Dictator of Romania: Nicolae Ceaușescu Quiz

Answer: Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej became the first leader of Communist Romania, becoming prime minister from 1952-55, and president of Romania's State Council from 1961-65.

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej escaped from prison in 1944, after being sentenced to 12 years labor for his participation in the 1933 Grivița railwaymen's strike. Communism was illegal in Romania at this time. While in prison for joining the Communist party and serving 30 months in prison, Ceaușescu was in the same jail as Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and later joined the latter's government.

Answer: Doftana Prison

Once striking fear and dread into the citizens of Romania, Doftana prison is currently in a state of disrepair as an abandoned building.

Ceaușescu received harsh treatment in the prison and developed a stammer because of this. He escaped from prison in 1944.

Answer: Elena Petrescu

Elena Petrescu was given many senior positions in Ceaușescu's government. Romanian television was under strict instruction to portray her physical features in the most flattering ways, including never being shown in profile because of her prominent nose.

She was the subject of a cult of personality almost as large of her husband's, and was referred to as 'Mother of Romania.'

Answer: 1974

Ceaușescu already had power in Romania as the President of the State Council. In 1974 he changed this title to 'President of Romania' and ruled with full executive power. This power would prove to be a disaster for Romanian citizens.

Answer: False

Ceaușescu was uneducated, leaving school at 11 years old to become a shoemaker and did not finish much of his childhood education.

He grew up in a poor family and this was part of his attraction to Communism, which promised equal rights for the working class.

Answer: To increase the general population of Romania

Ceaușescu was concerned about the population of Romania declining after World War II. Although pregnancy and child rearing was thoroughly encouraged, Ceaușescu viewed sex as a "necessary evil" to produce babies, and banned pornography.

Communist propaganda of the time proclaimed that it was the Romanian women, to give birth and provide children for their country. Ceaușescu wanted these children for his industrial workforce, one that would help create the powerful state he craved to rule.

Answer: True

Ceaușescu endeared himself to the Romanian public at first by challenging Russia, and establishing his own independent foreign policy, which promised to propel Romania into becoming a great world power. He was popular until he became inspired by China and North Korea's totalitarian policies. Romania followed suit, to the horror of its citizens.

Answer: Moscow

Ceaușescu's mentor Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was meant to be on this flight, but backed out at the last moment. The plane crashed upon attempting to land at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. Other Romanian politicians were killed and injured but Ceaușescu survived with minor injuries. To this day it is debated as to whether this plane crash was an accident.

Answer: Diabetes

Ceaușescu was strangely brought a shot of insulin by a member of the army, as he was waiting to be executed. He had diabetes for around the last 10 years of his life, but was concerned about becoming dependent on insulin as his brother had. His wife shared the same fear, reluctant to let a doctor give him insulin, whilst Ceaușescu was in a hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state.

She eventually agreed which probably saved his life.

Answer: 500,000

Ceaușescu's barring of abortion and contraception, as well as encouraging Romanian woman with a financial incentive to have children, meant that there was a huge population boom in Romania. There was also a tax on those who did not have children by 1977, at around 10% of a person's earnings. A lot of children were born to women and young families who were not ready to care for a child.

Their youth was not the only obstacle in raising a child in Ceaușescu's Romania. In order to pay back the loans he had indiscriminately accepted from the West to ingratiate himself to them, he had exported crops before thinking about his own people, who were on rations regarding food and electricity.

Answer: Securitate

While considering the population size of the country it policed, the Securitate were one of the largest secret police forces of the Eastern Bloc. At its peak, the Securitate employed around 11,000 secret police agents, as well as about half a million informants. Spying on ones' neighbours and reporting to the police was normalised.

Answer: Ion Mihai Pacepa

Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa was sent to West Germany on Ceaușescu's orders in 1978. He was to give a message to the German chancellor. He also had orders to have an American journalist who happened to be in West Germany, murdered for criticizing Ceaușescu's regime.

But Ion Mihai Pacepa had other ideas. He arrived in West Germany, then went to the American embassy there, proclaiming that he wanted to defect from Ceaușescu's Romania.

Upon hearing of Pacepa's defection, Ceaușescu publicized a $2 million reward for anyone who could secure his death. Pacepa died aged 92 in 2021, still under an alias in the U.S.A.

Answer: The Internationale

In 1989, Ceaușescu and his wife were the last people to be executed in Romania before the country's abolition of the death penalty. The downfall of the Ceaușescus was unlike other revolutions in the Eastern Bloc, which have a general pattern of unfolding gradually. Romania's revolution happened in days. Ceaușescu's last speech was so out of touch and disastrous, so seemingly unconcerned and offensively optimistic as Romanian citizens had suffered for so long, while his family lived his luxury with him.

Following this speech in 1989, Ceaușescu and his wife fled in fear of their lives. Upon a hasty trial they were sentenced to death. His wife was much more flustered by the impending execution, with reports stating that she swore and cursed at the guards. Ceaușescu, ever the optimist, chose to sing the left-wing anthem 'The Internationale.'

Answer: Christmas Day

The Ceaușescus certainly had a miserable Christmas. They had fled to the city of Tārgoviște, but the police met the couple after their helicopter had landed in the city. They were then handed over to the army. Their short, pre-determined trial would lead to them both being executed by firing squad on December 25, 1989.

Answer: Ghencea Cemetery

Ceaușescu and his wife's bodies were exhumed in 2010 to ascertain that the bodies were really them. DNA from Ceaușescu's son and brother proved it was him, but his wife had too little material for an accurate test.