THE REPUBLIC OF THE PERCHES: THE GOD OF STUPIDITY AND HIS PROJECT

Veteran “Corporal Dobre” walked around the barracks with such an air of importance that you might have thought that, if he were absent for two days, the Ministry of Defence would declare a period of national mourning. In his former life, he had been a tractor driver in a forgotten village somewhere in the endless plains of the Bărăgan. Once he joined the army, however, he discovered a machine even more powerful than a tractor: a “perch” and his rifle… Dobre inspected the weapon after every cleaning with the solemnity of a jeweller examining a diamond, nodded approvingly, and declared gravely: “Now it will shoot straight.” And yet, the rifle would not shoot straight under any circumstances. But that did not matter: in the “Republic of the Perches”, not even reality was allowed to contradict Corporal Dobre. The audio version of the article is available here: ........

Introduction

Romania, 1989: forty-five years of communism, twenty-five of them under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship. The country was on its deathbed. Nothing worked anymore; everything was dysfunctional. Against this backdrop of total misery, there were the two of us, Angelo and George: lifelong friends, inseparable since the very first day of high school. At the end of those four years came the great ordeal of our lives so far: fourteen months of compulsory military service. An eternity for two nineteen-year-olds, during which we would be separated from one another, from our families and from our homes. From everything that, until then, was our existence. What follows is the beginning of a series of incredible adventures belonging to that category of stories in which life outdoes fiction.

The Legendary Wooden Suitcase

Unfortunately, we were not assigned to the same military base. George was sent to Adâncata, a village in the Ploiești area, roughly seventy kilometres from Bucharest. Angelo was thrown into Hațeg, about five hundred kilometres away. And this even though, under normal circumstances, we should have completed our military service somewhere closer to home. That was how we came to be separated, after having formed a genuine “Dream Team” during our four years of high school (see '1985, Under the Dictatorship of Ohm'). Our last joint achievement was acquiring the legendary wooden suitcase. This was necessary because Ceaușescu’s army did not provide wardrobes for conscripts. To keep their personal belongings - including food - soldiers were required to use wooden suitcases secured with padlocks. The stronger the wood and the sturdier the lock, the lower the risk of having the suitcase and your belongings stolen. Consequently, the wooden suitcase became the unmistakable symbol of conscripts. Whenever you saw a civilian carrying one, you knew that he was about to “go into the army”. We, being somewhat cleverer than the others, equipped ourselves with genuine works of art. Works of art in army-grade wood! Armed with this masterpiece, we met for the last time before a long separation on the platform of Bucharest’s North Railway Station. From that station we departed as citizens of Ceaușescu’s Romania, only to return a year later to a different Romania, one that was slowly emerging from communism.

The Train to Darkness

On a gloomy day in early September 1989, several hundred of us were there as conscripts ('militari în termen', in Romanian), waiting to depart for various military bases. We all knew what was coming for us: the 'darkness of the mind' that was the Romanian army in 1989. Heads held high and shoulders straight, Angelo and I waited quietly for the train. We were hardened by years of rigorous karate training, as well as by the “human hunts” carried out by the communist Militia against the rockers we were (see on the blog 'Freedom and the Truncheon: The First Chronicle of the Rock Generation'). We had already endured countless abuses, harassment, and beatings, having been branded “enemies of the people” (the “communist people”), just to be absolutely clear! It was different for the others. Most of them were people who lived in fear of “God”. More precisely, the “communist God”. They were terrified. They trembled with fear, and many had tears in their eyes; some were sobbing uncontrollably. A morbid machinery awaited us, one designed to drive human beings towards abysses of madness and despair.

The Machinery of Humiliation

Seen from the outside, through the lenses of the propaganda apparatus, every communist army projected an image of limitless power, grandeur and splendour. Seen from within, it was an absolute nightmare. A work of art, the art of bullying taken to its extreme, of abuse in every conceivable form and corruption at every level. Incompetence reigned supreme. The Romanian Army of 1989 was a miniature communist republic: the same wooden language, the same staggering stupidity and the same institutional incompetence. Idiotic orders came from above and dissolved into absurdity as they travelled down the chain of command. Officers recited, with idiotic fervour, slogans about the “revolutionary courage and devotion of soldiers in the struggle against imperialists, fascists and Nazis”. The soldiers—abused, exploited, hungry and bored—dreamed of concrete things: a leave pass, a letter or a hot bowl of soup. And, above all, they dreamed of the end of this nightmare. People used to say that “the army makes a man”. In reality, it made people experts in the art of pretending to understand the illogical logic of their commanders. Above all, the army taught you how many different ways there were to humiliate and abuse a human being.

What the Hell Were We Doing Here?

And it was within this organisation of absolute misery that we were required to complete our compulsory military service, beginning in September 1989. And not just anywhere. We were sent to some of the most elite units of the Romanian Army at the time: anti-aircraft defence units equipped with Soviet Volhov missiles—which, for Ceaușescu’s army, were roughly the equivalent of Patriot missile batteries today.

How was this possible?

What on earth had the army bureaucrats been thinking when they sent us there - rockers and martial-arts practitioners? These were precisely the categories of young people the communist regime feared and despised most, and with good reason: during the December 1989 Revolution, people like us found themselves on the front lines (see 'December 1989 – The Army and the Revolution'). Most likely, the aptitude tests conducted during recruitment had revealed the exceptional quality of our school education (see 'School Practice under Communism'). But they had also revealed another extraordinary skill: the ability to get by. And we demonstrated that skill from the very second day of military service, the day of the casting for the key positions.

The Sleeping Room and Intellectual Ammunition

Officially, it was called the “Theoretical Training Room”. We all knew it, however, as “the sleeping room”. We were constantly told that this was the sanctuary where we learned the theory of operating our weapons, as well as military regulations. In reality, the principal skill acquired there was the highly sophisticated theory of sleeping with one’s eyes open.

It was there, and then, that we discovered that a soldier could achieve a state of profound meditation while an officer explained, for the twentieth time, the operating principle of a weapon that would hit its target only if the target itself fully cooperated. For weeks on end, we spent our mornings there in “technical training”: paper, pencil and missile theory, delivered with solemnity by officers and NCO's for whom drawing an electrical wire was equivalent to drafting the master plan for the conquest of the Galaxy of Victorious Socialism. “Write properly, men! This is intellectual ammunition!” they would shout, with the academic pride of university professors from the 'Faculty of Digging and Sewing'. It was there that we entered for the first time on the occasion of the “assignment of positions”.

High School on the Left, Vocational School on the Right

The unit commander ordered us to divide into two categories: those who had completed high school and everyone else! The “others” were graduates of vocational schools and those who had left education after ten years of schooling. There were also a few who had abandoned school precisely at the moment when the alphabet had become too demanding.

We, on the other hand, having completed high school and passed our baccalaureate, were the “intellectuals” of the Army! We looked at one another with discreet pride, as though we had just been admitted to the 'Académie Française' rather than to a barracks where the most important skill would soon prove to be polishing boots. The commander looked visibly delighted, with such genuine enthusiasm that you might have thought he had discovered a uranium deposit in the unit’s courtyard. In Ceaușescu’s army, completing high school was treated almost like possessing a secret weapon. A baccalaureate already seemed like Western technology, probably classified as “top secret NATO defence”.

The Optical-Visual Observer

Looking at us with the satisfaction of an HR director who had just discovered that several of his employees were capable of reading a manual without holding it upside down, he presented the positions available to us, the “high-school graduates”. His voice had the solemnity of a notary reading Rockefeller’s will as he listed them: missile launching, radar, radio room, guidance. According to him, these represented the professional elite of the unit. In reality, they were the positions where, if you made a mistake, there was no need to write an incident report. The disaster would be visible from several kilometres away. “You, capitalist” - meaning someone from the capital - “a graduate of a mathematics and physics high school, you will be my optical-visual observer,” the commander said, looking directly at me. My reaction: absolute zero. “What the hell does that even mean?” I wondered to myself. The title sounded so sophisticated that I instantly imagined a specialist observing the sky through ultra-secret instruments, calculating ballistic trajectories and communicating directly with Supreme Command. I almost expected to be issued a white laboratory coat and a pair of astronomer’s glasses. Seeing my complete lack of reaction, the commander tried to help. “Planșetist”, he added. Nothing. The word floated through the room like an administrative enigma. It sounded more like the profession of a draughtsman at a government design institute than that of a soldier in a missile unit.

The Plotter

The 'planșetist' was the soldier responsible for monitoring the airspace using optical equipment, identifying aircraft and marking the relevant information on a special plotting board using coordinates transmitted from the Radio Room. He was required to inform the commander of the appropriate moment to launch a missile against an aerial target. It was an unpopular position, and apparently so difficult that our unit had not had a planșetist worthy of the name for three years. The job required something extraordinarily rare in the communist army: thinking, drawing and completing paperwork at the same time. Almost an unnatural combination in an institution where initiative was regarded with suspicion and the unwritten rule was simple: “Execute, do not ask questions!” I was soon to discover that military destiny possesses a darker sense of humour than any Apevist—the mocking nickname given to career officers, from the expression 'Armată pe viață' (“Army for life”). While my colleagues would be carrying cables, turning switches and pushing tonnes of Soviet metal around, I was to wield the most formidable weapon in the communist army.

Not the missile. Not the radar. But the plotting board and a piece of chalk. And that was to remain true, above all, during the Revolution (see 'The Missile and the Shovel, or… the Multi-Purpose Army').

The “Republic of the Perches”

From the day a conscript walked through the gates of the unit, he ceased to be a citizen of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Without signing a document, and without being asked whether he agreed, he became a citizen of another country: the “Republic of the Perches”. This country had its own laws, its own geography, and its own logic. If, in the civilian world, two plus two made four, here the answer depended on how long the person asking the question had been in the army. And everything began with losing your name. The name you had carried in civilian life disappeared, to be replaced by “Perch”. Just another “perch”, one of thousands of fish condemned to swim in an aquarium without water, but full of abuse, deprivation, and humiliation. And the “perch”, like the fish in nature, was at the mercy of predators - who, here, went by the name of “veterans”.

Alone Against Everyone

A “veteran” was a conscript who had already completed at least six months of his military service. After that period, most of the men who had been veterans in their unit would finish their service and go home. In their place came another contingent of recruits. These newcomers were the new “perches”, while those who had previously been “perches” now became “veterans”. Abused and humiliated in a thousand different ways up to that point, the new “veterans” became dehumanised creatures. Monsters who were expected to do to the “perches” what had been done to them. Some went even further, out of sheer malice, sadism, or simply because it made them feel important. Others did it out of habit, believing that “that’s just how the army works”. The “veterans” could do whatever they wanted to the “perches”, because nobody opposed them. The officers, right up to the unit commander, savoured the spectacle of humiliation, abuse and deprivation to which the “perches” were subjected. They often participated themselves, usually as instigators and more rarely as direct perpetrators. Sometimes they simply preferred not to get involved and looked the other way. And the “perches” themselves had no way of resisting. They had only just met one another and were therefore alone, each man for himself. The “veterans”, by contrast, were united and mutually supportive, having endured six months of abuse and deprivation together. Thus, whenever a “perch” failed to do what he was told, or even attempted to rebel, he would immediately find himself confronted by a group of several “veterans”. The result was a sound beating, followed by treatment even harsher than that inflicted upon the obedient “perches”.

The Tractor Driver and His Diamond

He walked around the barracks with such an air of importance that you might have thought that, if he were absent for two days, the Ministry of Defence would declare a period of national mourning. He spoke little, because he did not have many words at his disposal. But the few he possessed he used with an economy worthy of an IMF austerity programme. In his previous life, he had been a tractor driver in a forgotten village somewhere in the endless plains of the Bărăgan, where the horizon was so flat that the only hill existed in his grandparents’ stories. From what he told us, he drove the tractor with the same pride with which an admiral commands his fleet. But once he arrived in the army, he discovered a machine even more powerful than a tractor: a “perch”. That is, me. George. Every day I received the same sacred mission from him: “Clean the rifle!” I dismantled it. I wiped it. I oiled it. I polished it until it began to shine like the family silverware reserved for Sundays. The next day, I started all over again. I sometimes felt that if the war had been fought against oil stains, the Romanian Army would have been invincible. The problem was that the rifle had one defect that even the most conscientious hours of cleaning could not repair. At the firing range, if you aimed directly at the centre of the target, the bullet would stubbornly land about twenty metres to the left. It did not matter how carefully you breathed. It did not matter how firmly you held the stock against your shoulder. The rifle had its own geographical convictions. The target was straight ahead. The bullet preferred to visit another county. If war had broken out, I think the enemy would have been perfectly safe—as long as he stood exactly where I was aiming. The irony was that Dobre inspected the rifle after every cleaning with the solemnity of a jeweller examining a diamond. He ran his finger along the barrel, nodded approvingly, and declared gravely: “Now it will shoot straight.” And yet the rifle refused to shoot straight. But it did not matter. In the Republic of the Perches, not even reality was allowed to contradict Corporal Dobre.

The God of Stupidity and His Project

Having become the unit’s “chief plotter”, I spent most of my time in front of the plotting board or in a small room next to it. Whenever I did join my fellow “perches”, it was always in a hurry, because at any moment I could be summoned to the plotting board by the unit commander or his deputy. This made me unavailable for abuse and bullying. And that irritated the unit’s “veterans” enormously, led by “Corporal Dobre”. So Dobre sought the assistance of an officer - the man most firmly convinced that “perches”, while they were still “perches”, had to be humiliated to the maximum. One morning, the officer summoned me. I was puzzled. He looked at my face as though it were a broken television set and smiled. It was the smile of a man who has just discovered a new form of torture and cannot wait to test it. With the boots of a god of stupidity, he drew a new project in the dust: “One cubic metre. Depth, width and length.” A short poem, but a painful one. I was to expose a pipe that needed replacing. I began digging. Eight hours. Eight hours during which I felt that every strike of the shovel was excavating not only the earth, but also my dignity.

You Bloody Stupid Perch

At last, I reached the pipe. It was cracked, and water was leaking from it. At one point, the water rose over my boots. Cold. Cold as an officer’s expression when you tell him that you have rights. I told the officer that I could not remain standing in cold water, that I suffered from sinusitis, and that my doctor had explicitly told me to avoid doing so. The officer burst into laughter so violent that I thought he was going to have an apoplectic fit. He laughed like a donkey struck by revelation. Then, solemnly, he delivered his favourite line: “You bloody stupid perch! Carry out the order, and afterwards, if you don’t like it, report it to the commander!” The army is where logic dies, and stupidity is promoted. I obeyed the order. I worked for another two hours in the cold water. That evening, an ambulance took me to the hospital in Ploiești, the nearest city to the military unit.

The Drawer Full of Broken Screws

I spent two entire days there, with my sinusitis blossoming like a rose of suffering. Meanwhile, the commander was asking desperately: “Where is George?” In my absence, the unit had lost a competition it should have won easily. My return from hospital was not a solemn moment, but rather a three-act black comedy. Me, with my sinusitis still screaming inside my sinuses like a choir of wet boots. The unit, in organised chaos, like a termite colony wearing epaulettes. The officers, thoroughly indoctrinated into cruelty, running around like headless chickens in search of the “missing plotter”. My entrance into the courtyard had all the air of the return of a tragic hero—but without the fanfare and without the applause. I was greeted by several NCO's who looked at me as though I were a broken refrigerator: they did not know whether to repair me or throw me away. A “veteran”, like a minor character in a bad film, looked at me with a mixture of suspicion and disappointment. For him, the fact that I had survived was a personal insult. “Aha… you’re back.” That was all he could manage. A poet of silence. A Socrates of stupidity. I was taken before the commander, a man whose mind was organised like a drawer full of broken screws. “Where the hell have you been, George? How the hell did you dare miss the competition?” His voice was a mixture of panic, anger, and helplessness. If he had been holding a weapon, I suspect he would have shot me on the spot. “At the hospital, sir, Commander. The ambulance picked me up directly from the ditch.”

When the Beetroot Explodes

I spoke calmly, like a man who knows that the truth can be more absurd than any lie. The commander turned red. Not from embarrassment—officers did not possess that particular organ—but from rage. “Who put you in the ditch?” I gave him the name of the officer responsible. The commander became as red as a beetroot and began hyperventilating. I thought he was about to have a stroke on the spot. When he finally recovered the power of speech, he shouted so loudly that I could almost feel the windows of the building vibrating: “Officer X”—I have forgotten his name after all these years—“is to disappear from my unit. He is to be transferred immediately to wherever the map hangs from the wall.” That was military jargon for the northernmost point of the country. Translated from military language, it meant that the officer was to be exiled to the land of idiots, to a place where his stupidity could no longer function as a weapon of mass destruction. From that moment on, the atmosphere in the unit changed. The “veterans” looked at me with a mixture of respect and fear. Not because I had become stronger, but because I had survived an officer capable of killing a rhinoceros with nothing but his stupidity. That evening, I returned to the dormitory. I lay down, breathed deeply, and felt that, for the first time in my military life, I had won a battle. Not against the enemy. Not against nature. Against institutionalised stupidity. A happy ending, in the style of Ceaușescu’s army: you survive, but you have no idea how. TO BE CONTINUED.