Another couple of much needed corrections to bitter_engineer's writeup:
First, Romania does not have a population of 5 millions!!! It had a populations of about 23 millions in 1989, and a little more then 22 millions today (2003)
Second, to say that Romanian economy collapsed because of the unpayable foreign debt is partially wrong and partially incomplete. In fact, the debt has been almost totally paid by 1989. But in order to achieve the much needed foreign currency, Ceausescu refocused the whole economy toward export, which, in turn, lead to utter deficit of consumer products, from food to toilet paper. This induced a high level of unhappiness in the Romanian population for years, until the situation finally exploded in 1989.