Paul Abrudan, SIBIUL in revolutia din decembrie 1989 (1990)

The events of Sibiu–Nicu Ceausescu’s fiefdom–in December 1989 have been in the news. Thanks to my colleague and co-author, Andrei Ursu, I have been able to virtually leaf through the following long since forgotten book from 1990. It is a testament to the Lewis Caroll-like “Through the Looking Glass” character of today’s media and intellectual discourse about December 1989 in Romania that the truth of what happened in Sibiu should seem so foreign and distant. Here are a few snip-its and excerpts of relevance. If you want to judge someone’s actions in December 1989, in Sibiu or elsewhere, getting the details and context of the time correct should be your first order of business.

On page 8, Abrudan discusses the equipment and tactics of the “terrorists.”

On page 114, endnote 2, he details the atypical munitions used exclusively by the terrorists, as follows:
2. Gloante explozive, gloante care aveau montata o rozeta cu zimti la partea din fata, gloante cu cap vidia.

Abrudan on pages 9 and 110 again discusses the presumed goals of the terrorists. There is little doubt from reading the testimonies and accounts of this book, taken in the first six months after December 1989, as to the former Securitate and Militia being the primary source of the counterrevolutionary terrorism.