The Securitate was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului, the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime, Romanian secret police was called Siguranța Statului. It was founded on 30 August 1948, with help and direction from the Soviet MGB. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the new authorities assigned the various intelligence tasks of the DSS to new institutions.
Ion Mihai Pacepa in 1975
Repressive system in Romania and Moldova, 1946–1989
Socialist Republic of Romania
The Socialist Republic of Romania was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Republic. The country was an Eastern Bloc state and a member of the Warsaw Pact with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. Geographically, RSR was bordered by the Black Sea to the east, the Soviet Union to the north and east, Hungary and Yugoslavia to the west, and Bulgaria to the south.
The Socialist Republic of Romania in 1966
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej speaking at a workers' rally in Nation Square, Bucharest after the 1946 general election
Armed resistance against the government
Nicolae Ceaușescu, Leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989