Proclamation of Timisoara - English Translation

Written by: George Serban, Timisoara Society
Translated by: Golan

The population of the city of Timisoara was the initiator of the Romanian Revolution. In the 16th to the 20th of December, 1989, it waged all by itself a fierce war with one of the most powerful and most abominable repressive systems in the world. It was a terrifying struggle that we, the citizens of Timisoara, know at its true proportions.

On one side, the unarmed population, on the other side the Securitate, the Militia, the Army and the zealous troops of Party activists. All the methods and means of repression however were proven impotent in the face of the desire for liberty of the citizens of Timisoara and their determination to win. Neither the arrests, nor aggressions, not even the mass assassinations could stop them. Each bullet that was fired brought upon the barricades of the Revolution another hundred fighters. And we won.

On December 20th 1989, Timisoara entered once and for all in the control of its population, becoming a free city, in the great prison that Romania has become in those days.

From that day on, all of the activity in the city was being led, from the balcony from Opera Square, by the Romanian Democratic Front, in that moment the representative of the Revolution of Timisoara.

That day, the military fraternized with the protesters, deciding to defend together with them the victory they got. On the 21st of December, in Opera Square, over a hundred thousand voices were chanting: "We are ready to die!". A series of actions that happened in Romania especially after January 28th 1990 come into contradiction with the ideals of the Revolution of Timisoara. These ideals have not been made known to public opinion by the central mass-media, only partially and vaguely. In such conditions, we, the unmediated participants of all the events from the 16th to the 22nd of December 1989, need to explain to the whole nation why the citizens of Timisoara triggered the Revolution, why they fought and many have sacrificed their lives, for what we are determined to continue fighting at any cost and against anyone, until complete victory.

1. The Revolution of Timisoara was ever since its first hours not just anti-Ceausescu but also decidedly anti-communist. In all the days of the Revolution "Down with communism!" was chanted hundreds of times. In consensus with the dreams of the hundreds of millions of people of Eastern Europe, we too have requested the immediate abolition of this totalitarian and failed social system. The ideal of our Revolution was and has remained the return to the authentic values of European democracy and civillization.

2. At the Revolution of Timisoara all social categories have participated. On the streets of Timisoara have fallen, struck by bullets, one next to the other, workers, intellectuals, officials, students, children and even peasants who have come in support of the Revolution. We are decidedly against the typically communist method of domination by spreading feuds amongst social classes and categories. On the basis of the ideology of "class struggle" the Bolsheviks ascended to power in 1917. On the same basis, the Romanian communist nomenklatura provoked after 1944 a social class against another, dividing society so that they could dominate it through terror more easily. We are warning against the danger of repeating this unfortunate history and we are calling on the workers, the intellectuals, the students, the peasants and all other social categories to a civillized and edifying dialogue, to immediately re-establish the unity of the Revolution. We need to start from the reality that all these social categories have been oppressed in the communist regime and that today none wishes bad things on the others.

3. At the Revolution of Timisoara all age groups have participated. Even though young people were the majority, we must recognize that people of all ages have fought with the same determination for the cause of the Revolution. The list of victims, though incomplete, is evidence for this.

4. For the victory of the Revolution of Timisoara they have sacrificed themselves, together with Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Serbs and members of other ethnic groups that have been living with us for centuries in our peaceful city, in good peace. Timisoara is a Romanian and European city, in which the nationalities have refused and continue to refuse nationalism. We are inviting all the chauvinists in Romania, be they Romanians, Hungarians or Germans, to come to Timisoara for a re-education course in the spirit of tolerance and mutual respect, the only principles that will reign in the future Household of Europe.

5. Ever since the 16th of December, from the first hours of the Revolution, one of the most chanted catchphrases was: "We want free elections!". The idea of pluralism was and remains one of the dearest for the citizens of Timisoara. We are convinced that without strong political parties there cannot be an authentic, European democracy. With the exception of the extremist ones, left-wing or right-wing, all parties have the right to exist in the city of Timisoara. In our city the headquarters of political parties were not attacked or devastated, none of their members were threatened, insulted or slandered. The members of political parties are our fellow citizens, they are our workmates, they are our friends with political opinions. European democracy means free expression of political opinions, civillized dialogue between their holders and friendly competition for winning political adherence, and implicitly, for state power. We would have accepted the Romanian Communist Party too in the system of Romanian democracy had it not been totally and terminally compromised by its nomenklatura, degenerating into red fascism. In the Eastern European countries where the communist parties kept a minimal decency, society is questioning them in theory but tolerates them in practice. However, here the communist party got to the point of genocide, and through this it excluded itself from society. We will not tolerate it neither in theory, nor in practice, no matter under what name it will try to re-appear.

6. After four decades of exclusively communist education and propaganda, in the minds of all Romanians there are prejudices belonging to this ideology. Their existence is not the fault of the person. However, their manipulation by groups that are interested in the rebirth of communism and its re-institution is a counter-revolutionary act. On the list of catchphrases, given to the protesters in the Banu Manta Square in Bucharest, there were even slogans from 45 years ago. For instance, the identification of the "historical" parties with country-selling parties is such a slogan and constitutes slander. On the contrary, the communist activists from 45 years ago, some of whom even today have important functions in the state apparatus, are guilty of betraying Romania and putting it in the service of the USSR. They are the ones who were chanting: "Stalin and the Russian people,/brought us liberty!", not the members of the "historical" parties. The latter opposed the transformation of Romania into a satellite of Moscow and some have even paid with their lives for this. It is urgent that we redact a short but correct history of the 1944-1950 period and that we publish it in mass editions.

7. Timisoara started the Revolution against the entire communist regime and its entire nomenklatura, and in no way should it be an opportunity for political ascension for a group of anti-Ceausescu dissidents from within the PCR. Their presence at the leadership of the country makes the deaths of the heroes of Timisoara vain. Maybe we would have accepted them ten years ago, if at the 12th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party they would have joined Constantin Parvulescu in order to overthrow the dictator's clan. But they did not do it, even though they had both the opportunity and important functions that gave them privileges. On the contrary, some of them obeyed the dictator's command to boo at the dissident. Their cowardice from 1979 has cost us ten more years of dictatorship, the worst of the period, and an additional painful genocide.

8. As a consequence of the previous point, we propose that electoral law should prohibit for the first three consecutive legislatures the right to candidate, on any lists, of the former communist activists and the former Securitate officers. Their presence in the political life of the country is the main source of tension and suspicion that stirs up Romanian society today. Until stabilization and national reconciliation, their absence from public life is absolutely necessary. We are also asking that the electoral law should have a special paragraph that should forbid the former communist activists from running for president. The president of Romania should be one of the symbols of our separation from communism. Being a former party member is not a grievance. We all know how much the life of the individual was conditioned by the red card, from one's career path to getting a home, and what severe consequences were brought if it was lost. However, the activists were those who abandoned their professions to serve the communist party and benefit from the special privileges it offered. A person who made such a decision does not have the moral status that a president should have. We propose the minimization of the privileges of this function, according to the model of many civillized countries of the world. Thus, even outstanding personalities of culture and science, without a special political experience, can run for president. In this context, we propose that the first legislature should last only two years, necessary time-frame for strengthening democratic institutions and the clarification of the ideological position of each of the many newly-made parties. Only then can we make a choice in full knowledge.

9. Timisoara did not start the Revolution for better wages or for material advantages. For these a strike would have been enough. We are all disappointed with the payroll system. There are, even in Timisoara, workers that work in extremely harsh conditions and are not paid enough (see, for instance, those who work in foundry or in the detergent industry), and even so no collective went on strike for better salaries and did not send delegates to discuss with the governement about exclusively material requests. Most citizens of Timisoara know what economists are trying to let the country know these days: right now, increasing wages would automatically trigger inflation, just as it happened in some Eastern European states. And inflation, once started, needs years of effort to stop.

Only increasing production, increasing the quantity of goods on the market, will allow us to generally increase wages in parallel. Additionally, for the poor budget of Romania, expenses for the restabilization of a minimal level of order should have priority. For instance, it is urgent that we invest in the healthcare system and in sanitation.

10. Even though we are fighting for the re-Europeanization of Romania, we do not wish to copy Western capitalist systems, that have their own drawbacks and inequities. However, we are decidedly in favor of private initiative. The economic foundation of totalitarianism is the omnipotence of state property. We will never have political pluralism without economic pluralism. However, there were also voices that, in a communist manner, conflate private initiative with "exploitation" and the danger of the catastrophe of the appearance of rich people. In this case, we suspect the envy of the lazy and the former privileged man's fear of working. The proof that the citizens of Timisoara are not afraid of privatization is the fact that multiple enterprises already announced their intention to turn into share-based anonymous societies. For these shares to be bought with clean money, commissions for the inventory of the wealth of the former priveleged of power and corruption should be founded in every city. Additionally, the stocks of an enterprise are to be given first and foremost to its workers. We are considering the more radical idea of privatization through giving every worker of an enterprise an equal amount of stocks, the state only keeping the percentage necessary to oversee the activity. This way, all workers would have equal chances for prosperity. If the lazy ones would lose their chance, they couldn't complain about discrimination.

11. Timisoara is determined to use the principle of economic and administrative decentralization. A model of experimental market economy was proposed in the Timis County, starting with the available strong capacities and the competent specialists. For an easier and quicker attraction of foreign capital, especially in the form of technology and special raw materials, and for the creation of mixed societies, we are requesting for the opening in Timisoara of a branch of Bancorex. A part of the earnings in currency of the Romanian part will be shared in the salaries of the workers. Additionally, passports will no longer be just notebooks to be kept in a drawer. Another positive consequence will be the decrease of the exchange rate in the free market, that would immediately favor an increase in the quality of life.

12. After the fall of the dictatorship, all the exiled Romanians were invited in the country, to contribute to the reconstruction of Romania. Some have returned, others have announced their intention to do so. Unfortunately, provoked by obscure forces, some people decided to slander the people who have returned, to call them traitors, to ask them what they have eaten in the last ten years. It's an attitude that is not constructive. In the despair that controlled us these last forty years, maybe there is no Romanian that hasn't thought at least once to escape the miserable situation by going into exile. Many of the Romanians that are today far away from home have left after political persecution and even after long years of prison. It would be shameful for us to slander them with the words of the communist activists from back then. Romanian exile means hundreds of eminent professors that teach at the greatest universities in the world, thousands of specialists that work for the strongest Western companies, tens of thousands of workers that are skilled in the most advanced technologies. Let us be proud of them and let us turn bad into good, making from the sad and pained Romanian diaspora a renewing force for Romania. Timisoara is waiting for all the exiled Romanians with love. They are our compatriots and today, more than ever, we need their competence, the Europeanism of their thinking and their material support. Additionally, Romanian culture will only be whole after the culture of the exiled will be re-integrated.

13. We do not agree with making the 22nd of December the national holiday of Romania. In this way, the person of the dictator is eternalized by celebrating a number of years from his fall. Most countries that tied their national holiday to a revolution, the day that was chosen is that of the triggering of the revolution, thus glorifying the courage of the Romanian people to arise and fight. An example: the national holiday of France is July 14th, the day in which, in 1789, the Great French Revolution started with the storming of Bastille. We request for the day of December 16th to be the national holiday of Romania. Thus, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will celebrate the courage of the people to confront oppression, not the fall of a jerk tyrant. With the exception of the Romania Libera newspaper, the press, the radio and the television broadcast in Bucharest. The events commented as revolutionary are only those of the 21st to 22nd of December.

We prostrate with piety before the heroes of Bucharest, and before the heroes of Lugoj, Sibiu, Brasov, Targu Mures, Arad, Resita, and of all the other cities that needed martyrs to win liberty. We are hurt and repulsed by the central policy of minimization of our Revolution, obviously even through the efforts for minimizing the number of deaths. We were on the streets of Timisoara in the days of the Revolution and we know that their number is bigger than the one that was officially announced. We are assuring those that hide the truth today that we will not stop the fight until they will be brought to justice, as accomplices to genocide.

This Proclamation was born out of the necessity to let the Romanian nation know the true ideals of the Revolution of Timisoara. It was a Revolution done by the people, and only by the people, without the activists and the Securitate. It was an authentic revolution, not a coup d'etat. It was decidedly anti-communist, not just anti-Ceausescu. At Timisoara people have not died for communist activists from the second and third echelons to come to power and for one of the participants at the genocide to be named minister of internal affairs by them. People have not died so that social and national division, the cult of personality, mass-media censorship, misinformation, written threats and all other communist methods of oppression to be practiced in front of everyone, while we were asked to be passive in the name of social stability. This Proclamation is adressed, first and foremost, to those for who got the Revolution as a gift and are wondering why we are not content, since the dictatorship has fallen, a series of bad laws have been applied. Now I know why we are not content: this was not the ideal of the Revolution of Timisoara. We, the authors of this Proclamation, participants at the events from the 16th to the 22nd of December 1989, do not consider the Revolution to be finished. We will continue it peacefully, but firmly. After we have fought and won, without anyone's help, one of the most powerful repressive systems in the world, no one and nothing can intimidate us anymore.


Timisoara, March 11th 1990