Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian communist politician and statesman. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last communist leader of Romania. He was also the country's head of state from 1967, serving as President of the State Council and from 1974 concurrently as President of the Republic, until his overthrow and execution in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-Communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year.
Ion Iliescu is a Romanian politician and engineer who served as President of Romania from 1989 until 1996 and from 2000 until 2004. Between 1996 and 2000 and also from 2004 to 2008, the year in which he retired, Iliescu was a senator for the Social Democratic Party (PSD), of which he is the founder and honorary president to this day.
The president of Romania is the head of state of Romania. Following a modification to the Romanian Constitution in 2003, the president is directly elected by a two-round system and serves for five years. An individual may serve two terms. During their term in office, the president may not be a formal member of a political party. The president of Romania is the supreme commander of the Romanian Armed Forces.
After the Communist rulership ended and the former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed in the midst of the bloody Romanian Revolution of December 1989, the National Salvation Front (FSN) seized power, led by Ion Iliescu. The FSN transformed itself into a massive political party in short time and overwhelmingly won the general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president. These first months of 1990 were marked by violent protests and counter-protests, involving most notably the tremendously violent and brutal coal miners of the Jiu Valley which were called by Iliescu himself and the FSN to crush peaceful protesters in the University Square in Bucharest.
The Greater Romania Party is a Romanian nationalist political party. Founded in May 1991 by Eugen Barbu and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, it was led by the latter from that point until his death in September 2015. The party is sometimes referred to in English as the Great Romania Party.
The Romanian revolution, also known as the Christmas Revolution, was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, including the countries in Eastern Europe, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Romanian revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the drumhead trial and execution of longtime Romanian Communist Party (PCR) General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. It was also the last removal of a Marxist–Leninist government in a Warsaw Pact country during the events of 1989, and the only one that violently overthrew a country's leadership and executed its leader; according to estimates, over one thousand people died and thousands more were injured.
General elections were held in Romania on 20 May 1990 to elect the President and members of Parliament. They were the first elections held after the overthrow of the communist regime six months earlier and the first free elections held in the country since 1937. It was also the first time the president had been directly elected, the position having been previously elected by the legislature since it was introduced in 1974.
Manea Mănescu was a Romanian communist politician who served as Prime Minister for five years during Nicolae Ceaușescu's Communist regime.
The National Salvation Front was the most important political organization formed during the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, which became the governing body of Romania in the first weeks after the collapse of the totalitarian communist regime. It subsequently became a political party, the largest post-communist party, and won the 1990 election with 66% of the national vote, under the leadership of then-President Ion Iliescu, who was elected with 85% of the vote.
Elena Ceaușescu was a Romanian communist politician who was the wife of Nicolae Ceaușescu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania. She was also the Deputy Prime Minister of Romania. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, she was executed alongside her husband on 25 December.
Ioan Totu was a Romanian economist and communist politician who served as the Vice Prime Minister of Romania from 1982 to 1985 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1986 to 1989, during the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu. He briefly served as President of the State Planning Committee in late 1989.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Socialist Republic of Romania on 17 March 1985. The Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy (FDUS), dominated by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and including other mass organisations, was the only group to contest the elections, and no prospective candidate could run for office without the Front's approval. Consequently, FDUS candidates won all 369 seats in the Great National Assembly, also ensuring the rubber-stamp confirmation of Nicolae Ceaușescu as President of Romania. The Assembly which elected him included several members of the Ceaușescu family, namely his wife Elena, son Nicu, and brother Ilie. Continuity was also ensured by other incumbents, including Nicolae Giosan as Assembly chairman and Constantin Dăscălescu as Prime Minister.
During the Cold War, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu presided over the most pervasive cult of personality within the Eastern Bloc. Inspired by the personality cult surrounding Kim Il Sung in North Korea, it started with the 1971 July Theses which reversed the liberalization of the 1960s, imposed a strict nationalist ideology, established Stalinist totalitarianism and a return to socialist realism. Initially, the cult of personality was just focused on Ceaușescu himself. By the early 1980s, however, his wife, Elena Ceaușescu—one of the few spouses of a Communist leader to become a power in her own right—was also a focus of the cult.
The trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu was held on 25 December 1989 by an Exceptional Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial created at the request of a newly formed group called the National Salvation Front. Its outcome was pre-determined, and it resulted in guilty verdicts and death sentences for former Romanian President and Romanian Communist Party General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu. The main charge was genocide. Romanian state television announced that Nicolae Ceaușescu had been responsible for the deaths of 60,000 people; the announcement did not make clear whether this was the number killed during the Romanian Revolution in Timișoara or throughout the 24 years of Ceausescu's rule.
The State Council was a body of state power in the Socialist Republic of Romania from 1961 to 1989. It was the collective head of state before the creation of the office of President in 1974.
An equivalent of presidential election was held in the Romanian People's Republic between 23 and 24 March 1965.
Marțian Dan was a Romanian politician and university professor.
The de-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania from the Soviet Union was the release of Romania from its Soviet satellite status in the 1960s. The Romanian leadership achieved the de-satellization partly by taking advantage of Nikita Khrushchev's errors and vulnerabilities. Romania's independence was tolerated by Moscow because its ruling party was not going to abandon communism. Although Romania remained a member of both the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, it was not to be a docile member of either.
This is a list of 1966 events that occurred in the Socialist Republic of Romania.
This is a list of 1967 events that occurred in the Socialist Republic of Romania.
