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Despite ultimate conquest by Rome, and later by the Turks, who ruled Rumania with Ottoman harshness for 400 years, the Colorado-size enclave retained its sense of separateness. Rumanians speak a lilting, Latinate language that sets them apart from neighboring vowel-deficient Slavs; though they say da for yes, they say bunā seara for good evening. Bloodied by the Central Powers in World War I, Rumania emerged into the modern world as a reactionary monarchy, sided with Nazi Germany during World War II; its fascist Iron Guard proved just as murderous and anti-Semitic as the SS. The Red Army conquest in 1944 was followed by a short-lived "coalition" of liberals and Communists, which soon gave way completely to Moscow's rule.
Going Down. The Kremlin's tool was Ana Pauker, a lynx-eyed, sphinx-bodied female Foreign Minister who ranked as high in the Kremlin's bevy of Red Amazons as Spain's Dolores Ibarruri ("La Pasionaria"). Ana quickly purged the Rumanian party of "nationalists"—down to and including three elevator operators in the Foreign Ministry. "National Communists" fared poorly throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1940s: Poland's Wladyslaw Gomulka and Hungary's János Kádar went to prison on Stalin's orders; others, such as Czech General Secretary Rudolph Slánský and his Slovak Foreign Minister, Vladimir Clementis, were tried and hanged. From 1946 to 1953, Eastern Europe underwent show trials; the "water treatment," electric prodding, and skillful use of the "pear" (a jawbreaking ball screwed into a victim's mouth) yielded well over 100,000 "confessions" and subsequent disappearances.
One national Communist who eluded the Stalin purges in Rumania was Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, a hardhanded railroad worker turned revolutionary. During the war, while Ana Pauker hid safely in Moscow, Dej and his associates organized anti-fascist resistance or else languished in the cells of various Rumanian prisons. By 1952, Dej and the nationalists who remained in the party had gained enough control in the Politburo to purge Ana Pauker. Dej still hewed cautiously to the Stalinist line, remained friendly with Moscow even after the dictator had died and been denounced. There were signs of the break to come, however: in 1953, Dej purged the "Muscovite" (i.e., Stalinist) elements in the Rumanian army, and two years later took over the "Sovroms"—mixed Soviet-Rumanian companies, in which Russia had always controlled 51% and which handled most of Rumania's oil refining, river traffic and other key businesses. As always, the moves were slick and carefully timed so that Moscow was looking in another direction when Dej acted. A lover of fast cars who drove a supercharged Mercedes, Dej saved his caution for politics. But when he was ready to make his big move, the gear change was smooth and swift.
Fathers & Sons. The Dej revolt against Moscow began in 1961 with public attacks on "erroneous theories that deny each socialist country the right to build heavy industry"—a clear challenge to COMECON, which saved the