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A Communist Christmas {with gold, incense and myrrh}
Children of Ceausescu 1997 photo KENT KLICH
For many years after being executed, Nicolae Ceausescu caused yet stranger nostalgia; on the one hand by the severe nature in which he punished the small common crimes — which benefited the public and so it continued to be practiced after the revolution — and on the other hand, because he had long abandoned "The Red Orchestra" (Gilles Perrault), which for some meant that it could no longer be categorically said what was common in Eastern countries: «essentially, nothing new. Headquarters in Moscow.»
In addition to political crimes, which ended up in death or deportation, at the time of the former dictator, the Romanian Penal Code was so peculiar, that the theft of a simple appliance was sentenced up to 15 years in prison. And although infamous by their refined cruelty (many prisoners developed incurable ulcers because of rotten food poisoning, died of hunger, cold or ill-treatments), the truth is that in jails in Romania prisoners rarely did the entire time of their sentences, since it was customary to grant broad amnesties on the anniversaries of the President and on the dates of the Party’s Congresses. In 1977 the dictator Ceausescu ordered the release of thousands of prisoners, closed 50 jails, 3 hospital jails and 2 sanatoriums, arguing that in «a new society, there are only new men». New or old, women or children, the common Romanian citizen — compliant with its obligations and even inattentive to the vices of politics — was relentlessly punished: in Ceausescu's time, the whole country was a violent prison.
Gold Nicolae Ceausescu was born in 1918 in the small town of Scornicesti, in southern Romania, son of a peasant family, according to his official biography. He later joined the Union of Communist Youth in 1933, and three years later he joined the Romanian Communist Party. He integrated the Central Committee in 1952 and by 1956 was a part of the Politburo. In 1965 he was appointed general secretary of the Party and then became one of the most bloodthirsty Communist leaders of Eastern Europe, as far as to dare to face the tyranny of his native homeland (the «Moscow headquarters»).
On the ashes of 30 000 dwellings (one-third of Bucharest), he built a luxury palace, ironically called the People's House, the House Poporului, coated with the rarest marbles from Transylvania among many other extravagances and only comparable in magnitude to the premises of the Pentagon.
Strategically against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he received Nixon's visit in 1969, which granted him the benefits of a «good communist». After that, he was received with glory in the great capitals of Europe, Asia and Latin America by presidents and monarchs: the very Queen Mother of England awarded him a Royal Medal in 1978.
Incense Nicolae, the «genius of the Carpathians» and his wife Elena ("Madame CO2", as sarcastically she was treated when she achieved the direction of the National Institute for Chemical Research) were killed on December the 25th. The firing squad waited three long days to draw their weapons. The trial lasted 55 minutes.
The execution took place around 4 pm, in Targoviste, 50 km from Bucharest, and in the evening of that same Christmas Day, in 1989, state television showed the Romanians the result of over a hundred machine gun shots programmed in distance by meticulous marksmanship, to not mutilate the dictator's face. Certainly, the communists from Securitate needed brutal images that revealed to the people, unequivocally, the identity of the corpses and the wounded pride of the old Soviet order.
It is obvious that no one else would think of killing on Christmas Day, only the Communists!
Myrrh Precisely four days earlier, the Dutch Commissioner Frans Andriessen, on the service of capitalist Europe, had publicly said on the subject of Romania: «The European Commission is determined to encourage a peaceful transition to a pluralistic political and economic system in this country...» ("Echo de la Bourse", Journal of Brussels, 21.12.1989).
____ "The Red Orchestra" Or «L'Orchestre Rouge», 1964. Title of a book by the French writer Gilles Perrault, in fact, Peyrol Jacques, born in 1931. «L'Orchestre Rouge» (Die Rote Kapelle in German) was also the name of the network of Soviet informants who moved amongst the troops of Hitler and the resistance groups from various countries of Europe, during World War II. Maybe that's why Jacques Peyrol was repeatedly accused of espionage for the former USSR. «L'Orchestre Rouge» is also the title of a film by Jacques Rouffio, directed in 1989, based on the work of Perrault.
"In essence and once again nothing new. Headquarters in Moscow." João Bénard da Costa, Portuguese writer and cinephile (1935-2009), on the magazine O Tempo e o Modo, March-April 1969, concerning the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia after the "Prague Spring".
"in a new society, there are only new men" Quote from Ceausescu, according to journalist Luísa Meireles, on the newspaper EXPRESSO, October 21st 1991.
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