The Romanian Civil War: A Theoretical Discussion On The Proximate Causes of Violence

Abstract

The paper is a theoretical account of the Romanian Revolution viewed from the eyes of an American international security strategist who recounts his childhood in Romania. The author believes that the unresolved nature of the violence during the revolution discouraged many historians and political scientists from applying genuine theoretical foundations to the study of a sustained conflict that resulted in 1,104 official deaths and 3,352 wounded. Ultimately, the author suggests, the proximate causes of the violence in 1989 provide sufficient evidence to define the revolution as a coup related civil war. The fact that a conflict that meets the casualty element of the civil war definition does not attract the attention of the academia is an injustice not only against the families of the victims of the conflict, but also against the study of contemporary history itself.

Keywords

• Romanian Revolution
• Cold War
• Political Violence