Was the Romanian Revolution instigated by the KGB?

I heard somewhere that the KGB helped plan the Romanian Revolution to remove the hardliner Ceausescu. Is there any truth in this and if so why would they do it?

He was hardly a hardliner,compared to his neighbor Todor Zhivkov...

apparently he was an embarrassment to the Soviets

He was an embarrassment to humanity.

I don't the KGB had any role in removing Ceausescu from power as these were the Gorbachev years. If possible then the most likely reason was that he and his wife were assholes. He was another Enver Hoxha in his own 'eccentric' way, wanting friendly relations with the west and spreading around his own crazy cult of personality.

The reason why the KGB would instigate a revolution in Romania because Ceauşescu refused to go along with de-Stalinisation and didn't take part in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and this is the Soviet Union's pay of getting revenge for his lack of support. He also made a quasi-Maoist speech called the July Theses, which sought to emulate the Juche system employed by Kim Il-Sung and this must have infuriated Moscow, so I see why they have a reason to remove him from power.

He was an corrupt asshole who exported most of the industrial and agricultural production to pay the foreign debt off, which lead to rationing and electricity cuts that increased hardship for the people. If the KGB got rid of him, they did a good job because he retarded the progress of that country.

The story goes like this :

Instigated would not be the right word. The episode who started it ( the arrest of a bishop in the city of Timisoara) and then the spreading to the country capital was pretty spontaneous.

But here intervenes KGB. Armed interventions were already out of the question at that time, so they tried to steer the revolution in a positive direction for the Soviets.

Gorbachev plan was creating a new still socialist regime, only much open and democratic. That way , Romanians dissatisfaction would wither enough to keep them away from capitalism and western powers and remain on Moscow orbit.

That was pretty clear even in those time. Ion Iliescu ( Moscow`s man designated to replace Ceausescu) maintained a pro communism position in the first days, talking about bringing the famous "comunism cu fata umana" ( literally " communism with human face" or better translated , "a communism who doesnt kill and starve people" -> as it was seen at that time by a great part of Romanians.

But this plan was doomed to fail for 2 main reasons.
1) The West was quick to join the party
2) Romanians where never too fond of Russians ( obviously an euphemism ) so a pro-soviet orientation was impossible anyway.

So the "communism with human face" speech vanished pretty fast and Ion Iliescu became a full time supporter of capitalism , Euro integration and so on.

altfest wrote:

Gorbachev plan was creating a new still socialist regime, only much open and democratic. That way , Romanians dissatisfaction would wither enough to keep them away from capitalism and western powers and remain on Moscow orbit.

This was the time of perestroika and glasnost, capitalism was acknowledged and Gorbachev let the Warsaw Pact states do as they pleased. He let the wall fall and let the Germans reunify.

Quote:

2) Romanians where never too fond of Russians ( obviously an euphemism

) so a pro-soviet orientation was impossible anyway.

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Who in Eastern Europe is? I know the Poles aren't. But I'm not so sure... I think the Russians were responsible for Romania being a country.

What's wrong with German reunification?
Germans should have been unified in one state:Deutsche Demokratische Respublik.

Quote:

This was the time of perestroika and glasnost, capitalism was acknowledged and Gorbachev let the Warsaw Pact states do as they pleased. He let the wall fall and let the Germans reunify.

Of course it was, thats common knowledge. I was just trying to give a complete picture to the original poster , regarding KGB involvment.

Another snapshot from those times : from the first days of revolution , a big wave of Soviet "tourists" came in Romania. Five large men in a Volga type of tourists.
I guess nothing beats a burning country as tourism destination

altfest is correct. Gorbachev had some sort of fairy-tale conception that the states of Eastern Europe would become social democracies ruled by the former communists and would remain allied with the USSR out of their gratefulness and appreciation for the new Soviet policy there. The reasons for the Soviets wishing for the removal of Ceausescu pre-1985 and post-1985 were very different.