A controversial textbook on communism

Starting this year the optional subject "The history of Communism" has been included in the curriculum at Romanian schools. The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania has presented a textbook to be used in class. Cotidianul newspaper writes: "All the sensitive issues in Romania's recent past have been ignored. [Ex-president] Ion Iliescu explains the Mineriade [the bloody suppression of democratic protests] in 1990 with the words: 'Through the Minierade I learned how to build a state based on the rule of law.' ... Nor is there any mention of the activities of Vadim Tudor, poet to Ceauşescu, or of the odes of poet Adrian Păunescu or the pictures painted by Sabin Bălaşa. Since the book avoids certain issues for which there is clear historical evidence but which would have implicated the authors in a series of scandals involving prominent figures in current politics, the best name for the book would be 'Communism for Dummies'. That is what it is."

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