The people of Romania are commemorating today the 10th anniversary of the revolution which toppled the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Yet, rather than celebrate, ordinary Romanians worry about their current poverty and political confusion. The country remains the most obvious example of just how much can go wrong when transforming from communism to democracy.

The December 1989 revolution initially appeared promising. Pictures of the crowds storming Communist Party headquarters and of a dictator fleeing struck a chord throughout the West. Apart from Ceausescu fleeing in a helicopter, the entire episode appeared similar to the popular revolutions which the rest of Europe experienced a century before. Yet the elation contained some bitter ironies: Romania was the last country to overthrow communism and the only one to use violence, yet the most radical of Europe's recent revolutions was also the most incomplete.

The people who went on the barricades a decade ago knew what they were opposing but had no idea what should replace it. The result was a coup within a revolution: the communist regime collapsed, to be replaced by an ill-disguised authoritarian structure formed from the same people who perpetrated the previous horrors. We now know from published records of the first few days of the revolution that those who took power initially wanted to just reform the Communist Party.

We also have it on record that Ion Iliescu, the man who became the country's new ruler, wished to create what he called an "original democracy" in which there would have been no need for political parties or frequent elections.

To this day nobody knows who fired on whom, and the total number of casualties remains a mystery. The huge western donations offered at that time simply disappeared. Elections hurriedly took place without any legal framework and, when students chose to demonstrate against the entire process, President Iliescu not only invited miners to Bucharest in order to beat them up but actually thanked them for their deeds.

Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary also endured dictatorships, massacres, population movements and territorial changes. But they have done better in the past 10 years than Romania. How can one account for this discrepancy? The answer lies in a mixture of specific factors, coupled with a few misfortunes.

Romania was an agrarian state when communism was imposed. The enforced industrialisation applied by the ruling communists therefore had a deeper sociological impact in Romania than elsewhere in the region. Millions of farmers lost their land and were uprooted from their villages, forced to work in factories and live in horrible housing.

The communist attempt at industrialisation failed to produce prosperity: it pulled Romania down from the status of a middle-ranking European economic power to one near the bottom of the European prosperity scale. But it succeeded in destroying the country's unique culture: many of the unemployed industrial workers never acquired the identity of town-dwellers but lost their roots in the countryside.

Unlike the Catholics of Central Europe, the Romanian Orthodox Church had no international organisation and could, therefore, offer no opposition to the regime. And the vulgar cult of personality which Ceausescu applied in Romania, his tactic of offering nationalism as a substitute for economic prosperity, and his vile birth policy, to name but a few of his criminal acts, destroyed any opposition.

One can speculate for a long time whether Ceausescu was merely the product of a system or just an accident of history. But the reality still remains that Romania was subjected to the harshest communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe; recovering from such a system was bound to take time.

And yet, if one looks behind this dismal story, there is some hope. The country's opposition parties were divided, persecuted and marginalised. But, unlike the opposition in Serbia, for instance, the Romanian parties understood the need for unity. The Iliescu regime which came to power after the revolution tried to play the old card of ethnic hatred against Hungarians, but ethnic violence was ultimately avoided.

While the regime controlled the electronic media, a veritable explosion in the printed media took place. In late 1996, and in an orderly manner, Romanians threw out not only Iliescu but his party as well.

The media in Romania now is much more diverse and thriving than in any other former communist country. Good relations prevail with all Romania's neighbours, particularly Hungary. The ethnic Hungarians' political party broadly supports the government coalition. In essence, the revolution which began in December 1989 took six more years before it was concluded.

Nevertheless, the country is paying the price of its lost years. A confusing electoral system, lack of distinction between two parliamentary chambers and an absence of clarity between various government functions led to weak coalitions and bureaucratic inertia. Inflation is huge, the economy has fallen by 4 per cent this year alone, and there are one million unemployed. Parliament has adopted no fewer than 5,700 laws in the past decade but half were subsequently amended and few were ever implemented.

Last week's dismissal of the country's prime minister - the sixth in a decade - was intended to improve the situation. The exercise will fail, for Romania's main problem is the lack of qualified administrators rather than the personality of individual politicians.

Can anything be done? The reality is that the European Union is already doing a great deal. At its summit in Helsinki recently, EU leaders agreed to open negotiations about Romania's eventual membership. The date when Romania could join the EU is still well into the next century, but the guarantee that, when the Romanians themselves overcome their troubles they will be able to join the European family of democratic nations, should act as a powerful stimulus.

I tried to explain this to an old, poorly dressed lady who was wiping off dust from her son's grave in the cemetery reserved for those shot during the revolution. She replied, in tears, that she understood what I was saying, but then asked me to help her buy her family's Christmas food. The tragedy was all around us.

Those who sacrificed themselves 10 years ago did not die in vain, yet the Romania for which they fought has still to be born.

Jonathan Eyal is director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London