On 19 December 1989, workers from all around Timisoara go on strike. The repression slows down, as the authorities begin to understand that the protesters are not willing to back down.
On 19 December 1989, workers from all around Timisoara go on strike. The repression slows down, as the authorities begin to understand that the protesters are not willing to back down.
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On the 19th, Elena Ceausescu orders party officials to go in the major factories in the city and explain to the workers what _didn’t_ happen in the previous days. County secretary Radu Balan later said not only that these explanations did not have the desired effect, but they essentially mobilized the workers. A worker from Electrobanat (ELBA) ironically notes that before the party official’s arrival, most workers did not realize the significance of the violence in the previous days, but the narrative was “so absurd, it created an opposite reaction to the one expected by the regime”. According to the official narrative, the state of emergency was decreed because some “fascists”, “hooligans” and “drunkards” made “provocations” and “devastations”. Going back to work, the workers remained with a persistent question: “Where did so many _fascists_, _hooligans_ and _drunkards_ of all ages appear in Timisoara so suddenly?”.
Soon, ad-hoc strike committees are formed in all factories. At Electrotimis, workers stop their activity and begin protesting. Workers also revolt at Uzinele Mecanice Timisoara (UMT), where party officials Cornel Pacoste and Ilie Matei are sent to calm them down. At ELBA, Radu Balan and the mayor went together with a truck filled with soldiers who wanted to get the stored weapons out of the factory. The workers did not allow them, thinking that these weapons will be used against the protesters. The soldiers open fire, and a few people are injured. Radu Balan is sequestered. Stefan Gusa, Chief of the General Staff is sent to rescue him. While there, he writes the demands of the workers: “We want heat”, “We want chocolate for our children”, “socks, lingerie, cocoa and cotton”, until the situation allowed them to leave the factory. Other strikes begin at Intreprinderea Optica Timisoara, AEM, Solventul, Azur, 6 Martie, Electromotor.
Throughout the city, the revolutionaries appeal to the sympathy of the soldiers, chanting “The Army is on our side”, “We are the people you are protecting” and “You have wives and children”. Although the Army began opening fire on the 17th, together with the forces of the Interior Ministry, the determination of the protesters weakened the soldiers’ will. As a consequence, the Army stopped intervening from the evening of December 19th.
One cadre of the 5th Securitate Directorate in Bucharest writes in his work diary:
>No meetings are allowed. Individual work in the spotlight. Anyone who fails to fulfil his duties is dismissed. The bastards don’t quit easily.
>We have to execute orders exactly according to central requirements.
>We must maintain an exceptional moral-political state.
>We must prove ourselves as activists – including through ultimate sacrifice.
> as the authorities begin to understand that the protesters are not willing to back down.
I don’t think top brass had anything to do with it. What happened, IMHO, is that discipline began to crumble within the military in Timișoara, at the lower and mid levels of the officers corps. On Dec 20 RFE reported that the army did not interfere at all with protests in Timișoara, for the entire day.
However, many were shot dead the next day, on Dec 21 in Bucharest.
Romanians have courage, we Italians are cowards. We should have overthrown the whole state like Romania in ’89 a long time ago, but nope, we continue to vote for retards.
At this point I seriously hope for someone to do a coup and free us from all this bullshit.
I think that this aspect is a forgotten thing in 89. Workers were instrumental in regime change as they were the most numerous group in the cities. (in Poland the same, let us not forget that Solidarity started as a trade union). That was the last sign that the regime is in grave danger as workers were officially the core of the regime’s propaganda and were privileged when compared with agricultural workers for example.
What those people actually wanted should be the focus on a lot of studies. Wanting Ceausescu gone is a given. That was a widespread view.
Wanting communism to be toppled gained in popularity but here many questions must be answered and the most important is: remove the regime and replace it whit what? I thought about this when I watched the Recorder documentary about Romania after the revolution and in the first part, when they show the protests against Iliescu, some of the counter protestors that aided the regime (not the miners) said that they want democracy, they wanted equality, for the people to own the means of production. In short they wanted…. communism… but real communism. It should not be a surprise and it is logical in a way. Communism was the only thing they knew, but at the same time almost everyone knew that there was a huge difference between ideology/propaganda and real life. Meanwhile, the average guy knew about capitalism from propaganda and thus may have been skeptical about it.