"throwing into the square portraits of Ceaușescu, and food from the well-stocked canteen." In a time of drastic food shortages, protesters were particularly angered to find festively prepared official buildings and food abundance in order to celebrate the local election victory. A massive bonfire of party records and propaganda burned for hours in the city square. By dusk, Securitate forces and the military surrounded the city center and disbanded the revolt by force. Though no one was killed, some 300 protesters were arrested. In the period that protesters were being detained they were tortured by state investigators (Miliție and Securitate). However, since the regime decided to play down the uprising as “isolated cases of hooliganism,” sentences were between 6 months and 3 years in prison, a relatively moderate penalty in the communist penal code, but they were deported to other city's around the country and not allowed to return to Brașov. After 1990, up to 100 prison convictions could be documented so far. Though the Brașov Rebellion did not directly lead to revolution, it dealt a serious blow to the Ceaușescu regime, and its confidence in the trade unions. This revolt reflected what historian Dennis Deletant referred to as "Ceaușescu's inability to heed the warning signs of increasing labor unrest, plunging blindly forward with the same [economic] measures, seemingly indifferent to their consequences." Therefore, the Brașov Rebellion underscored the growing discontent among workers against the Ceaușescu regime; moreover, it foreshadowed the popular uprisings that would bring down the regime and Communism in Romania only two years later. (Rebellion returned to Brașov in December 1989, when Romanians ousted the regime and executed Ceaușescu.) References Dennis Deletant, "Romania, 1948-1989: A Historical Overview", 35–36, Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Thomas J. Keil, "The State and Labor Conflict in Post-Revolutionary Romania", Radical History Review, Issue 82 (Winter 2002), pp. 9–36. Timur Kuran, "Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989." World Politics, Vol. 44, No. 1. (October 1991), pp. 7–48. Daniel Nelson, "The Worker and Political Alienation in Communist Europe", Polity Journal, Vol. 10, No.3, 1978, pp. 1–12. Vladimir Socor, "The Workers' Protest in Brașov: Assessment and Aftermath", Romania Background Report 231, Radio Free Europe Research, 4 December 1987, pp. 3–10. Rebellion Cold War rebellions Conflicts in 1986 Conflicts in 1987 Socialist Republic of Romania 1986 in Romania 1987 in Romania Romanian Revolution