enemy agent. Documents published after that date show that on 4 April Ștefan Foriș and others in the party leadership were removed for activities which display serious shortcomings and grave mistakes. This does not however mean that he was responsible of treason." The same argument was taken up by Nedelcu in his Scînteia of 11 May 1972, which marked Foriș's 80th birthday. As seen by historian Florian Banu, the rehabilitation formed part of Ceaușescu's "smokescreen, designed to camouflage maneuvers which allowed [him as] the new leader to concentrate full power in his own hands. The new era, one 'enshrining socialist legality', did not in fact differ from the former unless it was in the intensity of violence exerted against one's opponents". Betea suggests that the new leadership maintained secret knowledge about Bodnăraș's misdeeds, including when it came to Foriș's "elimination", and used them to pressure him into total compliance. Additionally, Ștefan Andrei recalls private meetings with Ceaușescu in which the latter "would not fully criticize Foriș"—the communist leader described the plan to break Gheorghiu-Dej out of jail as commendable. Câmpeanu contrarily notes that Ceaușescu, as a Gheorghiu-Dej acolyte for his entire youth, never actually met Foriș, but only understood him as a cautionary example of weakness: "Perhaps the core lesson that this passed on was one about the latent vulnerability of the a general secretary's position. Two decades after being consummated, Foriș's experience provided Ceaușescu with the awareness that limitless power as provided by the office could only become effective if the one using it transformed it into a personal attribute." If Ceaușescu perpetuated and enhanced dictatorial practices, it was largely because Foriș's "absolute failure", whence "any general secretary who allows his advisers to engage him in disputes is committing political suicide". Ceaușescu's unwillingness to either reform the PCR or relinquish power resulted in his being toppled by the December 1989 Revolution. In its penultimate phase, power passed from the PCR to a National Salvation Front, and the Ceaușescus were executed. As argued by political scientist Alexandru Gussi, the outcome was steeped in the history of "violence as experienced between PCR leaders, especially during the change of leadership"—with the Foriș assassination as a paradigm. Publishing his memoirs shortly after, Silviu Brucan, who had also participated in the Revolution, referred to Foriș as having been removed by a "coup de force", whereby Bodnăraș and Rangheț "pushed the illegal work along a