Unrepentant tyrants

This documentary is a basic introduction to the rise and fall of Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu. I'm old enough to remember the "televised revolution" in Romania in 1989 (of course, I saw it at safe distance from Sweden!), and I'm still fascinated by Ceausescu's surprise at the people turning against him at that fateful last rally. He seems to have been an almost classical case of a mad tyrant out of touch with reality.

The documentary mentions Ceausescu's poor childhood, his rise through the ranks of the Communist Party, and his anti-Soviet nationalism which made him the darling of the West. A temporary liberalization was followed by a sharp turn to super-Stalinism after visiting Mao's China and North Korea. The 1980's saw Ceausescu attempting to pay back the massive national debt to Western banks at one stroke, and a bizarre program of social engineering directed against every vestige of individual independence. Ceausescu's wife and evil genius Elena, a virtual co-dictator, is also prominently featured.

Nobody was surprised when Romania turned out to be the only Communist country in Europe where the system had to be overthrown by force. I didn't know all the details about Ceausescu's attempted flight, including the bizarre car hijack! Of course, the "trial" of Ceausescu was a farce, but honestly, so what?

I have a few objections to "Ceausescu: The Unrepentant Tyrant". One is that the narrator consistently mispronounces the dictator's name - admittedly a non-culpable error. Another is that the Romanians interviewed are dubbed by people speaking English with heavy foreign accents! Yet another shortcoming is that no Hungarians are interviewed. The Romanian interviewees, while condemning Ceausescu's domestic policies (and Elena) nevertheless praise his foreign policy, obviously because of Romanian nationalism. The rather numerous Hungarian national minority would probably have an altogether negative view of the man. The revolution against the dictator started in Timisoara (Temesvár), where the Hungarian dissident priest László Tökés had been defrocked by a compliant bishop.

I also have a few complaints against the smart alec introducing and closing the documentary, who claims that post-revolutionary Romania's "soft form of Communism" (meaning Ion Iliescu's government) explains the poverty of the country in 1999. Yeah, sure - look at the expansive economies of capitalist Kosovo and FYR Macedonia, LOL.

That being said, I nevertheless recommend "The Unrepentant Tyrant" for those who know next to nothing about Romania's modern history, or need to be reminded of the sorry reign of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu.