A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

The Fall of Communism 1193

In sharp contrast, no liberalization of any kind took place in Romania.
Nicolae Ceaufescu (1918-1989), head of the Romanian Communist Party,
had brazenly adopted a position of relative independence, or “national com­
munism,” with respect to the Soviet Union, criticizing the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia, remaining neutral in the Sino-Soviet conflict, and refus­
ing to participate in Warsaw Pact military maneuvers. Ceau§escu forged
ahead with grandiose plans to generate industrial development. The results
were disastrous. Romania became, after Albania, the poorest country in Eu­
rope while caught in the increasingly mad grip of Ceau§escu’s “cult of per­
sonality.” The dictator ordered 1,500 villages in Transylvania razed to the
ground. These were largely in areas where many Hungarians resided, whom
he targeted while trying to garner support from Romanians with nationalist
appeals. He also ordered some of old Bucharest torn down to forge enor­
mous boulevards that would lead to his reviewing stand.

The Gorbachev Era

In the Soviet Union, in the meantime, Leonid Brezhnev reinforced the

powers of the oppressive Soviet bureaucracy and the prestige of the army

and the KGB (the secret police). Reflecting the chill in relations with the

United States, the Soviet Union, like its rival, poured more money into the

manufacture of arms. After Brezhnev died in 1982, he was succeeded by

Yuri Andropov (1914-1984), who, despite his long years in the KGB, was

somewhat more liberal than Brezhnev. Andropov acknowledged that there

was widespread inefficiency and corruption in Soviet economic planning

and government. He called for greater popular participation in economic

decision making and purged incompetent party hacks from important posi­

tions. Following Andropov’s death in 1984, his successor, Konstantine Cher­

nenko (191 1-1985) was quite ill when he came to power, and both he and

the Soviet state treaded water until his death the following year.

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ) became general secretary of the Communist

Party and thus head of the Soviet Union in 1985. Gorbachev had worked

his way up in the party youth organization and studied law at the University

of Moscow. Both his grandfathers had been arrested on false charges dur­

ing the Stalin era. Gorbachev assumed responsibility for Soviet agriculture.

Less instinctively xenophobic than other Soviet leaders, he was the first

Soviet leader since Lenin to have a university degree. Relatively young,

charming, flexible, and determined, Gorbachev was a master of Communist

Party machinations.

Gorbachev began by exorcizing some ghosts from the Stalinist past. Like

a number of optimistic party officials and intellectuals, Gorbachev believed

that the Prague Spring could come to Moscow, but that the Communist

Party should continue to dominate political life in the Soviet Union. He

embraced a policy known in Russian as glasnost: openness in government

combined with a greater degree of free expression. He put some liberals in