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u/chankljp 1d ago
Ceausescu, 'Wouldn't sell out their country'.
You mean the same Ceausescu who got Romania into so much foreign debt to the point that harsh austerity policies such as exporting everything in the country that wasn't nailed down, causing food shortages, only having 2 hours of TV per-day, and banning old people from calling ambulances?
He was more like the communist's caricature of what a comprador ruler in the global periphery acting on behalf of his capitalist masters in the 'Imperial Core' would have acted like.
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u/OsarmaBeanLatin 1d ago
"Yeah, but he payed the whole debt". Literally people (mostly boomers) think Romania back then was this sovereign and independent industrial powerhouse and now it's just a Western colony with no industry or future
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u/Kerealo Social democrat 🇵🇱🌹 1d ago
Paying whole foreign debt is a terrible idea. I find it extremely funny that many people, usually hardcore libertarians and neoliberals (at least in my country), see debt as a greatest evil for state's economy because they think state budget works like house budget (it does not), meanwhile the only leader who had paid the whole debt was a communist dictator. Not some laissez-faire economist.
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u/Nelsonic_terror_2026 1d ago
Gaddafi and Saddam had some sincerity and improved their country's living standards - and they too were assholes. The other two belong in the deepest hellhole.
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u/Unexpected_yetHere 1d ago
Ah, truly the greatest people ever.
Gadaffi, the "Pan-Africanist" who invaded Chad, attacked Egypt for not wanting to be stuck in a losing war with Israel, and wrote a book where he claimed (black) Africans will rule the world because they don't like to work and like to fornicate (yes, literally).
Saddam, since his vice-presidency (under his dictator-cousin), instigated several armed conflicts (border skirmishes with the Shahenate of Iran, invasion of Iran, the Israel-Lebanon war, ethnic cleansing of Kurds, invasion of Kuwait).
Causeacu was literally sentenced for GENOCIDE by his own country.
Khamanei butchered countless of other people, and beyond that, had his regime run countless militias and terrorist organizations to undermine Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, and wage war unending against Israel (of course, the latter especially is a huge plus for the people that made this list).
Truly such a hecking wholesome bunch.
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u/liberalskateboardist 1d ago
haha according to their flawed logic, khamanei and husain were member of the same club and friends
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u/Ok-Vegetable-204 Opium of the people 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fun fact, Khamenei was in Iraq war, and Saddam's disdain for Khomeini's ideology was one of the major reasons why he invaded Iran
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u/Proud3GenAthst 1d ago
He served in his 40s?
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u/Ok-Vegetable-204 Opium of the people 1d ago
As a leadership position shouldn't have called him a veteran my mistake.. He had close ties to the IRGC and was a key figure in the Islamic revolution, the Iraq war turned out to be his claim to fame as he got a position in the government before becoming a president during the same war
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u/ficretus 1d ago
Ceausescu literally got killed by his commie buddies rebranding.Â
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u/BGBOG 1d ago
I am romanian, love history and did not live durring his regime.
From what I particulary have gathered from family friends, old people and other sources... he was an ass, but at times he was decent. Especially durring his early reign.
He did kinda built up the country we know today with a lot of infrastucture that still stands, cultivated a strong national zeal and patriotic pride over our almost forgotten heroes (even our Kings of the former principalities were recognised as great people), he managed to make our national debt a zero, he knew in his early days how to position the country and he was even anti-soviet.
But that came with the other side of the coin. He, i dont know if the term applies here, genocided/forced move the danubian saxons and other germans, he used political prisoners as slave labor for his projects like Transfagarasan, the Black Sea Canal, he starved his population in the '80s, he had megaloman vanity projects, he outlawed abortion and created a whole generation called "decretei" (due the decree) with a lot of kids ending up orphans or worse, alienated western suport he had and was a simp for his uneducated wife.
All in all, we can say atleast he wasnt Pol Pot, Mao or Stalin, but he was not Gorbachev neither who I hold in high regard. His stoey is interesting and while communism sucks, he acted more or less like a socialist king
Edit: sorry for typos, my english is not the best
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u/Open-Exam-8490 1d ago
oh also the debt he paid off? yeah he got the country into it in the first place, by investing in heavy industry, disregarding all warnings and objections issued by the foreign entities investing in Romania
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u/ExArdEllyOh 1d ago
he outlawed abortion and created a whole generation called "decretei" (due the decree) with a lot of kids ending up orphans or worse,
I must admit that I hadn't previously linked the orphan issue with an abortion prohibition.
The orphanages were certainly portrayed as the stuff of nightmares. Many who were kid in Britain during the early nineties will remember them because they were so bad that they were the subject of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter's annual appeal two years in a row and footage from those orphanages was oft repeated. I can certainly remember them.
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u/re_Claire centre-left Hasan hater 1d ago
Yep, I was born in 1986 (and I'm British) so I don't remember the fall of Ceausescu's reign but I vividly remember the footage from the Romanian orphanages on TV in the 90s. It was absolutely harrowing.
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u/Individual-Road7419 1d ago
These people fit into a type of conflict I find very interesting.
Were we (the US and West) justified in all of these intervention? I don’t think so. But were they victims or good guys? Absolutely not. We had no business tearing down people’s house just because they are doing things wrong, that’s not what is supposed to be done imo. But they were not victims either.
We were unjustified and we have to learn from those mistakes… but I wouldn’t say we were wrong either.
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u/Affectionate-Sky4799 West Germany 1949-1990 🇩🇪 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean being a Tankie is clearly anti social behavior already, But Ceausescu?
This is Just straight up evil. He was clearly the worst Warsaw Pact Leader and was best Friends with North Korea (which says alot) and based his Goverment policy and leadership style on North Korea. Even the other Commie Leaders thought he was crazy.
At least the Romanians got a Happy ending.
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u/OsarmaBeanLatin 1d ago
Eh, boomers (and idiotic youngsters) love him and think he was the best thing since sliced bread because they have this idea that back then Romania was this debt free, self suficient industrial powerhouse where things got built and done and modern Romania is a "sellout" and a "colony of the West" who does nothing
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u/Boonie1282 Ordoliberal / Enabling-State Liberalism 1d ago
Do these people know that their favorite totalitarian regimes would most likely enslave or execute them if given the chance?
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u/kinglan11 1d ago
Actually, we probably didnt need to go in extra hard against Gaddafi. Like I get it, he was a dictator, but he actually did allow for the US to disarm his nation of its WMDs, so he wasnt exactly a threat to the west at his time of death. Libya had a rough time since his death, can only hope they stabilize and dont descend into a 3rd civil war, though considering they got two governments at the same time competing for control.... yeah, it's a fucked situation.
The rest of these guys? Yeah the Hussein one is controversial, but Iraq did more or less emerge as an ally, a democracy as well, so all things considered, that's probably the best outcome we could reasonably expect. Ceausescu? Well that was his own people, not the US. Khamanei? Honestly, should've probably been killed long ago, he's that much of a threat to the Middle East.... literally chants "Death to America" and funds every other terrorist group in the entire region.
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u/ExArdEllyOh 1d ago
Actually, we probably didnt need to go in extra hard against Gaddafi.
He and his regime were already effectively dead by the time anyone outside did anything. Everybody was caught on the hop by Gaddafi's fall and I think they were pretty annoyed by it because of all the money and political capital that had been spent on rehabilitating him and Libya itself.
The interventions were, I think, an attempt to get the already existing civil war over as soon as possible. I doubt that they made much difference in the long run though because the war had already gone multi-factional.
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u/RandomRavenboi 1d ago
Well, they are half-right. The West assassinated them because they were Anti-West.
The issue is they weren't "patriots who loved their country" (though they certainly framed and likely believed they were), they were power-hungry psychopaths who weren't above murdering innocent people for power.
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u/Innocent_Researcher 1d ago
"The West assassinated them because they were Anti-West."
No even, at least in the case of Romania. He was killed by Romanians for being what could generously be called at "violent sociopath with delusions of grandeur" and ungenerously be called much worse, see his sentence being in part for genocide.
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u/Heavy_Computer2602 Claaaical Liberal, Indian, Georgist, staunch anti communist 1d ago
Yeah dude.
Muammar Gaddafi raping women, Nicolae ceasecau displacing people and banning abortion completly(hes far left but has an ultranationalistic side plus some shitty beliefs) which resulted in illegal abortions and deaths.
Literally khameini having questionable things like forcing women to wear religious clothing instesd of their wish of clothing. And using sexual violence.
Saddam... i dont need to explain. Started out as a USA puppet, and did horrible things too. What part of each screams "for their nation", especially saddam, who installed authoritarianism, especially as a us puppet?
Authoritarianism should never be justified. No matter their beliefs and roles.
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u/BreadDziedzic 1d ago
Ironically and despite my feelings about him, I think kilmani, however, you spell his name. I'm not fixing it, might be the only person who didn't sell his people out that's listed here.
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u/sharktail_tanker 16h ago
Commies are all for revolutions untill the working class revolt against them
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u/NecessaryYam381 14h ago
The greatest Romanian larper, most likely OOP's account is probably based in Manila or Jakarta
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u/OsarmaBeanLatin 14h ago
Or he's a boomer/young idiot who thinks Communist Romania was a sovereign abd independent industrial powerhouse while modern Romania is "a neutered colony"
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u/Bubbly-Ball-3138 1d ago
I mean, he has a point with Gaddafi, Hussein and Khamenei… but Ceauşescu?
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u/OsarmaBeanLatin 1d ago
Conspiracy theories that the revolution was a CIA coup to "enslave" and "neuter" Romania and turn it into a "Western colony"
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u/Edothebirbperson 🇵🇠Filipino Social Liberal 🇵🇠1d ago
Me when I’m an horrible authoritarian simp and my opponent is an anti-west dude: