State Security Department

REVOLUTION 30: 23 - 31 December 1989 events in Bucharest and in other Romanian cities

Romania was the only country facing wide spread violence during the 1989 revolutions; officially, 1,104 people died and 3,300 were injured. Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, believed to be the most brutal and repressive in Eastern Europe, was without doubt one of the main reasons for such a tragic end - as the work ''The 1989 Revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

REVOLUTION 30: What happened in Timisoara, over December 16-20, 1989

The year 1989 meant the end of the communist regime in the Central and Eastern European countries. Romania was the only ex-communist country in the case of which the switch to democracy was violent, involving protests and street fights, and the only country where the leaders of the former regime got executed.