Ceausescu was blind to his fate
After more than 20 years as president of the Communist Party Council and de facto sole ruler, Nicolae Ceausescu was killed by firing squad, with his wife, on December 25, 1989. A trial lasting two hours had found the couple guilty of war crimes and bankrupting the nation.
The Ceausescus had been held captive by the militia for three days after their capture on December 22, as they tried to flee a rally in Bucharest by helicopter. Despite widespread regional unrest, when protests broke out in the western city of Timisoara over the harassment of a dissident Hungarian priest, Ceausescu had refused to take the rebels seriously. He went on a trip to Iran, leaving arrangements to his wife, Elena, who was deputy premier, and the army. On his return, Ceausescu again misjusged public mood, calling a pro-government rally, which turned against him.
The brief but bloody Romanian revolution followed revolution all over Communist Eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain had begun to topple with key political reforms in Hungary in 1988 and from then onwards, anti-regime movements swept Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and East Germany, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Even without the Timisoara protests, plots by top communists meant that his days were probably numbered.
Read entire article at Times (UK)
The Ceausescus had been held captive by the militia for three days after their capture on December 22, as they tried to flee a rally in Bucharest by helicopter. Despite widespread regional unrest, when protests broke out in the western city of Timisoara over the harassment of a dissident Hungarian priest, Ceausescu had refused to take the rebels seriously. He went on a trip to Iran, leaving arrangements to his wife, Elena, who was deputy premier, and the army. On his return, Ceausescu again misjusged public mood, calling a pro-government rally, which turned against him.
The brief but bloody Romanian revolution followed revolution all over Communist Eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain had begun to topple with key political reforms in Hungary in 1988 and from then onwards, anti-regime movements swept Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and East Germany, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Even without the Timisoara protests, plots by top communists meant that his days were probably numbered.