When I was growing up, I could not understand how an entire country was subdued into acceptance of their fate of living under the oppression of a tyrant installed in power by the Communist Party and the Soviet Bolshevik agents, a tyrant who was previously a shoe cobbler in his village of Scornicesti.
Yet this man,
as Funderburk wrote, was able to “erase the past and construct a new man and
society dependent upon the Communist Party and its organs of terror and
intimidation.” People were kept under
the heavy boot of oppression because they were hungry, cold, controlled by abject
fear, disarmed, and starved into submission by a huge army of Marxist cadre and
well-armed militias and soldiers, composed of brothers, fathers, neighbors, and
friends.
A few
citizens in the more sparsely populated areas in the Carpathian Mountains, hid in
the woods and kept their weapons, in opposition to the communists, but they
were eventually rounded up and killed.
There was no
place to hide from the well-paid informants of the Communist Party; often
snitches were their own awfully close relatives, distant relatives, and even “best”
friends turned informants, not because they believed in such an oppressive
ideology, but because they wanted more food, medicine, medical care, and other scarce
survival items.
Communist propaganda
played each day on radio, television, political meetings, children’s shows, schools,
and printed in newspapers, magazines, and on glossy posters. The music accompanying
the daily propaganda was martial, somber, frightening, and deafening.
The Dear
Leader was spoken of in biblical terms, he was the “creator of thought,” the “giver
of strength,” and, in a Ministry of Truth Orwellian vein, he was the One who gave
meaning and justification to our thoughts and ideas. Without him, a God-like
figure, we were worth nothing, we were dust under his shoes.
We owned
nothing in that miserable life, but we were NOT happy about it, just controlled
into submission by fear and indoctrination. And it showed! You would have been
hard-pressed to meet one smiling person on the street. Everybody frowned and
crowded in never-ending store lines, on buses, and on trains, like sardines in
a can. The evil and guilty, being driven around in fancy government-owned cars,
controlled the good and the innocent.
Ceausescu
was compared by his apparatchiks, poets, teachers, movie makers, writers, reporters,
to famous historical figures like Stefan Cel Mare (Stephen the Great), Vlad
Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), the bloody thirsty prince from the mid-1400s who
disposed of his enemies through strange methods of incarceration, torture, savage
beatings, or summary and quite painful executions.
Ceausescu
was, according to posters and recitations we had to make daily in meetings at
school and work, the framer of the “multilaterally developed socialist society
and Romania’s advance to communism.” All we knew was the reality of gurgling
empty tummies, bare pantries, and headaches from insufficient daily intake of
calories.
Ceausescu was
aggrandized to the point that he was featured in every classroom, every office,
every workshop, every factory, inside public buildings, outside buildings, in
sculptures, portraits, military decorations, churches, icons, paintings,
banners, statues, monuments, poems, plays, and monologues. Nothing happened in
Romania without his approval. His elaborate portrait was next to those of
ancient kings, princes, and voivodes.
On national
holidays such as August 23, celebrating the victory over fascism, or the
anniversary of the union of Transylvania with the rest of Romania, we had to
march on the main boulevard, dressed in our pioneers’ uniform with the red
bandana around the neck, carrying flags, placards with phrases like ‘Long
live communism,’ and portraits of the Dear Leader; but it was not a real celebration
for that occasion, it was a total deification of the tyrant, “the father of the
country,” “the light of knowledge and wisdom,” and many other absurd and
outlandish phrases invented by communists to venerate the cobbler dictator and
his semi-literate wife who “owned” a scientific doctoral degree she never
earned.
We lived in
an alternate universe, The Twilight Zone of sorts, where bad people were in
charge and good people were slaves to communism, to the Dear Leader and his family,
who lived in the lap of luxury in exorbitant villas thanks to confiscatory
stealing from citizens and the theft of the national patrimony and impoverishment
of the country. His foreign bank accounts held millions of dollars while the oppressed
masses starved.
During
plenary meetings, worshipping party members and those in attendance stood up
every two or three minutes, clapping and shouting praises for the glorification
of the dictator Ceausescu. While it was standard protocol to stand during the
entrance of a country’s leader, U.S. Ambassador David Funderburk refused to
stand as often after the initial standing at his entrance, and was, according
to his recollection, blacklisted.
The
worshipping went so far that, on his 67th birthday, Ceausescu was
compared to Orion (“Luceafarul”), born at Scornicesti, “Nicolae with a laurel
crown.” Imagine the nausea of having to take part in such surreal events.
Nobody dared
to mention God on Romanian television, because, to the communists, atheism was
their religion and Ceausescu was god. The word God had not been mentioned in
the media after the Bolsheviks took over the country.
But one man,
Ambassador David B. Funderburk, dared to use the word God in his July 4, 1982,
television address to the Romanian people. Ambassador Funderburk recounts in
his book, that month’s later church goers in the far north told him how dear and
meaningful the word God was to them, knowing that it came from the President of
the United States at the time, Ronald Reagan. . .... “Let us pray that God will
guide us and future generations in preserving the liberty that is the essence
of the American spirit.” (David B. Funderburk, Pinstripes and Reds, Selous
Foundation Press, 1987, p. 107)
Ceausescu
had an army of controllers on the Communist Party payroll, i.e., the dreaded
Securitate, the economic police, the street police, factory activists, school
activists, and informants on every city block, street, apartment complex, and
each entrance to the many public buildings, churches, schools, hospitals, factories,
and libraries.
Nothing was
left to chance and everything and everybody was constantly watched. His army
worked hard to track the rest of us because they had low level technology, no
Internet, computers, and smart phones.
Doctors and
nurses were ardent supporters of the police state and highly compliant.
Teachers followed the directives of the Ministry of Education. Fear and extra
pay to help one survive were strong motivators.
We could not
turn to churches for comfort because most priests were also informants to the
Securitate and were on Ceausescu’s payroll. They helped keep the praying masses
subdued and under control. Churches were kept open for baptisms, weddings, and
burials and as a way for Ceausescu to know when the small underground
opposition organized events.
I lived and survived those years of brainwashing, imposed by Stalin upon the Romanian nation....and I had to abandon my church-going and prayers under the Orthodox Icons decorating our walls. Yet, I'll never forgive those priests who had converted into communist party's informants, just to save their free residences on the church campuses! Money talks, religion walks! And to top it off, by 1955-58 the World Council of Churches in Geneva and the Vatican City was infested with Stalin's KGB agents dressed in catholic bishop's uniforms! To this day, the Vatican is still a communist nest, in my opinion, after seeing who they have selected as their latest Pope!
ReplyDeleteFrom Nancy Walten:
ReplyDeleteHere we sit watching it happen again? Worldwide, it is so sick watching this play out thinking someone will stop it, but trust is gone they lie so much to us and now even the ones you thought you could trust, but no they are lying too. Sadly, we wonder who will declare themselves the new sick agenda world "leader" or whatever they have imagined themselves to be, there are so many of these fools wanting this new world leader title I am hoping they kill each other off and we can get back to a better world hopefully.
Well Sheep pox is taking over at present (you must see that joke).
If you read the UN's site about the takeover of the world you would see better still what has happened and how they are hoping to complete their destruction of us lowly humans. Divide and conquer all the way.
From Gregg Alminas:
ReplyDeleteLeftists would never read this piece. They don't want to see anything that might question their allegiance to Satan or the destruction of America and capitalism. In a way, it's a form of societal suicide.
From Apple Smith in Indiana:
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Dr. Paugh, for reminding us of the direction we are headed. Leftists do not believe in history, so we are grateful for your memories of living in socialist hell. Keep 'em coming!
By DORIS FITCH:
ReplyDeleteReminds me of what is coming our way with the UN Agenda 21the liberals & Rinos are working on implementing that will make us part of a communist one world gov. And no one reports on! I heard it once from Glen Beck about 14 years ago when he was on Fox News. I didn't believe it so went to UN web site & found the document! Also found UN has Office of Disarmament Affairs so downloaded that document. One line says, "we must confiscate weapons from civilians so we can finish implementing Agenda 21". This is also called Agenda 30 or Agenda 2030. I think they wanted it working by 2021, didn't make it so going for 2030.
N. YOUNG:
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Truedope is taking lessons from Ceausescu's history.
By BobF:
ReplyDeleteI think one difference between Romania then and the US today is that we (or many of us) have hewed to the second Amendment - obviously the reason that the leftists are continuously pushing to eliminate gun ownership ("for our safety!" because "guns are evil and scary!")
So while 87K from the IRS sounds like a lot, should the breaking point come* our vaunted elites might find a bit more ability to resist them.
*And the question becomes, "what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back?" - after all, I don't think anyone in, say, 1913, would have been able to predict that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Austria would lead to World War I
By David Stempien:
ReplyDeleteAn excellent but brief portrayal of what life would be under the NWO.
By Jacobite:
ReplyDeleteSay what you will, the minute Ceausescu's grip loosened, his people were quick to send him to hell in an admirable hail of lead.
By Mac Keane:
ReplyDeleteLike all your reports this is excellent. We must explain this to those
around us and to our offspring. Very detailed but easy to read.
By Lumpy Rutherford:
ReplyDeleteDid they have to wear masks, too?