From Publishers Weekly
Twice placed under house arrest, Brucan was a leading strategist of the populist forces that toppled the regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Filled with dramatic incidents, political revelations and vivid details, this striking memoir candidly charts the author's transformation from staunch Stalinist to severe critic of Soviet-style communism. Brucan, today a social sciences professor at the University of Bucharest, gives a firsthand account of the extraordinary 1944 coup in which Romania's King Michael, in a conspiracy with communists, turned his country against its former ally, Nazi Germany. Brucan, who served as Romania's ambassador to the U.S. and the UN, re-creates the secret meeting between former Romanian president Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nikita Khrushchev that led the latter to pull Soviet troops out of Romania. In Brucan's assessment, the working class is the real loser in contemporary Romania's abrupt transition to a market economy, as manipulative entrepreneurs reap the prizes and privileges of the new society. Photos. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Romanian

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this vivid memoir, Silviu Brucan traces half a century of East European history, bringing to life the drama of a generation caught between the 1944 communist revolution and the 1989 anticommunist revolution. Brucan himself was at the heart of political power from World War II through the formation of a new government after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu. After participating in the antifascist underground movement in World War II, he became acting editor of Romania's leading communist daily. He served as Romania's ambassador to the United States and then as its ambassador to the United Nations. He later grew disenchanted with the Ceausescu regime, becoming a prime mobilizer of popular support for reform and subsequently one of the leaders of the National Salvation Front. Brucan's insider position gave him a unique perspective on the inner workings of the Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu regimes as well as of the political machinations of Soviet and other East European leaders. He reveals for the first time the details - available nowhere else - of secret meetings between communist leaders: the 1944 conspiracy with King Michael against the German occupation; the extraordinary 1945 meeting between Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Joseph Stalin when the Soviet dictator decided that Georghiu-Dej and not Ana Pauker should lead the Romanian Communist Party; the secret mission assigned to Gheorghiu-Dej by Nikita Khrushchev during the 1956 revolution to install Janos Kadar as leader of the communist party; the 1958 Khrushchev-Gheorghiu-Dej meeting after a bear hunt in the Carpathians, which appeared to be a chat between two canny old peasants but concluded with Khrushchev's decision to withdraw Soviet troops from Romania; and Ceausescu's astute maneuver to seize power while Gheorghiu-Dej was on his deathbed. Brucan then recounts the real story behind the 1989 revolution, which was rooted in earlier plots to overthrow Ceausescu. He traces his own memorable transformation fro

FROM THE CRITICS

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