The Illustrated Guide of the Romanian Communist Regime

Communist Romania's superiority myth insists of making a comeback in the public discourse. We periodically hear some elderly person interviewed by one television channel or another or a youngster being upset about fate or country, sighting that the times "before" were better.

We all heard phrases like "everybody had a home", "everybody had a job" and other myths that don't hold up at a closer inspection. True- Communism took Romania which was predominantly rural and having an overwhelmingly number of illiterate people and managed to raise the level of urbanization and literacy. Except that this is where the Communists achievements stop: with little exceptions industry was not efficient, education was rigid and totally suppressed to the Communist ideology; the blocks of flats built for the new urban citizens often had design or construction faults, this apartments earning the nickname "machboxes".

One shouldn't forget that the Communist Regime had been imposed through a mix of propaganda and violence, that it persecuted, arrested, deported or murdered innocent people and that it failed in bringing the promised economic wellbeing and in generating equality among people (nepotism blossomed, political leaders were privileged in the detriment of the common people).

- "The Illustrated Guide of The Romanian Communist Regime" is an answer to these myths: we are trying a different approach for understanding the 50 years of dictatorship in order to communicate a more simple and memorable message. We have chosen to make this happed through illustrations created by Romanian artists - Dan Perjovschi, Saddo, Ana Kun, Livia Coloji, Răzvan Cornici, George Roșu, Andreea Ilisăi, Arina Stoenescu and Bogdan Topîrceanu- who have volunteered for this Guide.