From the imposition of communist rule in 1945, Ceausescu's secret police, the Securitate, remained shrouded in secrecy. This work benefits from access to the archives of the Securitate. The author draws on the memoirs, published and unpublished, of victims of the 1950s terror and on his own interviews with prominent dissidents. The result is a "dual" history: that of the oppressor (the Securitate) and of the oppressed (the Romanian people) during Ceausescu's years in power. The work also contains a documentary appendix of translations of Securitate documents and dissident literature, some of which has not yet been made public in Romania itself. The study deals fully with the methods and tactics used by Ceausescu in maintaining oppression, and draws on the testimony of many of his victims. It also analyzes: the means by which communist rule was imposed on the country; the measures taken to revolutionize Romanian society; the dictator's persecution of minorities; the role of intellectuals and the Orthodox Church; the policy of "systematization", or demolition of villages; and the dictator's courting of the West in the 1970s and 1980s.