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The Romanian Revolution ((ルーマニア語、モルドバ語():Revoluția Română)) was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania in December 1989 and part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries. The Romanian Revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the show trial and execution of longtime Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. It was also the last removal of a Communist regime in a Warsaw Pact country during the events of 1989, and the only one that violently overthrew a country's government and executed its leader. Early protests occurred in the city of Timișoara in mid-December on the part of the Hungarian minority in Timișoara in response to an attempt by the government to evict Hungarian Reformed church pastor László Tőkés. Tőkés had in July of that year made critical comments against the regime's Systematization policy〔Roper, p.59〕 to Hungarian television,〔Brubaker, Rogers: ''Nationalist politics and everyday ethnicity in a Transylvanian town''. Princeton University Press, 2006, page 119. ISBN 0-691-12834-0〕 and complained that Romanians did not even know their human rights. As Tőkés described it later, the interview, which had been seen in the border areas and was then spread all over Romania, had “a shock effect upon the Romanians, Securitate as well, on the people of Romania. () ()t had an unexpected effect upon the public atmosphere in Romania.”〔Der Grenzer am Eisernen Vorhang. Part 4. A film by Sylvia Nagel. LE Vision GmbH. Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk (MDT), 2008. Broadcast by YLE Teema, 3 Jan 2012.〕 and people now sought revolution and a change in government in light of similar recent events in neighboring nations. Social and economic malaise had been present in socialist Romania for quite some time, especially during the austerity years of the 1980s. The austerity measures were designed in part by Ceaușescu to repay foreign debts. Shortly after a botched public speech by Ceaușescu, rank-and-file members of the military switched, almost unanimously, from supporting the dictator to backing the protesting population. Riots, street violence and murder in several Romanian cities over the course of roughly a week led the Romanian dictator to flee Bucharest on 22 December with his wife, Deputy Prime Minister Elena Ceaușescu. Captured in Târgoviște, they were tried in a kangaroo court by a drumhead military tribunal on charges of genocide, damage to the national economy and abuse of power to execute military actions against the Romanian people. They were convicted on all charges and immediately executed on Christmas Day 1989, becoming the last persons condemned to death and executed in Romania. The National Salvation Front quickly took power after Ceaușescu was toppled, promising free and fair elections within five months. Elected in a landslide the following May, the National Salvation Front, reconstituted as a political party, installed a series of economic and democratic reforms, with further social policy changes being implemented by later governments. Since that point Romania has become far more integrated with the West than its former, albeit tepid, relations with Moscow. Romania became a member of NATO and the European Union in 2004 and 2007, respectively. Democratic reforms have proven to be moderately successful. ==Background== In 1981 Ceaușescu began an austerity program designed to enable Romania to liquidate its entire national debt ($10 billion). To achieve this, many basic goods—including gas, heat and food—were rationed, which drastically reduced the standard of living and increased malnutrition. The infant mortality rate also grew to be the highest in Europe.〔Roper, pp. 55–56〕 The secret police (''Securitate'') had become so ubiquitous as to make Romania essentially a police state. Free speech was limited and opinions that did not favor the Communist Party were forbidden. The large numbers of Securitate informers made organized dissent nearly impossible. The regime deliberately played on this sense that everyone was being watched to make it easier to bend the people to the Party's will.〔 Even by Soviet-bloc standards, the Securitate was exceptionally brutal. Ceaușescu created a cult of personality, with weekly shows in stadiums or on streets in different cities dedicated to him, his wife and the Communist Party. There were several megalomaniac projects, such as the construction of the grandiose House of the Republic (today the Palace of the Parliament)--the biggest palace in the world—the adjacent Centrul Civic and a never-completed museum dedicated to communism and Ceaușescu, today the Casa Radio. These and similar projects drained the country's finances and aggravated the already dire economic situation. Thousands of Bucharest residents were evicted from their homes, which were subsequently demolished to make room for the huge structures. Unlike the other Warsaw Pact leaders, Ceaușescu had not been slavishly pro-Soviet but rather had pursued an "independent" foreign policy; Romanian forces did not join its Warsaw Pact allies in putting an end to the Prague Spring—an invasion Ceaușescu openly denounced—while Romanian athletes competed at the Soviet-boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (receiving a standing ovation at the opening ceremonies and proceeding to win 53 medals, trailing only the US and West Germany in the overall count).〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1984/ )〕 Conversely, while Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev spoke of reform, Ceaușescu maintained a hard political line and cult of personality. The austerity program started in 1981 and the widespread poverty it introduced made the Communist regime very unpopular. The austerity programs were met with little resistance among Romanians and there were only a few strikes and labour disputes, of which the Jiu Valley miners' strike of 1977 and the Brașov Rebellion of November 1987 at the truck manufacturer Steagul Roșu were the most notable. In March 1989 several leading activists of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) protested in a letter that criticized the economic policies of Ceaușescu, but shortly thereafter he achieved a significant political victory: Romania paid off its external debt of about US $11 billion several months before the time that even the Romanian dictator expected. However, in the months following the announcement austerity and a shortage of goods remained the same as before. It initially appeared that Ceaușescu would weather the wave of revolution sweeping across Eastern Europe. He was formally re-elected for another five-year term as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party on 24 November at the party's XIV Congress. On the same day, Ceaușescu's counterpart in Czechoslovakia, Milos Jakes, resigned along with the entire Communist leadership, effectively ending Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. On 11 November 1989, before the party congress, on Bucharest's Brezoianu Street and Kogălniceanu Boulevard students from Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest demonstrated with placards saying, "We want Reforms against Ceaușescu government." The students—including Mihnea Paraschivescu, Gratian Vulpe and the economist Dan Caprariu-Schlachter from Cluj—were detained and investigated by the Securitate at the Rahova Penitentiary, on suspicion of propaganda against the socialist society. They were released on 22 December 1989 at 14.00. There were other letters and attempts to draw attention to the economic, cultural and spiritual oppression of Romanians, but they served only to intensify the activity of the police and Securitate. Another factor in the revolution was the Decreței policy, a draconian policy banning contraception and abortion. This policy, begun in 1967, resulted in a baby boom, but also resulted in high rates of poverty and child mortality. By 1989 these children had all reached adulthood, and many of them were among the students who started the revolution that overthrew Ceaușescu. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Romanian Revolution」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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