THE FALL OF THE MASTODON

The second article in the series “The Revolution of 1989” presents the events as they were experienced by the soldiers Angelo and George. The first article is entitled “December 1989 – The Army and the Revolution.”

Poster reading "Our kids will be free".

Anno Domini: 1989

After forty-five years — twenty-five of them under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu — the communist cancer had brought Romania to its deathbed. Nothing functioned anymore; everything was disordered and broken. In this landscape of total misery, there were the two of us: Angelo and George. Two lifelong friends, inseparable since our very first day of high school. Now, at its end, we had to face the trial by fire of our lives: compulsory military service. And not just any service, but its extended version of one year and four months — an eternity for two nineteen-year-olds, during which we would be separated from one another, as well as from our families, our homes, and everything that had defined our lives until then. It was the price we had to pay for refusing the professional future that others had chosen for us.

What had we refused?

To become a miner in the Jiu Valley was probably the hardest and most miserable occupation in Romania at the time. That was where our teachers wanted to send us, as punishment for our countless “adventures” during the four years of high school. For the innumerable breaches and violations of the norms of “communist ethics and equity,” through which we had mocked the system at full throttle. For our refusal to become the perfect communists of tomorrow. At the same time, our parents wanted us to become civil engineers — the profession of the “future” in the Romania of the megalomaniac Nicolae Ceaușescu. Imagining himself perhaps as a twentieth-century pharaoh, he sought to demolish everything old in order to rebuild the country in his own style — one of a dreadful, Stalinist ugliness. Our beloved parents had the very best intentions for us, yet their plans bore little resemblance to what we ourselves wanted for our future.

Miners in the Jiu Valley.

The Future We Wanted

In truth, I — Angelo — wanted to become a pilot of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (the equivalent, in today’s terms, of aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon or the F-35 Lightning II). George, my accomplice in all the adventures of our turbulent adolescence, agreed to follow me in this madness. But we had to be clever to counter the plans our teachers and parents had made for us. The solution we devised was simple: we would enlist and complete our compulsory military service. Once in the army, we would inform our commanders that we wished to become officers, precisely, military pilots. Before that, however, we had to endure the ordeal of the university entrance examination. And fail it.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

The Examination

Our parents insisted that we sit the entrance examination. We could hardly oppose them, as we still depended on them for shelter, food, and clothing. The faculty chosen for us was “Railways, Roads, and Bridges” — a name that greatly pleased our parents, not for its content, but for its resonance. It sounded like a technocratic epic: communist progress, a symphony of concrete and steel rails. They did not really understand what we would study there, but it seemed serious to them. Monumental, even. After all, what could be more romantic and exhilarating than the metallic vibration of a locomotive at dawn, racing across a bridge? The entire ensemble was conceived and built with passion by us, their engineer sons, of course. Unfortunately for them, reality struck with the force of a train at full speed: we were not admitted. We failed the examination. But to achieve this result, we had to work hard — very hard — to fail.

The 'Railways, Roads, and Bridges' University in Bucharest, Romania.

A Monumental Failure

How was that possible? After all, the examination consisted of two mathematics tests and one in physics. And we knew perfectly well that we were disastrous at both subjects. In high school, our mathematics teacher had spared us from failing or repeating the year “out of pity,” as she reminded us at the end of every term and school year. In physics, the grades rained down in the form of 3's, and only at the very end did we manage a 6, just enough to bring our final average to the passing mark of 5. Hence, our shock when we saw the examination papers: they were so easy that the spectre of passing the exam with distinction suddenly appeared on the horizon. Inexplicably to us, it seemed that we had acquired far more knowledge than was required to become engineers in railways, roads, and bridges in the Romania of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Stunned, we stared at the questions for several minutes, asking ourselves: What do we do now? But we were tough; we had the mentality of winners, convinced that there is always a solution to overcome any obstacle placed before us. We concentrated intensely, worked with great seriousness, and WE SUCCEEDED. We succeeded in making enough calculation errors in the mathematics exercises and enough mistakes in solving the physics problems to fail the exam. And not just in any way. Without speaking to one another, without even looking at each other — proof either of our equal intellectual qualities or of our remarkable ability to agree on everything — we achieved almost the same average. To be precise: Angelo scored 3.34, and George 3.31. And thus we failed the university entrance examination with flying colours, to the great disappointment of our parents, who already imagined us building bridges and railways. But to our great satisfaction, we could now continue on our chosen path. And then came…

Into the Darkness of the Communist Army

On a gloomy day at the beginning of September, we found ourselves on the platform of Gara de Nord, the capital’s main railway station, ready to depart for the military units to which we had been assigned. Several hundred recruits were there — conscript soldiers, in the language of the time. We all knew what awaited us: the 'trial by fire' of our lives. A dreadful ordeal. Less so for us, Angelo and George, already hardened by years of demanding karate training and by the “manhunt” carried out by one of the feared repressive forces of the Romanian communist regime — the communist Militia — against the rockers we were (see the blog text “Freedom and the Baton: The First Chronicle of the Rock Generation”). We had already been harassed and beaten on several occasions, regarded as “enemies of the people” — of the communist people, to be precise. Moreover, for us, entering the army meant avoiding the fate of becoming miners in the Jiu Valley and opening the path toward a career as military pilots. And so, with our heads held high and shoulders straight, we waited calmly for the train. The same could not be said of the others. Terrified, trembling with fear, and with tears in their eyes — some openly crying — they all knew they were heading into hell: the communist army.

The famous suitcase used for military recruitment.

The Humiliation Machine

Seen from the outside, it projected an image of limitless power, grandeur, and splendour. It excelled in parades and ceremonial displays, yet it rarely distinguished itself on the battlefield. The so-called victories achieved by a communist army often came at a dreadful cost: in nearly every battle, there were more dead, wounded, and captured soldiers — and more material lost — than on the enemy’s side (which was nevertheless declared defeated). One might therefore ask whether the battle had truly been won, or whether favourable circumstances had simply been exploited to proclaim victory. Afterwards, the powerful and highly professional communist propaganda machine would do the rest: it magnified the army’s performance to an extreme degree, creating around it an aura of invincibility. Seen from the inside, however, the communist army was an absolute nightmare. It was almost a work of art — the art of bullying taken to the extreme, of abuse in every conceivable form, and of corruption at every level. Utter incompetence reigned everywhere. And in the army of Nicolae Ceaușescu, it was even worse.

Dissonance

In those days, discipline was indistinguishable from fear, while loudly proclaimed patriotism had become a form of civic survival. The army had turned into a miniature communist republic: the same wooden language, the same pervasive stupidity and incompetence. Idiotic orders came from above and dissolved into absurdity as they travelled down the chain of command. Officers recited, with a kind of imbecilic fervour, slogans about the “courage and revolutionary devotion of soldiers in the struggle against the fascists and Nazis.” Meanwhile, the soldiers — abused, exploited, hungry, and bored — dreamed of concrete things: a leave pass, a letter from home, or a bowl of hot soup. And above all, the end of this nightmare. It was said that “the army makes a man out of you.” In reality, it turned people into experts in the art of pretending to understand the illogical logic of their commanders. And above all, the army taught in how many ways a man could be humiliated and abused — as well as how to sleep during “political education hours.”

Brainwashing by the Minute

Let us be clear: a communist army had to maintain a very high ideological level. In other words, recruits were expected to know by heart the slogans and “precious directives” of Nicolae Ceaușescu. For this purpose, we — the soldiers of the communist fatherland — were obliged to attend classes in “political education and communist ideology.” There, our brains were washed with military zeal. Or at least they tried. Fortunately, Angelo and I attended only a few of these tedious sessions, during which texts by Ceaușescu were read aloud from Scânteia, the official newspaper of the Communist Party. We remembered nothing, but with considerable talent we pretended to listen attentively (not a chance!). George’s platoon commander, a man with a sense of reality, also treated the whole affair with a certain irony. He would solemnly read Ceaușescu’s speeches about economic development and the strengthening of the country’s defensive capacity. Then he would sigh theatrically: “Well then, comrades soldiers, if this does not inspire you, I truly do not know what possibly could…” Meanwhile, in silence, we struggled against sleep and the sheer absurdity of the situation. One needed the mental discipline of a commando to endure an entire hour of “revolutionary enthusiasm,” when the only real enemy was deadly boredom. And, of course, this entire pitiful edifice of communist ideological “training” was thrown into the dustbin of history when we heard that the Revolution had begun in Timișoara.

GEORGE AND THE WHISPER OF THE REVOLUTION

The Thick Shoe, the Blue Gaze

Early December 1989. The Revolution was about to break out in the cities—Timișoara first; people were already taking to the streets. In the village of Adâncata (near some of Eastern Europe’s largest oil fields), where my unit was stationed, silence lay deep and jealously guarded. We were there, waiting to understand whether the homeland was preparing us for the future or merely training us to be obedient in a past that refused to die. And this is how the Revolution began for my comrades and me: not with sirens, not with speeches, but with a muted whisper after lights out, like a poorly censored novel. A comrade had returned from leave, from a village near Timișoara: Albina. I’ve forgotten his name; the village’s name stuck in my memory like a sticker on a history textbook: small, seemingly insignificant, yet flying toward change. He slipped into the dormitory like a clumsy conspirator and, in a low voice, told us that after the football victory against Denmark on 15 November—our great national sporting glory and official outlet for excitement—people had taken to the streets in Timișoara (one of Romania’s most Westernized cities in 1989) to celebrate. And there, among horns and flags, a few anti-communist shouts had slipped through. Nothing monumental, nothing programmatic. Just the unexpected courage of people who realized they could breathe freely without fear of someone checking their lungs for ideological purity. Of course, the Securitate moved immediately, with the subtlety of a rhinoceros in a china shop: it infiltrated agents and, through “constructive dialogue,” resolved the situation. Translation: they scattered the crowd, scared them, and noted in their little book who had dared to breathe too freely. At the city’s Mechanical Plant, workers had also tried to light a fire, but the flame was extinguished at the source. The Securitate—firefighters of ideas, professional and humorless—“calmed the spirits.” In civilian terms: they did what they knew best, crushing hope with a thick shoe and a cold, blue gaze, KGB-style.

December 13–15, 1989: The Spark in the Bunker

Then, in a strange, clandestine prologue to the Revolution, I listened to Radio Free Europe from the unit’s bunker. Not officially, of course. Officially, I listened to silence, the combat manual, and the scratch of chalk on my drawing board. In reality, I slipped into the underground command room like a literate mouse. In an adjacent room, the radio blared for the officers. On December 13 or 14, I first heard the name of Pastor László Tőkés. He was asking for support to avoid deportation. But in Romania at that time, asking for the right to remain in one’s own place was equivalent to asking for freedom for everyone. By December 15, people in Timișoara were keeping vigil outside the church, shivering and still skeptical, as if history could be politely begged to begin. That evening, the Securitate tried to disperse the crowd—dressed in civilian clothes, as in all great moments of shame—and scuffles broke out. Nothing grand yet. Great explosions often start with a small spark, and this was the spark. From my bunker’s perspective: me, with my chalk and yellow drawing board; them, with shields and batons. A country caught between breaths, history slowly readying its metamorphosis. From caterpillar to butterfly.

December 16, 1989: Down with Ceaușescu!

We stood shivering behind the drawing board, the yellow light dancing on the thick window like the skin of a sleeping reptile, listening to the radio, hearts tight. In Timișoara, people gathered around Pastor László Tőkés, trying to protect him from forced removal, simply for daring to criticize the regime. I listened as the crowd grew, as the first chants arose from candles and prayers; trams became makeshift platforms for shouting “Down with Ceaușescu!”, while the authorities responded with gas, batons, and arrests. Down below, in our bunker with dormant missiles, we felt history knocking at the door. Officers began to stir—not running, not panicking (God forbid, panic was a bourgeois attribute)—but a discreet commotion, like when someone accidentally pulls aside the drapes in a nomenklatura parlor and sunlight spills in. Low voices, orderly, short words, sharp glances. They seemed to understand, but weren’t ready to admit it. Or maybe they were just repeating by rote that “the situation is under control,” even as it became clear no one controlled anything—not even the air we breathed. A cold wind ran through my bones. Not from the bunker—the air there always smelled of flaking paint, damp concrete, and forced discipline—but a premonition wearing a military uniform, heavy boots, and firearms. Because what was coming…

The Thaw

From its communist freeze, Romania—the gray mastodon with small, suspicious eyes—stirred. First an eyelid, then a barely visible stretch of muscle, a twitch of sleep from which you wake without meaning to. For the first time, I felt almost physically that this colossus could no longer remain still. That it was waking, slowly, shaking off tons of silence, fear, and obedience. A monster of concrete and slogans that, surprisingly, suddenly remembered it had a heart. And I, down there in my subterranean bunker, felt reality stretch and flex. Silence was no longer silence. The order was no longer an order. And the future was no longer a bad joke told at a Communist Party meeting. Later, in the dormitory after lights out, I whispered to my comrades everything I had heard, low and feverishly, as if speaking the truth aloud could suddenly awaken the entire regiment—or, who knows, perhaps even the country.

17 December 1989: ‘Radu the Handsome.’

On the morning of 17 December, when I returned to my post, with the cold still clinging to me like a second uniform, the bunker phone began to scream. The receiver was attached to a sort of improvised speaker — a mix of parts from an old radio and the ambition of a noncommissioned officer to be modern. Everyone listened, everyone stayed silent, and I — hidden like a disciplined shadow — heard the world changing two meters away from me. I was the perfect invisible observer, a kind of spy on a mission: to listen to history setting itself in motion. The grave, metallic voice of the division commander broke the air: combat alert. The code name: ‘Radu the Handsome’, after a medieval Romanian ruler. Sweet words for such a cruel order: shut everything down, sever all connections, state of war! Outside, Romania boiled. In Timișoara, people were being shot, while Ceaușescu in Bucharest ordered fire against civilians via teleconferences, like a paranoid god with the receiver glued to his ear. Meanwhile, I was there, a lowly soldier, hidden behind a smoky window, listening to my country entering history with the roar of bullets and tanks. In that bunker, in that wet concrete silence, I felt the air grow heavy as lead, and that a single code word could turn conscript soldiers into witnesses of a world splitting in two.

18 December 1989: The Holed Flag

On 18 December, something astonishing happened: a general strike was declared in Timișoara. I sat quietly, listening, on my secret mission of “information gathering.” I was the silent messenger, bringing crumbs of truth to the many unsuspecting comrades in the dormitory. And for this I was rewarded like a king: the best food, a rum chocolate or an Eugenie, then permission to speak, like a grandfather recounting fabulous tales to his grandchildren. That day, the commander and officers spoke urgently, their voices raised, about “Radu the Handsome” and what had just happened in Timișoara: the declaration of martial law. Their tone was cold — a clear order: shoot the population. It was then that I learned something both mad and heroic: a group of students had cut the coat of arms from the flag and were carrying the holed flag through the city. It seemed incredibly brave, almost… cool. Dangerous, but liberating. They began to sing “Deșteaptă-te, române!”, the old patriotic song banned since 1947. I only knew the military songs, rhythmic and fit for parade steps, and the anthem with “Three Colours.” The new favorite song of the masses was the most patriotic, most revolutionary, and most liberating song I had ever heard. The rest of the world seemed to breathe a different air. Later, I heard that Ceaușescu was scheduled to visit Iran — on Radio Europa Liberă, it was called political suicide. I felt only a dull sadness: I thought the revolt had already been crushed and our hopes had died with the first shots.

The Cardboard Boar

That evening remained vivid in my memory like a sinister prank: before leaving my bunker, I leafed through a newspaper confiscated from the officers. Scînteia Tineretului — the Communist youth newspaper, the official cardboard board of communist news. I was searching for the rock chart, a spark of normality. It wasn’t there. Instead, I came across a piece of summer prose, as if winter existed only in our imagination. Its title: “Advice for Those at the Seaside”, with instructions on sunbathing in ten- to fifteen-minute intervals. And on how not to shout when no one listens, should you get lost in the sea. In the middle of December.

19 December 1989: Birthday Beneath Barbed Wire

A day of ritual coincidence: it was the 19th, and I turned 19. A tiny detail, yet in that unseen storm, in the roar building beneath us without our fully understanding it, it felt like a knot in time, a sign. The irony was that on that day, instead of being swept up in the flurry of rumors and the phone on speaker, I was almost completely cut off from the news. On your birthday, you were given — exceptionally — a few hours of freedom to go to Ploiești. For us, the city meant “freedom,” compared to the barbed-wire confines of the military base. But I had nowhere to go; no one to meet, no reason to run through gray apartment blocks to simulate the joy of a missed celebration. So I stayed in the unit, in a rare, almost guilty silence. I allowed myself the luxury of rest. I wrote to Angelo. I read. I breathed. For a few hours, I felt I could lift my head out of the murky water of uncertainty. Outside, the collapse of a regime was preparing; I, at 19, sat with a book in my hand, trying to understand what kind of adult I had already become, almost without asking for it. That day was nothing monumental in history, but for me, it remained a strange parenthesis — a brief pause in time before everything disintegrated. A birthday calm before the storm. Before the popular explosion.

20 December 1989: Fear Not, Ceaușescu Falls!

The morning found me again in the bunker, in the same cold chair, under the same yellowish light, but in a completely altered reality. Radio Europa Liberă announced something that, just a day before, would have seemed pure madness: Timișoara, the first city free of communism. Those words passed through my bones like an electric current. I was in the army, under full alert, hidden in a windowless room, yet it felt as if someone had just opened all the doors of the world. I listened, palms sweaty, almost holding my breath, to the crowds in Opera Square shouting: “We are the people!”, “The army is with us! Fear not, Ceaușescu falls!” It was as if people were learning to speak again after a lifetime of whispers. And I, there, a shadow of a soldier in a corner of the barracks, felt for the first time that maybe we were not born just to endure. By 7 p.m., they pulled us out of the bunker; everyone was in front of the television. Ceaușescu had returned from Iran and spoke with that stone-like gaze, condemning the Timișoara citizens as “enemies of the Socialist Revolution.” His tone remained the same, but the world was no longer. And as he thundered, somewhere in the distance, in the darkness beyond the barracks, I seemed to hear the echo of those voices from Timișoara, like a vibration passing through walls, uniforms, fears. It was then that I understood that no matter how fiercely someone tried to push us back into silence, Romania had already begun to breathe.

21 December 1989: Idiocy with Grace

The dictator’s final speech. They gathered us in the mess hall, like pawns on a chessboard, to watch the television broadcast. We squeezed in as best we could, in a hall too small for the immense tension, and they brought in a black-and-white TV, as large as a shoebox, yet with an unusual power: to display absurdity. Ceaușescu began to speak, his voice rigid, gestures theatrical even on a C-grade film stage. He eloquently delivered the usual cretinisms: the “achievements of the socialist revolution,” the “broadly developed communist society,” and other empty formulas. The people on screen seemed completely indifferent; only the front rows clapped and cheered, like well-trained puppets. The dictator’s attempts to manipulate reality reached grotesque heights when, in desperation, he promised a 200-lei raise for workers and continued to praise the “Socialist Revolution,” unaware that another revolution was unfolding right before his eyes. Sudden movements appeared at the edges of the crowd, a few firecrackers shook the air, and chaos erupted. The TV transmission abruptly stopped — the screen displayed an enormous, incomprehensible blurring, like a metaphor for absolute absurdity. At that moment, our commander, with gravity and a touch of involuntary humor, took us out into the courtyard and said words I will never forget: “Soldiers, wait in the barracks to see whose side victory is on, then we will join the wave!” Grotesque, brilliant, amusing, incredible — all packed into an hour that seemed to flow in another time. It was a sequence of events so paradoxical that even decades later, they feel like something out of the fantastic.

The Revolution Reaches Bucharest

On 21 December, a demonstration initially organized to support the communist regime and the dictator transformed into an open revolt. The epicenter was University Square, which would become a symbol of the struggle against communism. The Militia and Securitate were unable to stop the popular uprising. As in Timișoara, the army was called to intervene against the demonstrators. By midnight, University Square was cleared after gunfire that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. On 22 December, workers joined the demonstrators in large numbers. Soldiers deployed on the streets fraternized with them. Ceaușescu and his wife had to flee by helicopter. The grotesque twist: they were abandoned on the roadside and captured a few hours later. The dictator, who had begun his reign in glory, ended it with winter mud on his shoes, hiding in a cornfield.

When the Revolution Becomes a Coup

Unfortunately, the joy was short-lived. Fearing the loss of Romania, the Russians pushed their loyal man, Ion Iliescu, to claim power. Unfortunately for him, a revolutionary force was already taking root, and even though he managed to infiltrate it, he risked being ousted soon. To avoid this and extend control over the country, Iliescu allied with army chief General Stănculescu. The latter staged “terrorists,” supposedly loyal to Ceaușescu and seeking to restore him — nonsense. In reality, these were groups of soldiers from separate units, sent to defend the same objectives without coordination or communication. Amid the panic over “terrorists” everywhere, when two groups met, soldiers fired on each other, convinced they were shooting terrorists. These fratricidal exchanges, resulting in deaths and injuries, were presented on TV as battles against terrorists to increase fear. Angelo, George, and I narrowly escaped such an outcome.

Angelo and the Hardliners

Who Were We?

On 17 December 1989, the “Radu the Handsome” alert was issued. Military regulations required each unit to form an intervention force, ready to fight immediately in case of an attack on their post. That was in theory. In reality, these units were deployed in Timișoara on 17–18 December, then in Bucharest and other cities on 21–22 December. After Ceaușescu’s fall, General Stănculescu used them to combat “terrorists.” Thus, on the night of 22–23 December, I found myself sent to Fetești, 150 kilometers from Bucharest, with my group. Bad luck for Stănculescu! We were only “Bucharest boys” from Colentina, Ferentari, Giulești, Pantelimon — all “good” zones, where street smarts came with maternal milk. Leading our group was a lieutenant from Moldova. An artillery officer, he had forgotten — if he ever knew — all about infantry or urban combat. He trembled with fear, unable even to hold his pistol. But he obeyed orders blindly.

The Order

We were to position ourselves in front of the main entrance of a Ministry of Internal Affairs barracks. Our mission: to shoot the “terrorists” trying to exit. It was nearly midnight when we arrived and took our positions. The suggestion to cover other exits was dismissed outright. According to the lieutenant, the order from Bucharest was unambiguous: cover only the main entrance and shoot the “terrorists.” Other forces would handle the rest. We knew very well that no other forces were present and told him so. He only repeated: “We follow the order. Period.” He left shortly before the shooting began, claiming he would find a phone to inform superiors that “the combat setup was in place.” Taking advantage of his absence, I told my comrades not to fire until I gave the signal. They immediately agreed, sensing something was off. Minutes later, a group of soldiers emerged from the barracks in marching formation, not combat formation.

Negotiations

I shouted for them to stop and surrender, informing them that Ceaușescu had already been captured and their loyalty to him was useless — he would not return to power. The soldiers scattered, trying to hide and take defensive positions. Their commander, a captain, shouted for us to surrender. According to him, we were the “terrorists,” and they would not let us escape. He insisted they were on the Revolution’s side against Ceaușescu, and we were protecting him. We yelled at each other for several minutes. Finally, the only logical conclusion emerged: it was a confusion. In reality, we were all on the same side — the side of the Revolution. They quietly returned to their barracks, and we left our position to report the outcome to our superiors.

What Followed?

The next morning, the commander of that military unit met with ours. Together, they planned the security of the city and its surroundings. Everything remained calm until the end. Later, a friend told me that night, TV reported the “terrorists” had been neutralized in Fetești. The information was broadcast several times, then vanished as if it never existed (why?). On 25 December, Ceaușescu’s trial and execution took place. Iliescu appeared on TV to announce: “It’s over, the dictator has been executed, there will be no more terrorists.” Although gunfire and skirmishes didn’t cease immediately, they declined sharply after this announcement. Stănculescu and his men issued strict orders to withdraw soldiers to barracks. Any external mission required approval from the highest military authority or President Iliescu himself. Weapons issued to civilians were recalled. Calm and peace returned, and the “terrorists” vanished as if they had never existed. Meanwhile, Iliescu, the “emanation of the Revolution” (nonsense!), stayed in power until 1996, perpetuating a system of corruption and clientelism. George permanently left Romania in 2003, after Iliescu returned to the presidency. By the end of 2012, Iliescu’s political “child,” the PSD, returned to power, and it was my turn — Angelo — to leave Romania forever.