Rise of Ceaușescu - Romanian National-Communism

"The Muscovite Faction" were literally Russian assets with no connection to the Romanian land and its people

President Sukarno of Indonesia once said: "Internationalism cannot thrive, if it is not rooted in the soil of nationalism. Nationalism cannot thrive if it does not live in the garden of internationalism."

Comicon is wild

This imbecil illiterate Ceaușescu terorize my teenage

well, Nazism started as national socialism, so why not a national-communism? Just different flavors of dictatorships.

Fascinating, thanks!

I think another great topic for a future video is something there’s little info around, and even less videos: the euphemistically called Big Excursion by Bulgaria. Terrible stuff! The Revival Process and/or Bulgarization in general can be the main topic if that is too narrow a subject for a whole video

This video is amazing! What is truly heart-breaking is how high were the Romanian hopes in the beginning of Ceausescu’s regime for a prosperous and independent future, only to be shattered by his ego-maniacal shift in the 60s.

This video is amazing! What is truly heart-breaking is how high were the Romanian hopes in the beginning of Ceausescu’s regime for a prosperous and independent future, only to be shattered by his ego-maniacal shift in the 60s.

National Communism and National socialism lol

Good video but a bit short and many important topics were skiped as industrialization, international afairs to the west and brutal crackdown of intelectuals and the orthodox church also brutal colectivisation after witch we still suffer today.

One thing: the Romans attacked the Dacians (as in the Roman Empire, not Romanian Empire)

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Awww.... love it when pompous Americans try to pronounce anything other than English words. They don't even try... hilarious!!! Who cares, amirite!!

Communism and Nationalism don't mix? National Socialism. The clue's in the name!

Great episode but I think the tensions between the USSR and Romania during 1968 were heavily understated. Both Romania and the Soviet Union mobilized on either side of the border. Romanian army contingents on joint exercises in Central Asia were detained and put into camps where they had to stay for months. LBJ had to send Teddy Sorensen to Bucharest with the message ”Ceausescu better stop grandstanding or else everything is gonna blow up. The US is not going to help Czechoslovakia and sure as hell won’t come to Romania’s rescue.”

Anyone who says the communism and nationalism don’t mix, clearly doesn’t know what communism is.

*național socialism

This is a pretty good short review of those times (some of us still remember them). BTW, apparently Brezhnev even tried to slam Ceausecu during a private meeting.

North Korea is very nationalist due to the idea Juche.

Do you understand that communism is when people in charge? And yet you call pretty much fascist Romania communist. Why? What's your goal in perverting the facts?

Communism is part of the Socialist International.

Nazi is really nazi sozi, national socialism.

Horrible regime, just anything that is even slightly on the Left just sucks and makes no sense.

As a Romanian
Thank you!

This narrative completely buries the fact that King Michael I had to risk his life by staging a very dangerous coup, in order to "switch sides". Also he was very young, around 20 years old at the time, and had virtually no political experience. One of my pet peeves is how much courage and patriotism he demonstrated, and it got buried by decades of Soviet and then Romanian propaganda. Young man saved a lot of lives with his courage.

We have to call it national communism cause calling it what it was national socialism raises uncomfortable questions

I lived in those times. What you said about assimilating Hungarians and denying their identity is not true. Hungarians were present in all political structures of the Communist Party in proportion to their numbers. In the cities where there were Hungarian communities, they were integrated into the local party apparatus. There were Hungarian language classes made especially for Hungarian children in every school, in the areas where Hungarians also lived. They learned everything in Hungarian at school, except for the Romanian language classes.
Communist Romania had the theory of the Romanian Nation and Cohabiting Nationalities. The Cohabiting Nationalities were those who had not lived on the territory of Romania during the Dacian Kingdom. Both the Romanian Nation and the Cohabiting Nationalities had the same rights.
As for the Jews and Germans, no one asked them to leave. On the contrary! State policy did not encourage the emigration of anyone from the country, regardless of nationality. All those who lived in Romania wanted to leave, but only the Jews and the Germans had help from outside and were able to go.
Please present the truth and not the theses of anti-Romanian propaganda.
I speak here as a witness.

Even though i dislike communism, i still miss this old school left.

0.26 including Indonesia during Sukarno guided democracy era in 1959 until 1965.

Another evidence that there are no significant differences between nazism and communism.

I've been to Bucharest and the Romanian Museum. There's and entire section about toys and the ones from the Communist wra are fascinating.

The problem with communism is the problem with any ideology claiming some bright universal future for everyone. What happens when you have to coexist with the alleged 'enemy'?Ie the Eastern Bloc vs the West. Well you kinda have to find a workaround a justification for this coexistence. Something that makes sense. So a long term tendency is for such regimes to increasingly focus inward. To adopt nationalism as a rallying call. Because the 'enemy' is but isn't. He's got an embassy and everything. So you need something else to keep the populace engaged.

Very nice and insightful video! I just want to ask, did you guys cover something similar to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam?

During the Cold War era, I don't think most Americans knew much about the country of Romania until the Women's gymnastics' team took center stage at the Olympics (Nadia Comaneci scoring a perfect "10" which had never been done), receiving much media adulation/attention.
If Ceausescu was a Nationalist, he may have used his power to benefit himself and his cronies rather than the Romanian people as a whole. When the Ceausescu Communist government fell, him and his wife were arrested by Romanian authorities and executed (much like Italian fascist Benito Mussolini and his mistress were executed by Italian partisans during the closing days of WWII).
I may be wrong in the details, but that's the way I remember those events growing up during the Cold War era.

As I always said, right wing capitalism has failed, proof with ceausescu

A major error. Romania did not adopt a neutral position regarding the Sino-Soviet Split. The 1964 document was unique in the sense that it was the only Soviet satelite in Europe that supported the Chinese point of vie. Romania did not adopt Maoism as Albania later did, but it firmly supported China in its dispute with the Kremlin.

there is another topic that you did not touch upon. during the interwar period, the fascist movement in Romania, called among other names "the iron guard", altough deeply anti-communist, especially during the 2nd half of the 1930s became socialist. their rethoric was deeply nationalist and were tolerated by the estabilishment because of this capacity to attract the workers under their nationalist umbrella and acting as a counterweight to the communists.
This happened because they realized that their initial focus, the peasants, were less mobile or prone to large demonstrations. The urban working class on the other hand were easy to mobilize, deeply unhappy of their condition, prone to violence and available on hand in the urban areas. The fact that they just emigrated into the cities and were former peasants themselves helped the focus transitioning onto them.
After gathering them under their umbrella, the leader of the iron guard started losing his grip on this new faction, which was pro-revolution. In his own view, he did not want a social revolution because he was marked by the Spanish civil war, the Bolshevik fight against religion and the soviet risk on the eastern border.
He wanted a spiritual revolution and for this he advocated against violent actions or takeovers.
After his death, the pro-revolution faction took over and it ended as we all know it. But this faction that he grew under his umbrella eventually became the base for communisms, many legionnaires, especially the new workers faction, became communists after ww2 while others only endorsed it after the events that you present here, when nationalism became a centerpiece of the regime.
All in all, many argue that this is the genesis of the nationalist-communists movement in Romania.

There is a flawed idea that life in Romania worsened in 1971 , following first visit of Ceausescu in North Korea and adoption of Korean style cult of personality . As one who have lived those years , I can tell you that this is totally wrong . The 70s were the best years Romanians ever had up to that point .
In the early 70s , Romania developed a lot of ties with the West , following Ceausescu's stance against invasion of Czechoslovakia . Romania was seen as a possible weak spot in the Communist World . Western technology , loans, investments and help were transferred to Romania , and with it came a relaxed attitude towards Western culture and way of life . Life was best of what Romanians ever had , goods were plentiful , censorship was less , entertainment was everywhere , people enjoyed a good life .
The things changed after the 1978 visit in North Korea and the failure of Ceausescu to deliver some democratic reforms asked by West in exchange for all the assistance they provided to Romania . The shit hit the fan in the 80s when Romania lost the commercial advantages in relation with USA and the other Western countries stopped their assistance due to missing democratic reforms and human rights . Romania became kind of isolated from both worlds and struggled to pay it's national debt . It succeeded in 1989 , but at the cost of huge degradation of wealth and living standard of it's people .

Ceaușescu’s Romania was like something straight out of one of more batshit insane HOI4 mods.

I like your prononciation, it can be seen you tried tobsay romanian names right

Gheorghe = the “h” disconnects the g from the e, so the g sounds like in engl. “grunt”, not like in Jesus

The Commies didn't want to leave ComicCon

Ceausescu brought toghether elements from the worst of 20th Century Romania. Fascist had one type of enemy in mind, Communist had another, Ceausescu had practically everyone.

Your next video on Romania should cover the atrocities that took place in Romanian prisons in the 1950’s. Horrors like those CANNOT be forgotten.

Romania had more freedom in its foreign affairs as a Warsaw Pact member than now as a NATO member.