Titans of History

In 2011, as Mubarak, now an octogenarian, planned the succession of his son, a popular revolution—part of a wave of discontent against dictators across the Arab world—overthrew the president. The revolts toppled the long-serving Libyan and Tunisian leaders and sparked a bloody uprising in Syria against Bashar Assad and his brutal dynasty. But after the initial optimism and effervescence, revolutions usually favor those with the best existing organizations and discipline: thus in Egypt, the military and the Islamists were the most organized. The Nasserite generals, in power since 1952, tried to remain in charge; middle-class Egyptians, who promoted Mubarak’s fall through Facebook and Twitter, dreamed of liberal democracy, but the mass of Egyptians seemed to prefer the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The outcome of all these events across the Middle East remains unclear: as the Chinese communist premier Zhou Enlai reflected when asked about the outcome of the French Revolution, “It is too early to tell.”

THE CEAUŞESCUS OF ROMANIA

Nicolae 1918–1989 Elena 1916–1989

He always claimed to act and speak on behalf of the people, to be a beloved son of the people, but he only tyrannized the people all the time.

Prosecutor at the opening of the trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu, December 1989

The preposterous and merciless Ceauşescus personified the long Communist tyranny over eastern Europe—and their violent fate represented the drama of the 1989 revolutions that overthrew it. Ceauşescu promoted his own cult of personality as self-declared “Conductor” (Leader) and “Genius of the Carpathians” and diverted his poverty-stricken country’s resources to vast monuments to his own glory while using his Securitate secret police to murder his enemies. He and his wife Elena ruled as a grotesque partnership. When the communist Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989–90, they were the only two of the ousted leaders to be shot.

Born into a peasant family, Ceauşescu joined the fledgling Romanian communist movement in the early 1930s. At the time Romania was a conservative monarchy, and being a communist was illegal. In 1936 Ceauşescu was jailed for two years, and in 1940 was interned in a concentration camp. Here he met Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party, and escaped with him in 1944. That same year a broad-based anti-fascist “liberation” government—including Dej—was set up with Soviet assistance. In 1947 Ceauşescu married plowman’s daughter Elena.

Later that year the Communists ousted their erstwhile allies from government, and in 1952 Dej became de facto dictator of Romania. With the elevation of his mentor, Ceauşescu was able to secure his own position, and when Dej died in 1965, Ceauşescu became party leader and head of state. Many Romanians hoped their new leader would inaugurate a period of greater liberalization and reform. In August 1968 such expectations intensified after Ceauşescu’s denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and his defiant line made him a genuinely popular figure within Romania, and earned plaudits from the West. Nevertheless, he was quick to assure the Soviets that his country would remain a loyal member of the Eastern Bloc.

Early optimism started to dissipate as Ceauşescu began to fantasize about turning Romania into a world industrial power house; and as he did so, prospects for liberalization receded. Instead, Ceauşescu became obsessed with shoring up his monopoly of power, and to this end he introduced a process of continual job rotation by which functionaries at every level were ordered to change position regularly, with the intention that no one would be able to build up a power base to challenge him. The fact that the system also led to administrative chaos does not seem to have troubled Ceauşescu, who in March 1974 assumed the ability to rule by decree alone. His wife Elena became increasingly powerful as vice-premier, politburo member and self-declared “Mother of the Nation”: the Ceauşescus ruled as a gruesome partnership and stories of her greed, ruthlessness and vainglory abounded.