Reflections 30 Years after the Dissolution of the USSR
This article evaluates the impact of political changes in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1980s on the external and internal situation of the communist regime in the Socialist Republic of Romania. We contend that the outward opening policy launched by Mikhail Gorbachev cancelled the usefulness of the Ceausescu regime to the West after 1985. In this context, the cooling of relations with the West, added to the frosty pre-existing relationship with Moscow, led to the external isolation of the communist regime in Bucharest and to a worsening domestic economic situation. Thus, the loss of both support blocs (Western and Eastern) coupled with the poor domestic situation precipitated the collapse of the indigenous national-communist regime. More
