cover image The Wasted Generation: Memoirs of the Romanian Journey from Capitalism to Socialism and Back

The Wasted Generation: Memoirs of the Romanian Journey from Capitalism to Socialism and Back

Silviu Brucan. Westview Press, $38 (227pp) ISBN 978-0-8133-1833-2

Twice placed under house arrest, Brucan was a leading strategist of the populist forces that toppled the regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Filled with dramatic incidents, political revelations and vivid details, this striking memoir candidly charts the author's transformation from staunch Stalinist to severe critic of Soviet-style communism. Brucan, today a social sciences professor at the University of Bucharest, gives a firsthand account of the extraordinary 1944 coup in which Romania's King Michael, in a conspiracy with communists, turned his country against its former ally, Nazi Germany. Brucan, who served as Romania's ambassador to the U.S. and the UN, re-creates the secret meeting between former Romanian president Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nikita Khrushchev that led the latter to pull Soviet troops out of Romania. In Brucan's assessment, the working class is the real loser in contemporary Romania's abrupt transition to a market economy, as manipulative entrepreneurs reap the prizes and privileges of the new society. Photos. (Oct.)