How to Be a Dictator

by Frank Dikotter

  These limited freedoms now came to an end. In China Ceauşescu had witnessed how the old world had been eliminated, as every aspect of culture had been rebuilt along revolutionary lines. He wanted the same for his own country. On 6 July 1971 he made a speech to the Executive Committee which later became known as the July Theses. He railed against ‘bourgeois ideological influences and retrograde ideas’, demanding that they be eliminated from the press, radio, television, literature and even opera and ballet. He celebrated socialist realism and called for strict ideological conformity in every domain. Culture was to undergo a revolution, becoming the ideological tool to mould a ‘New Man’.17

  The leadership was purged. Ion Iliescu, promoted only three years before, was dismissed. On the flight back home there had apparently been a furious row over what they had seen in North Korea.18

  As culture was regimented, the cult of personality spread. Even before his trip to East Asia, Ceauşescu had been eager to acquire a court biographer. He found a willing accomplice in Michel-Pierre Hamelet, a French journalist working for Le Figaro who had accompanied the General Secretary of the French Communist Party to Romania in 1967. Hamelet had been instantly captivated by his host: ‘I was struck by the fire in his eyes, the mental energy they conveyed, the ironic smile that constantly illuminated his face.’ He returned to Romania a few years later and was given every assistance to compile his biography. Nicolae Ceauşescu was published in 1971 in French, followed by Romanian, Hungarian and German translations the same year.

  Hamelet portrayed Ceauşescu as a ‘passionate humanist’ who announced nothing less than ‘the coming of a new era’, one in which social relationships would be rebuilt according to a new ideology. He was a gifted child born in poverty. The boy went to school barefoot, too poor to buy books, but was always top of the class. Hamelet interviewed his teacher, who remembered that the boy excelled at mathematics but was, most of all, a true comrade to others. Identified by the police at the age of sixteen as a dangerous agitator, he was sent back to his village in shackles. But nothing could make him abandon the cause. He became an enemy of the state, a determined organiser of the communist movement, a passionate exponent of the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.19

  Hamelet was not the only one recruited to promote the image of the peasant boy who through hard work, courage and sheer talent overcame adversity to become a socialist leader. In 1972 Donald Catchlov published Romania’s Ceauşescu in London, further spreading the Ceauşescu myth. This was followed by Heinz Siegert’s Ceauşescu in German in 1973 and Giancarlo Elia Valori’s Ceauşescu in Italian in 1974. The Demi-God of Romania appeared in Greek in 1978.20

  Ceauşescu, usually working through the Propaganda and Agitation Department, approved every detail himself, down to the number of copies to be printed. Generous funding was standard. In 1976, Mihai Steriade, author of a booklet entitled The Presence and Prestige of a Humanist: Nicolae Ceauşescu, asked for US$8,000 to assist him in ‘propagating Romania’ in Belgium. Ceauşescu personally revised the amount downwards to US$5,000.21

  The Propaganda and Agitation Department, or Agitprop, also ensured that the image of the leader was promoted abroad through other means. In 1971, for instance, it paid the Italian newspaper L’Unità some US$5,000 to print a supplement on the anniversary of the Romanian Communist Party. It featured photographs of Ceauşescu as an international leader standing shoulder to shoulder with Mao, Nixon and de Gaulle. No Soviet leader was mentioned.22

  Ceauşescu was leader of the party and head of state. But unlike other dictators, he was not content with holding symbolic power as head of state while in true control through the party machine. The authority of the State Council was expanded, as separate bodies headed by Ceauşescu bypassed the Council of Ministers. One of these was the Defence Council, another the Economic Council. In effect this meant that he had both the state and the party at his disposal and could play one against the other when he encountered opposition. He not only controlled all the levers of power, but also set himself up as the supreme authority on every topic, from window displays in department stores to the interior decoration of the National Theatre in Bucharest. He was impatient, and developed a penchant for reshuffling the ranks of the bureaucracy when they failed to implement his policies rapidly enough. Ceauşescu also frequently rotated cadres between the party and the state to ensure that no one could develop a power base. The frenzy only increased confusion and inefficiency.23

  Nothing, however, was quite enough. In 1974 Ceauşescu decided to expand his position as president of the State Council to president of the republic, which would give him the power to appoint ministers by personal decree. At a preparatory meeting his underlings vied with each other to devise an ever more extravagant inauguration ceremony. Emil Bodnaras, vice-president of the State Council, suggested that a special copy of the constitution be printed with gold letterings. Another proposed firing a cannon salute, although Ceauşescu modestly declined.24

  On 28 March, having been duly elected President of Romania, Ceauşescu was inducted with all the pomp and circumstance of a feudal monarch. The high point of the ceremony, transmitted by radio and television, was the presentation of a presidential sceptre. Salvador Dalí, the surrealist painter, was so struck by the event that he sent a congratulatory telegram. The message appeared the following day in Scinteia, the editor apparently unaware that it was satirical: ‘I deeply appreciate the historical act of your introducing the presidential sceptre.’25

  The same month Gheorghe Maurer, the faithful Number Two who had tried to provide a measure of moderation, was relieved of his duties. Ceauşescu now had no peers. A new press law imposing even more crushing censorship on written materials was immediately passed. Slander of party leaders was outlawed, as was any criticism of any party policy. At the end of the year the Eleventh Party Congress created a new body, concentrating all power in a Permanent Bureau of the Executive Council. Like other statutory bodies it possessed only an advisory capacity, as its dozen members listened respectfully to Ceauşescu. To mark the occasion Scinteia described the leader as ‘Julius Caesar, Alexander of Macedonia, Pericles, Cromwell, Napoleon, Peter the Great and Lincoln’, hailing him as ‘our lay God, the heart of the party and the nation’. Ceauşescu had become the Conducator, a title derived from the verb conduce, or ducere in Latin. Like the Duce or the Führer he was the Supreme Leader of the nation.26

  Ceauşescu was secretary general, president and supreme commander, but he craved official recognition as a leading ideologist. Two volumes of his selected writings and speeches had appeared in 1968. The pace accelerated in the following years, as Agitprop proposed a publication plan every year, supervised by Ceauşescu himself. His speeches were translated into half a dozen languages in 1971, followed by a steady output of his selected writings, which were available by 1976 in a variety of languages from Italian to Chinese.27

  In 1976 Ceauşescu took over the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee. His subordinates queued up to hail him as a ‘major thinker in contemporary Marxism’, a brilliant ideologist who had ‘rejuvenated and further developed Marxism’. Ceauşescu was ‘Marxism-Leninism in action’. Authors, scholars and party activists were compelled to use his work as a major reference source.28

  Ceauşescu’s writings were a hodgepodge of contradictory ideas, but in a nutshell he clothed communism in nationalist garb. He posed as a champion of nationalist values while upholding the faith, calling it ‘revolutionary patriotism’. His wisdom purportedly appealed to people around the world. As premier Manea Manescu observed after a lengthy trip to several Asian countries, ‘Nicolae Ceauşescu enjoys enormous international prestige, profound esteem, and respect everywhere, even in the most remote parts of the world, where his name has become a symbol of fiery patriotism and internationalism, of the struggle for independence and national sovereignty.’ He was a leader of world communism, an international figure of the working-class movement.29

  On his sixtieth birthday in 1978, the
entire nation rendered homage to its leader. Constantin Pirvulescu pronounced Ceauşescu ‘the most genuine popular leader to emerge in the entire history of the Romanian people’. In their official message the Party, the State and the Nation announced that the new Ceauşescu Era he had created was ‘an era that represents the most fruitful chapter in our entire thousand-year history, one rich in achievements and great success’.30

  Since Ceauşescu was the nation’s ideologist-in-chief, the main seats of learning held special ceremonies to recognise and celebrate his many scholarly achievements. Honorary degrees proliferated: one academy made him Doctor of Economics, another Doctor of Political Science. His support for Romania’s sovereign existence was now termed the Ceauşescu Doctrine, delivering an oblique snub to the idea of limited sovereignty, known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, named after the man who had sent in the tanks to crush the popular rebellion in Prague a decade earlier. An exhibition was organised to display all the gifts Ceauşescu had received during his many travels abroad, illustrating the high esteem accorded him as an international statesman and leading theoretician of Marxism-Leninism.31

  The celebrations lasted three weeks. There were poems, songs, plays, paintings, busts, tapestries and medals. His name was spelled out in capital letters. He was the torch, the flagbearer, the January star, the highest fir tree in the country. He was a hawk. He was ‘the measure of all beings and things in this blessed country called Romania’. He was the Christ-like incarnation of the people, ‘a body from the people’s body, a soul from the people’s soul’.32

  Ceauşescu received, for the second time, the coveted title of Hero of the Socialist Republic of Romania. From Yugoslavia came the order of Hero of Socialist Labour. A magnanimous Brezhnev awarded him the Order of Lenin. But these accolades paled by comparison with the recognition he won from the West. A few months after his birthday, President Jimmy Carter of the United States wined and dined Ceauşescu and his wife in the White House. Yet surely the peak of his career was his state visit to Buckingham Palace in June 1978, organised by Sir Reggie Secondé, the British ambassador to Romania. Secondé had no illusions. In a confidential memo to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he judged Ceauşescu ‘as absolute a dictator as can be found in the world today’. The establishment in London welcomed the autocrat with open arms. One Romanian dissident staged a lonely protest, but the police promptly arrested him. Ceauşescu accompanied Queen Elizabeth II in her royal carriage, waving to the cheering crowds, and received the Order of the Bath. At Buckingham Palace his security guards tested the food before allowing it to be served. All the public events – the breakfasts, the lunches, dinners, and banquets – were broadcast on Romanian television around the clock. The visit crushed all who opposed their tyrant.33

  Some resistance remained nonetheless. Ion Pacepa, a powerful Securitate general, defected to the United States a few weeks later, destroying the country’s intelligence network and revealing the inner workings of the Ceauşescu court. Pacepa received a death sentence in absentia, with a bounty of US$2 million placed on his head. Ceauşescu grew even more suspicious of those around him. As his circle diminished, he relied instead on family members.34

  Foremost among these was his wife Elena, a dour, uncultured but ambitious and determined woman who had been inspired by Madame Mao Zedong during her trip to China in 1971. She was Ceauşescu’s constant companion, invariably at his side at party congresses, state ceremonies and official visits at home and abroad. She rose to the top of the political hierarchy within a few years, joining the powerful Permanent Bureau of the Executive Council in 1977.

  Elena shared her husband’s appetite for titles and honours. Despite minimal education, she was always referred to as ‘Academician Doctor Engineer Elena Ceauşescu’ and posed as the nation’s premier scientist. By 1977 she had received twenty-four foreign decorations, ranging from Zaire’s National Order of the Leopard, North Korea’s Order of the National Flag and the Netherlands’ Order of Orange-Nassau to Egypt’s Order of Virtues. In 1975 the Soviet Union presented her with a medal to mark the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Victory over Fascism. Impressive though this portfolio was, it paled in comparison with the collection of her husband, who by 1977 had garnered some fifty international decorations, including France’s prestigious Legion of Honour as well as endless Orders of the Red Flag from communist countries.35

  In January 1979, several months after the Pacepa defection, Elena became chair of the Commission for State and Party Cadres, placing her in charge of all appointments. The new post coincided with her sixtieth birthday, lavishly celebrated over two days as every party member grovelled, extolling the First Lady as a ‘star who stands beside a star in the eternal arch of heaven’. The First Lady undertook her new role with relish, insisting that every single one of the 2.9 million members was scrutinised, which put the party on probation. Blind obedience became the norm. Elena’s brothers received important government positions, while her son Nicu was promoted to the Central Committee.

  By the time the Twelfth Party Congress convened in November 1979 she was the powerful Number Two. One lonely voice still dared to confront the Ceauşescus. Constantin Pirvulescu, a founding member of the party who only a year earlier had celebrated his leader, accused Ceauşescu of ignoring the country’s real problems to pursue his own glory. Members of the congress shouted him down, praising their leader’s popularity abroad.36

  The cult of personality effectively prevented anyone else from building an independent power base. More family members were appointed in the following decade. By the time the regime collapsed in 1989, according to some accounts no less than fifty relatives held influential positions.37

  *

  On his sixtieth birthday in January 1978 Nicolae Ceauşescu was compared to several national heroes from the past: Mircea the Elder, Stephen the Great, Michael the Brave, all rulers of medieval Wallachia.

  Another model was Burebista, the king who destroyed the rule of the Celts, opposed the advance of the Romans and united the tribes of the Dacian kingdom from 61 to 41 bc. Dacia was described as a unique civilisation in an area that covered much of present-day Romania. Like Mussolini, Ceauşescu viewed himself as the reincarnation of a glorious, ancient tradition. He peered back into the nation’s archaic past, discerning continuities between various historical stages that linked the kingdom of Dacia to the Socialist Republic of Romania, making him nothing less than the culmination of thousands of years of history.

  The 2050th anniversary of the foundation of Dacia was celebrated with great pomp on 5 July 1980. The entire upper echelon of the party machine attended the ceremony, held in the Stadium of the Republic. Allegorical plays were staged and poems were read. Ceauşescu was portrayed as a direct descendant of Burebista, who soon became the favourite subject for artists in Romania. His profile was painted, carved and knitted, always with a noble profile and manly beard. The film Burebista was the year’s leading artistic event. Linguists, historians and archaeologists published learned tomes on the Dacians.38

  Ordinary people, however, seemed to lack enthusiasm. They avoided public celebrations. A few openly expressed their discontent with the regime, despite a ubiquitous police presence. ‘Ceauşescu is very much discredited amongst the population,’ wrote the French ambassador. The reason was clear. Everywhere there were long queues. At the butcher’s shop nothing but lard, sausages, entrails and chicken feet were available. There was no fruit except for a few apples in the north and peaches in the south (but not the other way around). Ordinary wine was beyond the reach of all those who dined but in the most exclusive restaurants. The country faced a shortage of energy, as an overextended petrochemical industry consumed gargantuan quantities of petrol. Only one in every three light bulbs was turned on, while public transportation came to a halt on Sundays.39

  Romania had entered a period of severe economic recession. A cornerstone of the Ceauşescu Doctrine was economic self-sufficiency. Like his predecessor Gheorghe-Dej, the Conducator emulated
the Stalinist model even as he distanced himself from the Soviet Union. Wishing to create a heavy industrial base, he borrowed massively from Western countries to import the necessary technology, equipment and raw materials. But oil prices soared during the 1979 energy crisis, leading to much higher interest rates, which in turned forced the regime to borrow on an even larger scale.

  In 1981, as foreign debt peaked at roughly US$12 billion, Romania could no longer keep up its interest payments. Ceauşescu, in a snap decision, decided to repay the entire debt in the shortest time possible by imposing an austerity programme. Imports were cut and exports increased. Meat deliveries to the Soviet Union more than trebled from 1983 to 1985. Maize, fruit, vegetables, wine, all were directed towards foreign markets. Food was rationed, with queues for such staples as bread and potatoes. Sometimes animal feed instead of flour was used for bread. Heavy cuts were also imposed on energy demands, with people living in the dark and shivering through the winter. There was no fuel for the tractors.40

  The greater the misery, the louder the propaganda. As living standards declined, the Ceauşescu cult grew ever more extravagant. Anniversaries in uneven years were acclaimed with great exuberance, always a telling sign of a regime’s desperation. In 1982 Nicolae Ceauşescu’s sixty-fourth birthday was celebrated, followed by the seventeenth anniversary of the Ninth Party Congress held in 1965. A few months later, at the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Young Communists’ League, party members and ordinary people had to praise the ‘revolutionary youth’ of the Conducator. The eighth anniversary of his election as President of Romania followed later that year. On each occasion floods of telegrams arrived from every corner of the realm, thanking the Conducator for the Ceauşescu Era and the Romanian Miracle. Ceauşescu demanded constant demonstrations of gratitude from the very people he was ruining. He also took the opportunity these occasions offered to blame the government for all the shortcomings, absolving himself and his party.41