The
benevolent dictator Ceausescu ruled Romania with an iron fist, lording over the
frightened and defenseless population. His portrait was everywhere next to his
hideous wife, “the Mother of the Country.” She had given herself that title
along with a Ph.D. in chemistry. A fifth grade dropout, she had grandiose ideas
of her faux accomplishments.
Dad
hated Nicolae Ceausescu and his co-dictator wife, Elena, with a passion. He
never hid his utter disdain for the arrogant, narcissistic, and uneducated
couple who rose from the poverty of community organizing with empty promises of
paternal and maternal care for the weak, the poor, and the downtrodden, to a
life-style of the rich and famous.
Torturing,
imprisoning, and killing millions of innocents, the Ceausescus had appropriated
their possessions and amassed such a vast wealth, it was hard to tell how much
money he had in Swiss bank accounts, how much art, jewels, land, and homes.
The
dictator was proud that he gave “homes” to all his subjects, the proletariat, crowding
country and city folk alike into high-rise concrete apartment blocks, while
taking their homes and land for agricultural cooperatives or grandiose
buildings and palaces dedicated to the Communist Party. Hastily built of reinforced
concrete, the nine to twelve story apartments were Spartan, ugly, cold, dirty
from the heavy pollution, and chipping concrete chunks like loose teeth.
The
benevolent dictator made sure that there was no middle class left when he
finished his fundamental transformation of the former prosperous monarchy into
a socialist/communist republic. He kept changing his mind as to whether the
country was a socialist popular republic or a communist one, frequently altering
the Constitution on a whim, adding more articles, while robbing Romanians of
their former rights and freedoms.
People
were frightened to speak to their neighbors or relatives because nobody knew
who was an informer. The country had become a country of snitches for a few
extra lei (the official currency) a month, meat and other necessities, proper
medical treatment at the Communist Party polyclinics and hospitals, and access
to drugs at their well-stocked pharmacies. Adults turned in their own parents
and relatives. Children often did the same, without realizing that such
childish indiscretions would send their parents to jail.
Dad
was under the commies’ radar all the time because he refused to be a member of
their party and always blamed them publicly for destroying the country. He was
not shy to assign blame and to criticize the dear leader and his wife. Although
a pacifist who could not hurt a fly, Dad was always beaten and imprisoned every
time the Ceausescus traveled anywhere near my dad’s location.
The
peoples’ discontent and misery was palpable but they did not dare discuss their
thoughts with anybody. Dad had the courage and foolishness to say what was on
his mind. He did not care that the communists had built a very strong police
state: regular police, traffic police, security police, economic police, military
police, and ideology police. Dad really believed in human beings’ inalienable
right to freedom and economic independence, not dependence on an omnipotent
government. He saw every day how this all-powerful government robbed people and
gave back very little, while pretending to care.
Since
goods were in such short supply due to poor centralized planning by communist
bureaucrats, people learned to survive through stealing from work and
bartering. Dad hated theft and reported the culprits all the time. Since theft at
work started at the top and trickled down to the lowest ranks, orders were
often given to punish my dad for daring to expose the thievery. He was beaten
many times for his honesty. He always recovered, more resolute that he was
doing the right thing.
One
day his luck did run out. A savage beating and dropping from a certain height
into a metal shaving pit resulted into a cracked skull that was not treated at
all at the state-run hospital. Receiving little food or water, he died four
weeks later, a slow and agonizing death, shrinking to half his healthy size.
Dad
is in Heaven now, satisfied that his premature death was not in vain. Many
people who know and understand how a totalitarian regime robs humans of their
freedoms, are picking up the opposition against communism.
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