Anti Fascists

"In 1947 the Communists ousted their erstwhile allies from government, and in 1952 Dej became de facto dictator of Romania. With the elevation of his mentor, Ceausescu was able to secure his own position, and when Dej died in 1965, Ceausescu became party leader and head of state. Many Romanians hoped their new leader would inaugurate a period of greater liberalization and reform. In August 1968 such expectations intensified after Ceausescu’s denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and his defiant line made him a genuinely popular figure within Romania, and earned plaudits from the West. Nevertheless, he was quick to assure the Soviets that his country would remain a loyal member of the Eastern Bloc. Early optimism started to dissipate as Ceausescu began to fantasize about turning Romania into a world industrial power house; and as he did so, prospects for liberalization receded. Instead, Ceausescu became obsessed with shoring up his monopoly of power, and to this end he introduced a process of continual job rotation by which functionaries at every level were ordered to change position regularly, with the intention that no one would be able to build up a power base to challenge him. The fact that the system also led to administrative chaos does not seem to have troubled Ceausescu, who in March 1974 assumed the ability to rule by decree alone. His wife Elena became increasingly powerful as vice-premier, politburo member and self-declared ‘Mother of the Nation’: the Ceausescus ruled as a gruesome partnership and stories of her greed, ruthlessness and vainglory abounded."

"Ceausescu determined to combine the values of socialism with an ever more strident Romanian nationalism. This resulted in an increasingly bizarre series of campaigns aimed at cementing Romania’s national greatness. In March 1984, for example, concerned at the country’s low birth rate, Ceausescu decreed that women of child-bearing age were required to have monthly gynaecological examinations under the watchful eye of the Securitate, and if they were not pregnant had to justify why not. By the 1980s, as the country faced a mounting debt crisis, Ceausescu resolved to pay off Romania’s creditors by the end of the decade. To achieve this he ordered the mass exportation of the country’s agricultural produce and industrial manufactures. The result was a collapse in the standard of living, and the deaths of thousands as a result of poor nutrition and lack of modern medical care. Ceausescu responded by introducing austerity measures such as the ‘Rational Eating Programme’, which set per capita limits on consumption. The long-suffering people of Romania were finally released from the tyrant’s grip when the popular revolutions of 1989 brought the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe crashing down. The fall of the ‘Genius of the Carpathians’ proved to be bloody: after a summary trial, on Christmas Day 1989 he and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad as he sang the ‘Internationale’ and she shouted “You motherf-1s!’"

"Most of the Communist Party leaders who ruled the countries of Eastern Europe on behalf of their Soviet masters in the decades after the Second World War were pliant stooges. Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania was different. Not only did he make a break with the USSR, but he promoted his own cult of personality as self-declared ‘Genius of the Carpathians’ and diverted his poverty-stricken country’s resources to vast monuments to his own glory while using his Securitate secret police to murder his enemies. He and his wife Elena ruled as a grotesque partnership. When the communist Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989-90, they were the only two of the ousted leaders to be shot."

"Nicolae Ceaușescu aveva fama di eretico, ma era diversissimo da Tito. Era il più staliniano dei tiranni comunisti balcanici. Umili origini. In sintonia con le radici della sua terra, l'Oltenia, landa di foreste oscure e di atrocità ottomane."

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

"Gheorghiu-Dej put more people in prison, but he had a motive. Ceausescu had no motive to do what he did. Things were worse under the last ten years of Ceausescu. It was terrible what he did."

"And on December 17th the Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, desperate to preserve his own regime, ordered his army to follow the Chinese example and shoot down demonstrators in Timisoara. Ninety-seven were killed, but that only fueled the unrest, leading Ceausescu to call a mass rally of what he thought would be loyal supporters in Bucharest on December 21st. They turned out not to be, began jeering him, and before it could be cut off the official television transmission caught his deer-in-the-headlights astonishment as he failed to calm the crowd. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, fled the city by helicopter but were quickly captured, put on trial, and executed by firing squad on Christmas Day. Twenty-one days earlier, Ceausescu had met with Gorbachev in the Kremlin. Recent events in Eastern Europe, he warned, had placed "in grave danger not just socialism in the respective countries but also the very existence of the communist parties there." "You seem concerned about this," Gorbachev responded, sounding more like a therapist than a Kremlin boss. "[T]ell me, what can we do?" Ceausescu suggested vaguely: "[W]e could have a meeting and discuss possible solutions." That would not be enough, Gorbachev replied: change was necessary; otherwise one might wind up having to solve problems "under the marching of boots." But the East European prime ministers would be meeting on January 9th. And then Gorbachev unwisely assured his anxious guest: "You shall be alive on the 9[th of] January.""

"Up to 1971, by Marxist standards, he was able to generate new ideas within the limits of the system. After his visit to China and North Korea in 1971, something of crucial importance must have happened in his mind. What he saw in North Korea was an image of real socialism- that is, total regimentation. Of course, everything was fundamentally wrong from the beginning. But the practical approaches until 1971 were mitigated by a degree of realism and independent thinking which had not yet become militant and destructive nationalism. I think that all his life he believed in what he considered to be the generous idea of socialism and Communism. But in 1971 he apparently discovered the uses of pyramidal organisation inherent in one-party rule. And he discovered the crucial importance of the top of the pyramid. He hated and despised Stalin who had enjoyed just such a position, but Ceausescu hated Stalin because he saw him as the leader of an Evil Empire. The evilness of it was its imperial character, not its ideology. Hence Ceausescu was blind to his own messianic bent."

"The new kind of politicians lie all the time. But my father was one of the old kind, more of a fanatic. He was driven by some kind of fanaticism. This belief that you can do good. It's a sort of madness."

"Nicolae Ceaușescu had the fame of a heretic, but he was very different from Tito. He was the most Stalinist of the Balkan Communist tyrants, in tune with the past of his homeland, Oltenia, a land of dark forests and Ottoman atrocities."

"My brother! You are my brother for the rest of my life!"

"Frequently I have heard criticism and even accusations directed against me for my policy towards the countries of Eastern Europe. Some say that Gorbachev did not defend socialism in those countries, that he more or less 'betrayed his friends'. Others, on the contrary, accuse me for having been too patient with Ceaușescu, Honecker, Zhivkov and Husák, who had brought their states to the brink of catastrophe. I firmly reject these accusations. They derive from outdated notions about the nature of relations between our countries. We had no right to interfere in the affairs of our 'satellites', to defend and preserve some and punish and 'excommunicate' others without reckoning with the people's will."

"As if Ceausescu and company are to bring down imperialism!! If the world waits for the Ceausescus to do such a thing, imperialism will live for tens of thousands of years..."

"I would like to salute [Ceaușescu's] intransigent patriotism and ferocious will for independence. A veritable amity links me to him."

"The anti-Russian stance of one of Communism's most unpleasant dictators meant that Ceausescu was well regarded in the West, while he terrorized and impoverished the Romanian people. He rose through the ranks of the Party, then used an effective secret police to stay in power for decades until Communism collapsed around him and the Romanians revolted. He was executed after a summary trial, despite his claims of bringing great benefits to the country."

"Our goals are the same, to have a just system of economics and politics, to let the people of the world share in growth, in peace, in personal freedom, and in the benefits to be derived from the proper utilization of natural resources. We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people."

"Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to pass a verdict on the defendants Nicolae Ceaușescu and Elena Ceaușescu who have committed the following offenses: Crimes against the people. They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be. Because of the crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two defendants."

"It's expensive to keep Communism alive today. I've already got a huge foreign debt staring me in the face, and I can't reduce it by exporting tomatoes or toilet paper. We should be making dollars any way we can. And we should be exporting arms any way and every way, openly and secretly, legally or by smuggling-I don't care how."

"Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu, all children Are bringing you burning love from their souls, Because you, leading the Party and the people, Are teaching us to move forward. When we say Ceaușescu, we all know That we say liberty, truth and steadfastness. That's why we love you with ardor, With all that is heart in us and in Romania."

"Oil, Jews and Germans, are our most important export commodities."

"Our experience shows that today the West is commendably eager to encourage the slightest sign of independence within the Soviet bloc. Let's take advantage of their eagerness... We must make cleverness our national trait... Stop showing a sullen, frowning face and clenched fist to the West. Start making it feel compassion for us, and you'll see how fast Western boycotts change into magnanimity. Let's present Romania as a Latin island in the Slavic sea... Our millenia-old traditions of independence are now up against Moscow's political centrism... A pawn between two superpowers."

"Dialectical materialism works like cocaine, let's say. If you sniff it once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it day after day, though, it will make you into an addict, a different man."

"The escalating pace of the change that seemed graspable was indicated by a slogan of the Velvet Revolution: ‘Poland – ten years, Hungary – ten months, German Democratic Republic – ten weeks, Czechoslovakia – ten days’. The public nature of the pressure for change was important as it could be captured by a domestic media no longer under state control, as well as by the international media. Scenes of East Germans travelling West were followed by those of the demolition of the Berlin Wall. In December 1989, in turn, they were succeeded by demonstrators in the capital Bucharest booing Nicolae Ceauşescu, the Romanian dictator, when he spoke in public. Abetted by the vicious Secret Police, he sought to resist reform by the use of force against demonstrators. However, Ceauşescu was overthrown after mass demonstrations. The army, which played a key role, providing force sufficient to overawe the Secret Police, was responsible for his execution on Christmas Day."

"Stealing from capitalism is not like stealing out of our own pockets. Marx and Lenin have taught us that anything is ethical, so long as it is in the interest of the proletarian class and its world revolution."

"You need not admit your mistakes, mister. In 1947, we assumed power, but under completely different circumstances. In 1947, King Michael showed more dignity than you. And you might perhaps have achieved the understanding of the Romanian people if you had now admitted your guilt."

"There can be no justification to admit, in any way, the use of armed forced to intervene in the internal affairs of a WTO [Warsaw Treaty Organization] member country. The solving of domestic problems belongs exclusively to the Party and people of each country and any kind of interference can only do harm to the cause of socialism, friendship and collaboration among the socialist countries."

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

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

"He tells nothing but lies."

"In Bulgaria, the key development was not people power, but rather a crisis in the Communist Party as the elderly leader (he was born in 1911), Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party since 1954, no longer enjoyed the confidence of many of his colleagues, and did not have that of Gorbachev. Zhivkov had been completely slavish to the internal policies of the Soviet Union. As was true in all of the Eastern Bloc countries, standards of living, industrialisation, urbanisation, education, medical care and longevity went up in Bulgaria, from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s; having a southerly location helped considerably in encouraging a healthy diet. However, no dissent was tolerated. The intellectual discontent that ebbed and waned in Poland would never have been tolerated in Bulgaria. The Derzhava Sigurnost, Bulgaria’s KGB, were heavily repressive. From the mid-1980s, Zhivkov had expelled ethnic Turks from Bulgaria, forcing some 200,000–300,000 of them to flee to Turkey. Zhivkov did not have the mentality of a reformer although in the last month or so of his rule he introduced pseudo-reforms. However, in November 1989, opposition by Politburo colleagues led to his resignation. A pro-Gorbachev group took power in Bulgaria only to find itself under pressure from public expectations. Elections, held in June 1990, led to the former Communists winning power. Nevertheless, their inability to deal with the serious economic crisis and with strikes resulted in the formation in December of a coalition. The new constitution, promulgated in July 1991, was that of a democratic state."

"Competition principle does not mean a competitive edge, comrades."

"Now every day, every hour, everywhere there is mat'rial (material) for meeting demonstrations!"

"... possibly the most Aztec-like of all Europe's remaining Stalinists."

"The Spectator, 'TWO-FACED BUZZARDS', 12 December 1987"

"On the positive side, an objective analysis must conclude that Enver Hoxha's plan to mobilize all of Albania's resources under the regimentation of a central plan was effective and quite successful... Albania was a tribal society, not necessarily primitive but certainly less developed than most. It had no industrial or working class tradition and no experience using modern production techniques. Thus, the results achieved, especially during the phases of initial planning and construction of the economic base were both impressive and positive."

"The Spectator contributor Peter Kemp, who was dropped into Albania during the second world war, was later asked what he thought of Albanians. 'What can you think of a nation,' he answered, 'whose emblem is a two-faced buzzard?' Three years ago, I was with Peter Kemp in Leon, Nicaragua, when one of us spotted the news of the death of Enver Hoxha, Albania's communist leader whom Peter had known in the war. Peter rose to his feet, lifted his beer-mug, and gave the toast: 'Stoke well the furnaces of Hell!' Since Hoxha's death, his long-time interpreter has gone into exile, where he reveals that his former boss indulged in sexual practices which, in the words of the Church of England, 'fall short of the Christian ideal'. He was a rampant and aggressive sodomite who murdered many of those he embraced as well as those who refused him. The late Enver Hoxha, after the second world war, conferred with his namesake Fadil Hoxha, a senior communist in Kosovo, on whether to form an alliance. The break between Tito and Stalin put paid to the notion. Recently Fadil Hoxha fell from grace for making what he later described as a joke. To someone who had complained of the numerous rapes of Serb women in Kosovo, Hoxha replied that if more Serb women were prostitutes, there would be less rape."

"Albania's Enver Hoxha was unusual in being well read in the European literature classics - and Molotov thought his cosmopolitanism a reason for suspicion. But Hoxha was a conventional communist dictator in denying his people access to disapproved alien culture."

"Hoxha seems to be well informed about literature, the theater, and philosophy, particularly the philosophy of education... He might well be pictured holding the sword of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one hand and the Western "lamp of learning" on the other."

"Hoxha grew up in a world of blood feuds and skulduggery. His country was still part of the Ottoman Empire when he was born. It was a world of Islam, male chauvinism and cultural and philosophical backwardness. He fought his way out of this. He played a major role in building a Communist movement in extremely harsh and adverse conditions and held power longer than any non-hereditary leader in the world-more than forty years. He saw it all. This alone entitles him consideration, even if not respect."

"Hoxha's picture is plastered on just about every wall in the land. His profile adorns Albania's monetary unit, the lek, and at meetings of the Communist Central Committee (most of whom are related to each other and to the boss by blood or marriage) Hoxha speaks from a podium decorated with a plaster bust of himself. Like his country, Hoxha is full of surprises. Instead of being a rough, tough mountain chieftain, he is a former schoolteacher and was the pampered son of a well-to-do Moslem merchant. Though he has the mentality of a brigand, his manners are those of a cultivated bourgeois and reflect his education at universities in France and Belgium."

"In Cambodia, the Cambodian people, communists and patriots, have risen against the barbarous government of Pol Pot, which was nothing but a group of provocateurs in the service of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Chinese revisionists, in particular, which had as its aim to discredit the idea of socialism in the international arena... The anti-popular line of that regime is confirmed, also, by the fact that the Albanian embassy in the Cambodian capital, the embassy of a country which has given the people of Cambodia every possible aid, was kept isolated, indeed, encircled with barbed wire, as if it were in a concentration camp. The other embassies, too, were in a similar situation. The Albanian diplomats have seen with their own eyes that the Cambodian people were treated inhumanly by the clique of Pol Pot and Yeng Sari. Pnom Pen was turned into a deserted city, empty of people, where food was difficult to secure even for the diplomats, where no doctors or even aspirins could be found. We think that the people and patriots of Cambodia waited too long before overthrowing this clique which was completely linked with Beijing and in its service."

"He is very handsome and leaves a good impression. He is quite cultured, but you sense Western influence on his upbringing."

"Nevertheless, Marxism-Leninism has not disappeared, it is living and flourishing as an ideology and a reality, materialized in the socialist social system constructed according to its teachings. Exemplifying this is socialist Albania, the Marxist-Leninist parties, and those millions and millions of workers and peasants who are fighting every day for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, for democracy and national liberation. No force, no torture, no intrigue, no deception can eradicate Marxism-Leninism from the minds and hearts of men."

"Hoxha was not just 'quite' cultured, he was very cultured. In spite of coming from the most backward country in Europe, he was by far the best-read head of any Communist party in the bloc. On visits to the other countries in Eastern Europe, he often comments on the philistinism of his bloc colleagues. Hoxha knew fluent French and had a working knowledge (either verbal or written) of Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Russian and English. The range of references in his memoirs is not what one would expect from a Balkan ex-Muslim Stalinist."

"Our people, small in numbers, have fought during their whole existence. [The British] have fought too, but the wars of our two people have been of different characters. Our country has been invaded many times, but we have always fought the enemies, we have driven them out and we have never mixed blood with them..."

"I know about your [British] system of democracy, but in that system the workers 'hold keys of straw', as an expression of ours puts it. It is democracy for the capitalists, for the lords, but not for the workers. When we win we shall establish democracy, but not like that democracy of yours. In our country there will be democracy only for the people, while the 'keys of straw' will be in the hands of the beys, aghas and the bajraktars who have always opressed and betrayed the people."

"The canon of the Sharia and the Church, closely linked with the laws of the bourgeosie, treated women as a commodity, a thing to be bought and sold by the male... Just as the bourgeosie had made the worker into its proletarian, so had the savage ancient canons of the [shariah], the Church, feudalism and the bourgeosie, reduced woman to the proletariat of the man."

"The views of Tito and his associates showed from the very beginning that they were far from being “hard-line Marxists”, as the bourgeoisie calls the consistent Marxists, but “reasonable Marxists”, who would collaborate closely with all the old and new bourgeois and reactionary politicians of Yugoslavia."

"The propaganda [the Communist Party of Yugoslavia] used and the authority the party had won during the national liberation war and during the initial steps of the construction of Yugoslavia after the war gave the Yugoslavian working class the impression that this party was in the vanguard. In reality it was not the vanguard of the working class but of a new bourgeois class that had begun to settle in. This class relied strongly on the prestige of the national liberation war of the peoples of Yugoslavia for its own counter-revolutionary aims, while it obscured the perspectives of the construction of the new society. Such a degenerate party like this was bound to lead Titoite Yugoslavia on anti-Marxist paths."

""Heroj Tito, druže Tito, naš Tito!" [Hero Tito, Comrade Tito, our Tito!]. This impressed itself on me because we had heard this slogan from the Italian fascists when they shouted, "Duce a noi!" [The Duce is ours!]. I was astonished how they could permit it."