The country's ubiquitous secret police force, the Securitate, which was both one of the largest in the Eastern Bloc and for decades had been the main suppressor of popular dissent, frequently and violently quashing political disagreement, ultimately proved incapable of stopping the looming, and then highly fatal and successful revolt.

[11] Shortly after a botched public speech by Ceaușescu in the capital Bucharest that was broadcast to millions of Romanians on state television, rank-and-file members of the military switched, almost unanimously, from supporting the dictator to backing the protesters.

Elected in a landslide the following May, the FSN reconstituted as a political party, installed a series of economic and democratic reforms,[16] with further social policy changes being implemented by later governments.

Unlike the other Warsaw Pact leaders, Ceaușescu had not been slavishly pro-Soviet but rather had pursued an "independent" foreign policy; Romanian forces did not join their Warsaw Pact allies in putting an end to the Prague Spring—an invasion Ceaușescu openly denounced—while Romanian athletes competed at the Soviet-boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (receiving a standing ovation at the opening ceremonies and proceeding to win 53 medals, trailing only the United States and West Germany in the overall count).

[28][29] Conversely, while Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev spoke of reform, Ceaușescu maintained a hard political line and cult of personality.

Like the East German state newspaper, official Romanian news organs made no mention of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the first days following 9 November 1989.

The three students, Mihnea Paraschivescu, Grațian Vulpe, and the economist Dan Căprariu-Schlachter from Cluj, were detained and investigated by the Securitate at the Rahova Penitentiary on suspicion of propaganda against the socialist society.

In July of that year, in an interview with Hungarian television,[38] Tőkés had criticised the regime's Systematisation policy[39] and complained that Romanians did not even know their human rights.

The rioters broke into the district committee building and threw party documents, propaganda brochures, Ceaușescu's writings, and other symbols of Communist power out of windows.

[41] On 19 December, local Party functionary Radu Bălan and Colonel-General Ștefan Gușă visited workers in the city's factories, but failed to get them to resume work.

")[41] Meanwhile, Secretary to the Central Committee Emil Bobu and Prime Minister Constantin Dăscălescu were sent by Elena Ceaușescu (Nicolae being at that time in Iran) to resolve the situation.

One worker explained, "Yesterday our factory boss and a party official rounded us up in the yard, handed us wooden clubs and told us that Hungarians and 'hooligans' were devastating Timișoara and that it is our duty to go there and help crush the riots.

Instead, undeterred, he and his wife, Elena, along with other officials, spent almost three minutes trying to understand what was happening and haranguing the confused crowd, some of whom appeared to be trying to leave the area, while others moved towards the Central Committee building.

Ceaușescu continued his speech, addressing the events of Timisoara and blaming them on imperialist circles and intelligence services that wished to destroy the integrity and sovereignty of Romania and halt the construction of socialism.

A young man waved a tricolour with the communist coat of arms torn out of its centre while perched on the statue of Mihai Viteazul on Boulevard Mihail Kogălniceanu in the University Square.

[26] Soon the protesters—unarmed and unorganised—were confronted by soldiers, tanks, APCs, USLA troops (Unitatea Specială pentru Lupta Antiteroristă, anti-terrorist special squads) and armed plainclothes Securitate officers.

Protesters managed to build a defensible barricade in front of the Dunărea ("Danube") restaurant, which stood until after midnight, but was finally torn apart by government forces.

[41] By 10:00, as the radio broadcast was announcing the introduction of martial law and a ban on groups larger than five persons, hundreds of thousands of people were gathering for the first time, spontaneously, in central Bucharest (the previous day's crowd had come together at Ceaușescu's orders).

Helicopters spread manifestos (which did not reach the crowd, due to unfavourable winds) instructing people not to fall victim to the latest "diversion attempts," but to go home instead and enjoy the Christmas feast.

This order, which drew unfavourable comparisons to Marie Antoinette's haughty (but apocryphal) "Let them eat cake", further infuriated the people who did read the manifestos; many at that time had trouble procuring basic foodstuffs such as cooking oil.

[41] The most widespread opinion at the time was that Milea hesitated to follow Ceaușescu's orders to fire on the demonstrators, even though tanks had been dispatched to downtown Bucharest that morning.

[51][41] On 24 December Ion Iliescu, head of the newly formed Council of the National Salvation Front (FSN), signed a decree establishing the Extraordinary Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial to try the Ceaușescus for genocide and other crimes.

[52] In footage of the trial, Nicolae Ceaușescu is seen answering the ad hoc tribunal judging him and referring to some of its members—among them Army General Victor Atanasie Stănculescu and future Romanian Secret Service head Virgil Măgureanu—as "traitors".

On the 22nd, a small group of individuals which would later comprise the core of the National Salvation Front (Romanian: Frontul Salvării Naționale, FSN), called for a mass mobilisation of people for the defence of the television station.

[13] Scenes of major gunfights during this period include the television, radio and telephone buildings, as well as Casa Scânteii (the nation's print media center, which serves a similar role today under the name of the "House of the Free Press", Casa Presei Libere) and the post office in the district of Drumul Taberei; Palace Square (site of the Central Committee building, but also of the Central University Library, the national art museum in the former Royal Palace, and the Ateneul Român (Romanian Athenaeum), Bucharest's leading concert hall); the university and the adjoining University Square (one of the city's main intersections); Otopeni and Băneasa airports; hospitals; and the Ministry of Defence.

[41] During the night of 22–23 December, Bucharest residents remained on the streets, especially in areas under attack, fighting (and ultimately winning, at the cost of many lives) a battle with an elusive and dangerous enemy.

[41] Meanwhile, messages of support were flooding in from all over the world: France (President François Mitterrand); the Soviet Union (General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev); Hungary (the Hungarian Socialist Party); the new East German government (at that time the two German states were not yet formally reunited); Bulgaria (Petar Mladenov, General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party); Czechoslovakia (Ladislav Adamec, leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and Václav Havel, the dissident writer, revolution leader and future president of the Republic); China (the Minister of Foreign Affairs); the United States (President George H. W. Bush); Canada (Prime Minister Brian Mulroney); West Germany (Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher); NATO (Secretary General Manfred Wörner); the United Kingdom (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher); Spain; Austria; the Netherlands; Italy; Portugal; Japan (the Japanese Communist Party); SFR Yugoslavia government; and Moldavian SSR.

Initially, much of the world's sympathy went to the FSN government under Ion Iliescu, a former member of the CPR leadership and a Ceaușescu ally prior to falling into the dictator's disfavour in the early 1980s.

Infiltrated and instigated by former Securitate agents, in the following days a large mass of workers, mainly miners, entered Bucharest and attacked and fought with anti-government protesters and gathered bystanders.

[66] However, as violence continued into 1990 and reports reached the West of mass casualties, this projected narrative shifted into a less sympathetic one characterized by disappointment in and suspicion of the revolution's direction.