uprising of [[Vadu Roșca]] (Vrancea county), which opposed the state programme of expropriation of private holdings, where military units opened fire on the rebelling peasants, killing 9 and wounding 48. Ceaușescu personally led the investigation which resulted in 18 peasants being imprisoned for "rebellion" and "conspiring against social order".<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 September 2010 |title=Eroi printre noi / Niţu Stan, căpetenia anticomuniştilor din Vadu Roşca |url=https://adevarul.ro/stiri-locale/focsani/eroi-printre-noi-nitu-stan-capetenia-1183739.html |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=adevarul.ro |language=ro}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Martirii din Vadu Rosca |url=https://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-arhiva-1217021-martirii-din-vadu-rosca.htm |access-date=4 July 2023 |website=www.hotnews.ro |date=4 August 2005 |language=ro}}</ref><ref name=":4" />

==Leadership of Romania==
{{See also|De-satellisation of the Socialist Republic of Romania}}
[[File:Nicolae Ceaușescu, Deng Xiaoping & Leonid Brejnev, 1965.jpg|thumb|left|Ceaușescu with [[Deng Xiaoping]] and [[Leonid Brezhnev]] in 1965]]

When Gheorghiu-Dej died on 19 March 1965, Ceaușescu was not the obvious successor, despite his closeness to the longtime leader. But widespread infighting by older and more connected officials led the Politburo to choose Ceaușescu as a compromise candidate.<ref name="Revolution1989" /> He was elected general secretary on 22 March 1965, three days after Gheorghiu-Dej's death.

One of Ceaușescu’s first major acts after becoming general secretary in March 1965 was to restore the party’s historical name, changing it from the Romanian Workers’ Party back to the [[Communist Party of Romania]] at the party’s ninth congress later that year.<ref name="Deletant1999">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |page=236}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Verdery |first=Katherine |year=1991 |title=National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaușescu's Romania |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-07038-5 |page=71}}</ref> Later that year, a new constitution—adopted by the [[Great National Assembly (Socialist Republic of Romania)|Great National Assembly]] in August 1965—renamed the country the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]], replacing the former designation of "Romanian People’s Republic".<ref name="Deletant1999" /> In December 1967, Ceaușescu consolidated his power when he became [[State Council of Romania#Presidents of the State Council|President of the State Council]], thereby assuming the role of head of state.<ref>{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |page=241}}</ref> His regime maintained strict political control, and thousands of dissenters were imprisoned or, in some cases, confined in psychiatric institutions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1995 |title=Ceaușescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989 |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |isbn=978-1-56324-633-2 |pages=330–333}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Stan |first=Lavinia |year=2013 |title=Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02334-6 |page=24}}</ref>

Initially, Ceaușescu became a popular figure, both in Romania and in the West, because of his independent foreign policy, which challenged the authority of the [[Soviet Union]]. In the 1960s, he eased press censorship and ended Romania's active participation in the [[Warsaw Pact]], but Romania formally remained a member. He refused to take part in the [[Prague Spring|1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia]] by Warsaw Pact forces and even actively and openly condemned it in his [[Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968|21 August 1968 speech]]. He travelled to [[Prague]] a week before the invasion to offer moral support to his Czechoslovak counterpart, [[Alexander Dubček]]. Although the Soviet Union largely tolerated Ceaușescu's recalcitrance, his seeming independence from Moscow earned Romania maverick status within the [[Eastern Bloc]].<ref name=Revolution1989/>

All of Ceaușescu's economic, foreign, and demographic policies were meant to achieve his ultimate goal: turning Romania into one of the world's great powers.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355">Crampton, Richard ''Eastern Europe In the Twentieth Century – And After'', London: Routledge, 1997 p. 355.</ref>

During the following years, Ceaușescu pursued an open policy towards the [[United States]] and [[Western Europe]]. Romania was the first Warsaw Pact country to recognise [[West Germany]], the first to join the [[International Monetary Fund]], and the first to receive a US president, [[Richard Nixon]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,907041-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111103230439/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,907041-1,00.html|archive-date=3 November 2011|title=Rumania: Enfant Terrible|magazine=Time |date=2 April 1973 | access-date=20 May 2010}}</ref> In 1971, Romania became a member of the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]]. Romania and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] were also the only Eastern European countries that entered into trade agreements with the [[European Economic Community]] before the fall of the Eastern Bloc.<ref>{{cite book|title=European Union enlargement: background, developments, facts|first1=Martin |last1=Sajdik |first2=Michaël |last2=Schwarzinger |publisher=Transaction |location=New Jersey|year=2008|page=10|isbn=978-1-4128-0667-1}}</ref>

A series of official visits to Western countries (including the US, France, the [[United Kingdom]], Spain and Australia) helped Ceaușescu to present himself as a reforming Communist, pursuing an independent foreign policy within the Soviet Bloc. He also became eager to be seen as an enlightened international statesman, able to mediate in international conflicts, and to gain international respect for Romania.<ref>{{cite book|title=The EU and Romania: accession and beyond|first=David |last=Phinnemore|publisher=Federal Trust for Education and Research |location=London|year=2006|isbn=1-903403-79-0|page=13}}</ref> Ceaușescu negotiated in international affairs, such as the opening of US relations with China in 1969 and the visit of [[Egypt]]ian president [[Anwar Sadat]] to Israel in 1977. In addition, Romania was the only country in the world to maintain normal diplomatic relations with both Israel and the [[Palestine Liberation Organization|Palestine Liberation Organisation]]. In 1980, Romania participated in the [[1980 Summer Olympics]] in [[Moscow]] with its other Soviet bloc allies, but in 1984 was one of the few Communist countries to participate in the [[1984 Summer Olympics]] in [[Los Angeles]] (going on to win 53 medals, trailing only the US and [[West Germany]] in the overall count)<ref name=lat_ovation>{{cite web|last=Mitchell| first = Houston |title = L.A.'s greatest sports moments No. 3: 1984 Olympics opening|url = http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/12/las-greatest-sports-moments-no-3-the-1984-olympics-opening-ceremony.html |work= Los Angeles Times| date =9 April 2013}}</ref><ref name=medal_tab>{{cite web|title=1984 Los Angeles Summer Games|url=https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1984/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080707092752/http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1984/|archive-date=7 July 2008|publisher=Sports Reference|access-date=9 April 2013}}</ref> while most of the Eastern Bloc's nations boycotted this event.<ref>{{cite book|title=Romania versus the United States: diplomacy of the absurd, 1985–1989|first1=Roger |last1=Kirk |first2=Mircea |last2=Răceanu |publisher=Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University|isbn=0-312-12059-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/romaniaversusuni00kirk/page/81 81]|url=https://archive.org/details/romaniaversusuni00kirk/page/81|year=1994}}</ref>

[[File:Indira Gandhi & Nicolae Ceaușescu.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with [[Indira Gandhi]] during his visit to India in 1969]]

Ceaușescu refused to implement measures of [[economic liberalism]]. The evolution of his regime followed the path begun by Gheorghiu-Dej. He continued with the programme of intensive [[industrialisation]] aimed at the [[Autarky|economic self-sufficiency]] of the country which since 1959 had already doubled industrial production and had reduced the peasant population from 78% at the end of the 1940s to 61% in 1966 and 49% by 1971. However, for Romania, like other Eastern People's Republics, industrialisation did not mean a total social break with the countryside. The peasants returned periodically to the villages or resided in them, commuting daily to the city in a practice called naveta. This allowed Romanians to act as peasants and workers at the same time.<ref name=":Ferrero">{{cite journal |title=The contradictions between domestic and foreign policies in the Cold War Romania (1956–1975) |last=Ferrero Blanco |first=M. D. |date=Winter 2006 |issue=9 |journal=Historia Actual Online |pages=153–178 |url=https://historia-actual.org/Publicaciones/index.php/hao/article/view/143 |doi=10.36132/hao.v0i9.143}}</ref>

Universities were also founded in smaller Romanian towns, which served to train qualified professionals such as engineers, economists, planners or jurists necessary for the development projects of the country. Romanian healthcare also achieved improvements and recognition by the [[World Health Organization]] (WHO), whose director general Marcolino Candau in May 1969 visited Romania and declared that the visits of WHO staff to various Romanian hospital establishments had left an extraordinarily good impression.<ref name=":Ferrero" />

The social and economic transformations resulted in improved living conditions for Romanians. Economic growth allowed for higher salaries which, combined with the benefits offered by the state (free medical care, pensions, free universal education at all levels, etc.) were a leap compared to the pre-WWII situation of the Romanian population. Certain extra retributions were allowed for the peasants, who started to produce more.<ref name=":Ferrero" />

===Decree 770===
In October 1966, in an attempt to reverse the Romania's low birth and fertility rates, Ceaușescu issued [[Decree 770]] to restrict [[abortion]] and [[contraception]].<ref>Crampton, Richard ''Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After'', London: Routledge, 1997 p. 355.</ref> The government targeted rising [[divorce]] rates and made divorce more difficult – marriages could only be dissolved in exceptional cases. By the late 1960s, the population began to swell. In turn, a new problem was created, child abandonment, which swelled the orphanage population (see [[1980s–1990s Romanian orphans phenomenon]]). Many of the children in these orphanages suffered mental and physical deficiencies (see [[Cighid]]).<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/06/neglect |title=The Lasting Impact of Neglect |first=Kirsten |last=Weir |date=June 2014 |volume=45 |issue=6 |journal=Monitor on Psychology |publisher=American Psychological Association}}</ref>

Measures to encourage reproduction included financial motivations for families who bore children, guaranteed maternity leave, and childcare support for mothers who returned to work, work protection for women, and extensive access to medical control in all stages of pregnancy, as well as after it. Medical control was seen as one of the most productive effects of the law, since all women who became pregnant were under the care of a qualified medical practitioner, even in rural areas. In some cases, if a woman was unable to visit a medical office, a doctor would visit her home.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE5DA103AF93BA35751C0A966958260 |first=Celestine |last=Bohlen |title=Upheaval in the East: Romania's AIDS Babies: A Legacy of Neglect |date=8 February 1990 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> Mothers of at least five children were entitled to receive significant benefits, while mothers of at least ten children were declared "heroine mothers" by the Romanian state.

===Speech of 21 August 1968===
{{Main|Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968}}
[[File:Adunare Piaţa Palatului August 1968.jpg|thumb|Nicolae Ceaușescu condemning the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]] in 1968]]

[[Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968]] represented the apogee of Ceaușescu's rule.<ref>{{in lang|ro}} {{lang|ro|italic=no|[http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_42817/regimul_ceausescu___de_la_mitingul_din_1968_la_cel_din_1989.html "Regimul Ceaușescu – de la mitingul din 1968 la cel din 1989"]}} [Ceaușescu Regime: From the 1968 to the 1989 Mass Meeting], {{Cite web |url=http://jurnalul.ro/articol_42817/regimul_ceausescu___de_la_mitingul_din_1968_la_cel_din_1989.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=22 May 2020 |archive-date=1 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101173957/http://jurnalul.ro/articol_42817/regimul_ceausescu___de_la_mitingul_din_1968_la_cel_din_1989.html |url-status=bot: unknown }}, {{lang|ro|[[Jurnalul Național]]}}, 21 December 2005</ref> It marked the highest point in Ceaușescu's popularity, when he openly condemned the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]].

===July Theses===
{{Main|July Theses}}
[[File:Nicolae Ceaușescu & Kim Il Sung (1978).jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with [[Kim Il Sung]] of [[North Korea]] in 1978. In [[July Theses|reforming the state]], Ceaușescu sought to emulate ''[[Juche]]'' and [[Maoism|Maoist]] ideas<ref name="Cioroianu 489">Cioroianu, p. 489.</ref><ref name="Liiceanu xviii">Liiceanu, p. xviii.</ref><ref name="Tismăneanu 241">Tismăneanu, p. 241</ref>]]

Ceaușescu visited China, North Korea, Mongolia and North Vietnam in 1971. He took great interest in the idea of total national transformation as embodied in the programmes of North Korea's ''[[Juche]]'' and China's [[Cultural Revolution]]. He was also inspired by the [[personality cult]]s of [[Kim Il-sung's cult of personality|North Korea]]'s [[Kim Il Sung]] and [[Mao Zedong's cult of personality|China]]'s [[Mao Zedong]]. Journalist Edward Behr claimed that Ceaușescu admired both Mao and Kim as leaders who not only totally dominated their nations but had also used totalitarian methods coupled with significant ultra-nationalism mixed in with communism in order to transform both China and North Korea into major world powers.<ref name="Behr, Edward page 195">Behr, Edward (1991), ''Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite'', New York: Villard Books, p. 195.</ref> Furthermore, that Kim and even more so Mao had broken free of Soviet control were additional sources of admiration for Ceaușescu. According to British journalist Edward Behr, Elena Ceaușescu allegedly bonded with Mao's wife, [[Jiang Qing]].<ref name="Behr, Edward page 195"/> Behr wrote that the possibility that what Ceaușescu had seen in both China and North Korea were "vast [[Potemkin village]]s for the hoodwinking of gullible foreign guests" was something that never seemed to have crossed his mind.<ref name="Behr, Edward page 195"/> Shortly after returning home, he began to emulate North Korea's system. North Korean books on ''Juche'' were translated into [[Romanian language|Romanian]] and widely distributed inside the country.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Post|first=Jerrold M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OqIaBQAAQBAJ&q=Juche+Romanian&pg=PA103|title=Narcissism and Politics: Dreams of Glory|year=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-00872-4|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OqIaBQAAQBAJ&q=Juche+Romanian&pg=PA103 103]|language=en}}</ref>

On 6 July 1971, he delivered a speech before the executive committee of the Romanian Communist Party. This quasi-[[Maoism|Maoist]] speech, which came to be known as the [[July Theses]], contained seventeen proposals. Among these were: continuous growth in the "leading role" of the Party; improvement of Party education and of mass political action; youth participation on large construction projects as part of their "patriotic work"; an intensification of political-ideological education in schools and universities, as well as in children's, youth and student associations; and an expansion of political propaganda, orienting radio and television shows to this end, as well as publishing houses, theatres and cinemas, opera, ballet, artists' unions, promoting a "militant, revolutionary" character in artistic productions. Gheorghiu-Dej's process of removing [[Stalinist]] policies and [[Stalin's cult of personality]] between 1956 and 1965 was condemned and an index of banned books and authors was re-established.[[File:Propaganda lui Ceaușescu.jpg|upright|thumb|Propaganda poster in Bucharest, 1986. By the 1970s, the Ceaușescus had developed a [[Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality|personality cult]]]]

The Theses heralded the beginning of a "mini cultural revolution" in Romania, launching a [[Neo-Stalinism|Neo-Stalinist]] offensive against cultural autonomy, reaffirming an ideological basis for literature that, in theory, the Party had hardly abandoned. Although presented in terms of "Socialist Humanism", the Theses in fact marked a return to the strict guidelines of [[Socialist realism in Romania|Socialist Realism]] and attacks on non-compliant intellectuals. Strict ideological [[conformity]] in the humanities and social sciences was demanded.

In a 1972 speech, Ceaușescu stated he wanted "a certain blending of party and state activities&nbsp;... in the long run we shall witness an ever closer blending of the activities of the party, state and other social bodies". In practice, a number of joint party-state organisations were founded such as the Council for Socialist Education and Culture, which had no precise counterpart in any of the other communist states of Eastern Europe, and the Romanian Communist Party was embedded into the daily life of the nation in a way that it never had been before. In 1974, the party programme of the Romanian Communist Party announced that structural changes in society were insufficient to create a full socialist consciousness in the people, and that a full socialist consciousness could only come about if the entire population was made aware of socialist values that guided society. The Communist Party was to be the agency that would so "enlighten" the population, and in the words of the British historian Richard Crampton, "the party would merge state and society, the individual and the collective, and would promote 'the ever more organic participation of party members in the entire social life{{'"}}.<ref>Crampton, Richard (1997), ''Eastern Europe In the Twentieth Century – And After'', London: Routledge, pp. 354–355.</ref>

===President of the Socialist Republic of Romania===
{{Multiple image
| image1            = Gerald Ford, Nicolae Ceaușescu and Richard Nixon, 1973.jpg
| image2            = Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania and Jimmy Carter during arrival ceremonies for the state visit of the President of Romania. - NARA - 178831.tif
| caption1          = Ceaușescu with US president [[Richard Nixon]] and vice president [[Gerald Ford]] in 1973
| caption2          = Ceaușescu with [[Jimmy Carter]] during a visit in [[Washington, D.C.]] in 1978
}}

Ceaușescu had been head of state since 1967, though nominally only as first among equals, deriving his real power from his status as party leader. However, in 1974 Ceaușescu introduced a full-fledged [[President of Romania|executive presidency]] as the nation's top decision-maker. He was first elected to this post [[1974 Romanian presidential election|in 1974]] and would be reelected every five years until 1989.

As President, he was empowered to carry out those functions of the State Council that did not require [[plenum (meeting)|plenums]]. He also appointed and dismissed the president of the Supreme Court and the prosecutor general whenever the legislature was not in session. In practice, from 1974 onwards Ceaușescu frequently ruled by decree.<ref>Grosescu, R. (2004). "The Political Regrouping of Romanian Nomenklatura during the 1989 Revolution". ''Romanian Journal of Society and Politics'', 4(1), 97–123.</ref> Over time, he usurped many powers and functions that nominally were vested in the State Council as a whole.<ref name=cs>{{csref|country=romania|first=Sergiu |last=Verona|section=Government and Politics}}</ref>

Effectively, Ceaușescu now held all governing power in the nation; virtually all party and state institutions were subordinated to his will. The principles of democratic centralism, combined with the legislature's infrequent sessions (it sat in full session only twice a year) meant that for all intents and purposes, his decisions had the force of law.

===Oil embargo, strike and foreign relations===
[[File:1974.-Vizita-in-Siria.-Intalnire-protocolara-1024x833.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with [[Hafez al-Assad]] during a 1974 state visit to [[Ba'athist Syria|Syria]], which was ruled by the [[Assad family]] from [[Corrective Movement (Syria)|1970]] to [[Fall of the Assad regime|2024]]]]

Starting with the [[1973 oil crisis|1973–1974 Arab oil embargo]] against the West, a period of prolonged high oil prices set in that characterised the rest of the 1970s. Romania as a major oil equipment producer greatly benefited from the high oil prices of the 1970s, which led Ceaușescu to embark on an ambitious plan to invest heavily in oil-refining plants.<ref name=paradox>{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |author-link=Dennis Deletant |date=2019 |title=Romania under Communism: Paradox and Degeneration |location=London and New York |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9781138707429}}</ref>{{rp|287}} Ceaușescu's plan was to make Romania into Europe's number one oil refiner not only of its own oil, but also of oil from Middle Eastern states such as Iraq and Iran, and then to sell all of the refined oil at a profit on the Rotterdam spot market.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 356">Crampton, Richard (1997), ''Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After'', London: Routledge, p. 356.</ref> As Romania lacked the money to build the necessary oil refining plants and Ceaușescu chose to spend the windfall from the high oil prices on aid to the [[Third World]] in an attempt to buy Romania international influence, Ceaușescu borrowed heavily from Western banks on the assumption that when the loans came due, the profits from the sales of the refined oil would be more than enough to pay off the loans.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 356" /> Meanwhile, Romania also imported [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] oil, but the Soviets refused to grant Romania the preferential oil pricing that [[Warsaw Pact]] states received.<ref name=paradox/>{{rp|288}} [[1977 Vrancea earthquake|The 1977 earthquake]] which destroyed much of Bucharest led to delays in the oil plan.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 356" /> By the time the oil refining plants were finished in the early 1980s, a slump in oil prices had set in, leading to major financial problems for Romania.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 356" />

[[File:Robert Mugabe & Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania 1976.jpg|thumb|left|Ceaușescu in a meeting with [[Robert Mugabe]] in 1976]]

In August 1977 over 30,000 miners went on strike in the [[Jiu River]] valley complaining of low pay and poor working conditions.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355" /> The [[Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977|Jiu valley miners' strike]] was the most significant expression of opposition to Ceaușescu's rule prior to the late 1980s. The striking miners were inspired by similar strikes along Poland's Baltic coast in December 1970, and just as in Poland in 1970, the striking Romanian miners demanded face-to-face negotiations with their nation's leader.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355" /> When Ceaușescu appeared before the miners on the third day of the strike, he was greeted (in the words of the British historian Richard Crampton) "once again {{lang|fr|à la polonaise}}, with cries of 'Down with the Red Bourgeoisie!{{'"}}.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355" /> Ceaușescu ultimately negotiated a compromise solution to the strike.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355" /> In the years after the strike, a number of its leaders died of accidents and "premature disease". Rumors emerged that {{lang|ro|Securitate}} had doctors give the strike leaders 5-minute chest X-rays to ensure the development of cancer.<ref name="Crampton, Richard page 355" />

[[File:1982 Ceausescu la Moscova la 60 de ani de la formarea URSS.JPG|thumb|Ceaușescu preparing to deliver a speech in Moscow on the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union]]
[[File:Ceausescu and Carter 2.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with [[Jimmy Carter]] during a visit in Washington, D.C. in 1978]]

He continued to follow an independent policy in foreign relations—for example, in 1984, Romania was one of few communist states (notably including the People's Republic of China and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]]) to take part in the [[1984 Summer Olympics]] in Los Angeles, despite a Soviet-led boycott. The Socialist Republic of Romania was also the first of the [[Eastern Bloc]] nations to have official relations with the [[Western bloc]] and the [[European Community]]: an agreement including Romania in the Community's Generalised System of Preferences was signed in 1974 and an Agreement on Industrial Products was signed in 1980. On 4 April 1975, Ceaușescu visited Japan and met with [[Hirohito|Emperor Hirohito]]. In June 1978, Ceaușescu made a state visit to the UK where a £200m licensing agreement was signed between the Romanian government and [[British Aerospace]] for the production of more than eighty [[BAC One-Eleven]] aircraft. The deal was said at the time to be the biggest between two countries involving civil aircraft.<ref>{{cite news|title=Britain and Romania sign £200m plane deal|last=Spainer|first=David|date=16 June 1978|work=The Times|page=1|location=London}}</ref> This was the first state visit by a Communist head of state to the UK, and Ceaușescu was given an honorary knighthood by the Queen, which was revoked on the day before his death in 1989.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.sky.com/story/five-controversial-state-visits-to-the-uk-10748635|title=Nine controversial state visits to the UK|date=4 June 2019|website=Sky News|access-date=20 May 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jan/31/goodwin-mugabe-mussolini-ceausescu-disgraced|title=Goodwin joins Mugabe, Mussolini and Ceausescu in gang of disgraced figures|date=31 January 2012|website=The Guardian|access-date=20 May 2020}}</ref> Similarly, in 1983, [[Vice President of the United States|US vice president]] [[George H. W. Bush]] and in 1985 [[United States Secretary of State|US Secretary of State]] [[George Shultz]] also praised the Romanian dictator.<ref>{{cite web |work=Greensboro News and Record |first=David B. |last=Funderburk |orig-date=originally published 13 January 1990 |date=28 January 2015 |url=https://greensboro.com/u-s-shares-blame-government-ignored-romania-s-abuses/article_0c1e4235-ea04-5055-8171-576297749f5e.html |title=U.S. Shares Blame Government Ignored Romania's Abused}}</ref>

===Pacepa defection===
In 1978, [[Ion Mihai Pacepa]], a senior member of the Romanian political police ([[Securitate]], State Security), [[Defection|defected]] to the US. A two-star general, he was the highest-ranking defector from the [[Eastern Bloc]] during the [[Cold War]]. His defection was a powerful blow against the administration, forcing Ceaușescu to overhaul Romania's state security architecture. Pacepa's 1986 book, ''Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief'' ({{ISBN|0-89526-570-2}}), claimed to expose details of Ceaușescu's government activities, such as massive spying on American industry and elaborate efforts to rally Western political support.

====Systematisation: demolition and reconstruction====
{{Main|Systematisation (Romania)}}
[[File:Boulevard Unirii.jpg|thumb|[[Bulevardul Unirii]], Bucharest]]

[[Systematization (Romania)|Systematisation]] ({{langx|ro|Sistematizarea}}) was the programme of [[urban planning]] carried out under Ceaușescu's regime. After a visit to [[North Korea]] in 1971, Ceaușescu was impressed by the ''[[Juche]]'' ideology of that country, and began a major campaign shortly afterwards.

Beginning in 1974, the programme consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing hamlets, villages, towns and cities, in whole or in part, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed [[Communist state|socialist society]]". The policy largely consisted in the mass construction of high-density blocks of flats ({{lang|ro|blocuri}}).

During the 1980s, Ceaușescu became obsessed with building himself [[Palace of the People (Romania)|a palace]] of unprecedented proportions, along with an equally grandiose neighborhood, [[Centrul Civic]], to accompany it. The mass demolitions that occurred in the 1980s under which an overall area of eight square kilometres of the historic centre of Bucharest were leveled, including monasteries, churches, synagogues, a hospital and a noted [[Art Deco]] sports stadium, in order to make way for the imposing [[Centrul Civic]] and the House of the Republic, now officially renamed the [[Palace of Parliament]], were the most extreme manifestation of this policy.

In 1988, a [[Romanian rural systematization program|massive rural resettlement effort began]].

===Foreign debt===
{{Main|1980s austerity policy in Romania}}
[[File:Nicolae Ceaușescu (1988).jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu in 1988]]

Ceaușescu's political independence from the Soviet Union and his protest against the [[invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968]] drew the interest of Western powers, whose governments briefly believed that he was an anti-Soviet maverick and hoped to create a schism in the Warsaw Pact by funding him. Ceaușescu did not realise that the funding was not always favourable, borrowing heavily (more than $13&nbsp;billion) from the West to finance economic development, with these loans ultimately devastating the country's finances. He also secured a deal for cheap oil from [[Pahlavi dynasty|Iran]], but the deal fell through after the [[Shah]] [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] was overthrown in 1979 during the [[Iranian revolution|Iranian Revolution]].

In an attempt to correct this, Ceaușescu decided to repay Romania's [[foreign debt]]s. He organised the [[1986 Romanian military referendum|1986 military referendum]] and managed to change the constitution, adding a clause that barred Romania from taking foreign loans in the future. According to official results, the referendum yielded a nearly unanimous "yes" vote.<ref>Mungiu‐Pippidi, A. (2001). "The Return of Populism‐The 2000 Romanian Elections". ''[[Government and Opposition]]'', 36(2), 230–252.</ref>

Romania's record—having all of its debts to commercial banks paid off in full—has not been matched by any other heavily indebted country in the world.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m82-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134|title=The Impact of Governments on East-West Economic Relations|first=Steven|last=Elliott-Gowerd|date=27 July 2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-349-12419-0|via=Google Books}}</ref> The policy to repay—and, in multiple cases, prepay—Romania's external debt became the dominant policy in the late 1980s. The result was economic stagnation throughout the 1980s and, towards the end of the decade, an economic crisis. The country's industrial capacity was eroded as equipment grew obsolete and energy intensity increased, and the standard of living deteriorated significantly. Draconian restrictions were imposed on household energy use to ensure adequate supplies for industry. Convertible currency exports were promoted at all costs and imports severely reduced. In 1988, real GDP contracted by 0.5%, mostly due to a decline in industrial output caused by significantly increased material costs. Despite the 1988 decline, the net foreign balance reached its decade-long peak (9.5% of GDP). In 1989, GDP slumped by a further 5.8% due to growing shortages and the increasingly obsolete capital stock. By March 1989, virtually all external debt had been repaid, including all medium- and long-term external debt. The remaining amount, totalling less than 1 million, consisted of short-term credits (mainly short-term export credits granted by Romania). A 1989 decree legally prohibited Romanian entities from contracting external debt.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5_Q1KadVl08C&q=Economic+developments+in+the+1980s|title=The Romanian Economic Reform Program|first1=Dimitri G.|last1=Demekas|first2=Mohsin S.|last2=Khan|date=15 June 1991|publisher=International Monetary Fund|isbn=978-1-55775-190-4|via=Google Books}}</ref> The [[The World Factbook|CIA World Factbook]] edition of 1990 listed Romania's external debt as "none" as of mid-1989.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X5oFhVoPUOoC&pg=PA262|title=The World Factbook|date=3 September 1989|publisher=Central Intelligence Agency|via=Google Books}}</ref>

====Yearly evolution (in billions of dollars)====
* 1995 was the last year in which Romania's economy was dominated by the state. From 1996 onwards, the private sector would account for most of Romania's GDP.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JKfWAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA66|title=OECD Economic Surveys: Romania 2002|date=29 October 2002|publisher=OECD Publishing|isbn=978-92-64-19412-0|via=Google Books}}</ref>
* Data for 1975, 1980 and 1982–1988 taken from the ''Statistical Abstract of the United States''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M1k-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA859|title=Statistical Abstract of the United States|date=3 September 1990|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|via=Google Books}}</ref>
* Data for 1989–1995 provided by the [[OECD]].<ref name="books.google.ro">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U57WAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA33|title=OECD Review of Agricultural Policies: Romania 2000|date=29 September 2000|publisher=OECD Publishing|isbn=978-92-64-18782-5|via=Google Books}}</ref>
* Data for 1981 and 1985 provided by the ''[[World Book Encyclopedia|World Book]] Year Book''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2srAAAAMAAJ&q=$+10.2+billion|title=The World Book Year Book, 1987|author=<!--Staff-->|date=3 September 1987|publisher=World Book – Childcraft International|isbn=978-0-7166-0487-7|via=Google Books}}</ref>
* By April 1989, with its debt virtually zero, Romania was a net external creditor. Foreign borrowing was resumed after [[Romanian Revolution|December 1989]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QN9OAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA247|title=Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices: Report Submitted to the Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee on Finance of the U.S. Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives by the Department of State in Accordance with Section 2202 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988|date=3 February 1995|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|isbn=978-0-16-046793-6|via=Google Books}}</ref> In order to maintain net creditor status, Romania had to keep its external debt under $2.5 billion, the low estimate of the amount it was owed by oil producers and other [[Least developed countries|LDCs]]. This was first achieved in 1988<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L10UsreI9y4C&pg=PA7|title=Romania|date=3 September 1990|publisher=U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration|via=Google Books}}</ref> and continued through the early 1990s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o4TGAZQ6Iq0C&pg=PA314|title=Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices: Report Submitted to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee on Finance of the U.S. Senate by the Department of State, in Accordance with Section 2202 of the Omnibus Trade Competitiveness Act of 1988|date=3 September 1991|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|via=Google Books}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
!1975
!1980
!1981
!1982
!1983
!1984
!1985
!1986
!1987
!1988
!1989
!1990
!1991
!1992
!1993
!1994
!1995
|-
|'''Gross external debt''' || 2.9 || 9.4 || 10.2 || 9.8 || 8.8 || 7.1 || 6.6 || 6.4 || 5.1 || 2.2 || 0.0 || 0.2 || 2.2 || 3.5 || 4.5 || 5.5 || 6.7
|-
|'''Net status''' || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|green|creditor}} || {{color|green|creditor}} || {{color|green|creditor}} || {{color|green|creditor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}} || {{color|red|debtor}}
|}

===1984 failed coup d'état attempt===
A tentative [[coup d'état]] planned in October 1984 failed when the military unit assigned to carry out the plan was sent to harvest maize instead.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ceaușescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989|first=Dennis|last=Deletant|page=351|isbn=978-1-56324-633-3|publisher=M. E. Sharpe|year=1995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XmmilITRkxYC&pg=PA351}}</ref>

===1987 Brașov rebellion===
{{Main|Brașov rebellion}}
[[File:Mikhail Gorbachev & Nicolae Ceaușescu, 1985.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] in 1985]]

Romanian workers began to mobilise against the economic policies of Ceaușescu. Spontaneous labour conflicts, limited in scale, took place in major industrial strongholds such as [[Cluj-Napoca]] (November 1986) and the Nicolina platform in [[Iași]] (February 1987), culminating in a massive strike in [[Brașov]]. The draconian measures taken by Ceaușescu involved reducing energy and food consumption, as well as lowering workers' incomes, leading to what political scientist [[Vladimir Tismăneanu]] called "generalised dissatisfaction".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tismaneanu |first=Vladimir |date=30 December 1987 |title=Opinion {{!}} Tremors in Rumania |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/30/opinion/tremors-in-rumania.html?searchResultPosition=174 |access-date=17 April 2025 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Over 20,000 workers and a number of townspeople marched against [[Economy of the Socialist Republic of Romania|economic policies]] in [[Socialist Republic of Romania|Socialist Romania]] and Nicolae Ceaușescu's policies of [[Ration stamp|rationing]] of [[1980s austerity policy in Romania#Food shortages|basic foodstuffs]], rationing [[1980s austerity policy in Romania#Energy usage|electricity and central heating]].

The first protests began practically on 14 November 1987, at the 440 "Molds" Section of the Red Flag truck company. Initially, the protests were for basic needs: "We want food and heating!", "We want our money!", "We want food for the children!", "We want light and heat!" and "We want bread without a card!" Next to the County Hospital, they sang the anthem of the revolution of 1848, {{lang|ro|italic=no|"[[Deșteaptă-te, române!]]"}}. Upon arriving in the city centre, thousands of workers from the Tractorul Brașov and Hidromecanica factories, pupils, students, and others joined the demonstration. From this moment on, the protest became political. Participants later claimed to have chanted slogans such as "Down with Ceaușescu!", "Down with communism!", "Down with the dictatorship!" or "Down with the tyrant!". During the march, members of the Securitate disguised as workers infiltrated the demonstrators, or remained on the sidelines as spectators, photographing or even filming.<ref name=":1">Ruxandra Cesereanu, ''Decembrie '89. Deconstrucția unei revoluții'', 2nd ed. (Polirom, Iași, 2009), pp. 25, 26, 31, 32, 34, 38, 39, 40</ref>

By dusk, [[Securitate]] forces and the [[Romanian Armed Forces#Cold War|military]] surrounded the city centre and disbanded the revolt by force. Some 300 protesters were arrested, and, in order to hide the political nature of the Brașov uprising, tried for disturbing the peace and "outrage against morals".

Those under investigation were beaten and tortured, 61 receiving sentences ranging from 6 months to 3 years in prison, including sentences to be carried out working at various state enterprises across in the country. Although many previous party meetings had called for the death penalty to set an example, the regime was eager to downplay the uprising as "isolated cases of [[hooliganism]]". Protesters were sentenced to deportation, with compulsory residence arranged in other cities, despite such measures having been repealed as far back as the late 1950s. The entire trial lasted only an hour and a half.<ref name=":1" />

A few days after the workers' revolt, Cătălin Bia, a student at the Faculty of Forestry, sat in front of the canteen with a placard that read: "The arrested workers must not die". He was joined by colleagues Lucian Silaghi and Horia Șerban. The three were arrested immediately. Subsequently, graffiti in solidarity with the workers' revolt appeared on the campus, and some students distributed manifestos. Security teams conducted a total of seven arrests. Those arrested were investigated, expelled from the faculty, returned to their home localities and placed under strict supervision, along with their families.<ref name=":1" />

===Romani minority rights===
Under the Ceaușescu regime, [[Romani people in Romania]] were largely neglected as an ethnic group. They were not listed among the "co-inhabiting nationalities", preventing them from gaining any collective government representation.<ref name="books.openedition.org">{{Cite book|url=http://books.openedition.org/ceup/1554|title=The Roma in Romanian History|first=Viorel|last=Achim|chapter=Chapter VI. The gypsies during the communist regime. A few points of reference|series=CEUP collection|year= 2013|publisher=Central European University Press|pages=189–202|isbn=978-615-5053-93-1|access-date=29 August 2019|via=OpenEdition Books}}</ref>

However, during the late 1970s and early 1980s the regime conducted a [[Sedentism|sedentarisation]] campaign for nomadic and semi-nomadic Romani, providing them with dwellings and guaranteeing them jobs. Although this led to some displacement of Romanis from counties with a large nomadic population, historians consider it a social measure rather that an ethnically-motivated policy. The [[Systematization (Romania)|systematisation]] policy provided urban Romanies with better living conditions, as many were moved from insalubrious neighbourhoods at the edges of towns into newly built blocks of flats, however it had negative effects on the cohesion of Romani communities.<ref name="books.openedition.org" />

Dedicated policies for the Romani community began to be implemented in 1977. A government report from 1983 lists some of these policies: the authorities made land available to them and assisted them in the procurement of building materials for houses; many were given jobs; those lacking official identification were registered at the civil status office; measures were taken to legalise marriages, to send children to school, to enlist men for military services and to supervise their hygiene. The report however notes that a significant part of the Romani population resisted these policies, thus the social integration of the community within the Romanian society was still lagging behind.<ref name="books.openedition.org" />

==Revolution==
{{Main|Romanian Revolution}}
[[File:Revolutia_Bucuresti_1989_000.JPG|thumb|Tanks and [[Miliția (Romania)|Miliția]] on the [[Bulevardul Magheru|Magheru Boulevard]] in [[Bucharest]] during the 1989 Revolution]]
In November 1989, the XIVth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) saw Ceaușescu, then aged 71, re-elected for another five years as leader of the PCR. During the Congress, Ceaușescu made a speech denouncing the anti-Communist revolutions happening throughout the rest of Eastern Europe. The following month, Ceaușescu's government itself collapsed after a series of violent events in [[Timișoara]] and [[Bucharest]].

[[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovak]] President [[Gustáv Husák]]'s resignation on 10 December 1989 amounted to the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, leaving Ceaușescu's Romania as the only remaining hard-line Communist regime in the Warsaw Pact.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-G3qDAAAQBAJ|title=Revolution and Change in Central and Eastern Europe|isbn=978-1-4742-8748-7|via=books.google.ro|last1=East|first1=Roger|last2=Pontin|first2=Jolyon|date=6 October 2016|publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BZ9sDQAAQBAJ|title=Romania since the Second World War|isbn=978-1-4725-2992-3|via=books.google.ro|last1=Abraham|first1=Florin|date=17 November 2016|publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/10/nyregion/upheaval-east-hard-line-czech-president-quit-dissident-seen-successor.html|title=Upheaval in the East; Hard-Line Czech President to Quit And Dissident Is Seen as Successor|first1=John|last1=Tagliabue|first2=Special To the New York|last2=Times|newspaper=The New York Times|date=10 December 1989}}</ref>

===Timișoara===
{{more citations needed section|date=October 2018}}

Demonstrations in the city of Timișoara were triggered by the government-sponsored attempt to evict [[László Tőkés]], an ethnic Hungarian pastor, accused by the government of inciting [[ethnic hatred]]. Members of his ethnic Hungarian [[wikt:congregation|congregation]] surrounded his apartment in a show of support.

Romanian students spontaneously joined the demonstration, which soon lost nearly all connection to its initial cause and became a more general anti-government demonstration. Regular military forces, police, and the Securitate fired on demonstrators on 17 December 1989, killing and injuring men, women, and children.

On 18 December 1989, Ceaușescu departed for a state visit to [[Iran]], leaving the duty of crushing the Timișoara revolt to his subordinates and his wife. Upon his return to Romania on the evening of 20 December, the situation became even more tense, and he gave a televised speech from the TV studio inside the Central Committee Building (CC Building), in which he spoke about the events at Timișoara in terms of an "interference of foreign forces in Romania's internal affairs" and an "external aggression on Romania's sovereignty".

The country, which had little to no information of the events transpiring in Timișoara from the national media, learned about the revolt from anti-communist radio stations that broadcast news in the Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War (such as [[Voice of America]] and [[Radio Free Europe]]) and by word of mouth. On the next day, 21 December, Ceaușescu staged a [[Romanian Revolution#Revolution spreads|mass meeting in Bucharest]]. Official media presented it as a "spontaneous movement of support for Ceaușescu", emulating the [[Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968|1968 meeting]] in which he had spoken against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces.

===Overthrow===
====Speech on 21 December 1989====
{{Main|Ceaușescu's final speech}}
The mass meeting of 21 December, held in what is now [[Revolution Square, Bucharest|Revolution Square]], began like many of Ceaușescu's speeches over the years. He spoke of the achievements of the "Socialist revolution" and Romania's "multi-laterally developed Socialist society". He also blamed the Timișoara riots on "fascist agitators who want to destroy socialism".<ref>Text of Speech in Revolution Square, 21 December 1989</ref>

But Ceaușescu had misjudged the crowd's mood. Roughly eight minutes into his speech, several people began jeering and booing, and others began chanting "[[Timișoara]]!"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50821546 |title=Executing a dictator: Open wounds of Romania's Christmas revolution |date=25 December 2019 |first1=Stephen |last1=McGrath |website=BBC |access-date=21 August 2023}}</ref> He tried to silence them by raising his right hand and calling for the crowd's attention before order was temporarily restored, then proceeded to announce social benefit reforms that included raising the national minimum wage by 200 [[Romanian lei|lei]] per month to a total of 2,200 per month by 1 January. Images of Ceaușescu's facial expression as the crowd began to boo and heckle him were among the most widely broadcast of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.<ref name=Revolution1989>{{cite book|last=Sebetsyen|first=Victor|title=Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire|publisher=[[Pantheon Books]]|location=New York City|year=2009|isbn=978-0-375-42532-5|url=https://archive.org/details/revolution1989fa00sebe}}</ref>

Failing to control the crowd, the Ceaușescus took cover inside the building that housed the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. The rest of the day saw an open revolt of Bucharest's population, which had assembled in University Square and confronted the police and army at barricades. But the rioters were no match for the military apparatus concentrated in Bucharest, which cleared the streets by midnight and arrested hundreds of people in the process.

====Flight on 22 December====
By the morning of 22&nbsp;December&nbsp;1989, protests had spread to most major cities across Romania. The death of Defence Minister [[Vasile Milea]], announced by state media as a suicide, caused confusion and anger within the armed forces and the public.<ref>{{cite news |title=Romanian Defense Minister Is Said to Kill Himself |work=The New York Times |date=23 December 1989 }}</ref> Ceaușescu convened an emergency meeting of the Political Executive Committee and assumed direct command of the army, but many soldiers and officers defected to the revolution.<ref name="Deletant1999">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |pages=275–278}}</ref> Later that day he attempted to address the crowd assembled outside the Central Committee building in Bucharest, but was shouted down as demonstrators stormed the headquarters.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ceaușescu Flees Capital as Army Joins Revolt |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=23 December 1989 }}</ref> Ceaușescu, his wife Elena, and several aides escaped by helicopter from the roof shortly before protesters overran the building.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ceausescu Flees Capital; Army Backs Revolt |work=Los Angeles Times |date=23 December 1989 }}</ref> The [[Romanian Communist Party]] collapsed soon afterward and has never been re-established.<ref name="Deletant1999" />

Early reports in the Western press claimed that tens of thousands of people had been killed by [[Securitate]] forces during the uprising, with some newspapers citing figures of up to 64,000 fatalities across Romania.<ref name="Deletant1999">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |pages=281–283}}</ref><ref name="SianiDavies2005">{{cite book |last=Siani-Davies |first=Peter |year=2005 |title=The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-7393-4 |pages=147–148}}</ref> The Hungarian military attaché in Bucharest expressed doubt over these figures, noting that such numbers would have been logistically impossible.<ref name="Deletant1999" /> In the weeks following Ceaușescu’s overthrow, hospitals across the country reported a death toll of fewer than 1,000, a figure broadly supported by later academic research.<ref name="SianiDavies2005" /> Of these, only 306 are documented to have died while Ceaușescu was still in power.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://irrd.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Statistica-Revolutiei-Marin-Valentin.pdf |title=Martirii Revoluției în date statistice |author=Valentin Marin |journal=Caietele Revoluției |publisher=Editura Institutului Revoluției Române din Decembrie 1989 |location=Bucharest |year=2010 |issn=1841-6683 |language=ro |access-date=15 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613054721/http://irrd.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Statistica-Revolutiei-Marin-Valentin.pdf |archive-date=13 June 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Death===
{{main|Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu}}
[[File:Grave of Nicolae Ceausescu - Ghencea Civil Cemetery - Bucharest - Romania.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu's original grave, [[Ghencea Cemetery]], Bucharest]]
[[File:Ceaușescu Grave.jpg|thumb|The current resting place of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu at Ghencea Cemetery. The tombstone erroneously states Elena's year of birth as 1919; she was born on 7 January 1916]]
Ceaușescu and his wife Elena fled the capital with [[Emil Bobu]] and [[Manea Mănescu]] and flew by helicopter to Ceaușescu's [[Snagov]] residence, from which they fled again, this time to [[Târgoviște]]. They abandoned the helicopter near Târgoviște, having been ordered to land by the army, which by that time had restricted flying in Romania's airspace. The Ceaușescus were held by the police while the policemen listened to the radio. They were eventually handed over to the army.

On Christmas Day, 25 December 1989, the Ceaușescus were tried before a court convened in a small room on orders of the [[National Salvation Front (Romania)|National Salvation Front]], Romania's provisional government. They faced charges including illegal gathering of wealth and [[genocide]]. Ceaușescu repeatedly denied the court's authority to try him, and asserted he was still legally the President of Romania. At the end of the trial, the Ceaușescus were found guilty and [[Capital punishment|sentenced to death]]. A soldier standing guard in the proceedings was ordered to take the Ceaușescus outside one by one and shoot them, but the Ceaușescus demanded to die together. The soldiers agreed to this and began to tie their hands behind their backs, which the Ceaușescus protested against, but were powerless to prevent.

The Ceaușescus were executed by a group of soldiers: Captain Ionel Boeru, Sergeant-Major Georghin Octavian and Dorin-Marian Cîrlan,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/ceausescu-looked-in-my-eyes-and-he-knew-that-he-was-going-to-die-n07wcxv22k9|newspaper=The Times|location=London|title=Ceausescu looked in my eyes and he knew that he was going to die|first=Roger|last=Boyes|date=24 December 2009|access-date=20 May 2010|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and five other [[non-commissioned officer]]s who were recruited from twenty volunteers. Before his sentence was carried out, Nicolae Ceaușescu sang "[[The Internationale]]" whilst being led towards the wall. The firing squad began shooting as soon as the two were in their positions up against the wall.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/story/HQVhRMp6MAUA8A?hl=en|title=Trial and Execution|work=[[Google Arts & Culture]]|author=[[TVR (TV network)|TVR]]|access-date=15 December 2023}}</ref>

Later that day, the execution was also shown on Romanian television.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Der Diktator und sein Henker|url=https://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/ceausescus-scharfrichter-der-diktator-und-sein-henker-3293070.html|access-date=3 October 2020|website=stern.de|date=20 October 2005 |language=de}}</ref> The hasty show trial and the images of the executed Ceaușescus were videotaped and the footage released in numerous Western countries two days after the execution.

The manner in which the trial was conducted has been criticised. However, [[Ion Iliescu]], Romania's provisional president, said in 2009 that the trial was "quite shameful, but necessary" in order to end the state of near-anarchy that had gripped the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest.<ref name=dem25dec>{{cite news|last=Demian|first=Sinziana|title=In Romania, Ceausescu's death haunts Christmas|url=http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/091224/romania-nicolae-elena-ceausescu|access-date=30 March 2013|newspaper=Global Post|date=25 December 2009|location=Cluj Napoca}}</ref> Similarly, [[Victor Stănculescu]], who had been defence minister before going over to the revolution, said, in 2009, that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus [[Lynching|lynched]] on the streets of Bucharest.<ref name=bbc25dec>{{cite news|title=Ceausescu execution 'avoided mob lynching'|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8430213.stm|access-date=30 March 2013|newspaper=BBC|date=25 December 2009}}</ref>

The Ceaușescus were the last people to be executed in Romania before the abolition of [[Capital punishment in Romania|capital punishment]] on 7 January 1990.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt=11033|title=DECRET-LEGE nr.6 din 7 ianuarie 1990 pentru abolirea pedepsei cu moartea, pentru modificarea și abrogarea unor prevederi din Codul penal și alte acte normative|access-date=12 April 2016|language=ro|archive-date=25 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725112100/http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt=11033|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were originally buried in simple graves at [[Ghencea Cemetery]], in Bucharest, on opposite sides of a path; their graves were often decorated with flowers and symbols of communist rule. In April 2007, their son [[Valentin Ceaușescu]] lost an appeal for an investigation into whether the graves were genuine. Upon his death in 1996, the younger son, [[Nicu Ceaușescu|Nicu]], was buried nearby in the same cemetery.<ref name=osb21jul/> According to the ''[[Jurnalul Național]]'',<ref name="ReferenceA">''[[Jurnalul Național]]'', 25 January 2005</ref> requests were made by the Ceaușescus' daughter, [[Zoia Ceaușescu|Zoia]], and by supporters of their political views, to move their remains to mausoleums or to purpose-built churches. These demands were denied by the government.

====Exhumation and reburial====
On 21 July 2010, forensic scientists [[Burial#Exhumation|exhumed]] the bodies to perform DNA tests to prove conclusively that they were indeed the remains of the Ceaușescus.<ref name=osb21jul>{{cite news|last=Osborn|first=Andrew|title=Nicolae Ceausescu exhumed 'wearing his black winter coat'|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/7902774/Nicolae-Ceausescu-exhumed-wearing-his-black-winter-coat.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/7902774/Nicolae-Ceausescu-exhumed-wearing-his-black-winter-coat.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=30 March 2013|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=21 July 2010|location=Moscow}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The body believed to be Elena's had decayed too much to allow for a positive identification, but Nicolae was easily identifiable, wearing the bullet-riddled black winter coat he had been wearing during the execution. DNA tests were able to conclusively prove his identity.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.rferl.org/content/Reports_DNA_Tests_Confirm_Ceausescus_Remains/2209569.html|title=Reports: DNA Tests Confirm Ceausescu's Remains|work=RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty|access-date=12 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8109267/Exhumed-body-in-Romania-is-Nicolae-Ceausescu.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8109267/Exhumed-body-in-Romania-is-Nicolae-Ceausescu.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Exhumed body in Romania is Nicolae Ceausescu|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=4 November 2010}}{{cbignore}}</ref> His family organised a funeral service for the couple,<ref name=osb21jul/> and they were reburied together at [[Ghencea]] under a tombstone.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/travel/ceausescu-trail-bucharest-romania/|title=Palace of the damned dictator: The Ceausescu trail |author=John Malathronas |date=5 December 2014|work=[[CNN]]|access-date=12 April 2016}}</ref>

==Policies==
{{Stalinism sidebar|people}}
{{see also|National communism in Romania|Neo-Stalinism}}
A ''Romanian Encyclopedic Dictionary'' entry in 1978 underlines the concept{{clarify|date=May 2025}} as "a new, superior, stage in the Socialist development of Romania ... begun by the 1971–1975 Five-Year Plan, prolonged over several [succeeding and projected] Five-Year Plans".<ref>''Mic Dicționar Enciclopedic''</ref>

Ceaușism's main trait was a form of [[Romanian nationalism]],<ref>Geran Pilon, Chapter III, ''Communism with a Nationalist Face'', pp. 60–66; Tănase, p. 24</ref> one which arguably propelled Ceaușescu to power in 1965, and probably led the Party leadership under [[Ion Gheorghe Maurer]] to select him over the more orthodox [[Gheorghe Apostol]]. Although he had previously been a careful supporter of the official lines, Ceaușescu came to embody Romanian society's wish for independence after what many considered years of Soviet directives and purges, during and after the [[SovRom]] fiasco. He carried this nationalist option inside the Party, manipulating it against the nominated successor, Apostol. This nationalist policy had more timid precedents:<ref name="autogenerated1">Geran Pilon, p. 60</ref> for example, Gheorghiu-Dej had overseen the withdrawal of the [[Red Army]] in 1958.

[[File:Moldovan workers during Ceausescu visit (1972). (14549532742).jpg|thumb|Moldavian workers during Ceaușescu's visit to [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Moldavia]] in 1972]]
This nationalist policy had also engineered the publishing of several works that subverted the Soviet image, no longer glossing over traditional points of tension with the Soviet Union.

Ceaușescu was prepared to take a more decisive step in questioning Soviet policies. In the early years of his rule, he generally relaxed political pressures inside Romanian society,<ref>Tănase, p. 23</ref> which led to the late 1960s and early 1970s being the most liberal decade in Socialist Romania. Gaining the public's confidence, Ceaușescu took a clear stand against the 1968 crushing of the [[Prague Spring]] by [[Leonid Brezhnev]]. After a visit from [[Charles de Gaulle]] earlier in the same year, during which the French President gave recognition to the incipient maverick, Ceaușescu's public speech in August deeply impressed the population, not only through its themes, but also because, uniquely, it was unscripted. He immediately attracted Western sympathies and backing, which lasted well beyond the 'liberal' phase of his rule; at the same time, the period brought forward the threat of armed Soviet invasion: significantly, many young men inside Romania joined the ''[[Patriotic Guards (Romania)|Patriotic Guards]]'' created on the spur of the moment, in order to meet the perceived threat.<ref>Geran Pilon, p. 62</ref> President Richard Nixon was invited to Bucharest in 1969, which was the first visit of a US president to a communist country after the start of the Cold War.

Ceaușescu rejected [[Alexander Dubček]]’s reformist programme of ''[[Socialism with a human face]]'', considering it incompatible with Romania’s own communist model.<ref name="Deletant1999-245">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |pages=245–246}}</ref><ref name="SianiDavies2005-17">{{cite book |last=Siani-Davies |first=Peter |year=2005 |title=The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-7393-4 |pages=17–18}}</ref> Although he condemned the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Ceaușescu maintained an enduring partnership with [[Josip Broz Tito]]’s [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], adapting the [[Titoism|Titoist]] doctrine of “independent socialist development” to Romania’s circumstances.<ref name="Deletant1999-245" /> The 1965 constitution renamed the country the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]] to emphasize its claim of building socialism free from Moscow’s direction, echoing Yugoslavia’s earlier rebranding in 1963.<ref name="Deletant1999-236">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |page=236}}</ref>

Following his 1971 visits to China and [[North Korea]], Ceaușescu issued the ''[[July Theses]]'', inspired in part by Maoist and ''[[Juche]]'' concepts and signalling a return to strict ideological control.<ref name="Verdery1991-95">{{cite book |last=Verdery |first=Katherine |year=1991 |title=National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaușescu's Romania |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-07038-5 |page=95}}</ref><ref name="Deletant1999-258">{{cite book |last=Deletant |first=Dennis |year=1999 |title=Romania under Communist Rule |publisher=Center for Romanian Studies |isbn=973-9432-17-5 |pages=258–261}}</ref> At the Eleventh Party Congress in 1974, cultural policy was formally subordinated to nationalist objectives.<ref name="Pilon1981-61">{{cite book |last=Pilon |first=Geran |year=1981 |title=Romania: The Continuing Revolution |publisher=Westview Press |isbn=978-0-89158-734-5 |pages=61–63}}</ref> The regime promoted [[Protochronism]] and [[Dacianism]], encouraging historians to portray the ancient [[Dacians]] as precursors of the socialist state, and renamed several cities to reflect Dacian or Roman heritage, such as [[Cluj-Napoca|Cluj-Napoca]] and [[Drobeta-Turnu Severin|Drobeta-Turnu Severin]].<ref name="Pilon1981-61" /><ref name="Verdery1991-133">{{cite book |last=Verdery |first=Katherine |year=1991 |title=National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaușescu's Romania |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-07038-5 |pages=133–135}}</ref>

Although Ceaușescu pursued an ostensibly independent “national communist” course, his concentration of power and the pervasive [[Cult of personality|personality cult]] surrounding him led outside observers to describe his regime as among the most [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] in Eastern Europe.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ro0010) |title=Romania: Introduction |work=Country Studies |publisher=Library of Congress |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109235241/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ro0010) |archive-date=9 January 2009 |access-date=14 October 2025}}</ref> Among his most visible admirers was [[Iosif Constantin Drăgan]], a Romanian-Italian businessman who propagated Dacianist and [[Protochronism|protochronist]] ideas that paralleled the regime’s nationalist discourse.<ref name="Verdery1991-133" />

Nicolae Ceaușescu had a major influence on modern-day Romanian [[Populism|populist]] rhetoric. In the 1970s, a certain rehabilitation of pro-[[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] dictator [[Ion Antonescu]] was permitted to take place: while not explicitly condoned by authorities, the pro-regime novelist [[Marin Preda]] painted a "nuanced" and sympathetic picture of Antonescu in his 1975 work ''Delirul''.<ref name=paradox/>{{rp|324-325}} The conflict with Hungary over the treatment of the [[Hungarian minority in Romania|Magyar minority]] in Romania had several unusual aspects: not only was it a vitriolic argument between two officially [[Socialist state]]s, it also marked the moment when Hungary, a state behind the [[Iron Curtain]], appealed to the [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe]] for sanctions to be taken against Romania. This meant that the later 1980s were marked by a pronounced anti-Hungarian discourse, which owed more to nationalist tradition than to Marxism,<ref>Geran Pilon, p. 63</ref> and the ultimate isolation of Romania on the world stage.

The strong opposition to Ceaușescu on all forms of ''[[perestroika]]'' and ''[[glasnost]]'' placed him at odds with [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]. He was very displeased when other Warsaw Pact countries decided to try their own versions of Gorbachev's reforms. In particular, he was incensed when [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]]'s leaders opted for a power-sharing arrangement with the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity]] trade union. He even went as far as to call for a Warsaw Pact invasion of Poland—a significant reversal, considering how violently he had opposed the invasion of Czechoslovakia 20 years earlier.<ref name="DennisDeletant2007ColdWarHistory">{{cite journal |last1=Deletant |first1=Dennis |date=8 October 2007 |title='Taunting the Bear': Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1963–89 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682740701621796 |journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]] |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=495–507 |doi=10.1080/14682740701621796 |s2cid=153941556 |access-date=12 February 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref> For his part, Gorbachev made no secret of his distaste for Ceaușescu, whom he called "the Romanian [[führer]]". At a meeting between the two, Gorbachev upbraided Ceaușescu for his inflexible attitude. "You are running a dictatorship here", the Soviet leader warned.<ref name=Revolution1989/>

In November 1989, at the XIVth and last congress of the PCR, Ceaușescu condemned the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] and suggested that the Soviet Union was repeating its mistake of [[appeasement]] towards an aggressive power by growing closer to the [[United States]]. This provided an indication of Ceaușescu's fear at the time of both [[superpower]]s interfering in Romanian domestic affairs.<ref name=paradox/>{{rp|326}} He also called for the reversal of the Pact's consequences, which would amount to the return of Bessarabia (most of which was then a Soviet republic and since 1991 has been independent [[Moldova]]) and northern [[Bukovina]]; both of these had been [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|occupied by the Soviet Union]] in 1940 and again at the end of World War II.<ref name=paradox/>{{rp|325-326}}

===Non-aligned policy feats===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0529-029, Berlin, Tagung Warschauer Pakt, Gruppenfoto.jpg|thumb|[[Warsaw Pact]] leaders in 1987 from left to right: [[Gustáv Husák|Husák]] of [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], [[Todor Zhivkov|Zhivkov]] of [[People's Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], [[Erich Honecker|Honecker]] of [[East Germany]], [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] of the [[Soviet Union]], Ceaușescu, [[Wojciech Jaruzelski|Jaruzelski]] of [[Polish People's Republic|Poland]], and [[János Kádár|Kádár]] of [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]]]]

Ceaușescu was among the most ardent supporters of dimming lingering tensions between different Balkan states,<ref name="ManagingTheHelsinkiSpirit">{{cite journal |last1=Karamouzi |first1=Eirini|date=26 November 2013 |title=Managing the "Helsinki Spirit" in the Balkans: The Greek Initiative for Balkan Co-operation, 1975–1976 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263412185 |journal=Diplomacy & Statecraft |volume=24 |issue=4 |pages=597–618 |doi=10.1080/09592296.2013.848697 |s2cid=153905441 |access-date=15 March 2023}}</ref> and went as far as to establish friendly relations with the vituperatively anti-communist [[Regime of the Colonels]] in Greece to pursue his objectives of cooperation between Balkan countries.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pechlivanis |first1=Paschalis |date=14 May 2020 |title=An Uneasy Triangle: Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Greek Colonels and the Greek Communists (1967–1974) |journal=[[The International History Review]] |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=598–613 |doi=10.1080/07075332.2020.1764609 |s2cid=219486083 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
[[File:Romania delegation at OSCE Meeting 1975.jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu with [[Ștefan Andrei]] and [[George Macovescu]] at [[Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe|CSCE Meeting]] in [[Helsinki|Helsinki, Finland]] in 1975]]
Ceaușescu's Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country that retained diplomatic relations with Israel and did not sever diplomatic relations after Israel's strike on [[Egypt]] at the start of the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, to the consternation of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stanciu |first1=Cezar |date=13 November 2018 |title=A lost chance for Balkan cooperation? The Romanian view on 'regional micro-détente', 1969—75 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328934977 |journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]] |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=421–439 |doi=10.1080/14682745.2018.1524878 |s2cid=158433175 |access-date=13 February 2023}}</ref> Ceaușescu made efforts to act as a mediator between the [[PLO]] and Israel.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

Similarly, Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country to attend the [[1984 Summer Olympics]] in [[Los Angeles]], which had been [[1984 Summer Olympics boycott|boycotted]] by the Soviet Union and its allies in response to the [[1980 Summer Olympics boycott|US-led boycott]] of the [[1980 Summer Olympics]] in Moscow.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Litsky |first1=Frank |date=29 July 1984 |title=President and Pomp Begin Games |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/29/sports/president-and-pomp-begin-games.html |access-date=28 August 2020 |work=[[The New York Times]] |pages=1, 8, § 5 |quote=Of the first 139 nations in the parade, the biggest cheers went to Rumania, the only Warsaw Pact nation competing here.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Yake |first1=D. Byron |date=29 July 1984 |title='84 Olympics: Gala trumpets in Games |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QHAuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tdoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4162%2C4820549 |access-date=28 August 2020 |work=[[Beaver County Times]] |page=A1, A10 |quote=The Romanians, the only Eastern bloc nation to defy the Soviet boycott, were greeted with a standing ovation. |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]]}}</ref>

Ceaușescu's Romania was the only Warsaw Pact country that did not sever diplomatic relations with [[Military dictatorship of Chile|Chile]] after [[Augusto Pinochet]] seized power in the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup d'état]].<ref>Valenzuela, J. Samuel and Arturo Valenzuela (eds.), ''Military Rule in Chile: Dictatorship and Oppositions'', p. 321</ref>

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a close ally and personal friend of [[President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo|dictator]] [[Mobutu Sese Seko]] of [[Zaire]] (now the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]). Relations were in fact not just state-to-state, but party-to-party between their respective [[One-party state|political machineries]], the [[Popular Movement of the Revolution|MPR]] and the [[Romanian Communist Party|PCR]]. Many believe that Ceaușescu's death played a role in influencing Mobutu to "democratise" Zaire in 1990.<ref name=":5">{{citation-attribution|1={{cite encyclopedia|title=Zaire: a country study|publisher=[[Federal Research Division]], [[Library of Congress]]|location=Washington, D.C.|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/94025092/|last=Turner|first=Thomas|date=1994|editor-last=Meditz|editor-first=Sandra W.|edition=4th|page=263|isbn=0-8444-0795-X|oclc=30666705|editor-last2=Merrill|editor-first2=Tim|entry=Relations with the Communist World}}}}</ref>

Ceaușescu reduced the size of the [[Romanian People's Army]] by 5%, for which he called the [[1986 Romanian military referendum|1986 mock referendum]] in which 100% voted in favour.<ref name="DD">{{Cite web |last=ch |first=Beat Müller, beat (at-sign) sudd (dot) |date=23 November 1986 |title=Rumänien, 23. November 1986 : Verkleinerung des Heeres, Senkung der Rüstungsausgaben um 5% -- [in German] |url=https://www.sudd.ch/event.php?lang=en&id=ro011986 |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=www.sudd.ch |language=en}}</ref> In line with his policy of keeping a façade of "popular democracy", he also ordered large rallies for peace to be held.

====Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic====
In August 1976, Nicolae Ceaușescu was the first high-level Romanian visitor to Moldavian SSR since World War II. In December 1976, at one of his meetings in Bucharest, [[Ivan Bodiul]] said that "the good relationship was initiated by Ceaușescu's visit to Soviet Moldova".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/53-1-68.shtml|title=Romanian-Moldavian SSR relations, by Patrick Moore and the Romanian Section|access-date=21 April 2010|archive-date=3 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120203014906/http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/53-1-68.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Personality cult and totalitarianism===
{{main|Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality}}
[[File:TimbruNicolaeCeausescu.png|thumb|upright|left|Stamp commemorating Ceaușescu's 70th birthday and 55 years of political activity, 1988]]
[[File:Ceausescu receiving the presidential sceptre 1974.jpg|thumb|right|Ceaușescu receiving the presidential sceptre, 1974<ref>[http://www.romanialibera.ro/timpul-liber/fapt-divers/sceptrul-lui-ceausescu-scos-la-vanzare-191358.html ''Sceptrul lui Ceaușescu, scos la vânzare''] ("Ceaușescu's sceptre put up for sale"), "România Liberă" online, 23 June 2010</ref>]]Ceaușescu created a pervasive [[Cult of personality|personality cult]], giving himself titles such as "[[Conducător]]" ("Leader") and "Geniul din Carpați" ("The Genius of the Carpathians"), with inspiration from [[Proletarian Culture]] ([[Proletkult]]). After his election as President of Romania, he even had a "presidential sceptre" created for himself, thus appropriating a [[regalia|royal insignia]]. This excess prompted painter [[Salvador Dalí]] to send a congratulatory telegram to the Romanian president, in which he sarcastically congratulated Ceaușescu on his "introducing the presidential sceptre". The Communist Party daily ''[[Scînteia]]'' published the message, unaware that it was a work of satire.{{Citation needed|reason=Your explanation here|date=September 2019}}

The most important day of the year during Ceaușescu's rule was his official birthday, 26 January—a day which saw Romanian media saturated with praise for him. According to historian [[Victor Sebestyen]], it was one of the few days of the year when the average Romanian put on a happy face, since appearing miserable on this day was too risky to contemplate.<ref name=Revolution1989/>

To lessen the chance of further treason after Pacepa's defection, Ceaușescu also invested his wife Elena and other members of his family with important positions in the government. This led Romanians to joke that Ceaușescu was creating "socialism in one family", a pun on "[[socialism in one country]]".{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}}

Ceaușescu was greatly concerned about his public image. For years, nearly all official photographs of him showed him in his late 40s. Romanian state television was under strict orders to portray him in the best possible light.<ref name=Revolution1989/> Additionally, great care was taken by producers to ensure that Ceaușescu’s height—1.68 metres (5&nbsp;ft 6 in)—was never conspicuously highlighted on screen.<ref>{{cite web |date=3 August 2011 |title=Un Ceaușescu pe care nu îl știați: creț, cu ochii "blonzi" și nasul borcănat |url=http://www.realitatea.net/un-ceausescu-pe-care-nu-il-stiati-cret-cu-ochii-blonzi-si-nasul-borcanat_858565.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140726194246/http://www.realitatea.net/un-ceausescu-pe-care-nu-il-stiati-cret-cu-ochii-blonzi-si-nasul-borcanat_858565.html |archive-date=26 July 2014 |access-date=22 July 2014 |publisher=Realitatea.net |language=ro}}</ref> Consequences for breaking these rules were severe; one producer showed footage of Ceaușescu blinking and stuttering, and was banned for three months.<ref name=Revolution1989/>

As part of a propaganda ploy arranged by the Ceaușescus through the consular cultural attachés of Romanian embassies,{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} they managed to receive orders and titles from numerous states and institutions. France granted Nicolae Ceaușescu the [[Legion of Honour]]. In 1978 he became a [[Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]] (GCB) in the UK,<ref>[[List of honorary British Knights]]</ref>{{Circular reference|date=August 2022}} a title of which he was stripped in 1989. Elena Ceaușescu was arranged to be "elected" to membership of a science academy in the US.

To execute a massive redevelopment project, the Ceaușescu government conducted extensive demolition of churches and many other historic structures in Romania. According to Alexandru Budistenu, former chief architect of Bucharest:

{{Blockquote|text="The sight of a church bothered Ceaușescu. It didn't matter if they demolished or moved it, as long as it was no longer in sight"|author=Alexandru Budistenu, 9 January 2019}}

Nevertheless, a project by Romanian engineer Eugeniu Iordachescu was able to move many historic structures to less prominent sites, thus saving them.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Harrison |date=8 January 2019 |title=Eugeniu Iordachescu, Romanian engineer who saved condemned churches under communist rule, dies at 89 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/eugeniu-iordachescu-romanian-engineer-who-saved-condemned-churches-under-communist-rule-dies-at-89/2019/01/07/99c45f0c-128e-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html |access-date=17 April 2025 |newspaper=The Washington Post |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

==== IKEA ====
In the 1980s under Ceaușescu, the Securitate received six-figure payments from Swedish furniture company [[IKEA]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rosca |first=Matei |date=4 July 2014 |title=Ikea funds went to Romanian secret police in communist era |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/04/ikea-funds-romania-secret-police-communist-era |access-date=2024-03-25 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=7 July 2014 |title=Ikea paid millions to Romania's communist secret police in 1980s |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1548113/ikea-paid-millions-romanias-communist-secret-police-1980s |access-date=25 March 2024 |website=South China Morning Post }}</ref> According to declassified files at the [[:ro:Consiliul Național pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securității|National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archive]], IKEA agreed to overcharge for products made in Romania and some of the overpayment funds were deposited into an account controlled by the Securitate.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}{{Relevant|date=March 2025}}

==Legacy==
Ceaușescu had a mixed reputation among international leaders of his time. In his memoir ''The Artful Albanian'', Albanian communist leader [[Enver Hoxha]] remarked "As if Ceaușescu and company are to bring down imperialism! If the world waits for the Ceaușescus to do such a thing, imperialism will live for tens of thousands of years..."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoxha |first=Enver |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3SbnGAAACAAJ |title=The Artful Albanian: Memoirs of Enver Hoxha |date=1986 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |isbn=978-0-7011-2891-3 |pages=285 |language=en}}</ref> According to Pacepa, Libyan leader [[Muammar Gaddafi]] had an opposite interpretation, allegedly saying, "My brother! You are my brother for the rest of my life!".<ref>Muammar Gaddafi, as quoted in {{cite book |author-link=Ion Mihai Pacepa |first=Ion Mihai |last=Pacepa |year=1987 |title=Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief |publisher=Regnery Gateway |page=101 |isbn=978-0-89526-570-8 }}</ref> Ceaușescu even received praise from anti-communists with the Iran's shah [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] acclaiming Ceaușescu leadership: "I would like to salute [Ceaușescu's] intransigent patriotism and ferocious will for independence. A veritable amity links me to him".<ref>{{cite book |author=Muhammad Reza Pahlavi |title=[[Answer to History]] |publisher=Albin Michel |year=1979 |page=190 }}</ref>

He directed the construction of the [[Palace of the Parliament]] in Bucharest, which broke ground in June 1984. It was previously called The House of the People and The People's House. The building of the Palace of the Parliament was the most extreme expression of the [[Systematization (Romania)|Systematisation]] programme imposed by Ceaușescu upon Romania, being an [[urban planning]] programme used to [[Romanian rural systematization program|convert villages into miniature cities]]. The main architect of the building was [[Anca Petrescu]] (1949–2013), who began her work on the building when she was 28 years old. The building was completed in 1997, after Ceaușescu's death in 1989. The [[Romanian Senate]], which was originally housed in the former building of the Central Committee of the [[Romanian Communist Party]], has been headquartered in the Parliamentary Palace since 2004.

The Parliamentary Palace building has 1,100 rooms and is the largest civilian government building in the world as measured by volume in one continuous structure. (There are [[List of largest buildings#Largest usable volume|larger private sector buildings]], mainly for the construction of aircraft, that have more continuous volume in one building, such as the [[Boeing Everett Factory]].) Much of the building remains empty, being larger than the Parliament needs, though Parliament shares it with three museums and an international conference centre.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/ceausescu-trail-bucharest-romania/index.html |title=Palace of the damned dictator: On the trail of Ceausescu in Bucharest |work=CNN |first=John |last=Malathronas |date=5 December 2014 |access-date=12 August 2020}}</ref> It is also the heaviest building in the world, being constructed of 700,000 tonnes of [[steel]] and [[bronze]], a million square feet of [[marble]], and large amounts of crystal and wood.<ref name=heavy>{{cite news |url=https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/heaviest-building/ |title=Heaviest building |work=Guinness World Records |access-date=12 August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The heaviest building in the world |url=https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/blogue/en/heaviest-building-world/ |work=Via Capitale |language=en |date=1 November 2018 |access-date=12 August 2020 }}</ref>

[[File:019.Vacanta-pentrecuta-in-Moldova-1976 (1).jpg|thumb|Ceaușescu and his future successor, [[Ion Iliescu]], in 1976]]
The Ceaușescus had three children: [[Valentin Ceaușescu|Valentin]] (born 1948), a nuclear physicist; [[Zoia Ceaușescu|Zoia]] (1949–2006), a mathematician; and [[Nicu Ceaușescu]] (1951–1996), a physicist. After the death of his parents, Nicolae Ceaușescu ordered{{how|date=October 2024}} the construction of an [[Romanian Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] church, the walls of which are decorated with portraits of his parents.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Praising the crimes of totalitarian governments and denigrating their victims is forbidden by law in Romania; this includes the Ceaușescu era. Dinel Staicu was fined 25,000 [[Romanian leu|lei]] (approx. 9,000 US dollars) for praising Ceaușescu and displaying his pictures on his private television channel (''3TV Oltenia'').<ref>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071220071037/http://www.cna.ro/comunicare/comunic/2006/c0207.html |title=Official communique of the National Board of the Audio-Visual |url=http://www.cna.ro/comunicare/comunic/2006/c0207.html |work=cna.org |archive-date=20 December 2007 |language=ro }}</ref> 
Opinion polls held in 2010 indicated that 41% of Romanians would have voted for Ceaușescu if given the opportunity<ref>{{cite web |first=John |last=Horvath |url=https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Ceausescu-Back-from-the-Dead-3386499.html |title=Ceausescu – Back from the Dead |work=[[Heise.de]] |date=8 August 2010 |access-date=28 December 2012}}</ref><ref name="balkanalysis.com">{{cite news|url=http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/ |first=Elena |last=Dragomir |title=In Romania, Opinion Polls Show Nostalgia for Communism  |work=Balkanalysis |date=27 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111110854/http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/ |access-date=28 December 2012|archive-date=11 January 2012 }}</ref> and 63% felt their lives were better before 1989.<ref name="balkanalysis.com"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://adevarul.ro/stiri-interne/evenimente/noul-partid-comunist-roman-condus-de-un-sofer-de-1137465.html |language=ro |trans-title=The new Romanian Communist Party, led by a taxi driver |title=Noul Partid Comunist Român, condus de un șofer de taxi |first1=Iulian Andrei |last1=Crăciun |first2=Cristian |last2=Delcea |work=[[Adevărul]] |date=7 November 2010 |access-date=28 December 2012}}</ref> In 2014, the percentage of those who would vote for Ceaușescu reached 46%.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/social/sondaj-46-dintre-romanii-intervievati-l-ar-vota-acum-pe-nicolae-ceausescu-la-prezidentiale-227412 |trans-title=POLL. 46% of Romanians surveyed would now vote for Nicolae Ceausescu in the presidential election |title=SONDAJ. 46% dintre românii intervievați l-ar vota acum pe Nicolae Ceaușescu la prezidențiale |work=DIGI24.ro |access-date=25 June 2016 |date=10 April 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821180553/http://www.digi24.ro/Stiri/Digi24/Actualitate/Social/SONDAJ+66+dintre+romanii+intervievati+l-ar+vota+acum+pe+Nicolae+ |archive-date=21 August 2016}}</ref> On 27 December 2018, a poll found 64% of people had a good opinion of him.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://transylvanianow.com/ceausescu-still-most-beloved-president-of-romania/ |title=Ceaușescu still most beloved President of Romania |first=Dénes |last=Albert |access-date=16 September 2022 |date=27 December 2018}}</ref>

After Ceaușescu's overthrow, politicians such as [[Corneliu Vadim Tudor]] have coupled the image of his regime with the [[Ion Antonescu]] regime into their versions of a national Pantheon.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

==Cultural depictions==
Ceaușescu is played by Constantin Cojocaru in the 2011 Swiss docudrama ''Die letzten Tage der Ceaușescus''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Die letzten Tage der Ceausescus |url=https://swissfilms.ch/de/movie/die-letzten-tage-der-ceausescus/1a772f8b9aaf46eeabd09437c2daa60e |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=swissfilms |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=International Institute of Political Murder » Die letzten Tage der Ceausescus |url=https://international-institute.de/ceausescu/ |access-date=17 April 2025 }}</ref>

The final song on the 2012 album ''[[Bish Bosch]]'' by [[Scott Walker (singer)|Scott Walker]] titled “The Day The ‘Conducator’ Died (An Xmas Song)” is in reference to Ceaușescu (and his death on Christmas Day.)

A comedy musical enjoyed a world premiere at Seven Arts in [[Leeds]] on Sunday 21 May 2017. It was written by Tom Bailey and Greg Jameson, with songs by Allan Stelmach, and depicted Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu and their son Valentin in a piece of meta musical theatre that was also a comment upon [[celebrity|celebrity culture]] and the role social media and political correctness play in creating [[Outcast (person)|social pariahs]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/reviews/music/ceausescu-the-musical/|title=Ceausescu the Musical {{!}} the culture vulture|website=theculturevulture.co.uk|date=23 May 2017|access-date=24 May 2017}}</ref>

==Honours and awards==
Ceaușescu was made a knight of the Danish [[Order of the Elephant]], but this appointment was revoked on 23 December 1989 by the then queen of Denmark, [[Margrethe II of Denmark|Margrethe II]].

Ceaușescu was likewise stripped of his honorary [[Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath]] (GCB) status by [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom]] on the day before his execution. Queen Elizabeth II also returned the insignia of the [[Order of the Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania]] that Ceaușescu had bestowed upon her in 1978.<ref>The Official Website of the British Monarchy: [http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Honours/Honours.aspx "Queen and Honours"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116034858/http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Honours/Honours.aspx |date=16 January 2013 }}, retrieved on 13 October 2010.</ref>

On his 70th birthday in 1988, Ceaușescu was decorated with the [[Karl Marx Order|Karl-Marx-Order]] by then [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]] (SED) chief [[Erich Honecker]]; through this he was honoured for his rejection of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s reforms.

===Romanian orders, decorations and medals===
All titles and decorations were revoked by the provisional government on 26 December 1989.
* Commemorative Medal of the 5th Anniversary of the Republic of Romania
* Commemorative Medal of the 35th Anniversary of the Liberation of Romania
* [[Hero of the Socialist Republic of Romania|Hero of Romania]], three times (1971, 1978 and 1988)
* Hero of Socialist Labour (Romania) (1964)
* Military Merit Medal (Romania)
* [[Order of the Victory of Socialism]] (accompanied each Hero of Romania)
* Order of Labour
* Order of Homeland Defence
* Order of the Star of the Republic of Romania

===Foreign state orders, decorations and medals===
Several foreign decorations were revoked at the time of the collapse of Ceaușescu's rule.
; Argentina
: Collar of the [[Order of the Liberator General San Martín]] (1974)
; Austria
: [[Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria|Great Star of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria]] (1969)<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/AB/AB_10542/imfname_251156.pdf |title=Reply to a parliamentary question |language=de |page=277 |access-date=13 October 2012 }}</ref>
; Brazil
: [[Order of the Southern Cross]] (1975)
; Bulgaria
: [[Order of Stara Planina]] (1983)
; Cuba
: [[Order of José Martí]] (1973)
: Twentieth Anniversary Commemorative Medal of the Assault on the [[Moncada Barracks]] (1976)
; Czechoslovakia
: Grand Collar of the [[Order of the White Lion]] (1987; subsequently expelled 1989)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.prazskyhradarchiv.cz/file/edee/vyznamenani/cs_rbl.pdf |title=Československý řád Bílého lva 1923–1990 | website=ARCHIV KANCELÁŘE PREZIDENTA REPUBLIKY}}</ref>
; Denmark
: Knight of the [[Order of the Elephant]] (1980; subsequently expelled 1989)
; France
: [[Legion of Honour]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dikötter |first=Frank |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mX7dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |title=Dictators: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-5266-2698-1 |location=London |page=177 |language=en}}</ref>
; East Germany
: [[Order of Karl Marx]] ([[German Democratic Republic]], 1988) – for his defence of Marxism by rejecting Gorbachev's reforms
; West Germany
: Special class of the Grand Cross of the [[Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]] ([[West Germany]], 1971)
; Greece
: Athens Gold Medal (1976)
; Iran
: Commemorative Medal of the [[2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire|2500th Anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire]] (Empire of Iran, 1971).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://badraie.com/guests.htm|title=Grand State Banquet|access-date=12 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040302191209/http://badraie.com/guests.htm|archive-date=2 March 2004}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://badraie.com/images/ceausescu.JPG|title=badraie.com|website=badraie.com|access-date=19 March 2014|archive-date=7 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307051055/http://badraie.com/images/ceausescu.JPG|url-status=dead}}</ref>
; Italy
: Knight Grand Cross decorated with Grand Cordon of the [[Order of Merit of the Italian Republic]] (1973)
; Malaysia
: Honorary Recipient of the [[Order of the Crown of the Realm]] (1984)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.istiadat.gov.my/v8/images/stories/1984.pdf|title=Senarai Penuh Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Persekutuan Tahun 1984.|access-date=29 August 2019|archive-date=29 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029203254/http://www.istiadat.gov.my/v8/images/stories/1984.pdf}}</ref>
; Norway
: Grand Cross of the [[Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olaf]] (expelled 1989)
; Peru
: Grand Cross with Diamonds of the [[Order of the Sun of Peru]] (1973)<ref>{{cite news | title = Condecorados: Orden El Sol del Perú | location = Lima, Peru |publisher = Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores | language = es | url = https://cde.gestion2.e3.pe/doc/0/0/1/5/2/152563.pdf | access-date = 7 February 2024 | archive-date = 8 April 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230408163608/https://cde.gestion2.e3.pe/doc/0/0/1/5/2/152563.pdf }}</ref>
; Philippines
: Grand Collar of the Ancient [[Order of Sikatuna]] (1975)<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1975/05/05/presidents-week-in-review-april-7-april-13-1975/|title=President's Week in Review: April 7 – April 13, 1975|newspaper=Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines|access-date=22 May 2020|archive-date=6 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606152717/https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1975/05/05/presidents-week-in-review-april-7-april-13-1975/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
; Portugal
: Collar of the [[Order of Saint James of the Sword]] (1975)
; Soviet Union {{nobold|(All Soviet decorations and medals were revoked in 1990)}}
: [[Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"]] (1975)
: [[Order of Lenin]], twice (Soviet Union, 1973 and 25 January 1988)<ref>{{Cite news |date=3 February 1988 |title=Указ Президиума Верховного Совета О награждении Генерального секретаря Румынской коммунистической партии, Президента Социалистической Республики Румынии товарища Николае Чаушеску орденом Ленина |url=https://tert.nla.am/archive/NLA%20TERT/SSRM19381954/1988/5.pdf |work=Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR |language=ru |issue=5}}</ref>
: [[Order of the October Revolution]] (1983)
; Sweden
: Knight of the [[Royal Order of the Seraphim]] (1980)
; United Kingdom
: Knight Grand Cross of the [[Most Honourable Order of the Bath]] (1978; expelled 1989)

===Foreign non-state decorations===
* Gold Collar of the [[Olympic Order]] ([[International Olympic Committee]], 1984), for decision not to participate in the boycott of the [[1984 Summer Olympics|Los Angeles Olympics]]
* Gold Medal Plate of the [[Istituto Affari Internazionali|International Relations Institute of Rome]], an Italian non-profit organisation (1979)

===Academic titles===
Honorary degrees from the [[University of Bucharest]] (1973), [[Lebanese University]] (1974), [[University of Buenos Aires]] (1974), [[Autonomous University of Yucatán]] (1975), [[University of Nice Sophia Antipolis]] (1975), [[University of the Philippines]] (1975), [[University of Liberia]] (1988) {{citation needed span|and [[Kim Il Sung University]] [[North Korea]] (1988).|date=August 2022}}

==In popular culture==
Two documentaries have been made about Ceaușescu in the 21st century. The first film was written and directed by [[Ben Lewis (writer)|Ben Lewis]] for the [[BBC]], titled ''The King of Communism: The Pomp & Pageantry of Nicolae Ceaușescu'' (2002).

The second, ''Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu'' (2011), was created by Romanian writer/director [[Andrei Ujica]], and an English language version of the film was released simultaneously, titled ''The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Dargis |first=Manohla |date=8 September 2011 |title=Popular Ascendance to Grim Downfall |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/movies/autobiography-of-nicolae-ceausescu-by-andrei-ujica-review.html |access-date=17 April 2025 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

The ''[[Left Behind]]'' novels by [[Tim LaHaye]] and [[Jerry B. Jenkins]] feature a fictional Romanian politician, [[Nicolae Carpathia]], who rises from Romania’s presidency to become a dictatorial world ruler.  Reviewers and scholars have noted that the series’s Antichrist, the Romanian politician Nicolae Carpathia, invites comparison with former Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, given his nationality, authoritarian rule, and personality cult.<ref>{{cite news |last=Goodstein |first=Laurie |title=The Apocalypse Can Wait, or Maybe Not |work=The New York Times |date=27 August 2000 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title=Why Evangelicals Love the End Times |magazine=Christianity Today |date=October 1999 }}</ref>

==Selected published works==
* ''Report during the joint solemn session of the CC of the Romanian Communist Party, the National Council of the Socialist Unity Front and the Grand National Assembly: Marking the 60th anniversary of the creation of a Unitary Romanian National State'', 1978
* ''Major problems of our time: Eliminating underdevelopment, bridging gaps between states, building a new international economic order'', 1980
* ''The solving of the national question in Romania (Socio-political thought of Romania's President)'', 1980
* ''Ceaușescu: Builder of Modern Romania and International Statesman'', 1983
* ''The nation and co-habiting nationalities in the contemporary epoch (Philosophical thought of Romania's president)'', 1983
* ''The history of the Romanian people in the view of the President'' (''Istoria poporului român în concepția președintelui''), 1988

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== Citations ==
{{reflist}}

== General sources ==
* ''Mic Dicționar Enciclopedic'' ("Small encyclopedic dictionary"), 1978
* Edward Behr, ''Kiss the Hand you Cannot Bite'', {{ISBN|0-679-40128-8}}
* [[Dumitru Burlan]], ''Dupa 14 ani – Sosia lui Ceaușescu se destăinuie'' ("After 14 Years: The Double of Ceaușescu confesses"). Editura Ergorom. 31 July 2003 (in [[Romanian language|Romanian]]).
* [[Juliana Geran Pilon]], ''The Bloody Flag. Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Spotlight on Romania'', {{ISBN|1-56000-062-7}}; {{ISBN|1-56000-620-X}}
* [[doi:10.1057/9781137500960 5|Gheorghe E. (2015) Nicolae Ceaușescu. In: Casey S., Wright J. (eds) Mental Maps in the Era of Détente and the End of the Cold War 1968–91. Palgrave Macmillan, London]]
* Marian Oprea, "Au trecut 15 ani – Conspirația Securității" ("15 Years Later: The Securitate Conspiracy"), in [https://web.archive.org/web/20050209133319/http://www.lumeam.ro/nr10_2004/index.html ''Lumea Magazin'' Nr 10, 2004]: (in Romanian; link leads to table of contents, verifying that the article exists, but the article itself is not online).
* Viorel Patrichi, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20041204211613/http://www.lumeam.ro/nr12_2001/politica_si_servicii_secrete.html Eu am fost sosia lui Nicolae Ceaușescu]" ("I was Ceaușescu's double"), ''Lumea Magazin'' Nr 12, 2001 (in Romanian)
* Stevens W. Sowards, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071015050852/http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/ ''Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History (The Balkans in the Age of Nationalism)''], 1996, in particular [https://web.archive.org/web/20050212093801/http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect24.htm Lecture 24: The failure of Balkan Communism and the causes of the Revolutions of 1989]
* [[Thomas Kunze]], Nicolae Ceauşescu: Eine Biographie. Links, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-211-5; 4., 2017, ISBN 978-3-86153-562-1., in romanian language: Rumänische Lizenzausgabe: Nicolae Ceauşescu. O biografie, editura Vremea, București, 2002, ISBN 973-645-025-2, in polish language: Ceauşescu. Piekło na Ziemi, Prószy´nski i S-ka, Warszawa, 2016, ISBN 978-83-8069-430-9.
* Victor Stănculescu, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14985 "Nu vă fie milă, au 2 miliarde de lei în cont"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041013005234/http://www.jurnalul.ro/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14985 |date=13 October 2004 }} ("Do not have mercy, they hold 2&nbsp;billion lei [33&nbsp;million dollars] in their account[s]"), in ''Jurnalul Național'', 22 November 2004
* John Sweeney, ''The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceaușescu'', {{ISBN|0-09-174672-8}}
* [[Stelian Tănase]], "Societatea civilă românească și violența" ("Romanian Civil Society and Violence"), in ''Agora'', issue 3/IV, July–September 1991
* Filip Teodorescu, et al., [[s:Stenograma sedintei de audiere din 14 decembrie 1994|Extracts from the minutes of a Romanian senate hearing, 14 December 1994]], featuring the remarks of Filip Teodorescu.
* Cătălin Gruia, "[http://www.natgeo.ro/istorie/personalitati-si-evenimente/8435-viata-lui-nicolae-ceausescu?showall=1 Viata lui Nicolae Ceausescu]", in ''[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic Romania]]'', November 2007, pp.&nbsp;41–65
* Dennis Deletant (1995), ''Ceaușescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989'', {{ISBN|978-1563246333}} pub. M. E. Sharpe. p.&nbsp;351
* Pinstripes and Reds: An American Ambassador Caught Between the State Department & the Romanian Communists, 1981–1985 Washington, D.C.: Selous Foundation Press, 1987. {{ISBN|0-944273-01-7}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisource|Transcript of the closed trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu}}
* [http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_media/ultima-video.html Nicolae Ceaușescu's last speech in public]
* {{YouTube|XLnk-voR2MI|Full video of the trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu}} {{in lang|ro}}
* [http://www.country-studies.com/romania/demographic-policy.html Romania's Demographic Policy]
* Gheorghe Brătescu, [https://web.archive.org/web/20041230003913/http://clipa.com/pagpolitica638.htm ''Clipa'' 638: Un complot ratat] ("A failed scheme") (In Romanian)
* [https://cidc.library.cornell.edu/dof/romania/romania.htm Death of the Father: Nicolae Ceaușescu] Focuses on his death, but also discusses other matters. Many photos.

{{S-start}}
{{S-off}}
{{S-bef|before=Position established}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[President of Romania]]|years=28 March 1974 – 22 December 1989}}
{{S-aft|after=[[Ion Iliescu]]}}
{{S-break}}
{{S-bef|before=[[Chivu Stoica]]}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[State Council of Romania|President of the State Council]]|years=9 December 1967 – 22 December 1989}}
{{S-aft|after=Position abolished}}
{{S-break}}
{{S-ppo}}
{{S-bef|before=[[Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej]]}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party]]|years=22 March 1965 – 22 December 1989}}
{{S-aft|after=Position abolished}}
{{S-end}}
{{PCRGenSecs}}
{{Presidents of Romania}}
{{Leaders of the Ruling Parties of the Eastern Bloc}}
{{Refusenik movement and 1990s post-Soviet aliyah}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Communism|Politics|Romania}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceausescu, Nicolae}}
[[Category:Nicolae Ceaușescu| ]]
[[Category:1918 births]]
[[Category:1989 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century executions by Romania]]
[[Category:Annulled Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Atheism activists]]
[[Category:Anti-intellectualism]]
[[Category:Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies alumni]]
[[Category:Ceaușescu family|Nicolae]]
[[Category:Collars of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin]]
[[Category:Burials at Ghencea Cemetery]]
[[Category:Executed communists]]
[[Category:Executed mass murderers]]
[[Category:Executed presidents]]
[[Category:Executed Romanian people]]
[[Category:Filmed executions]]
[[Category:Frunze Military Academy alumni]]
[[Category:General secretaries of the Romanian Communist Party]]
[[Category:Grand Collars of the Order of Saint James of the Sword]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Heads of state and government who were later imprisoned]]
[[Category:Inmates of Doftana prison]]
[[Category:Inmates of Jilava Prison]]
[[Category:Inmates of Târgu Jiu camp]]
[[Category:Knights Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic]]
[[Category:Leaders ousted by a coup]]
[[Category:Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Romania)]]
[[Category:Members of the Great National Assembly]]
[[Category:Natalist politicians]]
[[Category:Neo-Stalinists]]
[[Category:People convicted of genocide]]
[[Category:People executed by Romania by firing squad]]
[[Category:People from Scornicești]]
[[Category:People of the Cold War]]
[[Category:People of the Romanian revolution]]
[[Category:People who were court-martialed]]
[[Category:Politicide perpetrators]]
[[Category:Presidents of Romania]]
[[Category:State Council of Romania]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Legion of Honour]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labour]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin]]
[[Category:Romanian anti-fascists]]
[[Category:Romanian atheists]]
[[Category:Romanian Communist Party politicians]]
[[Category:Romanian Land Forces generals]]
[[Category:Romanian Marxists]]
[[Category:Romanian nationalists]]
[[Category:Romanian politicians convicted of crimes]]
[[Category:Romanian prisoners and detainees]]
[[Category:Romanian revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Stalinism]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Olympic Order]]