Ask Lemmygrad

I've read that a lot of stuff was rationed in an attempt to save as much money as possible in order to pay the IMF loans. So I assume that this was a harsh contradiction at the time.

This is true and there is a legitimate argument that one can make that that was a mistake. On the other hand, the international situation was very unfavorable for any European socialist state in the 80s, with capitalist roaders in power in the USSR undertaking completely destructive economic reforms and more and more embracing liberal ideology even in the political sphere, the ability of the Soviet Union to help even those allies which would have asked for help was severely crippled, and a lot of the socialist camp was left without their biggest source of support. So i can understand why Romania at that time felt it was necessary to try and stand on its own two feet and at least regain its sovereignty by paying off its IMF debt.

If austerity had not been implemented the conditions in the short term would have been better, but for how long without a way to get rid of that IMF debt? We know how subversive IMF debt is, how it forces countries to destroy their state owned sector, liberalize their markets and privatize their economy. The other option would have been to default on the debt but with the rest of the socialist camp turning more and more reformist in the 80s and seeking to integrate into the Western economic sphere, that would also have been very risky and would have had severe repercussions.

I don't know what the right answer would have been, other than not taking that debt on to begin with, but i can understand why the leadership of Romania did what it did at the time. The thinking was that this was a temporary situation and when the debt was paid the situation would improve.

The biggest mistake i think was underestimating the degree to which the upper echelons of the military were still filled with counter-revolutionaries and enemies of socialism. Because ultimately what happened was not a "revolution" as the anti-communist narrative calls it, but a coup. One with significant foreign involvement.

Here are some good articles about it written just after it happened:

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/marcy/1990/sm900104.html

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/marcy/1990/sm900111.html

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/marcy/1990/sm900118.html