The Romanian anti-communist resistance movement was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime, which in turn regarded the fighters as bandits. It was not until the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in late 1989 that details about what was called anti-communist armed resistance were made public. It was only then that the public learnt about the several small armed groups, which sometimes termed themselves haiducs, that had taken refuge in the Carpathian Mountains, where some hid for ten years from authorities. The last fighter was eliminated in the mountains of Banat in 1962. The extent and influence of the movement is often exaggerated in the post-Communist Romanian media, memoirs of the survivors and even historiography, while the authoritarian, anti-Semitic and/or xenophobic ideology of part of the groups is generally overlooked or minimized. The Romanian resistance was one of the longest lasting armed movements in the former Soviet bloc.