Sic semper tyrannis - the deprograming of a young communist

I have an indomitable and deep seated intolerance for authoritarian regimes and their intense gaslighting of the people under them and abroad. It comes from one of my earliest life experiences, which I had shortly after I turned 6.

Back then my country was called the Socialist Republic of Romania and it was ruled by one of the worst communist autocrats of the time, comrade Nicolae Ceausescu, who had created an all encompassing personality cult. It was inspired by the Juche concept of North Korea, which he had seen during a trip there in 1971. Immediately after he returned he mandated that each cultural manifestation had to have ideological value, in a document which called the "July Theses". Over the late 1970s and especially 1980s, while the economy was falling apart as a result of series of bad decisions, such as investing borrowed money into heavily in energy hungry heavy industry, the regime only doubled down on the propaganda, and even started recycling older nationalist tropes, including photochromism, pejoratively Dacomania, exalting our ancestors the Dacians' mostly imaginary achievements. Oddly, that cult would survive the fall of communism.

By the time I was born in 1983 daily life had gotten nigh unbearable. In the race to pay the outstanding public debt in advance, the dictator was exporting everything which could be sold. There was barely any food in stores, and even bread was rationed, half a loaf per person per day, oranges and bananas only for New Year; however there was an odd abundance of stuff that nobody wanted, mostly from bartering with other Socialist countries, for example Vietnamese shrimp chips. The radiators in our apartments were frigid, hot water was a rarity and rolling blackouts a daily occurrence; we always had candles ready in the kitchen cupboard. The whole 2 hours of daily TV program were dedicated to the "achievements of most beloved son of the people" and the "multilaterally developed socialist economy". One the screen one would see Ceausescu and his toadies walking among waving wheat fields, towering factory equipment and stores stocked with food for the photo shoot; sometimes he would stop to give "precious indications". In between the TV anchor would add to the praise and vaunt the record breaking harvests and production of various items. Sometimes they would broadcast cartoons, but often they would cut halfway trough, for yet more propaganda. Most people had built jury rigged antennae with which they would tune into broadcasts in neighboring Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, who still had decent programs.

Indoctrination started early. I got my first dose as I attended the local kindergarten. My teacher was the daughter of a local Party bigshot, so she was especially fastidious at her job. Each classroom had an idealized picture of Ceausescu hanging on the wall. We would draw "patriotic" art about him and his deeds and memorize poems about the Party and Leader; we would also sing the national anthem "Three Colors". At age 5 we were inducted in the "Patriotic Hawks", which was the young children's arm of the party, similar to the Soviet "Oktobrianik". Next, when one would attended school he would become a "Pioneer" and then during high school and university he could join the Communist Youth Union (UTC). Finally as an adult you could become a full Communist Party member. It was not mandatory, but it was required to get certain jobs, so people usually signed on, even if they didn't care about ideology and politics. By 1989 almost a 6th of all Romanians were members, although the Party had become mostly a rubber stamp for the Leader by this point.

My parents and grandparents didn't dare explain the truth about the nature of the system to me, for fear I might speak out in public, and then someone may report it and put them in danger, for example get them dismissed from their jobs. There were hundreds of thousands of Romanian who would eagerly report the transgressions of their neighbors, family members and coworkers to the almighty Department of State Security (Securitate), where it would go into their file and result in prosecution or blackmail, forcing them to become snitches themselves. The regime had cultivated this climate of distrust on purpose, because an atomized low trust society was easier to control, dissidence was easily snuffed out, and people found it extremely difficult to unite against the regime.

A few days before the Winter Holiday in 1989 I noticed something different at our place. The radio in our living room was tuned to an unfamiliar station, called Radio Free Europe. The anchor was talking about events in the Western town of Timisoara, where an uprising against the local authorities had started, prompted by the dismissal of a local Hungarian Calvinist pastor. Of course this was just the spark that had ignited the pile of tinder slowly built up over the previous decade, and the discontent of the people would soon lead to a conflagration.

On 21st December I was watching TV together with my parents, after I had come back from kindergarten. Ceausescu, swiftly coming back from a visit to Iran where he had sought oil to solve the country's energy problems, had summoned the people of Bucharest to a rally which he thought will cement support for him. At some point he tried to entice the people by promising them an increase of 200 ROL (around $11 at the official exchange rate, much less on the black market) to the monthly minimum wage of 2000 ROL. That was just adding insult to injury, because due to the shortages of produce those money were basically useless. The crowd started booing and jeering and a loud firecracker was heard after which the broadcast cut off. My parents were momentarily startled, but then they started jumping for joy. I understood that something had changed.

The next day, the 22nd which was the last day of kindergarten before the vacation, my grandpa came to take me after classes. It was an unseasonably warm day and we strolled trough the park, and then we went at his place for lunch. My parents were there too. The TV was on, and I saw a big crowd of people gathered in front of a building. At some point cheers erupted as a helicopter lifted off. My parents and grandparents cheered too. Overnight the uprising had spread to the capital, and hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets chanting "Down with Ceausescu, down with Communism!". The Milia (police), Securitate and Military forces were ruthless, shooting into the crowds and running them over with APCs. A few hundreds had died. But by early morning the top brass had given up the ghost had turned on the dictator, which was now fleeing.

I was utterly appalled, as my family finally had the courage to tell me the truth they hadn't dared to tell before. At first I resisted that truth as it was contradictory to the propaganda which had been fed to me. I couldn't conceive that the "most beloved son of the people" Nicolae and "mother of the nation" Elena were bad people, responsible for our daily misery, that everything which had been fed to me up to that point had been such a terrible lie. I cried rivers that afternoon, but finally I stopped sobbing and understood that what my parents were telling me was the truth; I was boiling with anger for being lied to. By that time the national TV station was free and a coterie of people in knitted pullovers had filled the screen, among them the future president Ion Iliescu and prime-minister Petre Roman, which were just 2nd row Party apparatchiks, more moderate, in the spirit of Gorbachev. Most of their words agreed with which my parents had said. Later that night the popular actor Victor Rebengiuc would bring a roll of toilet paper and put it on the desk of the news anchor who had been singing daily praise to the regime to "wipe his mouth" - in Romanian the expression for lying heavily is "eat sh#t". By the time I got to bed I felt relieved and happy.

In the end the dictator didn't fly too far because his helicopter was forced down, he was captured and held for 3 days at a military barracks in the provincial town of Targoviste. After a drumhead 2 hour trial he and his infamous wife Elena, who was the 2nd fiddle in the regime, would face a firing squad, singing "The International", fanatical communists to the bitter end. The soldiers didn't even wait for the order to pump them full of lead against the wall. It was the Christmas Day. Between the flight from Bucharest and the execution loyalist units of the Securitate had occupied certain building and were shooting at people, in order to sow terror, as they hoped there would be a restoration of the regime. The news of the execution was broadcast immediately, which brought an end to the still ongoing bloodshed. More people died during this phase than before the fall. The video came out the next day, and I watched it full of curiosity. For the next months, we, the kids, would reenact the downfall of the bloody couple, taking turns shooting the ones playing them with toy rifles, and having those ragdoll comically and groan.

That's one of the reasons why, up to this day, I'm deeply skeptical about implausible "facts", fast and rude about calling the bullsh#t when I smell it. I was "vaccinated" early and thoroughly against it.