Romania’s first post-communist president, Ion Iliescu, died on August 5, 2025, at the age of 95. He leaves behind numerous unanswered questions regarding the 1989 Revolution and the June 1990 mineriad, as well as a political legacy inextricably linked to the Social Democratic Party (PSD). At the same time, Iliescu is credited with Romania’s membership in NATO and the European Union, which cemented freedom and democracy in the country.
Ion Iliescu’s political leadership ended in 2005, after three presidential mandates (1990-1992, 1992-1996, and 2000-2004) – one before the constitution entered into force – and a stinging loss in the race for the presidency of the Social Democratic Party.
From that point on, Ion Iliescu prepared his departure. He accepted an honorary position in the PSD, concluded his opposition senator mandate in 2008, and did not take on any further public roles. He appeared in public increasingly rarely, usually to deliver a comment, and his connection with the world was maintained via a blog he launched in 2011.
News about Iliescu’s fragile health began to emerge a few years ago, but to witness one’s life, one has to start at the beginning.
A communist upbringing
Ion Iliescu’s biography from the communist era has remained secret. The official documents containing his data and career at the top of the Romanian Workers’ Party and the Romanian Communist Party have disappeared from the archives. Only two pages, with a brief characterization of the student in Moscow in the 1950s, appeared in the press after 2000. His file at the institution charged with managing communist-era documents, CNSAS, is also similarly brief, leaving room for uncertainty.
It is known, however, that he was born on March 3, 1930, in Oltenița, into a family with communist sympathies. His father, Alexandru, was an early member of the USSR-funded Romanian Communist Party during the interwar period. When Ion was barely one year old, Alexandru Iliescu left the country and participated in the 5th Congress of the PCR, held in 1931 near Moscow.
During those years, the Communist Party was an illegal organization in Romania, and its members often received training abroad. Alexandru Iliescu returned to Romania in 1935, after “working in a factory,” according to Iliescu. He was arrested several times, lost the leadership position of the communist group in the Târgu Jiu camp to future communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and died from a heart attack in 1945.
Iliescu’s biological mother, Maria, remained unknown until 1993 following revelations in the press. The then-president explained that he had not mentioned her in his CV because she had abandoned him when he was only one year old, and they never maintained contact. Iliescu further said that he had been raised by a stepmother, also named Maria, portrayed as an early Communist Party member close to Ana Pauker, a Moscow agent and major communist leader.
A student in Moscow
In 1946, Ion Iliescu was a member of the Central Coordinating Committee of the Union of Student Associations, where he served as secretary. At 17, he was part of the international youth brigades. He graduated from high school in 1949, when Romania had become a People’s Republic.
Then came his university years in Moscow, at the Molotov Energy Institute, where he led the Romanian student group in the USSR. During this time, Ion Iliescu publicly recalled falling in love with his future wife, Nina, who was also studying in the soviet capital. Ion and Nina Iliescu never had any children.
In the Romanian post-1989 press, exposés claimed he had been recruited by the KGB during his studies, but these accusations were never proven in court or outside it. In a documentary by Rossiya 1, the main Russian public TV station, aired a few years ago, Iliescu was portrayed by colleagues as a stylish young man who lent clothes to less fortunate students before dates, a moderate drinker, and an entertainer.
A rising communist apparatchik
The only official document drafted by the Romanian communists about Ion Iliescu and made public dates from 1953. In two pages, it describes him as a rash man but eager to fulfill party tasks. It states he “has some theoretical training” and “an appropriate ideological level.” The file also contains a recommendation for him to be selected for leadership positions in the party.
Returning to Romania in 1954, Ion Iliescu entered top-level communist politics. At the age of 24, he joined what would become the Union of the Communist Youth, and after just two years, became secretary of the highest forum of young communists. From his position, he contributed to expelling several others to prevent an anti‑communist popular revolt like the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
After Gheorghiu‑Dej’s death and Nicolae Ceaușescu’s takeover of party leadership, Iliescu’s ascent gained new momentum. He was alternate member of the PCR Central Committee (1965–1969); first secretary of the UTC Central Committee and Youth Minister (1967–1971); full member of the PCR Central Committee (1969–1984); alternate member of the Politburo (1969–1974); full member of the Politburo (1974–1979); and in 1971, he became secretary of the PCR Central Committee, a top position in the communist hierarchy.
The exiled communist
After only six months in his new post, disgrace followed. In 1971, Nicolae Ceaușescu, after a diplomatic tour of Asian communist countries, was impressed by the personality cult of Kim Il Sung in North Korea. Upon return, the PCR adopted the famous July Theses, ending the relatively liberal leadership style of the PCR that had been ongoing since 1965.
Suspected of being a reformer, Ion Iliescu was removed as Central Committee secretary and sent to Timișoara as deputy to the first secretary there. Iliescu recalled that the cause of his disgrace was unfavorable comments about North Korea made on the Romanian delegation’s plane.
Yet Iliescu remained a notable figure of the communist elite. In 1974, he was appointed first secretary in Iași, an important county, and became a full Politburo member. Photographs from 1976 show Iliescu with the Ceaușescu couple on holiday in a relaxed atmosphere.
Definitive marginalization came only in 1984, when Iliescu was removed from the PCR Central Committee and transferred from the presidency of the National Water Council to lead the Technical Publishing House, as Ceaușescu’s fears of younger Iliescu becoming his replacement grew.
The 1989 Revolution
The December 1989 Revolution found Ion Iliescu still at the Technical Publishing House. After Nicolae Ceaușescu fled the PCR Central Committee headquarters, Iliescu appeared on television, blaming Ceaușescu for “ruling this country with medieval methods” and calling for justice, according to participants in the Revolution cited by News.ro.
Level-headed, Iliescu took charge of the situation. “We will constitute today a National Salvation Committee (or FSN) to restore order,” he said, inviting leaders of emerging power groups to meet at the Central Committee headquarters. The formation of the National Salvation Front Council was announced that evening by Iliescu himself, alongside Dumitru Mazilu and Petre Roman.
On December 24, communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed alongside his wife. Three days later, Iliescu was officially elected president of the FSN, the body that assumed full power.
Ion Iliescu consistently argued that Ceaușescu’s trial was necessary to force his supporters to cease fire. He also blamed only the Ceaușescu couple, not communism as a whole, throughout his career.
After the December violence ceased, the new regime was first challenged on January 12, 1990, when a large popular demonstration demanded the outlawing of the PCR. Suspicion toward the new regime was fueled by the fact that the FSN was dominated by second‑tier former party activists. Iliescu refused to purge the new structures of old communist, and FSN became a political party, despite earlier promises to the contrary.
Soon, the new regime was also challenged by the reestablished historical parties: PNȚCD, PNL, and PSDR. A large anti‑government protest on January 28, 1990, forced FSN leadership to negotiate with the opposition.
Despite continuing anti‑communist protests in University Square, FSN and Iliescu won a landslide victory in the May 20, 1990, elections. Iliescu then became president for a two‑year term.
The 1990 Mineriad
Based on electoral success, FSN then attempted on June 13, 1990, to clear demonstrators from University Square. When the crowd resisted against police violence, Ion Iliescu called the street fighting “a legionary rebellion,” invoking the interwar-era Nazi-like Romanian right-wing.
Thousands of miners, accompanied by security forces, then came to Bucharest to repress the protests. Opposition party offices and the University were destroyed, and miners beat and detained anyone deemed suspicious. Iliescu then addressed the miners and thanked them for their service.
The June 1990 mineriad resulted in four deaths, the physical and/or psychological injury of over 1,300 people, and more than 1,200 persons illegally deprived of liberty.
In 1991, months before the disintegration of the USSR, Ion Iliescu signed a bilateral treaty with the soviets. However, in October of the same year, he sent a message to the Secretary General of NATO, Manfred Wörner, expressing Romania’s willingness to engage in close cooperation with NATO. Two months later, Wörner visited Romania to inaugurate the Euro-Atlantic center.
The turn to the West
Political infighting within the FSN led Ion Iliescu and his allies to leave the FSN and found the Democratic Salvation Front, or FDSN, which would become the Social Democratic Party, or PSD. The party won the 1992 parliamentary elections, and Iliescu was confirmed as president after defeating Emil Constantinescu.
During Iliescu’s first constitutional term, economic and political reforms continued at a relatively slow pace. Abroad, the regime managed to restore relations with Western countries, severely damaged previously by the 1990 mineriads, thereby starting Romania’s path toward NATO and EU membership. In 1993, Iliescu visited the NATO general headquarters and reaffirmed Romania’s wish to work closely with the military alliance. The visit was followed by a partnership proposal from the part of the United States to Romania.
However, amid worsening economic conditions and dissatisfaction with slow reforms, left-wing parties lost the 1996 parliamentary elections. Emil Constantinescu defeated Iliescu in the presidential race. Having left Cotroceni, Iliescu assumed leadership of PDSR as the main opposition party to the CDR-USD-UDMR government.
Internal coalition disputes and declining living standards led to disastrous right-wing results in 2000, leaving the door open for Iliescu to return as president after besting former ally Corneliu Vadim Tudor.
Iliescu’s last term stood in marked contrast with the first two, as he turned even more to the West. Pro‑Western policy led to Romania’s NATO membership and the conclusion of EU accession negotiations, with full membership arriving in 2007. At the forefront of negotiations, Iliescu and the PSD cabinet strengthened contacts with Western officials, taking advantage of Russian weakness.
However, from 2000–2004, corruption at the top of local and central administration became a societal concern, though Iliescu limited himself to verbal warnings.
In the final days of his term, December 2004, Iliescu signed a pardon decree for Miron Cozma, the miners’ union leader imprisoned for the January 1999 mineriad. Just 24 hours after publication in the Official Gazette, amid public outrage, he revoked the pardon.
After his 2004 electoral defeat, PSD held a congress on April 22, 2005. Many social democrats questioned Iliescu’s ability to reinvent himself at age 75. Ahead of the congress, few predicted Geoană would defeat Iliescu, but backstage maneuvers increased the number of delegates calling for new leadership. The defeat shocked Iliescu, who maintained a tense relationship with Geoana since then.
In 2010, Iliescu was named honorary president of PSD, and Geoană was replaced by Victor Ponta. The new party leader, though seeking to rejuvenate PSD leadership, treated Iliescu with deference. He regularly attended leadership meetings, and his opinion carried weight in decisions.
Crimes against humanity
Ion Iliescu was, however, still battling the past. Prosecutors indicted him for “crimes against humanity” in the reopened June 1990 mineriad case, over the repression of the University Square protests. He was summoned to the General Prosecutor’s Office, informed of the charges, but refused to comment.
On July 29, 2022, Ion Iliescu, Gelu Voican Voiculescu, and Iosif Rus were indicted in the 1989 Revolution case. Both Iliescu and the others contested the legality of the court’s jurisdiction, and the High Court of Cassation and Justice upheld the challenge. In September 2024, the case was sent back to the Military Prosecutor’s Office. The failure to prosecute Iliescu and his allies is deemed one of the great errors of the Romanian democratic justice system.
Numerous historians questioned Ion Iliescu’s version of his past. He presented himself in December 1989 as a dissident against the Ceaușescu regime, complaining that he was monitored by the Securitate after falling into the dictator’s disfavor, but he never provided proof of such a file’s existence. He did not mention the positions he had held during the totalitarian regime and never acknowledged, during his lifetime, that he had authored any acts of repression.
When communism was officially condemned by the Romanian state on December 18, 2006 – through the voice of then-president Traian Băsescu – Ion Iliescu did not attend the solemn parliamentary session, which was also attended by King Michael I and Lech Wałęsa. In December 2006, Ion Iliescu issued a statement claiming it was “a political fabrication, unilateral, partisan, and primitive.”
A communist, a reformer, and a tough president who changed the country’s orientation toward the West, Ion Iliescu remains a controversial figure. His mark on Romanian history, however, cannot be disputed.
(Photo source: Inquam Photos | Octav Ganea)
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