Eastern Bloc abolished provisions guaranteeing the ruling Communist party its leading role. President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned, in what was called the Velvet Revolution. Romania had rejected de-Stalinization. Following growing public protests, dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu ordered a mass rally in his support outside Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. But mass protests against Ceauşescu proceeded. The Romanian military sided with protesters and turned on Ceauşescu. They executed him after a brief trial three days later. Even before the Bloc's last years, all of the countries in the Warsaw Pact did not always act
Nicolae Militaru Nicolae Militaru Nicolae Militaru (November 10, 1925 – December 27, 1996) was a Romanian general who served as Defense Minister between December 1989 and February 1990. A graduate of the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, he commanded the Romanian Land Forces' 2nd Army from 1969 to 1978. That year, under suspicion for being a GRU agent and for plotting against dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, he was retired from active duty and made an assistant to the Defense Minister. A "Securitate" plot to depose Ceauşescu existed in the early 1980s, and he is known to have joined in 1984, adding