Ask Lemmygrad

from the "USSR sphere of influence countries" i'd say Romania. it was still a lot better than what it was before but it had a lot of issues

Well, along with the good things Ceaușescu did (continue the industrializing process of Romania, offering work, housing, good education system, good sport facilities that put Romania in top countries in sport performances, paying the national debt of Romania etc), there are also bad things. He pushed the nationalist agenda too much (at one point in 1980 he made a parade saying in the honour of "2054 years since the creation of the first centralized dacian state"; compared himself with wallachian or moldavian medieval rulers etc). His cult of personality really went over the roof. He banned abortions, banned homosexuality. Plus, the biggest mistake he did was to approach western nations, to the point that Romania even received from the US "the clause of the most favourable country" (I think that's how it is called). Yes, Ceaușescu did establish good relations with socialist countries (especially Libya, DPRK, China etc.) and he wanted to establish a bank for the developing nations to compete with the IMF. He borrowed money from the IMF, and that eventually fucked him up big time and he had to shorten romanian population's food, heat etc to afford to pay that. Ceaușescu really distanced himself from the USSR and he also cleaned the state apparatus from the soviet functionaries. Although the so-called "revolution" was orchestrated mostly by the US and other west-european intelligence services (since Ceaușescu denied the perestroika) and his execution was decided by soviet revisionists and united states collaborators who imposed their people in power after 22nd december 1989, Ceaușescu should still be criticised for the bad things he did. He should be compared with other socialist leaders.

cw: reddit prolespod did an episode on them