Revolution 1989 Read Free Page A

stick with the Warsaw Pact countries because they, in the 1989 story, formed a discrete whole. Nor have I covered Yugoslavia, which had begun its agonising death throes in 1989 but was not part of the Soviet sphere. That tragedy requires a book of its own.
    Throughout this narrative I have used the terms Central Europe or Eastern Europe interchangeably, and I realise that is a liberty. I do not wish to tread on toes. Entire books have been written about the ‘meaning’ of Central Europe as an idea and as a place, where it ends and Eastern Europe begins. I intend them to mean the same thing, purely to avoid repetition of the same phrase too often. Similarly with Soviet Union, the USSR and Russia. Obviously I know ‘Russian’ is not the same as ‘Soviet’. I use them loosely solely in the interest of style.
    As a journalist in the 1980s I covered many of the events described in this book. It was more than just a story for me. My family had fled Hungary and, a tiny child, I was a refugee from ‘behind the Iron Curtain’. From my earliest memories people around me were speaking as though the all-powerful Soviet empire which had transformed our lives would be there for ever. It turned out to be far weaker than everybody supposed. I am lucky that I was there at some of the crucial points as it fell, amid the excitement and drama that I describe here.
     
    London, December 2008.

PROLOGUE
    Târgovite, Romania, Monday 25 December 1989.
     
    AT 11 . 45 A.M. TWO MILITARY HELICOPTERS landed outside the army barracks in Târgovite, a bleak steel town 120 kilometres north of Bucharest built in the brutalist style favoured by Communist dictators from Stalin onwards. From the larger aircraft emerged six army generals in immaculate uniforms weighed down by gold braid and medals. They were followed by three lower-ranking officers attached to the Romanian General Staff, along with a group of four civilians.
    One man, clearly in charge, began to bark orders as soon as the delegation touched down after its thirty-minute flight from the capital. He was silver-haired, fifty-three-year-old General Victor Stnculescu, representative of the newly formed National Salvation Front government that had yet to win complete control over Romania. That morning he had been given an urgent task that required some delicacy and plenty of ruthlessness: he was told to organise the trial of Nicolae Ceauescu, Romanian dictator for almost a quarter of a century, and his wife Elena. Three days earlier, amidst jubilant scenes of revolutionary fervour, the couple had been forced to flee their capital. They had been captured within a few hours and were held at the Târgovite barracks while their fate was decided in Bucharest. Forces loyal to Ceauescu - the Securitate secret police - were still fighting to reinstate him as President. The uncertain revolutionary government finally decided it had to act speedily to bring the Ceauescus to justice and to show Romanians who was now in charge of the country.
    Stanculescu was chosen as the fixer. A tall, elegant man, he was known as a smooth and subtle operator. In the old regime, until 22 December, he had been Deputy Minister of Defence, a long-time friend of the ruling family, regular dinner companion at the Presidential Palace and one of the chief sycophants of the Ceausescu court. But he was quick to see the wind change and was among the first senior army officers in Romania to pledge loyalty to the revolution. Along with his political flair for timing he was also a meticulous organiser. He had brought with him from Bucharest the judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers needed for a trial. Stanculescu had also attended to other details. In the second helicopter, he had placed a specially selected team of paratroopers from a crack regiment, handpicked earlier in the morning to act as a firing squad. Before the legal proceedings began the General had already selected the spot where the execution would take place - along