YEARS OF COMMUNIST HIGH SCHOOL (II): THINKING, NOT WORKING

September 15, 1986 — the start of the school year in a Romania trembling under the increasingly criminal regime of Comrade Dictator Ceaușescu. George and I, Angelo, were beginning our second year at Mihai Viteazul High School, the best in Bucharest, the capital of the country. All we wanted was to be left alone to enjoy a carefree adolescence. But that was without reckoning with the school’s communist administration and its lackeys — our teachers — who were determined to transform us into loyal future members of the Romanian Communist Party. In short, into “new men.”

The courtyard of Mihai Viteazul High School in 1986.

The Communist “New Man”

Born in the ideological laboratories of the Party, he was a creature devoid of independent thought but endowed with an infallible memory for slogans. He had no opinions of his own, but followed the directives of the Communist Party and its leader to the letter. “Intelligent,” he knew exactly what he was supposed to believe (the Party’s propaganda) and when he was supposed to applaud. He had a red heart, a sharp tongue for “enemies of the people,” and a deeply ingrained fear of the regime — all signs of a “proper” school education. He didn’t read books, but knew by heart the “works” (yeah, right!) of Comrade Dictator Ceaușescu. He had no initiative, but enthusiastically participated in all activities mandated by the Party. He had no freedom, yet was constantly told he was free. He never asked “why?”, only “how?”, “when?”, and “against whom?”

The “New Man” — Our Version!

So our teachers tried to turn us into that kind of biped. They worked tirelessly to make it happen. Tough luck for them — we did exactly the opposite of what they expected. Communist propaganda? We flipped it to our advantage, with our own personal twist. We also racked up plenty of “violations” of the communist school rules and the other “values” promoted by the regime. Skipping the countless hours of “political” classes, the rallies, and other activities imposed by the Communist Party, etc. Mission accomplished! In short, we became its perfect opposite — the complete antithesis of the “new man” the communist regime wanted. Read below to see how it all unfolded during our second year of communist high school.

“Let’s give the country even more coal!”

This slogan was a favourite of the official propaganda in Romania under Dictator Ceaușescu’s regime. It fit perfectly with communist ideology, which claimed that the Romanian socialist economy would surpass that of the developed capitalist countries (ha, ha, ha!). It glorified physical labour — exhausting and mostly done by brute force. A difficult and dangerous kind of work that turned people into numb, obedient “new men.” People who were also expected to live their lives according to the following rule...

“We work, we don’t think.”

That was the ideal profile for the communist authorities in our country: someone who didn’t ask questions and didn’t cause problems. Someone who didn’t think — a robot who did exactly what he was told. That was the professional future our teachers had in mind for us once we finished school. Fortunately, thanks to the December 1989 Revolution, that “brilliant” career path went straight into the trash. Still, we remember how we used to twist those slogans using the “Angelo & George method” — one of the many reasons our communist teachers hated us so much.

We chose to work… with our brains.

It all started after a meeting at the Pastry-Bar, the pastry shop that served our high school. Over time, it became our HQ — the place where we plotted our most twisted schemes. Our classmates had told us they were sick of hearing endless praise for Comrade Ceaușescu all day long. Sadly, they weren’t quite ready to skip class like we had done the previous year — and were planning to do again. So we had to find a way to be physically present in class while mentally checked out. A tall order, which we brilliantly solved when we spotted a chess set in the window of a stationery shop. We decided we’d play chess during the lessons we didn’t care about. Bonus: chess is a cerebral sport that exercises intellectual skills — the exact opposite of what the regime and its lackeys, the principal and our teachers, expected from us.

Pastry-Bar.

The plan

We bought a few sets and marched straight to the Pastry-Bar to meet the “popular crowd.” They were the best dressed, the most admired, and followed by our classmates — basically, the “bosses” of our class. They were waiting for us there. The girls: Narcisa, Delia, and Cristina. The boys: Bălă, Iulian, Tom, and Cristin. There were others, too, but sadly, over time, I’ve forgotten their names. In front of them, we raised the boxes and announced: “A chess championship.” Everyone was going to play chess during the hours we didn’t care about. The metal board and magnetic pieces made it easy to pass the game from one player to another without losing pieces or messing up the positions. Good thing the place was packed — otherwise their cheers would’ve shattered the windows. At the start of high school, we thought they were “losers.” Far from it — they would go on to prove time and again that they had guts — figuratively speaking, of course, since there were girls in the group too. What followed was greatly helped by the school’s policy of relegating us to… the attic.

The Attic Classroom

Narrow and dimly lit, perched above the entire school, it felt like a nest that belonged to us alone. The room had something sacred about it: simply painted walls, windows through which sunlight timidly crept, creaky benches, and the scent of old wood. Getting there was a small adventure in itself: we’d start from the library, where we’d leaf through textbooks and notebooks — and more often than not, an adventure novel hidden among them. Then we’d slowly climb the long corridors, their thick walls echoing with our footsteps. From the second floor, a narrower staircase led to the attic. Each time, it felt like we were leaving the world below behind — the teachers’ lounge, our communist instructors, and the bustle of the school. Every corner of that room had its own story: the bench by the window where we’d dream while gazing at the sky, the little cupboard in the back stuffed with notes, magazines, and chess boxes(!). Not to mention the old blackboard covered in calculations, sketches, and clumsy drawings. That attic will always be a symbol for us — the place where we learned to enjoy life, to dream together, and to forge lasting friendships, mostly during unforgettable chess matches. And even as the years go by, it remains young in our hearts: our beloved classroom, with the scent of life’s beginnings and echoes of the laughter of the teenagers we once were.

The long corridor led to the small attic room where we spent our first year of high school.

Lessons in the… Attic

Being sent up there was a kind of “collective punishment” imposed on our entire class, since it included the school’s “undesirables.” It was the smallest classroom in the school, and we were packed in like sardines in a tin. On paper, the room shouldn’t even have been used as a classroom; the school’s communist administration thought they were punishing us by placing us there. What a mistake! It was also the farthest room from the teachers’ lounge — it took them nearly ten minutes to get there, and just as long to return. That forced them to focus on the essentials of the subject matter and spend less time preaching Party propaganda and the Personality Cult of Dictator Ceaușescu. Bonus: We had more time to organize our chess championship.

“Let’s give the country even more chess players!”

The next morning, before the teacher arrived, the announcement dropped: sign-ups for a chess championship were open. But most of our classmates didn’t know how to play. So we hit pause on the tournament launch and kicked off a new campaign: “Let’s give the country even more chess players!” A slogan, of course, chosen in direct opposition to the regime’s favorite: “Let’s give the country even more coal!” It was a tough mission — we didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Those who already knew how to play began teaching the others the mysteries of this noble game. Lessons took place during breaks and even during class. The teachers, exasperated by our constant buzz and the noise that came with it, told us to quiet down, demanded explanations, and threatened us with punishment.

The attic classroom is the highest one and has five windows.

“Let’s butter up the teachers!”

To avoid that, we deployed a foolproof method: buttering up the teachers. We’d tell them their lectures were too complex, that they were far too intelligent for some of us. Hence the need, while they taught, for other students to “translate” their brilliance for the less gifted — so that everyone could benefit from the wisdom of such competent and talented educators. In short, we had custom scripts for each teacher, following the rule: the bigger the flattery, the better it worked. The more we inflated the egos of our communist teachers, the more they puffed out their chests like roosters in a henhouse. And the less attention they paid to our manoeuvres. This gave us more room to reach our real goals.

Let the games begin!

A few weeks later, everyone more or less knew the rules. We played using a knockout system: each match eliminated one player, and winners faced off in the next round. Those who lost couldn’t play again in that tournament, but could advise another player still in the running. At first, it was easy — matches were played between seatmates, and everyone stayed focused. Things got trickier in the second half of the championship, when players were scattered across the classroom. Chessboards had to travel hand-to-hand between players. So we started marking them to avoid mix-ups. We also developed brilliant techniques to distract the teachers while the boards moved between rows. Sometimes, prankster classmates would alter the position of a few pieces mid-transfer to give one player an edge, which occasionally sparked heated disputes. But nothing serious; we’d settle things more or less amicably, always reminding each other of the real goal: replacing hours of praise for the Communist Party and its “beloved Leader” with moments of joy and entertainment.

The championship finales

As time went on and we reached the semi-finals, things got even more “special.” Our suggestion to rearrange seats so players could sit side by side was flatly rejected. Since everyone wanted to be involved, the players were moved — but in the opposite direction, as far apart as possible. After that, the chessboard would travel across the entire classroom so everyone could watch the match unfold. Needless to say, three-quarters of the class instantly became coaches, offering advice to the remaining contenders. And, as a rule, the board would arrive accompanied by a stack of papers filled with strategic recommendations.

The Winners

Time has passed, and we’ve forgotten what the prize was for winning the championship — probably pastries from Pati-Bar. We’ve also forgotten who the actual winners were. Was it Andrei, the math whiz of our class — maybe even of the whole school — who competed in countless contests? Or Matei Basarab, a classmate named after a Romanian voivode, who carried an air of mystery and was wildly popular with the girls? Or Delia, a brilliant math student who later became a senior official at Romania’s Court of Accounts? In the end, the names didn’t matter — because truthfully, we were all winners. We spent countless fantastic hours playing thrilling matches, completely ignoring our teachers. They poured their energy into teaching us lessons stuffed with Communist Party propaganda and the “Precious Instructions” of Dictator Ceaușescu. We retained absolutely none of it. And as a bonus, we built a growing sense of solidarity, which made the next step easy: skipping class en masse. Following the motto: why stop when you’re on the right path — especially when that path trampled the “communist values” of the time?

Mass Truancy

At the start of our second year of high school, our classmates — swept up in the chess championship — had distracted us from our habit of skipping class. But by spring, it wasn’t enough anymore. Our urge to get out and play hooky had grown stronger. And we weren’t the only ones feeling it: many others, starting with the “popular crowd,” wanted the same. They’d gained confidence after the chess success. They were the ones who decided everyone should follow our lead. So the whole class began by skipping the most politicized lessons, then started missing even the official events — like the May 1st parade in 1987 (a story told in “The Great May Day Escape”) and the “agricultural fieldwork” (covered in “Fieldwork for… Nothing”). For the first time, it took a strong-arm intervention from Bălă — one of the “populars” — to convince the more timid or regime-respecting students. Later, even they joined in, and soon everyone was skipping naturally.

Bălă Strikes

That scene is still vivid in my memory, even today. It was a Saturday (under the communist regime, school ran six days a week, seven to eight hours a day). After two hours of math, we had “Constitution” class — basically endless praise for the “Great Leader,” one of Ceaușescu’s many titles. The weather was beautiful, and we had zero desire to stay locked in a classroom. So we stood up, grabbed our bags, and tried to leave. But Bălă — built like a refrigerator — stepped in front of us and asked what we were doing. When he heard our plan, he said, “No, not this time. Not without us.” Then he declared that everyone had to do the same and walk out. Faced with protests from the timid, he puffed out his chest, rolled his shoulders, and thundered: “That’s it. From today on, it’s ‘one for all, all for one’ when it comes to skipping class.” A very personal twist on a slogan our teachers held dear.

“One for all, all for one!”

They had twisted the famous war cry of Dumas’ musketeers to justify “collective punishment.” These were inflicted on an entire class for the misdeeds of a single student. Usually, this kind of punishment was used when the director or teacher felt the class wasn’t harassing the targeted student enough. “Harassment” was one of their favorite tactics against students who refused or hesitated to conform to communist principles and rules. But some sadistic teachers applied “collective punishment” for other reasons, for other “infractions.” Shaytan (which means “devil” in Arabic), our physics teacher, was one of them. During the first physics class of our second year, I recited a humorous definition of Ohm’s Law. The fact that she immediately gave me a 3 (the lowest grade in the Romanian school system) in the grade book — and gave George one too — was no surprise: it was tradition to start each term with a failing grade in physics. But she didn’t stop there. She punished the entire class, saying with a sadistic smile: “All for one, one for all.” (a story told in “Communist High School: The Law of hOHMme”). That infuriated the “populars,” who then became our accomplices — and sometimes even the instigators — in violating the “values of communism.” They were also the ones who rewrote the slogan, turning it into: “Two for all, all for two.”

“Two for all, all for two”

At the end of our second year of high school, a national evaluation was held to determine who could continue their studies. It was also a chance for so-called “elite” schools to weed out students they deemed underprepared — or “undesirable,” like Angelo and me, George! Our teachers and the communist administration of our school thought they had the perfect opportunity to get rid of us. And it might have worked, since we were hopeless in math and physics — the two subjects being tested. But tough luck for them: the “populars” decided to take matters into their own hands, rallying under the slogan “two for all, all for two.” According to them, there was no way they were going to let us fall. What followed deserves a place in the annals of our lives as pure “torture.”

The Torture!

In those final weeks of our second year, George and I had no free time left. Gone were the carefree moments of fun, movies, football matches, and music. Instead, we were subjected to endless sessions of math and physics. Nothing else. Hours upon hours of exercises and prep work, both during school and outside of it. Before, when we skipped class, we’d head to the cinema or the library to read adventure novels or detective stories. Now, we skipped class to study for the exam. We became the targets of an intensive tutoring campaign led by the best students in our class. There were several of them, and they took turns relentlessly drilling us on numbers, equations, theorems, lemmas, laws of physics — and everything in between. The result? We didn’t ace the exam. More precisely, we didn’t get a “very good” distinction — just a “good”! When our results came in, the teachers and the principal were so shocked they nearly had a stroke, then stormed out of the room. Which meant they didn’t hear our triumphant shout: “We pulled a Bulit!”

What’s a “Bulit”?

One of the first times we skipped class en masse, we went to see the American crime film Bullitt. But in Romanian, there’s a word — bulit — which means “having swollen, bruised eyes from repeated blows.” After seeing the film, we added a new expression to our vocabulary: “to pull a bulit.” It came to mean a successful action that broke school rules — and even more so, defied the “communist values” our teachers tried so hard to instill in us. With results lower than the bottom of the sea. Case in point: to see that film, we ditched class right before “Scientific Socialism” — the lessons where we were supposed to memorize the principles of “socialist work ethics,” the supposed foundation of the “economic successes” of Eastern European communist countries, with Romania leading the pack!

The Escape

The day had begun with two hours of frantic mathematics — equations and integrals looping endlessly in our heads. Then came an hour of physics with Shaytan, a class so brutal it felt designed to crush us. More hours of communist brainwashing lay ahead, but George and I, Angelo, had reached our limit. During the first break, the saving idea struck: we’d skip school. We gathered our classmates in a corner of the hallway, dressed in our uniforms, our schoolbags tossed carelessly to the floor like casual conspirators. The decision was swift and unanimous: today, we vanish. All of us. Only one question remained: where? The answer came naturally — the cinema, on the Boulevard (Romania’s version of the Champs-Élysées)! What better way to replace the exhausting, pathetic communist propaganda than with a big screen, a gripping story, and a dazzling world where we could forget everything? At least the cinema gave us something in return — a line, a scene, a memory to share later.

The Road to Freedom

We slipped out in small groups to avoid attracting attention, then made our way toward the Boulevard. The air was still crisp, stinging our cheeks — but it was a gentle cold, full of freedom. Our steps felt lighter, as if we’d shed our chains. Everyone was laughing, joking, playfully shoving each other — we were a joyful army of “deserters” from the sciences of communism, off to conquer the world, starting with the cinema. We leaped onto a tram that, as if waiting for us, suddenly filled with only our classmates. Every seat, every corner was occupied by a “fugitive” from our class. The mood was festive, and the tram felt transformed into “The Bus of Freedom.” Only one problem: money. A quick check of our pockets revealed, to our horror, that we didn’t have enough for everyone to get into the cinema.

What Now?

It was a delicate situation: how would we split up? Who would go in, and who would be left outside in the chilly late-March air? Unthinkable. We looked at each other and, without saying much, felt the same thing: no one gets left behind. Suddenly, we felt like American SEAL teams from the movies we watched on bootleg VHS tapes. “We don’t leave anyone behind,” I declared. “Because we’re the best of LMV” (the initials of our high school), George added. Ideas started pouring in: squeeze two people through on one ticket, pretend to enter and sneak back to bring others in, negotiate with the ticket lady, beg passersby for change — anything, as long as we all got inside.

Transformation

It was no longer just a collective escape — it had become a mission of honour, a test of solidarity. And, best of all, it made us laugh even harder, helping us forget — if only for a moment — the cold, the communist teachers, and the miserable society we were forced to live in. There we were, all together, a whole class fighting not against math, physics, or “communist values,” but against the few tickets that stood between us and the film. For a moment, we felt like more than just high school students — we imagined ourselves as the heroes of a memorable adventure. And then, the saving idea appeared!

The Coins of Cişmigiu

Magda uttered the phrase like a spell: “Let’s go to Cişmigiu Park — we’ll find money in the water!” It sounded absurd, but suddenly we all felt that this was exactly how things were meant to unfold. In the murky water, beneath those bridges with their weary railings, lovers from long ago had left behind their luck in the form of aluminum coins. Frozen and shivering in the crisp spring morning, we first pressed our eyes to the trembling surface of the lake, then our hands, and finally half our bodies — like amateur divers. And, as if by magic, there they were: at least ten coins glinting like silver fish. Enough for the whole crew. No one was left behind. With that money in our pockets, we left the bridge like triumphant pirates, laughing as if we’d just discovered buried treasure. We felt like heroes in an adventure film, ready to face anything — terrifying teachers, crowded trams, whatever came our way. On the way to the cinema, we passed the lake’s rowboats, where a few couples looked at us in astonishment. We laughed as if the whole city were our film set and the Boulevard our red carpet — the runway of school-skipping heroes.

The famous bridge in Cișmigiu Park.

The Entrance

At the ticket booth — surprise! After receiving our still-damp coins, dripping water everywhere, the ticket lady told us it was enough. She let us all in, probably thinking we were inventive kids, charming enough to deserve a nearly free screening. It was the only gift she gave us — much to Angelo’s dismay, since I’d already started trying to flirt with her. In vain, of course — the beautiful ticket seller was at least ten years older than me. That didn’t stop me from bragging to my classmates that it was my charm that got us through the door.

The Film

Bullitt — a crime thriller nearly 20 years old, starring Steve McQueen. It had everything: tragedy, suspense, raw emotion. But we, a band of high schoolers skipping class, turned it into a massive comedy. On screen, Lieutenant Bullitt faced the trials of his life: car chases, brawls in San Francisco, danger, and unbearable tension. But we reinterpreted it with mischievous sarcasm: whispered commentary, exaggerated gestures, muffled laughter. Instead of being swept up in sadness or suspense, we laughed heartily, transforming this serious film into our own absurd, hilarious spectacle. The few cinephiles in the room probably should’ve thanked us — we “enhanced their experience” with our teenage humor and sarcasm. And it was true: every laugh was a small victory over a dreary morning, over physics and math class. And especially over the communist propaganda that would’ve rained down on us had we not skipped school. When the lights came on, we walked out with a feeling of absolute triumph: collective truancy, money found in the lake, and the transformation of a cinematic tragedy into absurd comedy — all part of our high school epic.

The poster of Bullitt, 1968.

The End

The ultimate irony was that the regime trying to transform us into “new men” was, unintentionally, handing us the tools of free thought. Cinemas were temples of our imagination. What “poetry” (yeah, right!) in those Soviet films where tractors conquered nature and workers triumphed over capitalists! And when we got to see a Western film, it felt like the whole world was opening up to us. In the theatre, breathless, we were convinced that real life was waiting somewhere — just beyond the red curtain. And bookstores? They were cathedrals to us. We entered almost whispering, as if stepping into a sacred space, and left with empty pockets but bags full of books. Looking back, all those places now seem like islands of normalcy and beauty in a sea of absurdity. Yes, communism was grey and oppressive, but high school — and our adventures — painted those years with laughter, emotion, experience, and a freedom that the regime could neither prevent nor extinguish. A wild adolescence, during which we managed to turn so many moments of life under communist rule into a paradise of liberty and joy.