Of all of the East Central European revolutions, only Romania's turned violent. After government security forces killed protesters in the city of Timisoara, violence broke out between the army and the secret police, with the army standing by the protesters. Following a failed speech in the main square of Bucharest on December 21, 1989, Prime Minister Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were hunted down and executed after a brief trial. This poster, produced by the opposition National Liberal Party (Partidud National Liberal - PNU) for June 1990 elections, depicts a more peaceful departure. "Adio Tovarasi," it says: "Goodbye" - in this case implying good riddance - "Comrade," above a figure resembling Ceausescu walking off towards the red distance.

[description adapted from the exhibition Goodbye, Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the Revolutions of ’89 and the Collapse of Communism, March 10 – December 30, 1999]

National Liberal Party. “Goodbye Comrade.” Reproduced by permission from The Gelman Library, Friends of the GW Libraries, the National Security Archive, and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s CWIHP, Goodbye, Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the Revolutions of ’89 and the Collapse of Communism, March 10 – December 30, 1999 (Washington D.C.: The George Washington University, 1999), 1.