My first moral dilemmas date back from those times. In the meetings chaired by the pioneer instructor, who was represented by the class master, I had to recite the following text (I am quoting it from memory): ?Comrade unit instructor, the collective of the 5 form with a force counting 31 pioneers, all present, I report. For the country and the people, forward march! My problem was that those 31 pioneers were never all present.

My adventure as a class commander ended during a school camp when the class master told me I didn?t have enough authority over my mates and that I was biased during the frequent conflicts between girls and boys.

In December 89, besides the euphoria felt after becoming aware of the historical moment, I felt a huge regret of never having been a school commander and then a member of the Youth Communist Organization. (C. B., 93)

The Pioneers? Associations in Bucharest had to participate in the ?Plugusorul? ( traditional Romanian procession on New Year?s Eve) in turns. After ?86, because the city sector 7 existed until 82, 83. After that, they united and there were just 6 city sectors. We went in turns to the pioneers? associations, in 2 sectors. So we participated in this ?Plugusor?, too.  First of all, they wanted us to sing a carol and I, a member of the ethnographic and folklore study group, suggested a song, culled by Cristina Radulescu- Pascu herself, which wasn't accepted; instead they chose a song by Mircea Vintila, a kind of ethnic pop which is still sung, with counterfeit lyrics.

We used to preserve the boots from one year till the next one . I had colleagues who washed lots of white boots. Not to mention that for instance, the clothes were taken to be cleaned, but who was to wash so many pairs of shoes? The teachers, of course. After the procession was over, the teachers had to make an inventory of all the objects. The show began: the child received a piece of clothing that he/she thought was going to keep and some of them( I can tell you, nobody is watching us now) were really poor and were glad to get a pair of trousers. When I made the inventory I sometimes registered the same pair of trousers twice. Lucky beggar!  Who would take the trouble to count all that heaps of clothes. I can tell you that our chiefs from The National Council of the Pioneers stole big time. From The National Council of the Pioneers. They forged some acts according to which they needed some insecticide for  accommodation places for the children who came to demonstrate on the stadium. ( A.S.,130)

The great poet Lucian Avramescu, the great erotic poet who is a neighbor of mine now and who is a prosperous businessman was  an official poet of the Party and was forced to write the ? Plugusorul? for comrade Nicolae Ceausescu. There were meetings that took place in the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth ( UCY), in ?83 ?84. ?Plugusorul? had to mention the previous year?s achievements; there were secretaries of the UCY who did the proofreading and the first line was all that was left from the traditional ?plugusor?; the rest was replaced by an exact list of the year?s socialist achievements. (111)