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The spark that ignited Romania came on December 15, 1989 when Father Laszlo Tokes spoke out publicly against the dictator (Ceausescu) from his small church in Timisoara. The following evening people gathered outside Father Tokes' home to protest the decision of the Reformed Church of Romania to remove him from his post. By 9pm this has turned into a noisy demonstration, and when the police began making arrests, the unrest spread to other parts of the city and armored cars began patrolling the streets.

At noon on December 17th a huge crowd on Timisoara's Bulevardul, between the Opera House and the Orthodox Cathedral, was confronted by Securitate (secret police) units and regular army troops. When demonstrators broke into the Communist Party's district headquarters and threw portraits of Ceausescu out of the windows, the army used tanks and armored cars to clear the vast square. Despite this, further clashes, took place in nearby Piata Libertatii (The Freedom Square).

Back in Bucharest later that afternoon, the Executive Political Committee condemned the 'mild' action taken by the army and ordered that real bullets be used - this was the start of civilian casualties. The Securitate continued mopping-up operations all night and the dead were collected and buried in mass graves or sent to Bucharest to be cremated. The resistance continued, however, and on December 19th the army in Timisoara went over to the side of the demonstrators.

On December 20th negotiators from Bucharest arrived in Timisoara to buy time until fresh troops could be sent to the city, and newly arrived Securitate units began firing on the demonstrators once again. At 6pm Ceausescu arrived back in Romania from a state visit to Iran and proclaimed martial law in Timis County. Trainloads of elite troops were dispatched to the city with orders to crush the rebellion.

On December 21st a remarkable thing happened. Ceausescu decided that he would address a mass rally in front of the Central Committee building in Bucharest to show the world that the workers of Romania supported him and approved his action against the 'hooligan' demonstrators in Timisoara. What went on behind the scenes may never be known but it's possible that Ceausescu was set up by conspirators within the Communist Party who wanted to engineer his downfall. Factories around Bucharest dutifully sent their most trusted cadres to applaud Ceausescu as they had done so many times before, but upon their arrival early in the morning at Piata Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, they were told that Ceausescu had changed his mind about the speech and that they could go home. A few hours later the word went out again that the speech would in fact be held at noon and that the workers should reassemble. However, the reliable Party supporters had already left and the factory bosses were forced to be less selective as they scrambled to send the required number of people to the square.

At 12.30 pm as Ceausescu began to speak to the assembly from the balcony of the Central Committee building, youths who were being held back by three cordons of police a block away started booing. Tension mounted in the silent crowd and suddenly there was a strange crack of sound and Ceausescu was cut off in mid-sentence by shouts of disapproval. For a second the dictator faltered, amazement written across his face as recorded on live TV. Pandemonium broke loose as the youths attempted to break through the police lines and the assembled workers tried to escape. Urged on by his wife, Ceausescu attempted to continue his speech even as police cleared the square, finally ending as the tape with prerecorded applause and cheers was switched off.

Meanwhile, the anti-Ceausescu demonstrators retreated to the wide boulevard between Piata Universitatii and Piata Romana. At about 2.30 pm reinforcements of special riot police with clubs and shields arrived. Calea Victoriei and plain-clothes police began making arrests. As more police and armored cars arrived, the growing number of demonstrators became concentrated in the two piatas (squares) just mentioned. Around 5 pm, when the crowds still refused to disperse, the police at Piata Romana first fired warning shots and then used gunfire and armored cars to brutally crush the demonstration.

In front of the Inter-Continental Hotel on Piata Universitatii armored cars also drove into the crowd. Drenched by ice-cold water from fire hoses, the demonstrators refused to submit and began erecting barricades under the eyes of Western journalists in the adjacent hotel. At 11 pm the police began their assault on Piata Universitatii, using a tank to smash the barricades. By dawn the square had been cleared and the bodies of those killed removed.

At 7 am on December 22nd, demonstrators began assembling in Piata Romana and Piata Universitatii once more. By 11 am huge crowds faced the phalanx of army troops in their tanks with Securitate behind them blocking the way to the Central Committee building where Ceausescu was still believed to be. Rumors then began circulating about General Milea, the then Minister of Defense, who allegedly had been forced to commit suicide by Ceausescu because he had refused to order his troops to fire on the people. Gradually the crowd began to chant 'The army is with us!' and to mix with the troops arrayed against them, offering the soldiers flowers and cigarettes.

As the demonstrators swarmed up onto the unresisting tanks and fraternized with the crews, the Securitate forces withdrew towards the site of the previous day's speech. At 11.30 am Bucharest Radio announced the 'suicide' of the 'traitor' Milea and the proclamation of a "state of emergency". As thousands of people moved towards the Central Committee building, the Securitate continued to draw back. Around noon Ceausescu again appeared on the same balcony and attempted to speak, but people began booing and throwing objects at him, forcing him to duck back quickly inside the building. At this point the crowd surged in through the main doors past unresisting police, but, with the crowd just a few dozen meters away, Ceausescu, his wife and several others managed to escape by helicopter from the roof. Soon after, the radio and TV stations were taken by the rebels, who did not meet any resistance.

The helicopter took the Ceausescus to their villa at Snagov, just north of Bucharest. The plan was that they would proceed to an air base near Pitesti, where a waiting jet would take them into exile outside Romania. Halfway to Pitesti, however, the helicopter pilot feigned engine trouble and set the chopper down beside a highway where the two Securitate officers present commandeered a passing private car. The party then drove on to Tirgoviste, where the Ceausescus were arrested and taken to a military base.

It is now believed that the Ceausescus' speedy trial had much more to do with breaking the revolution and saving former Party members than in stopping the Securitate. Clearly, Nicolae and Elena knew too much and many people still in high office today might have been dragged down with them had they been given an open trial. Among the charges brought against the Ceausescus by the kangaroo court was that they had deposited US $470 million in Swiss banks, yet none of this mysterious treasure has ever been located.

Evidently, reformers in the Communist Party had been preparing a coup d'etat against Ceausescu and his family for at least six months, when the December 1989 demonstrations forced them to move their schedule forward. When Ceausescu fell, therefore, the National Salvation Front was ready to take over. Most of its leaders, including President Ion Iliescu and former Prime Minister Petre Roman, were former Party members.

Reports of casualties in the revolution were widely exaggerated. At the Ceausescus' trial it was claimed that 64,000 people died in the revolution; a few days later it was changed to 64,000 deaths in the entire 25-year Ceausescu epoch. After a week the number of victims had been reduced to 7,000 and the final count was around 750. In Timisoara 115 people died, not the 4,000 reported.

Learn more about Romania.

• Project Romania is under way.
• The current situation in Romania.
• A brief history of Romania.
• The Romanian Revolution.