A month later, both Ceaușescu and the party were overthrown in the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, begun as a popular rebellion in Timișoara and eventually bringing to power the National Salvation Front, comprising a large number of moderate former PCR members who supported Gorbachev's vision. Having fled the PCR's headquarters under pressure from demonstrators, Ceauşescu and his wife were captured, tried, and executed by the new authorities in Târgoviște. No formal dissolution of the PCR took place. Rather, the party simply disappeared. The speed with which the PCR, one of the largest parties of its kind, dissolved, as well as its spontaneity, were held by commentators as additional proof that its sizable membership presented a largely false image of its true beliefs. In nearly every other Eastern Bloc country, the former ruling Communist parties recast themselves into social democratic or democratic socialist parties, and remain major players to this day.