The last few months have seen renewed upheavals in Romania; with the miners calling for a new government that will address the deepening economic crisis, and the Iliescu government responding with the threat to impose martial law. The scenes in the streets of Bucharest have been reminiscent of the December 1989 uprising which overthrew Nicholae Ceausescu. Within months of the 1989 revolution, Romania was torn by ethnic conflict, by the deployment of worker paramilitaries on the streets, by the reappearance of the secret police and by a fraudulent election. The revolution had been "hijacked" and the legacy of violence and absence of democracy have continued to haunt Romanian society. Martin Rady's account of a country barely understood in the West, explains not just the bloody course of recent events, from Timisoara to the miners, but analyzes also the older and deeper tends which dominate Romanian politics. Native fascism, inter-ethnic rivalry and authoritarian rule are rooted as much in the turmoil that has marked Romanian history over centuries as in the Ceausescu years.
Indeed, it can be argued that Ceausescu was, above all, the product of a deeply authoritarian culture, and not simply an isolated dictator. This account looks to Romania's past in order to understand the events of today, exploring the likelihood of real elections and the emergence of a government accountable to its people.