On Dec. 25, 1989, then-Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad while singing “The Internationale,” the communist anthem.
The dictator and his wife had ruled with an iron fist for decades. But amid a dramatic decline in living standards, Romanians had grown fed up. They were hopeful that this institutional collapse would mark the beginning of a democratic revolution — and the man at the helm of that transition was Ion Iliescu.
Romania’s first democratic leader, Iliescu — who died on Aug. 5 at the age of 95 — was one of the last of the top communist apparatchiks left from the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. But while he shaped the country’s transition toward democracy, memories of a bloody transfer of power and his brutal suppression of protests in 1990 —for which he was charged with crimes against humanity — leave a complex and divisive legacy.
Born to a working-class family, Iliescu was deeply attached to his father — an underground communist who died when his son was just 15. Enrolling in the Communist Youth, he embraced revolutionary ideals with unconditional admiration for the USSR and Joseph Stalin. He grew to be a firm believer in Bolshevik utopian promises, which he considered best for his country.
In the early 1950s, Iliescu’s dreams became reality when — like hundreds of other Romanians — he was sent to study in the Soviet Union. While in Moscow, he internalized Bolshevism, regarding the socialist camp as the guarantor of peace and progress in an irreconcilably polarized world. It was here that he experienced the shock of Stalin’s death. It was also here that he met his future wife Nina, later reminiscing about their evening strolls across the city.
During this time, the leaders of the Romanian Communist Party came to see Iliescu as a trustworthy young comrade, and appointed him to the top echelon of the Communist Youth, responsible for political work and mobilization among students.
These were the years of the post-Stalin thaw, which affected all Eastern European countries, but Romania didn’t experience turbulence comparable to Poland or Hungary. And despite getting his hands on a smuggled copy of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech,” which strongly condemned Stalin’s regime, Iliescu didn’t renounce his conviction that the party should keep its complete hold on power.
Despite his smiling face and smooth speech, Iliescu was an adamant Leninist. And between 1958 and 1959, he participated in anti-student repression that resulted in arrests, torture and imprisonments.
His rise to prominence was later accelerated when Ceaușescu became Romania’s new strongman in March 1965. He was appointed the Minister of Youth in 1967, and was promoted to the party secretariat and to executive committee in 1970. But this fast ascent eventually slowed. He was seen as too intellectual, too reformist and was sidelined to the provinces instead.
In the late 1980s, however, things began to shift. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued reformist policies, Ceaușescu tried to block any contagion. He had become an obsolete leftover of the Stalinist era, and Romanians grew weary of the insane cult of personality surrounding him and his wife. As his dictatorship grew increasingly erratic, many in the bureaucracy considered Iliescu as a possible alternative to “dynastic Communism.”
In December 1989, popular uprisings erupted across the country, first in the western city of Timișoara, then in Bucharest. But this was not a velvet revolution. Amid a military crackdown, the army and secret police forces shot dozens of anti-regime protesters over the following days. And on Dec. 22, Iliescu addressed the crowds on television, announcing the formation of the National Salvation Front.
After the Ceaușescus were captured, tried and executed a few days later, Romanians were convinced this was the beginning of a democratic revolution. But in fact, it was the combination of a spontaneous popular revolt and an intraparty putsch — and Iliescu was the beneficiary of both.
Iliescu initially played the benevolent, open-minded liberalizer. But he also made sure that merging pluralist forces — including democratic parties and civil society associations — wouldn’t be allowed to challenge the bureaucracy’s domination. His response to the anticommunist opposition was neurotic, panicked and intolerant.
Then, in June 1990, after his party won the country’s first democratic elections, he used forces outside the law to destroy growing dissent, mobilizing Jiu Valley coalminers to violently suppress anti-government protests. Romania again became a pariah on the international stage. And while Iliescu tried to erase the memory of those terrible events — both the violent chaos surrounding Ceaușescu’s ouster and the brutal crackdown against civilians that followed — they would forever mark his career.
After losing the presidency in 1995, Iliescu finally recognized democratic governance and took charge of the parliamentary opposition. He was again elected in 2000, his second presidential term largely seen as one of Western integration. In 2003, Romania entered NATO, and he played a significant role in the country’s EU accession, which was finalized in 2007.
After his second term concluded in 2004, Iliescu withdrew from politics. He spent most of his time reading and writing, and would make statements on special occasions, intermittently trying to revamp his image.
One such occasion was a three-day dialogue in August 2003 with Vladimir Tismăneanu — a coauthor of this piece. During discussions, Iliescu admitted to making a few “mistakes,” though he expressed very few regrets. He maintained that in 1990, there was no way to avoid the use of violence against civilians. But when asked how he assessed the balance sheet of communism in the 20th century, he surprisingly replied: “Globally negative.”
It was one of the few moments the Romanian leader seemed to publicly realize that all his life he had served a chimera.
Upon news of Iliescu’s death, newly elected Romanian President Nicușor Dan offered his condolences, along with a message about Romania’s first democratically elected president: “History will judge Ion Iliescu, the central figure of the transition of the 1990s. It is our obligation to clarify the great issues of the era, in order to move forward responsibly.”
Dan’s statement highlights how Romanians are split regarding Iliescu’s legacy. For better or worse, he influenced their history and changed their lives. But one thing is certain: In 1990, there was no real imperative that compelled him to organize such devastating attacks against unarmed civilians. And while the Romanian government has declared Aug. 7 a day of mourning, the trauma of Iliescu’s rule remains. The wounds are still open.
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a professor of politics at the University of Maryland. In 2006, he chaired the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Adam Tismăneanu is a freelance writer, analyst and independent researcher. They’re currently co-authoring a biography of Nicolae Ceaușescu to be published in 2026.
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