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It was appropriate that Rumania’s Nicolae Ceausescu was awarded the Order of Lenin this January, for his tyranny—especially in the realms of ethnic and cultural oppression—is more impressive even than the current Soviet variety.

The seeds of Rumania’s misery were sown during World War I, when the fledgling country—which had become an independent kingdom only 35 years before—changed sides twice, fighting with the Allies from 1916 to 1918, then making a separate peace with the Central Powers, and then reneging on that deal and reopening hostilities in early November of 1918, just in the nick of time for it to receive its reward at the Paris Peace Conference. For its efforts, it was given an enormous part of the freshly dismembered Austro-Hungarian monarchy; from Hungary, in fact, it received more territory than was left to that thousand-year-old kingdom, including the provinces of Banat and Transylvania.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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Religious Persecution

It was appropriate that Rumania’s Nicolae Ceausescu was awarded the Order of Lenin this January, for his tyranny—especially in the realms of ethnic and cultural oppression—is more impressive even than the current Soviet variety.

The seeds of Rumania’s misery were sown during World War I, when the fledgling country—which had become an independent kingdom only 35 years before—changed sides twice, fighting with the Allies from 1916 to 1918, then making a separate peace with the Central Powers, and then reneging on that deal and reopening hostilities in early November of 1918, just in the nick of time for it to receive its reward at the Paris Peace Conference. For its efforts, it was given an enormous part of the freshly dismembered Austro-Hungarian monarchy; from Hungary, in fact, it received more territory than was left to that thousand-year-old kingdom, including the provinces of Banat and Transylvania.