Original subtitles

PARADOX FILM presents

Downloaded from YTS.MX

A film realised with the help of National Centre of Cinematography

In collaboration with ROMANIAN SOCIETY OF TELEVISION

With the support of BORSEC ROM AQUA

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

THE NOSTALGIA OF DICTATORSHIP

A film by MARIUS TH. BARNA

"Even though Ceauşescu led a regime, everyone had something to eat

and there was no discrepancy between the rich and the poor."

Mădălina Ghenea (model and actress)

"I would have liked to catch those times.

I saw on TV how Nicolae Ceauşescu filled the town-squares with people.

It was cool seeing how many people applauded him,

I think he's the biggest MC up until now.

He also invented the working 1st of May holiday.

My message is "Let's party with MC Ceauşescu.

A happy 1st of May for everyone and keep going ahead, comrades."

Bijou (Singer. Real name, Elena Turcu)

"Ceauşescu shouldn't have been murdered.

Ceauşescu impressed me with all he has achieved for Romania,

especially the buildings he left behind as a heritage for all Romanians."

Andreea Bănică (singer)

NICOLAE CEAUŞESCU'S COMMEMORATION GHENCEA CEMETERY - 26TH OF JANUARY, 2018

How was it before?

Listen, if you are smart now and if you were smart before, you're living well.

As well as being honest.

If you're stupid, I can't do anything about it.

Don't worry 'cause it wasn't, don't worry. Who voted Firea? Who's Firea, mister?

If you have a smart president like he was, but everyone went behind his back,

we also lived well. With him or without him...

The most beautiful period of my life was during Ceauşescu's time.

Us, the middle class, what can we do with it?

We didn't know how to protect our fortune.

Speak up, why won't you speak up?

They won't shoot all of Romania. Down with them!

Make a prognosis for all politicians:

when will Romania ever have zero debt? External.

Look where Firea is living,

the house she has, with that stupid mayor. Pandele!

Because we were not united and we're all divided now. That's my opinion.

Do you know who can get this country out of its mess? The army.

They must put a gun in them,

arrest everyone and the money obtained from them

should be given to the people, so they have something to eat.

It would've been Nicolae Ceauşescu's 100 year birthday today.

It was better during his time. You had something to eat,

something to live off of.

But now, with the 530 RON received from the sickness pension,

I only eat a loaf of bread daily. I can't live like this, I'm a downcast now,

not even God helps me now.

During Ceauşescu's time you had a home, now I'm a wretch and a downcast.

ADA MILEA - singer

Ceauşescu didn't die,

He watches us vigilantly, Ceauşescu is a school!

Ceauşescu is a disease.

It's in me, it's in you, it's in blocks and factories,

It's in everyone today!

Ceauşescu never dies!

According to various opinion polls,

30 years after the revolution,

if Nicolae Ceauşescu would run for the presidential elections in Romania,

he would win very detached.

Perhaps even from the first round.

There's a nostalgia that is not necessarily linked to the regime itself,

rather to youth, a childhood, a certain type of stability.

A certain type of safety, a certain type of lifestyle

that remained in safe and constant parameters.

People, in general,

want nothing more from life itself than a family and a stable life,

a stable job, as well the bread from tomorrow's table and the safety.

(Actor): Everyone managed.

The greatest gift a human can receive is kindness.

This state of humanity,

as time passed,

has degraded.

I caught it however,

I was a child and my parents were quite young, under the age of 40

and we would go for a couple of days

and visit close relatives, brothers or sisters of my parents.

They would party and share stories, these were extraordinary things.

And when they left, they said, "Thank you for your kindness."

(Professor and sociologist): In 1989

there were almost 8 million paid jobs,

almost the entire population, if we add the coworkers,

the entire population was busy in an organized state-run system.

Between 1991 and 1992, out of 8 million something employees,

almost 4 million paid jobs disappeared.

The indoctrination decades left their mark.

Even if many people accept

that the overall system was a tragic error in history,

they remain convinced that the idea itself was good, but it was wrongfully applied.

WAS IT BETTER BEFORE?

THE JOB IS LIKE A GOLDEN BRACELET!

(Literary secretary from Fantasio Theatre):

All college graduates benefited from this governmental repartition.

From this governmental repartition.

There were professional categories who were obligated,

post graduating and obtaining this position,

to spend some time in a certain institution

be it artistic, be it a factory, or a hospital

that trial period, if I can call it that, was overall very welcomed.

(Freelancer): It was a much better situation than now.

As this overall hurry in finding a job

in order to be able to provide everyday living was not an issue.

(Retired): Ceauşescu was one of the biggest patriots.

I wasn't a member of the party at the time, but I lived during those years.

And I swear, I can assure you

that it was 1000 times better than it is now.

(Retired): Everyone had a job,

you could've afforded to make a loan

out of any income.

The interest rates were not extraordinarily high,

people used to make CARs (mutual help homes)

and leave on holiday wherever they wanted.

(Journalist): Out of my very first salary,

which I thought to be very high at the time: 800 lei.

I spent it all on a pair of luxury shoes.

I was very proud of them.

And a bunch of sweets.

Out of my next salary I bought a whole bunch of bananas

and I ate them with a colleague of mine

out of the desire I had for a long time.

The man, through his nature,

prioritizes the satisfaction of basic needs:

having something to eat both himself and his family,

and having somewhere to live,

even if it's minimum decent living.

For all of that, he needed a job.

The communist regime offered him that job.

In a rigidly built and perfectly controlled system.

Every time I eat a steak at a restaurant, I always remember my first salary,

because that was when I ate the best steak in the world.

Truth is, everything was different back then,

I was a sports teacher near Jibou at Surduc

and when I got my first salary I entered a restaurant to grab a beer.

I drank that beer and ate a pork neck.

I will never forget it for the rest of my life

as I keep comparing it with the trash I eat now,

even at the best restaurants.

(Political scientist): You had a job, usually a job to which the state

would assign you after you graduated.

Where you wanted to work and how or what you wanted to work did not matter.

You were assigned according to a government division,

and you would go to that place.

If you ended up in a small village or a small industrial town,

the location on your I.D would be your work place

it was kind of a "glue-binding".

GETTING MARRIED TODAY, MOVING INTO AN APARTMENT TOMORROW!

I received, in the beginning, a house from the editorial office.

A very modest apartment.

I then added myself on a list,

at the recommendation of the editorial office,

and I bought in installments with the money borrowed from CEC,

a bigger apartment. It was a 3-room apartment

and I paid for it in installments, in 25 years.

(Retired): They would borrow money from CAR

and buy everything necessary for a studio apartment,

for example:

a bedroom composed out of a bed,

wardrobe, a mirror and something else

was worth about 10,000 lei, very cheap.

A stove was worth 1,700 lei,

a fridge was 5,000 lei,

a black and white TV was 3,000 lei.

If a college graduate was employed with a 3,000 lei salary,

everything I've mentioned above was very easily bought.

(Tourism Agency Director): The enterprise was preoccupied about the people.

I received from the very first day a sort of studio apartment,

so basically from the first day of work.

I was a newly-wed, I had no children and my wife was a sports teacher as well.

The first time I felt... the feeling of an owner,

a feeling which nowadays is considered debatable

and we don't know what it really is.

I felt a sense of freedom

because I had an intimate place,

meaning that it was an intimacy overall,

in a world that allows you up until one point a place in this intimacy;

but in the world who says it's going to give you all,

it leaves you nothing in the end.

The communist regime offered everyone a place to live.

With rent due, as most of the private properties created inequalities,

then, tip-toeing around it, with money up front - buying it.

Most of the living places were in neighborhoods

filled with monotonous blocks, grey, with no intimacy whatsoever,

in which the man would plunge into the anonymity of the faithful mass,

grateful to the party.

Therefore, it was much easier to supervise and control.

(Sociologist): The state was the biggest real estate agent at the time.

It was the owner of all the neighborhoods,

of all the houses which have been built.

Oddly enough, the houses were built off the backs of the working people, right?

And the working people would receive them after years and years

of waiting on the famous waiting lists of the houses

on a very rigorous score in which they actually lived as tenants.

We can't throw it away just because it was communism.

It's similar to us demolishing our blocks because they were built during communism.

We can't demolish them. They're ours, we live in them and we enjoy them.

THE LAW IS THE LAW FOR EVERYONE!

The law was the law!

Especially for the majority.

Less for the red bourgeoisie.

For the "ştabi", as they were known before 1989.

(Retired): You could walk on the street,

day or night, without having any issues,

all you needed to have was a job.

If the police stopped you by any chance,

they would ask for your I.D, especially your work I.D first.

If you had a job, you were in the system,

and you would've benefited from the weekly classes

of political education during work hours.

If you didn't have a job, you were arrested for vagrancy.

No one could stay out of the system.

AFTER A LIFETIME OF WORK, YOU HAD A WELL-DESERVED PENSION!

So the pension system was functional,

there was small pensions but they would come when planned,

people would retire at an established age,

the undertakings would usually create a ceremony dedicated to them.

(Ecologist): I know my grandfather had a pension but he was happy.

I don't know much, I mean, he never complained about the pension situation;

be it either not on time, or increased.

Because then, there was a stability.

This was regarding the prices as well,

he knew for a fact that month after month he would receive his pension

and that there would be no inflation differences.

Actors were considered to have a hard job, especially puppeteers.

Women, ladies, they would retire at 45 years old,

whilst men at 50 years old, it was considered a hard job,

like pilots, miners, aviators,

and they would benefit by receiving important pensions for that money.

The system was simpler and clearer before,

the state was dealing with the hiring,

everyone knew the wages, the working places, etc.

It was relatively easy to calculate your pension.

Nowadays, things are much more complex.

A job, a house and, of course, a pension

so that everyone's existence can run smoothly

in order to avoid social convulsions.

The man knew that, if he respects the rules,

he'll have his future assured.

In Romania, nowadays,

I am glad that pensions themselves are,

made after a biblical word:

increasingly decreasing;

even my increased pension

has decreased with 51 lei.

MAMAIA, PREDEAL, CĂCIULATA, FOR ALL THE WORKING CLASS!

How were holidays planned before?

It was simple, we would settle upon a route,

we had a Dacia 1100 as it was popular,

the gas was rationalized, therefore we had colleagues

and we'd settle upon a route through the country,

in each county a colleague would get me a gasoline canister

and in exchange, I would keep his gasoline

and when we arrived to the seaside it felt like a barter,

but I've seen the country,

I saw the beauties of the country which was important.

So, we would have a holiday with a group of friends,

which nowadays we lack of, meaning that fewer people gather,

people travel together

and it's a certain way of consuming loneliness in the family

or even in yourself.

I remembered my first holiday being at Voineasa.

It was with my parents, after they've bought the Dacia 1300.

We went on the Transfăgărăşanu route

and we spent either a week or two,

We would go on holiday once or twice per year without encountering any problem.

I would travel with my parents up in the mountains

on Valea Prahovei, Valea Oltului, Slănic Prahova, all the time.

No year would pass by without us having a trip to the mountains.

(Actor): Being born in 1965,

I know very little about the spiritual life from the 70s.

I lived, I had something to eat,

I saw that a lot of tourists would come to Romania on trips.

We were an attraction spot.

Well, I was living on the western border of Romania, in Oradea,

where foreigners would come very quickly.

Especially Czechs, Czechoslovaks, I'm sorry, Poles, Germans, Hungarians.

At Băile Felix and Băile Herculane, and so on.

(Worker): I had my first holiday after I got married

and had my first child, I went with him

in a resort, in Mamaia.

Oddly enough, nowadays, I cannot afford to have a holiday in Mamaia.

(Worker): On May 25th they sent us over to the seaside,

they made us front workers in the production,

I was barely 18 and we'd open up the seaside season on the 25th.

We had 12 days of holiday, you would've worked at night, left for the seaside,

come back from the seaside in the morning only to get back to work.

Truth be told, the prices were different back then

and before any trip to the seaside they would call us to the party

and they would instruct us on what the wear and how to act

we were supposed to honor the factory from which we left.

I just became a mother

and my maternal holiday was either at my in-law's

or my parents as we didn't have our own house yet,

we were travelling.

The Berceni apartment was not finished yet

and we were living with a host even though it was quite scary,

we were doing a kind of pilgrimage to my child's grandparents.

Scholar and youth camps, following the rest leave,

the trips to the balneare treatments,

all of them were carefully planned

and they would take place in a very organized environment,

usually under the supervision of the trade unions,

"Communist party transmission belts", as Lenin called them.

How many Romanians are able to afford holidays nowadays?

They would rely on trade unions before for them.

Be them good or bad, the everyday peasant

would get to see the seaside or the mountains once or twice in his life.

Today, you're going to the countryside as if no one has seen

the seaside in the last 25 - 30 years.

These are the things which affect a certain type of social life.

YOU HAVE A BOOK, YOU HAVE A PART!

It was an education, in my opinion,

where teachers had a greater responsibility.

The children could actually learn something

as there were prepared teachers.

Even by looking at myself,

I learned something from my teachers even if I wasn't one of the best students

The education was free, I had a scholarship,

and from that 331 lei scholarship

I managed to pay the rent and the card.

And even have a little extra on the side for transport, eventually.

So, when it was time to wash the curtains, the parents would do it.

The concept of buying curtains did not exist.

Nowadays, however, there's a bigger emphasis on contribution,

giving money for something, year by year.

There was an access before regarding a reasonable education

and it was cheap, it was pretty cheap.

The old system's problem was the problem of accessing the higher education.

Jobs and university places were very low in Romania

as a proportion from the younger generation.

When I arrived outside the country

I realized I was just as educated as the people there.

I had an average education level, acceptable for the western level.

Basically, these are a few of the important things we nowadays lose slowly.

(Professor): Here we were doing agricultural work,

doing the singing of Romania, while also getting educated.

People were receiving education.

I don't know how everything worked out that way,

but things were going very well.

In communism, the "new man's" formation began at the earliest age.

School textbooks were carefully monitored to be censorship free,

the history was rewritten in the communist "key",

ideology passed through any educational subject.

Nothing was left to chance.

But nothing and no one was talking about indoctrination.

Very many simple, unprivileged children,

workers from lower social strata,

because they had access to free universal education

and a very low price that anyone could've afforded.

In a few new generations we managed to produce

sort of a very educated new middle class:

doctors, engineers, agronomists.

I'm not even going to mention the other areas,

areas which are quite widespread.

HEALTH BEFORE ANYTHING!

It's not right, fellow professor.

The rhythm should be accelerated. More alert, more lively.

Don't be so pretentious, Sănduco. You'll get tired.

If needed, you don't ever get tired. Please, let's take it from the top.

Take it from the top? That's just Sanda being ambitious.

The guys from the park are playing soccer and I'm the goal-keeper of the team.

At least today, Nicuşor, on my birthday. Leave the soccer.

You promised me you'll do the honor of being my guest.

Kids, a more lively rhythm.

1, 2, 3, go!

(Engineer): The health system was favorable,

you could go and present yourself in front of a doctor,

indeed, like any other system,

it had its ups and downs

but you could've benefited from certain services

from multiple hospitals,

anything which regarded healthcare.

Medical offices could've been found in every school or high school

medical offices which today have gone missing,

I can state that if we start counting in a county,

we'll find only a few of them.

Back then there were doctors in offices,

every neighborhood had a medical office with a children's doctor

with a children's doctor as well as an adult doctor.

Medicine was free, so the medical service

and the hospitalization was free, but I want to tell you something

I've learned from my own experience, it really matters in this field,

the humanity of the doctors matters a lot.

It was free because there was a well-controlled state system,

even though the health system relied a lot on personal relations,

on good doctors, specialized doctors.

We've always had a good number of professional doctors,

they couldn't compare themselves to others but overall, they were very good.

I knew doctors who wouldn't accept a bribe;

someone actually advised me once when I was visiting a doctor

to not even think of giving him anything

as he would tell me to get out and never speak to me again.

However, the ones beneath him

always had their pockets wide opened

waiting for cigarettes, coffee, whatever you might get as a gift back then.

Even though healthcare services were free,

their quality began decreasing over time,

mainly due to the overused medical equipment.

For better services, the "bribes" offered to the doctors

and the nurses became something common.

You would've felt an acute mental discomfort

if you ended up at the doctor or the hospital

without an envelope with money, coffee or a Kent cartridge.

There were a few important things gained during Communism.

We either like it or we don't.

Free, universal and compulsory education,

free healthcare access which is very important and a certain type of access,

and when the urbanization process took place.

WITHOUT DEBTS, ESPECIALLY TO STRANGERS!

Ceauşescu was a well-intentioned guy

who brought the country to a stage without debts,

even though this annoyed many people outside the country.

The factory has professional schools

which allow the youth to qualify for various jobs.

Strating from electricians to chemist operators.

The external debt was paid through the sacrifices of the Romanian people

through work, through what everyone could do.

Our parents having these jobs, everything was good, you know?

All of these were possible through the work of the Romanian people,

enterprises which produced

and secured the money to pay the external debt.

There were unpaid Saturdays and Sundays

and part of the work was patriotic;

the army, the scholars and the students.

Which meant cleaning the corn or the grapes

from the vineyard found in Dobrogea.

There were high-schools and schools which instead of keeping

to the regular teaching schedule,

they would go and collect the grain of the country for a month.

The payment of external debt of Romania,

essentially as a result of a policy lacking economic vision,

the catastrophic decrease in the quality of life

for the bigger majority of the population

in the last decade of the communist regime.

(Political scientist): We have documents in the Free Europe's archive in Prague

which shows that Nicolae Ceauşescu

was tougher than the Monetary International Fund

due to the fear he had towards the occident.

Romania entered twice in the incapacity of pay,

once in 1981 and once in 1989.

Nicolae Ceauşescu, not understanding the basics of the economic process,

wished to rapidly pay Romania's entire debt

which led to a fundamental economical mistake.

Many people talk, but in 1990 we were debt free with a finished economy.

Do you know what we've lost during the 80s

due to the incapacity of the ruling class led by Nicolae Ceauşescu?

We lost the essential moment in the evolution of occidental economy.

The computerization.

THE PEOPLE, CEAUŞESCU, ROMANIA!

The society

always tried to constrain the individual,

it was also a theory at some point that

as the individual is more constrained, the society is more free,

When we talk about communism, we cannot forget two things.

First of all, the communist project was a project of rapid modernization.

This produced a lot of violence.

So, communism cannot be reduced just to repression,

for example, our intellectual tradition says

that communism equals violence and repression.

After the first decade's terror

in which any form of opposition was physically exterminated,

the communist regime generated an undeniable economic leap

through massive industrialization

through infrastructure's work and housing construction.

In time, however, the pace of modernization slowed down

and the gaps between the parameters of the occidental economy market

and that of the centralized communist economy,

increased continuously.

The majority of the people left due to hunger;

so extraordinary careers of writers,

artists, or whatever else

left because of the dictatorship as couldn't freely exercise their profession.

They left because they said that

they've had enough with the rationalized food and facilities.

The man cannot handle himself alone.

There's a character by Dostoievski, I love Dostoievski very much

as he is the biggest spiritual of the world.

Galiov is the character's name, I think it's from "Demons",

who says that all the human societies are absurdities.

Because they were created by some dreamers

and fantasists

who debated against themselves

and who didn't keep tabs of two fundamental things:

nature and the psychology of this animal we call human,

A lot happened during the communism, a lot of phenomenon,

as industrialization, urbanization

and the massive education of the population,

a growth and a modernization which Romania has not known for the last 100 years,

at least since Carol was in a rapid, dynamic and great form.

IT WASN'T BETTER BEFORE!

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS GUARANTEED BY THE LAW!

ARTICLE 30 OF THE ROMANIAN CONSTITUTION

During Ceauşescu's time

you were not allowed to speak,

to stand up for yourself, to think freely without being affected.

Everything you said,

you had to be very careful who you were talking to,

what you talked about and where you did it.

(Former Political Prisoner): Freedom of speech and manifestation did not exist.

We were a crowd of people who had to keep their mouths shut,

we needed to follow the rules that the system imposed on us.

Any violation had its repercussions.

All of those years

induced a painful frustration

inside every human who had a conscience

and who felt the need to speak its mind.

(Doctor): And the fact that in all of those years, coming back to that,

people were limited through fear and through terror,

the ability of people expressing themselves had terrible consequences.

There were always these censorship committees.

There were three comrades who came to the viewing committee:

one was from the county, one from the party and one from I don't know where.

And there were the comrades: Abscess, Paw and Cucumber,

who assumed things.

They would judge everything that was being said there,

everything they supposedly understood.

They rarely understood what was actually being told

and they would frequently hang on to non-essential things.

That was our luck.

It was, of course, this ongoing battle with the viewing committee

which you had to fool.

There were people who were forbidden

to work in the country or in Bucharest.

Freedom of speech was one of the harshest consequences

of the successive dictatorship regimes,

because we're talking about the communist regime,

but this regime comes after two previous dictatorships:

the royal one and the (antonesciana) one,

with a small fascist period in 1940 until the January of 1941.

Well, during this period, there was no freedom of speech.

Some of them showed their frustrations and paid.

The prisons were full. Because freedom of speech had its price.

(Worker): During that time, everyone listened to Free Europe,

America's voice and so on.

I was a simple human, I had nothing to do with the police

or the security until 15th of November.

However, a form of freedom of speech is the religious freedom

that was obviously cooped up during the communist regime,

even though the communist took advantage of the known cults

and especially of the orthodox church

which was not equally persecuted of everything

that happened in other communist states or in the Soviet Union.

Freedom of speech was reduced to the use of language in accordance

with the canons of communist ideology.

Any deviation could have been interpreted

as a deviation from the line of the party,

or even worse, as a hostile action of undermining the socialist order.

Freedom of speech equaled with the "crime to think"

and it was harshly sanctioned

in order to avoid the disruption of the collective mentality

of the huge army formed of "new people".

Basically, the golden rule of the communist regime

was keeping the quiet about the less honorable truths

connected to the regime.

Instead, through a well-designed propaganda apparatus,

the regime outlined its so-called achievements.

IT'S 10 O'CLOCK, THE BLACK MAN ARRIVED!

It was fear everywhere. Fear.

Fear was the embedded word in our consciousness

that we could not forget.

Sure, the idea that "Free Europe"

and "Voice of America" had to be poorly listened due to the jammed sound

because you had to place the radio in a certain type of position near the window

so you could end up barely hearing what they were saying,

as well as understanding them, every day.

Every day you had to adjust the radio's intensity

so that you neighbors would not hear you.

(Worker): I wasn't the only one afraid, we were all afraid of security;

if you were at work or on the street or anywhere,

even keeping your line at a market waiting for food,

if two of them were speaking, the third one was listening in

and he would snitch to the security

and then the on second or the third day you were called in to give a statement

as to what you talked about or why you talked against the party.

You had to be very careful who you were talking to,

what you were talking about, as well as where you talked.

Informants from the outside would tell everyone,

they all generally had a pseudonym.

There was a joke back then

about this guy who arrived into a city and asked:

Where's the security?

And then a really scared guy answered: It's everywhere!

It happened to me once at the border,

I was with the theatre crew from Constanţa

and we took from the second-hand bookshop a book

about the history of religion.

A book was very cheap, around 5 RON.

It wasn't a valuable book.

And when we were at the border

and they were doing their check-up, they found this book.

They made a whole big deal out of it,

they took me out of the car

by threatening me with the machine gun

telling me that I'll go back to where I came from,

the head of the tour who was also the head of our station pledged for me,

looking back on it I think he was a snitch working for the security,

and the guy talked, took them aside and told them

that if I won't come they cannot play the show

as I was actually a backup.

I didn't go there as an actor, as a director,

I was going there to replace an actor

who did not get his passport and visa in time.

(Worker): The investigation was very tough, especially for me.

I was first arrested on a Tuesday

and they let me go home at night because I lied in my statement

that I was at the country side to bring wine for the baptism.

Meanwhile, my colleagues from the station were arrested

and I kept waiting daily for them to get me as well.

Meanwhile, my colleagues from the station were arrested

on Thursday evening I was working the second shift

and they left me a note where I was being summoned,

my wife and mother where in the house

and they told me to go to the police on Friday morning

to go over some details.

I knew right there what was going to happen,

I was sure that this time there was no escape.

They came with me in the car and they dropped me off at the police station,

a nephew dropped me off,

husband of some niece of mine dropped me off with my nephew

and I told them that if I don't get out by 9 o'clock, it means I'm there to stay.

When I reached the office,

they took me from the gate at 9 o'clock,

they have been eagerly awaiting me.

They started their investigations, the beatings started

at around 9 a.m. and kept going continuously until 7 p.m.

I had a break around 3 p.m.

when Captain Ionaş at the time, the head of the Police

promised me he'd let me to go reach my baptism

and he told me to go upstairs to get my I.D,

but the beatings kept going until 7 p.m. at night.

I had a tortured investigation, if I can call it that.

(Worker): Yes, we were tortured,

the investigation lasted almost non-stop,

we were deprived of our necessities such as food,

every time we sat down to eat we would be called for the investigation.

When I entered my home, after the investigation was over,

my mother didn't recognize me,

she yelled at my dad that the thief is back.

I lost around 20 something kilos in 3 weeks,

only because of the torture and the investigation.

They kicked me in my feet,

the first time they put me on a chair,

an investigator picked me up at 9 a.m. from Cluj,

he was a captain from what I understood.

He tried hitting me only in the stomach

even though he knew I suffered from an ulcer,

but I don't know, he got very angry as I wasn't the type to scream,

I didn't whine, I was resisting his kicks

and they tried to get me on a chair with my knees

and he would only hit me on the soles of my feet and on my hands.

At 9 p.m. when he took me to a cell in the basement

I couldn't even hold a cup of water in my hands.

The security, the armed party,

became a vast supra-state organization

that had developed a huge network of informants.

Security was everywhere

and they would exert a total control over the entire population.

The regime's main weapon,

also known as the self-appointed

armed part of the party itself was the Security.

Since its establishment in 1948 on the 30th of August through Decree 221,

the security has been defined as that one institution who can defend the regime

from the popular democracy

against the enemies from within and from the outside, by any means.

EGGS, SUGAR, OIL, THEY'RE ALL RATIONALIZED!

I was in the 3rd shift or 12 hours of nightshift,

he kids were playing outside,

it didn't matter: "Dad, to they give something there?"

One of the kids waited in line, go quick and take something.

"What were they giving away?" "I don't know, but it must be something."

The fridges were usually empty.

And if you were going... you guys are young, you don't know,

you could've went to a market shop without waiting in a line.

You wouldn't find anything else besides corn shrimps or I don't know what.

Towards the end of the communist era,

the increasing inefficiency of the centralized economy

and Nicolae Ceauşescu's absurd ambition

to pay Romania's external debt quickly and fully

led to an unimaginable deterioration in the standard of living.

Necessary food was missing,

the rationalizations had begun

and the waiting lines were bigger and longer.

Food was missing,

the bread was rationalized, we had half of a loaf of bread per day,

4 eggs I remember up until this day, 4 eggs per month.

Half a packet of butter per week

and a kilo of meat three times per year,

during new year's, on the 23rd of August and on the 1st of May.

Every time I met with one of my friends

we never asked each other if we have time for soccer or some tennis,

he would ask me what's new at the market shop.

He'd tell me that his mother is going to kill him

for not buying bread, cheese or chicken,

the chicken back then was very rare, the waiting lines were extremely long

and everybody was curious what's new.

It was considered a humiliation

to carry a bottle around in order to fill it up with a couple hundred grams of oil,

to take a half or three quarters of butter

and other ingredients who might have been rationalized.

I was a mother

and a professional during the 80s,

and the waiting lines were part of our daily lives,

even waiting in line at 4 a.m.

or on the route back home from work.

I kept the habit of having two bags which me at all times up until 2000.

The entire Romanian society was weakened.

Even the members of the party did not possess personal fortunes

and if they did, they tried to hide them.

They would benefit from the positions they occupied,

but when they lost it, they lost the benefits as well.

This way they were being controlled by the system.

Gradually, all food goods started disappearing

from the majorities of the shops around the country.

This food crisis

would reach its peak in the late 80s.

The food ingredients were drastically rationalized,

especially the commodities produced here in Romania,

because as everyone knows, they were destined to be exported.

DEATH COMES THROUGH THE HEATING SYSTEM!

I had a car

and in the evening I would take the storage battery and bring it in the house,

I already had a wire connection with lights

so that my children could do their homework in their own rooms.

From the basement and until the 6th floor,

I would carry buckets filled with water

because we were 4 people we needed enough for cooking and washing ourselves

We always had a 60 liters bucket full of water in the house.

The power outage would turn itself off automatically at a planned time

we had a truck battery

that we used to tie to a bulb so we can gain

a minimum light source in the house,

there were very many restrictions.

Another humiliation.

Leaving work and coming home,

the people who lived in flats

had to go in blind in climbing the stairs

if we didn't have a flashlight.

It was cold in the house as we were depending upon central heating

and in this situation, that didn't work.

The only heating method remained the stove.

As you couldn't listen to any radio

as you couldn't listen to any radio.

And every other activity was being shut down,

a lady once told me about it and we were laughing

even though it's very sad. She had an electric stove

and she would always schedule her cooking so she could be finished on time.

That day, something might have happened and she couldn't make it,

and without knowing when the light would be on,

she left the radio open.

And when the light came back on, the song "Ode to Joy" was playing.

Romania's population was always put second by the system,

regarding its decent living lifestyle as well as its wellbeing.

The man was not looked at as a human,

rather as how many hours he was capable of working,

that's what mattered back then, his working capacity and nothing else.

Electricity and fuel savings

brought darkness and cold to homes.

A bleak, end-of-the-world atmosphere

marked the last decade of the communist regime.

TV MAKES YOU DUMB!

Should I tell you about the TV which was only on for two hours?

Or about the radios which were only full of praise

regarding Ceauşescu and the regime?

It was horrible.

We had a saying back then, we kept thinking that

we were afraid to open up a can without hearing Ceauşescu.

We perceived the communist propaganda

as the ongoing voice of Ceauşescu,

because you would turn on your TV at 8 p.m.

and there was Ceauşescu for about an hour.

You would turn on the radio and hear him,

read a newspaper and there he was on the first page,

you would open up a textbook and he was always placed on the first page.

We wanted to communicate,

the theatre wanted to communicate something else

rather than the false reality we've seen on TV

or heard on the radio or in "The Spark" newspaper.

We can never forget that the forms of repression

existed during the communism.

Sometimes it was violent, whilst sometimes it was level-headed.

Censorship existed, the freedom of speech existed,

and it was ruled fragrantly against it.

These are things we have to convict, not accept.

FROM SCYTHE TO IMGB!

In the belief that I have formed myself at the countryside,

the rural environment for the population of Romania was fundamental

because there was not only eternity born there, as Lucian Blaga says,

but common sense as well.

A relationship with Divinity was born there,

as I call it, God was a part of the family

and the relationship with Divinity

puts the man in a state of restraint.

If this relationship is broken

and the city breaks it

due to the city's life being more permissive

regarding the alienation of man

for a sense of freedom,

an irrational freedom which lies inside the man.

This didn't happen in the village, the village controlled these things,

if a child did a bad thing and someone saw him,

he was always asked: "Who do you belong to?"

"Does your dad know what you do?"

Since everyone wants to move into the city,

you don't have people working in agriculture anymore.

But there are a few elements which bind us all together, it's not that bad.

We got to see things as they are.

I think the Romanian society is going through a social depression

but I believe there are enough resources

as we are a country with a population of approximately 20 million,

plus or minus taking into consideration people who left the country.

There are enough resources

to recharge a certain type of life hope.

The growing children needed food

high in protein and carbs.

You saw children who were not being fed

properly every day.

They were undernourished sometimes.

In any case, there were obvious deficiencies in their diet.

It was a planned poverty

because wealth was considered to be

unacceptable from the point of view of the ruling (egalitare) ideology.

But what happened in the 80s was the result of a political management failure.

An increase in infantile mortality was inevitable.

Unhealthy conditions.

The power outage was interrupted.

Can you imagine that those people had no heat

no electricity, they couldn't do anything.

Several times, their children were left feeling cold and hungry.

Precarity.

Institutionalized fear.

Lack of hope.

Isolation. Cultural constrains.

Are the unforgettable problems of the communist period.

IS TODAY BETTER?

He's in me, he's in you, he's in blocks and factories,

Everyone carries him today.

Ceauşescu never dies.

Ceauşescu didn't die,

The history tricked us,

His tongue of wood is walking slowly through our own.

Ceauşescu didn't die.

THE LAND OF ABSURDITY NO.1 HOW MANY RICH AND HOW MANY POOR?

In the last 20 years,

Romania is living a risky development

a small number of people

can have access to resources and great fortunes.

Meaning that the greatest fortune of this country

is reduced and controlled by a very small number of the entire population.

Yes, for thieves, we have a saying,

"The one who works and struggles is either stupid or can't think."

What's concerning is that

the wealthy people of our country are involved with politics,

not only the entrepreneurs.

The ones with their own society, the ones who did something, the private ones.

Sure, the society is divided between the rich and the poor.

And there's also a parallel society, to paraphrase,

where the rich have their own spot,

their own connections.

They help each other only by passing a certain standard of wealth.

I don't want to label everyone

but the society is formed out of two categories: the rich and the poor.

The situation in post-communist Romania

is far from the hopes of December 1989.

The political leaders of the transitions,

a great part of them coming from the 2nd echelon of the communists.

And the former political police,

are the great beneficiaries of this troubled period.

On the other hand,

a huge number of this population has no access to minimal resources.

And that has a lot to do with the tax-method.

Everyone has been threatening us for a long time

that labor being taxed more

than the capital is not normal.

Meaning that wealth is not taxed.

Meaning that international transactions are rarely taxed

and the poor are more taxed than the rich.

(Economist): Ion Ţiriac, for example, who is very rich

cannot eat 1000 times more than a regular person.

Meaning that for a man with a 1000 LEI salary,

100 LEI will matter a lot more

than 1000 LEI for a man with a 10.000 LEI salary.

THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT IS BEING CRASHED

Give it to them, can't you hear?

(Reporter): No one left empty handed from Becali's yard.

80.000 LEI, almost 20.000 Euro the carol singers have received.

I will stay here

and they will leave when they will see that the money are on the other side.

It's hard to find a job nowadays.

You graduate college

and you go into a work place.

They will ask for experience.

Experience from where?

He just graduated

how could've he gained experience in the work he's about to do?

At this time, living in this historical

Romanian loop after December 1989,

we have a big labor crisis.

We don't have enough jobs to equal the labor crisis.

With 20% of the population of Romania leaving,

particularly the young or the actively mature ones,

we were left with no people to work in multiple domains.

For millions of people

another period lacking hope came after them.

A lot of people emigrated.

And for those left behind,

finding a job without connections became a huge problem.

This whole transition produced a lot of inequalities,

a lot of problems.

An unprecedented social polarization;

we've had a previous one during the inter-war period.

On the medium and long-term, this is very dangerous for us

as we transform our society into a sort of levelled one

with multiple levels.

And it's very hard to go from a poor class to a richer one.

THE LAND OF ABSURDITY NO.2 IF YOU ARE RICH, THE LAW PROTECTS YOU!

Especially in the first period of the transition,

it was a bigger tolerance when it came to violation of the law.

I will give you an example.

We all know that, during the transition period,

a lot of illegalities took place.

The human is a sociable being.

In order to thrive,

A society should have a strict system of rules and principles.

If this system is missing

or it's applied incorrectly

there will be a free way for illegalities, abuse and inequities

that society is closer than ever

from a survival one.

The freedom of the Revolutions

always

into

the exact opposite.

Freud said the masses never

never fight for justice and for truth.

They fight only for their unsatisfied ambitions.

It was the same in Romania.

We couldn't find meat,

we ate soy salami,

now we ate only soy and it's bad because it's genetically modified.

THE LAND OF ABSURDITY NO.3 SUCKERS AND SLICKERS

The suckers sleep

While the slickers make the money

The suckers sleep

While the slickers make the money

I think the conscious of the people need to change

because,

In my opinion,

we all have this conception

that we deserve it all, but without any effort.

We need a reality check to realize

that we also need to move a muscle

if we want to have a decent living.

We had a saying during the communist era,

that still applies nowadays and it goes like this:

The law is a fence that the mastiff jump

in front of which the bullocks stop, and under which the puppies pass.

So the suckers would be the bullocks in relation with the law.

The world is composed by a bunch of bullocks

who want to play by the rules.

And this would be us, the losers of a bad implemented system.

The little thieves try to blend with the bigger ones,

And the mastiffs who can also change the law

to be in the benefit of their fortunes.

So, in the near future, we should expect

some very bad and serious social convulsion

We should not forget that the majority of revolutions, civil wars

and other social problems appeared because of this huge inequalities.

Do we want a society like this? I don't think so.

Put your hand in the pocket

The girls want you to be a bachelor.

The policemen want you in the law court

But the truth is that

The suckers are sleeping

While the slicks are making money

WHO AM I GOING TO VOTE?

Deceived? Yes.

Fooled? Many times.

People and their promises.

I do my job,

we agree on a certain amount of money

and the problems arouse.

More and more often.

Because all the political parties that were in charge till now

were a big disappointment.

They didn't care about the country at all.

Their main desire

wasn't to fight for this country

but they only cared about themselves.

They modified the laws in their favor.

The fundamental difference between bad and good,

between legal and illegal,

was turned by the ones who took advantage of the transition.

Into the difference between sucker and slickers.

There's no shame in stealing.

More important is how and how much do you steal.

If you steal by yourself and also a little, you're dumb.

And you will also receive many years of prison.

If you plan to steal with a group and having a political protection,

you're a slick, you get respected and even envied.

The solidarity weakened thanks to the transition.

In my opinion, it was a priority privatization

without any plan for a better living

And of course, this way of thinking

has generated a rupture between individuals

and the promotion of selfishness

and the fight for survival.

We created a new society, because we had to,

But we didn't pay attention to the moral effects.

The evolution of capitalism should also mean a better way of living.

But on the other hand, capitalism is intrinsic and unstable.

That keeps people

on a floating line of survival.

And it comes to the need of compensation.

That is not given

by the means of stimulating the laziness.

It's more like a technical stuff

that has to do with the well function of an economy.

A proper economy can't function if what is produced is not bought.

This political class doesn't represent anymore the needs of the people.

What we see,

the way some laws are approved

proves us that worldwide, in the last 20 years,

there's this trend worldwide

of voting laws in the favour of some groups,

and in the expense of the masses.

But let's talk about nowadays society

doesn't give you

the possibility of cultural developing.

It's not a priority anymore.

Now there are only two priorities:

mastering the means of production

and having the political power.

That's what Marx said and it's still applicable.

What's going on now?

People thought we will have a new way of structure

where we can make our own decisions.

But we see

that some external factors have a bigger role.

And now we have a process of constant changing

The change was absolutely necessary.

But it was a little confusing

and the people had to suffer for that.

And I will give you a very interesting example:

We usually wonder if

people think

that this transition process was good or bad.

And as we always do opinion polls

the results are shocking:

70-80% of the people think

that the direction we are heading is bad.

So this three principle:

Freedom, Equality and Fraternity

can't be understood till this very day.

Because the freedom is the sovereignty over himself.

When man is sovereign over himself, then he is free.

Because that's when he understands that he will never be free.

If more sovereignties gather,

they can form a state.

A free nation.

But each one has to give up a little of their sovereignty

to form the universal law,

and each one gives up an equal part.

So, a free and equal state,

has to take care of everyone,

and everyone should take care of the state.

This is fraternity.

None of this revolution principles are applicable today.

None of them, even they are the basic principles of democracy.

And our nowadays economical systems

militates for the perfect human being.

Sure, this is also an hypocrisy.

But this economical system produces a lot of inequalities

between countries and in each of them.

Giving prosperity only for a few people.

And it also puts an accent on individualism.

Solidarity weakened.

We have a huge problem with solidarity.

It's very hard to find a common cause to become solidary.

We have different interests.

The "Elite" doesn't care

about people's basic needs.

And a vast majority of the poor feel abandoned.

FROM THE 5TH DAY OF THE MONTH, THE MEDICAL TESTS ARE NOT REDDEMED.

The access to health was bad before and it's the same now,

but from different reasons.

Before, it was a so called "free access".

But the problem was a sociological one.

Because we don't know how to distribute the reality.

The socialist system didn't knew how to distribute the reality.

A lot of goods became rare.

You go to the store and you don't find what you need.

How do you obtain it? With intercessions.

A new cost appeared. It was the same for the medical system.

If you want better medical services,

you have to give bribe.

It's the reality.

Drugs are rare and hard to obtain.

There are numerous situations when

I couldn't give the proper treatments,

There were multiple times when I was forced

to give less pills and treatments

knowing the consequences.

That's not going to be fixed soon.

I don't have any faith that things will get better soon.

Now, the reality is the same in the medical system.

Sure, you have the possibility to buy many drugs,

of high quality.

But the people don't have enough money to buy them.

And it can be solved with money

But the nowadays political system

is disastrous for the people.

How can you be ok with the fact that

some doctors haw a lower income than the door man?

EDUCATION IS ON THE GROUND

Bad, very bad.

Education is very bad.

I mean, they only care

about the presence or the absence.

(Educational expert): Firstly, the young are very opened for the new.

More precisely, if they want to go to a university abroad

they need a lot of courage and they are also very curious.

The nowadays educational system it's not a proper one.

There are a lot of things missing from the Romanian educational system.

It doesn't have a perspective.

The students don't have a perspective for the future through what they are studying.

What should he do in the future.

I think no one is concerned about this.

There are graduates who are still looking for a job.

We forget that the education should be free

and mandatory by law.

And every day there is a new tax for education.

If we would want a private educational and health system,

that would mean to ban the access of a vast majority of population,

because of the lack of money.

Because more than a half of this country lives at the edge of poverty.

And those kids will never have access to education.

The young Romanians, when they decide to leave abroad to study

keep in mind what is the probability to get a job after.

And there is a vast majority of jobs where they can chose.

Restructuring the educational system

involves a honest concern regarding the future of the country.

One month of private kindergarten has the same price

as one year of state university.

This tells us a lot.

One month of private kindergarten is almost 200 Euro

And for a student at a state university,

the state gives almost 35.000 Lei,

around 700-800 Euro/year.

Just try to send your kid to a summer camp.

Everything is measured by money. Even the education.

If I would show you the parents groups chat from school

99% is about money. Education is only 1%.

The pressure of giving money is so high,

that the kid became a good that needs money.

And we are all stressed about the money.

During communism I was going to camps in every summer.

My mom was a pharmacist and my dad an economist.

They were simple people.

But we were five kids

and we would all go to the summer camp.

And now I can hardly provide for a kid, because the costs are very high.

The history tricked us.

We are alive and dead.

We're all Ceauşescu.

EPILOGUE

The nostalgic people of the communist period

are in fact the non-ferocity of the transition.

They seem to be somewhere between two worlds:

The totalitarian one and the democratic one.

From the totalitarian one is the feeling of safety

of a calm and predictable life.

The memory of a wonderful but utopic world,

promised by the communist propaganda.

And on top of that

is the lack of safety over the original democracy.

As a sociologist, I blame the system.

A sociologist always looks for the sources of the social system

which make an individual to act in a certain way.

So yes, the solidarity has weakened

thanks to this transition.

Looks are always deceiving.

If the communist society, the Romanian one,

that was different from the Hungarian or the German one,

would have good results,

Ceuaşescu wouldn't be dead because of a street manifestation.

A lot think that if he wouldn't give that less food, that tragedy wouldn't happen.

That's not true. That was part of the system's concept.

The system wasn't able to provide a good living for everybody

but only an equality on an inferior level.

They were all equal or partially equal,

because the party members had more privileges,

but they all had a single or 2 room apartment,

some standard furniture and a Dacia 1300.

Nostalgia is a general human reflex.

A protection inhibition of the human brain.

A reflex that makes us not to remember mostly the bad stuff.

Gradually, the memory erases the bad memories

because otherwise we would go nuts

if we could remember all the bad stuff from our life.

So thanks to this reflex, we will only remember

only the good stuff from the communist period.

We forgot all the time we've lost at the queues.

The humiliation from the party meetings.

The humiliation we endured then and we refused to realize.

To subdue us to some truth we did not believe.

To do everything like the others, to be humble.

So we can all say that The King is dressed in jewels

and that we live in a Golden Age, even if The King was naked.

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