Before Nicolae Ceausescu came to power, Romania needed someone to make drastic changes in the government so that they could come out of repression . The country was in repression because the floods came early that year destroying crops and making cities into lakes. There was also an economic problem, which affected most of the population . Ceausescu profited from the situation and was given power as president at the age of forty-eight. Romania entered the Warsaw Pact; an alliance between communist countries that was mainly directed by the Soviet Union . This pact was created to oppose the Nato pact, which was made by the western countries. Therefore communist countries in the Warsaw pact helped each other when one country was in a rough situation. When the Soviet Union lost its power and their regime fell, Ceausescu was left alone without protection but he still fought for communist reforms in Romania. He was even willing to interfere with people's personal lives and regulate their behaviour. Ceaucescu's need for absolute power and money lead to the exploitation of the people and these reforms resulted in the destruction of his regime. .
Ceausescu wanted to enforce his Stalinist ideals in Romania. These ideals consisted of three key ideas: collectivization, industrialization and to keep the population in constant fear of the regime so that they would do anything he wanted . He believed that the best way to do it was to use terror in the country. Before Ceausescu came to power the Securitae was controlled mainly by the Soviet Union. The previous leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej let them control the secret police because he was not very powerful at the time. Ceausescu changed his path by making himself the only one controlling the Securitae . Ceausescu directly controlled a force of some 20,000 special security troops, whose primary mission was to defend party installations and communications facilities .