Was Romania More Corrupt Than Other Communist Countries in the Region?

One sees Ceaușescu's Romania referred to as a "corrupt, personalistic Latin tyranny", or a "communist-cum-Peronist autocracy", but was Romania really more corrupt, not just more authoritarian, than other communist countries in the region?
 
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Zagan

Donor
It is spelled Ceaușescu. If it is so difficult to spell a foreign name, you could just copy it from somewhere and paste it here.

Yes. Romania was more corrupt than Poland or Czechoslovakia for example. One reason may be that the effects of centuries of Ottoman rule are still felt today.
 
It is spelled Ceaușescu. If it is so difficult to spell a foreign name, you could just copy it from somewhere and paste it here.

Yes. Romania was more corrupt than Poland or Czechoslovakia for example. One reason may be that the effects of centuries of Ottoman rule are still felt today.
Sorry about the spelling. Thanks for your reply.
 
One reason may be that the effects of centuries of Ottoman rule are still felt today.
The Ottomans? Okay, I'd be interested in hearing the theory behind that claim. I would have thought it more likely due to Romania seemingly having a much more centralised cult of personality around its leader as opposed to the other Warsaw Pact states, if the one man with all the power is corrupt then that tends to set the tone.
 
The Ottomans? Okay, I'd be interested in hearing the theory behind that claim. I would have thought it more likely due to Romania seemingly having a much more centralised cult of personality around its leader as opposed to the other Warsaw Pact states, if the one man with all the power is corrupt then that tends to set the tone.

The DDR was no flowerbasket either, still...

And the theory behind the claim is quite simple: should your ancestors lived in a specific environment, should they react in a specific way to specific circumstances, their kids socialize on that way. And if the circumstances held, so the socialization, across generations. Very hard to interrupt this.

Anecdotical anecdote: under the Bach regime, the government heavily taxed tobacco products in Hungary. Out of sheer defiance (the regime was pretty much an occupation government) and well, poverty, a portion of the population gave up smoking, and a good portion turned to smuggled goods.
A few years ago, the current government heavily taxed tobacco products - guess what happened.

And i can show you up to this day, where my great-grandfather hid a barrel of wine from the customs officials :)
 
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