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Romania
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 Nicolae
Ceausescu was the leader of Romania from 1965 until he was overthrown
and killed in the revolution of 1989. Early in his life he played
an active role in the Communist party, which resulted in imprisonment in
1936 and 1940. In 1939 he married another highly devoted Communist,
Elena Petrescu. Once the Communists fully gained power in Romania
in 1947, Ceausescu headed the nation’s ministry of agriculture and served
as deputy minister of the armed forces. Eventually he rose up to the
second highest position in the party, holding important posts in the Politburo
and Secretariat. After Gheorghiu-Dej’s death in 1965, Ceausescu became
the leader of the state and president of the State Council. In the
1960s he ended Romania’s participation in the Warsaw Pact and condemned
the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. After becoming President
in 1974, Ceausescu began to run the country in a militant fashion.
His secret police held tight control of free speech and the media.
In 1982 he ordered most of Romania’s products to be exported in order to
pay off a ballooned foreign debt due to his mismanagement.
The lack of agricultural and industrial resources crippled the country and the lack of medicine, food, energy, and other basic necessities drove the people to the brink of starvation, while the Ceausescu’s outrageous consumption continued unabated. The population finally rebelled when Ceausescu ordered his forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators in Timisoara. On December 22, 1989 he and his wife were captured and on Christmas Day they were both executed by a firing squad.
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Elena
Ceausescu was born on January 7, 1919. Born into a poor family--her
father was a plowman--her formal education ended after the fourth grade.
In the 1930s she met her future husband Nicolae while being active in
an underground Communist party. They were then married in 1939 and
from that point on they were a team, never parting. Nicolae appointed
her to the Nation Council of Scientific Research. Two years later
Elena was awarded her Ph.D. in industrial chemistry despite having had
other people do the work for it. All her supposed scholarly achievements
and awards were entirely fraudulent. Indeed, she was seen many times
dozing off, open mouth, when scientific papers were discussed. In
1980 she was appointed the first deputy Prime Minister in the Council
of Ministers, the number two position behind her husband. By the
time Elena started to gain power in her husband’s government the country
was starting its downfall. She lived her life with countless luxuries,
including 40 homes, even as the Romanian people faced deprivation.
In the end, the much despised Elena was executed by her husband’s side
on December 25, 1989.