the beginning of the end...

November 15, 1987

or the beginning of the end...
massive strike in Brasov, Romania's second largest city...an industrial one..the plans conceived by Ceausescu for this town weren't at all welcomed there...after a heavy industrialization for the last decades, now the Regime in Bucharest wanted to cut almost 15.000 jobs, not to mention the salaries reduction...

as I recall from what my aunt in Brasov told me, the riot began in the morning and the workers had all the rights to shout WE WANT FOOD on the streets, since the 'supermarkets' were empty, only vietnamese shrimps, pastas and ugly jams...if I remember well...all this when, downtown, the County Communist Party General Secretary was celebrating his birthday I think, in a hall with large windows. Large enough so the passers- by could see the salami, meat, cheese and other goodies on the tables...this was enough..imagine them, almost knowing they had no chance to change anything...thousands of people on the streets...army and the Securitate forces with them..among them..tens of the protesters arrested and imprisoned, while hundreds were relocated in other parts of the country, so that they couldn't gather again and say anything against "the beloved leader"

11.15.1987 did not directly lead to the 1989 coup d'etat...but weighed enough so that Ceausescu realise the workers were a force...One that wouldn't make deals with politicians, as nowadays happen...

Fortunately nobody died in Brasov those days..that's why November 15 is a day to remember with a smile on our faces...it was the beginning...