(purely personal views as always, based on over two decades of prior research and publications)

Once upon a time, in a different millenium, in a different world, in a different life, as an academic I wrote an article entitled, “The Uses of Absurdity:  The Staged War Theory and the Romanian Revolution of December 1989” (http://eep.sagepub.com/content/13/3/501.extract ; https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/the-uses-of-absurdity-romania-1989-1999/ ).

I discussed the “staged war” theory, inspired by Nestor Ratesh’s use of the term “operetta war,” as follows:

Now, Romanian military prosecutors have “confirmed” the staged war theory (while a few days later, after having stated their conclusions, they asked for the declassification of all relevant documents…what’s wrong with this picture?!):

„Din modul în care s-a produs acest atac reiese existenţa unui plan după care s-a acţionat, plan care a urmărit crearea unei stări de confuzie în rândul forţelor armate, prin divizarea conducerii Ministerului Apărării Naţionale şi difuzarea unor ordine, rapoarte şi informaţii false, scoaterea în stradă şi înarmarea populaţiei, respectiv crearea aparenţei unui „război civil” în care să se confrunte unităţi înarmate aparţinând Ministerului Apărării Naţionale şi Ministerului de Interne sau aceluiaşi minister, în scopul preluării puterii şi legitimării noilor lideri. În realizarea acestui plan s-a apelat la Televiziunea Română care a transmis comunicate alarmiste şi uneori false, la tăierea legăturilor telefonice şi aducerea la conducerea ministerelor de forţă a unor foste cadre militare loiale noii conduceri politico-militare, cu consecinţa generării unui „război” psihologic şi mediatic care a condus la producerea a numeroase victime”, arată procurorii.

http://revista22.ro/70257691/noua-conducere-politica-si-militara-a-tarii-de-dupa-89-a-comis-infractiuni-contra-umanitatii.html

http://www.evz.ro/dosarul-revolutiei-maries.html

http://www.dw.com/ro/parchetul-confirm%C4%83-teoria-conspira%C8%9Biei/a-36248140

http://adevarul.ro/news/societate/suntem-ani-lumina-aflarea-adevarului-dosarul-revolutiei-1_581b0bb25ab6550cb82b8b20/index.html

http://adevarul.ro/news/eveniment/ce-secrete-ascund-dosarele-revolutiei-n-am-aflat-cine-a-tras-noi-22-1_5820be495ab6550cb84b5061/index.html

As with Military Prosecutor General Dan Voinea’s public pronouncements in December 2005 (https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/2010/09/28/orwellian%e2%80%a6positively-orwellian%e2%80%9d-prosecutor-voinea%e2%80%99s-campaign-to-sanitize-the-romanian-revolution-of-december-1989-part-one-groundhog-day/), the Romanian media and many commenters on the Internet largely uncritically embraced the conclusions as confirming a reality everyone already knew.

As with the staged war theory in the early and mid 1990s–discussed in my 1999 article–what so few Romanian intellectuals, journalists, and western-oriented liberals seem to recognize is that the theory is not theirs alone (see para one on page 503)…(in fact, it didn’t even start with them)…

http://romaniamare.info/saptamina-pe-scurt-90/

– Parchetul General a emis, în 2 noiembrie 2016, un Comunicat istoric, în care se confirmă ceea ce am scris de atîţia ani: emanaţii revoluţiei, mai precis Cîrpa Kaghebistă şi şatra lui de criminali, sînt vinovaţi de uciderea a 957 de oameni şi rănirea a peste 3.000, începînd cu 22 decembrie 1989, ora 12. Deci nu teroriştii lui Ceauşescu au măcelărit populaţia nevinovată, ci diversioniştii lui Iliescu, care voiau să justifice lovitura de stat şi executarea fostului preşedinte. În curînd vine Crăciunul, şi zidul de WC de la Tîrgovişte îl cheamă pe Iliescu la apel. Moarte pentru moarte, parcă aşa se striga în decembrie 1989.

That we have ended up here…with so many uncritically welcoming these findings as the final victory of the “truth” and “justice”…reflects the primacy of the political as an explanation in the analysis of Romanian politics, to the almost complete ignorance–or at the very least incredible underestimation–of other identities and factors that affect behavior.  The role of bureaucratic politics, the acknowledgement of institutional interests, in the early post-communist era was almost completely ignored by Romanianists, just as they had in analyzing the late communist personalist/sultanist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.  (The ultimate expression of this is the dogmatic analytical application in the CPADCR (Tismaneanu Commission) Final Report and in interviews by its participants about the Securitate as having been “bratul inarmat al partidului,” as an instrument and implementer of the communist leadership’s policies and wishes (thereby accepting at face value the propaganda of the communist regime itself), with no meaningful, specific, institutional institutional interests and identity of its own.)  Sadly, this flawed exclusion of other interests that guided behavior in the early post-communist era litters the literature and leads to fundamentally flawed analysis of the official investigations of December 1989 (for a discussion, see for example, https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/diversiunea-radio-electronica-si-procurorii-militari-decembrie-1992-v-decembrie-1994/ ; https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/revolutia-fara-teroristi-si-procurori-militari-popa-cherecheanu-si-samoila-joarza-1993-1997/  ; https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/grosescu-and-ursachi-the-romanian-revolution-in-court-annotated-iv-dan-voineas-interests/ ;  https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/grosescu-and-ursachi-the-romanian-revolution-in-court-annotated-v-interests-in-december-1989-fail/ )

The role and relevance of institutional interests and identities for understanding the historiography and investigations of December 1989 as outlined in 1999″