Agonia regimului comunist din România: schimbul de mesaje dintre N. Ceauşescu şi M. Gorbaciov, noiembrie 1989
The Agony of the Communist Regime in Romania: the Ceausescu-Gorbachev Exchange of Messages, Nov. 1989

Summary/Abstract: Moscow’s signaling of an opening when Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm of the USSR was given different interpretations in the Soviet bloc. Some of the satellite countries (Hungary, Poland) adopted an even more reformist stand than that proposed by the Soviet leader, whereas others (Romania, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic) categorically rejected the perestroika-inspired reforms. The leaders of the latter, fearing the Gorbachev-like initiatives would endanger their political power, used ideological arguments to defend their position. Such was the case of Bucharest leader N. Ceausescu who, alarmed by the changes in Europe in general and by the talk about German unification in particular, requested the USSR to step up the political-ideological struggle and make no concessions to Western Germany. Nicolae Ceausescu’s insistent defense of the GDR is explained by the fear that abandoning a communist member state of the Warsaw Treaty would create a dangerous precedent for the other member states. The text here presents the exchange of messages – unpublished before – between Nicolae Ceausescu and Mikhail Gorbachev, which highlights the deep crisis in the Romanian-Soviet relations in 1989 and the many-sided divergences between Bucharest and Moscow.

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