Romania, Europe's North Korea?

Thande

Donor
Of the Soviet puppets and allies in Eastern Europe, Romania seems to have been the one to most go its own way, with Ceacescu criticising some moves by the Soviet government and coming up with his own loony ideologies to pile on top of Marxist-Leninism. In particular this comparison was inspired by Ceacescu making a visit to North Korea and being sufficiently impressed with Kim Il Sung's Juche policy that it inspired him to create Romania's "systemisation".

Now in OTL of course Romania's communist regime fell along with the others at the end of the Cold War. The only things vaguely resembling surviving communist states are Belarus and the Transnistrian Republic, neither of which are comparable to North Korea: nasty, yes, but not 1984-ish. But if things had been different, could we see a North Korean-style isolationist, paranoid, poor but well-armed Romanian dictatorship surviving into the 21st century as it slowly became surrounded by democracies and then the EU? If so, how?
 
Yeah, Albania would make for the better N.Korea analogy. Crazily paranoid and militaristic despite in actual fact being all a bit shit.

But Romnia would be so much more cool and so much more than N.Korea... Albania could easily be ignored (just as it is today), Romania would be harder to pretend isn't there- especially given its Hungarian populations, its feud with Bulgaria, Moldova, etc....
Albania does have Kosovo and some issues with Greece but...not so nifty.
 

Susano

Banned
I take it you haven't heard of Albania.

Albania was so far removed as one has to ask wether they could be called an ally of Moscow. I dont think they wer ein WP, and only associated member of COMECON, after all.
 

Thande

Donor
Albania was so far removed as one has to ask wether they could be called an ally of Moscow. I dont think they wer ein WP, and only associated member of COMECON, after all.

This. They ended up siding with China over the Sino-Soviet disputes, after all.
 
Albania was so far removed as one has to ask wether they could be called an ally of Moscow.

ha, you can go further than that - they weren't. But as the OP was basically asking for a plausible North Korea-in-Europe scenario, Albania immediately jumps to mind. Hoxha aped Mao, Albania was bankrolled by China for decades, Hoxha was hardcore Stalinist and the regime was batshit xenophobic. If that's not as near an indentikit template for North Korea then I don't know what is.

Maybe if Hoxha had kept more in league with China after Mao's death, who knows?

Romania seems a rather odd choice to me - although Ceacescu was troublesome towards Moscow, in as much as he deviated from Soviet political norms he swung the other way for a time - I.E, towards reform. There was never the rigid ideological fanaticism that a North Korea scenario really requires. Romania was, if anything, far more likely to go down the Yugoslav path of development.
 
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wormyguy

Banned
Albania was so far removed as one has to ask wether they could be called an ally of Moscow. I dont think they wer ein WP, and only associated member of COMECON, after all.
They left the Warsaw Pact in 1961 (when they sided with the Chinese), and removed their country from the treaty in 1968.
 

Onyx

Banned
Well Albania was way more crazy ass than Romania, I haven't heard of Caesecscu (Is that right?) criticizing the Soviets, but damn I have to say Albania was just plain crazy when they sided the Chinese. I mean whats next? PLA forces fighting against NATO in Germany?
 

wormyguy

Banned
Well Albania was way more crazy ass than Romania, I haven't heard of Caesecscu (Is that right?) criticizing the Soviets,
He strongly criticized Gorbachev, and refused to boycott the 1984 Olympics with the rest of the Warsaw Pact.
 
Lol...

It is our mistake? Or yours... ? Ok, of your leaders.
Before you trow a rock at Romania, just think about one thing... yesterday, two of our soldiers where wounded in Afganistan.

:( You know, romanian names are in Microsoft products, Corel... bla-bla, etc. Even in ww2, one of the Pacific fighter aces was romanian. etc.

I can say only a big ETC? No, we are not Europe's N.K. It is just others wish.

Excuse my bad english. This is my preffered forum. Can i ask you, how many of you knows Romania's history? Only that question.
Too bad we have only alternate history things.

One of the few romanians alternate history writers,

Iulian Iamandi.
 

Xen

Banned
Lol...

It is our mistake? Or yours... ? Ok, of your leaders.
Before you trow a rock at Romania, just think about one thing... yesterday, two of our soldiers where wounded in Afganistan.

:( You know, romanian names are in Microsoft products, Corel... bla-bla, etc. Even in ww2, one of the Pacific fighter aces was romanian. etc.

I can say only a big ETC? No, we are not Europe's N.K. It is just others wish.

Excuse my bad english. This is my preffered forum. Can i ask you, how many of you knows Romania's history? Only that question.
Too bad we have only alternate history things.

One of the few romanians alternate history writers,

Iulian Iamandi.

As the Worm just said, I think you are a bit confused. The original poster is asking What if the Communist regime survived under Ceacescu. If memory serves me correctly Romania had the bloodiest experience of all the former Warsaw Pact nations in overthrowing communism, which is probably a good reason why it was chosen instead of say Bulgaria.

This is not a slight against Romania, its people, its heritage, nor its beautiful women (there seems to be alot of them over there)
 
How strange, he's been lurking for some time apparently so must know the nature of this forum....wonder what brought that on.
 
There was never the rigid ideological fanaticism that a North Korea scenario really requires. Romania was, if anything, far more likely to go down the Yugoslav path of development.
I agree that the regime was not nearly as fanatical as the one in North Korea, but what do you mean by the Yugoslav path of development? civil wars like the ones in OTL Yugoslavia?
 
Well Albania was way more crazy ass than Romania, I haven't heard of Caesecscu (Is that right?) criticizing the Soviets, but damn I have to say Albania was just plain crazy when they sided the Chinese. I mean whats next? PLA forces fighting against NATO in Germany?
The Albanian-Chinese alliance kinda makes sense when we consider that Albania was a very small country with one neighbour a NATO member and the other, while opposed to Moscow, not really a viable option. Yugoslavia had a large Albanian minority in Kosovo and Western Macedonia so the Albanian leadership might have been fearful of Albania being absorbed into her much larger neighbour that had a history of governing Albanians.
 
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