Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu is overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife flee Bucharest in a helicopter as protesters erupt in cheers.
Bucharest (UK: BOO-k-REST, US: -rest; Romanian: Bucureti [bukuret] (listen)) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dmbovia River, less than 60 km (37.3 mi) north of the Danube River and the Bulgarian border.
Bucharest was first mentioned in documents in 1459. The city became the capital of Romania in 1862 and is the centre of Romanian media, culture, and art. Its architecture is a mix of historical (mostly Eclectic, but also Neoclassical and Art Nouveau), interbellum (Bauhaus, Art Deco and Romanian Revival architecture), socialist era, and modern. In the period between the two World Wars, the city's elegant architecture and the sophistication of its elite earned Bucharest the nickname of 'Paris of the East' (Romanian: Parisul Estului) or 'Little Paris' (Romanian: Micul Paris). Although buildings and districts in the historic city centre were heavily damaged or destroyed by war, earthquakes, and even Nicolae Ceauescu's program of systematization, many survived and have been renovated. In recent years, the city has been experiencing an economic and cultural boom. It is one of the fastest-growing high-tech cities in Europe, according to the Financial Times, CBRE, TechCrunch, and others. UiPath, a global startup founded in Bucharest, has reached over $35 billion in valuation. Bucharest hosts the largest high tech summit in Southeast Europe, Romania Blockchain Summit; the Summit was postponed during the pandemic and it is not clear when the next Summit is scheduled.In 2016, the historical city centre was listed as 'endangered' by the World Monuments Watch. In 2017, Bucharest was the European city with the highest growth of tourists who stay over night, according to the Mastercard Global Index of Urban Destinations. As for the past two consecutive years, 2018 and 2019, Bucharest ranked as the European destination with the highest potential for development according to the same study.According to the 2011 census, 1,883,425 inhabitants live within the city limits. Adding the satellite towns around the urban area, the proposed metropolitan area of Bucharest would have a population of 2.27 million people. In 2020, the government used 2.5 million people as the basis for pandemic reports. Bucharest is the fourth largest city in the European Union by population within city limits, after Berlin, Madrid, and Rome, just ahead of Paris.
Economically, Bucharest is the most prosperous city in Romania and the richest capital and city in the region, surpassing Budapest a few years ago. By 2050, studies show Bucharest will emerge as Europe's richest city in terms of GDP per capita, followed by Luxembourg City and Groningen. A new report by Grosvenor revealed Bucharest will already be 3rd richest city in Europe by 2040.The city has a number of large convention facilities, educational institutes, cultural venues, traditional 'shopping arcades' and recreational areas.
The city proper is administratively known as the 'Municipality of Bucharest' (Municipiul Bucureti), and has the same administrative level as that of a national county, being further subdivided into six sectors, each governed by a local mayor.
Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal') is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common or social ownership of all property and the absence of social classes, money, and the state. Communism is a specific, yet distinct, form of socialism. Communists agree on the withering away of the state but disagree on the means to this end, reflecting a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or Communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist state.Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarcho-communism and Marxist schools of thought. Communism includes a variety of schools of thought which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism as well as the political ideologies grouped around both, all of which share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system and mode of production, namely that in this system there are two major social classes, the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution. The two classes are the proletariat (the working class), who make up the majority of the population within society and must work to survive, and the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), a small minority who derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production. According to this analysis, revolution would put the working class in power and in turn, establish common ownership of property which is the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.In the 20th century, Communist governments espousing Marxism–Leninism and its variants came into power in parts of the world, first in the Soviet Union with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. Along with social democracy, communism became the dominant political tendency within the international socialist movement by the 1920s. Criticism of communism can be divided into two broad categories, namely that which concerns itself with the practical aspects of 20th century Communist states and that which concerns itself with communist principles and theory. Several academics and economists, among other scholars, posit that the Soviet model under which these nominally Communist states in practice operated was not an actual communist economic model in accordance with most accepted definitions of communism as an economic theory but in fact a form of state capitalism, or non-planned administrative-command system.