Gheoghe Gheorghiu Dej - The Fight For Power

New Light on Gheorghiu-Dej's Struggle for Dominance in the Romanian Communist Party, 1944
-49
Author(s): Dennis Deletant
Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 659-690
Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London,
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211934
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SEER, Vol.73, No. 4, October

1995
New
Struggle
Romanian
Gheorghiu-Dej's
on
Light
for
Dominance
Communist
in
the
Party,
I 944-49
DENNIS
DELETANT
with the recent publication of archival material and the

disclosure by contemporaries of fresh information about the activities
of the Romanian Communist Party during the War, its relationship to
Moscow, and the period of purges during the early I 95os, it is possible
to determine with greater accuracy the part played by Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej and other Party leaders in these events. This article
draws on this new information to chart and re-examine one particular
aspect of Romanian Communist Party (RCP) history: the internal
Party struggle that accompanied its early years in power.1
Neither Gheorghiu-Dej's struggle for dominance within the Romanian Communist Party, nor his success in maintaining himself at its
helm until his death in March I965, can be understood without
consideration of the Party's relationship to the Soviet Union. This
relationship was, throughout the late I 940Sand early 1950s, one of total
dependency. Unflinching subservience to Stalin characterized the
deeds of all the leading figures in the RCP and throughout the years
1944 to 1953 they acted out scenarios provided by the Soviet dictator.
In I952, it was Dej alone who, when the order to purge alleged Zionists
came, found himself in the position of being offered by Stalin the
opportunity to assign the roles.
It was, indeed, relations with the Soviet Union that defined some
interpretations in Western scholarship of the purges in Romania in the
early I950s. These were seen in terms of a conflict between so-called
'local Communists' led by Gheorghiu-Dej, who were interned during
the war in Romania, and the 'Muscovites' under Paukerand Luca, who
TODAY,
Dennis Deletant is Reader in Romanian Studies at the School of Slavonic and East
EuropeanStudies, Universityof London.
, The authorwould like to extend his thanksto RobertLevy of the Universityof California
and Marius Oprea of the Romanianweekly Cuvaentul.
Both generouslysharedwith him the
fruitsof theirown researchwhereit was relevantto this article.
I Until it was legalizedon 23 August 1944 the RomanianCommunistPartywas knownby
its Cominterndesignationof 'The CommunistPartyin Romania'.
66o
DENNIS
DELETANT
spent the war years in Moscow.2 Yet this dichotomy is misleading and
incorrect, as this article will attempt to show. It was precisely because
of Dej's loyalty to Moscow that he was able to eclipse his 'Muscovite'
rivals. The newly-available evidence thus confirms the view, put
forward by Bela Vago, Michael Shafir and Mary Ellen Fischer, that it
was a personal conflict between Dej on the one hand, and Ana Pauker
and Vasile Luca, on the other, rather than a conflict of ideology, that
fuelled the struggle for power.3
Before proceeding, a few words about sources are advisable. The new
written material is supplemented by interviews which were conducted
by the author with witnesses to these events. The original minutes of
the RCP Politburo meetings during the period under discussion were
not available for consultation, but extracts from some of these have
appeared in Romanian secondary sources and are quoted where
appropriate. Until full access to these documents is available, it will not
be possible to verify some of the evidence offered here.
Of course, the official Party record has its own limitations. Research
into the archives of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior revealed
interrogation minutes submitted in the early 1950S to Gheorghiu-Dej
for approval which contained substantive deletions in red pencil in the
latter's own hand. Whether minutes of the Politburo meetings were
doctored in a similar way remains, for the time being, a matter of
speculation. Caution is also advisable in handling oral evidence. The
respondents are often subjective and seek to justify their past behaviour, often by hiding the unsavoury aspects of their past. Some
interviewees do indeed provide informationwhich corroborateswritten
sources, while others give illuminating details for which the researcher
can find no corroboration. By contrast, there are yet others who, in an
effort to inflate their own importance, are unwilling to admit that they
do not have the answers to certain questions and instead seek recourse
in invention. The task of the researcher is to establish the reliability of
the respondent. The status of the oral informationobtained is indicated
in the footnotes. In the author's experience of interviewing notable
2 See S. Fischer-Galati, The New Rumania. From People's
Democracyto Socialist Republic,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, I967 (hereafter TheNew Rumania),p. 3I. Victor Frunza, in his
study Istoria Stalinismului an Romacnia,Bucharest, I990, p. 219, makes a similar division,
calling the 'Muscovites' the 'externals' (exteriori),and the 'local Communists' the 'internals'
(interiori).
3 As these scholars have pointed out, neither of the two groups, 'local Communists' and
'Muscovites', was so rigidly defined since personal! allegiance often cut across this artificial
division. Thus Leonte R'autu, who had spent the war in Moscow close to Pauker, aligned
himself with Dej, while Miron Constantinescu, a fellow inmate of the internment camp at
Targu-Jiu with Dej, associated himself initially with Pauker; see B. Vago, 'Romania' in
Communist
Powerin Europe,1944-i949, London, 1977, pp. I I I-32 ( 13); M. Shafir,Romania.
Politics, Economicsand Society,London, I 985 (hereafter Romania), p. 35 and M. E. Fischer,
Nicolae Ceaulescu.A Study in Political Leadership,Boulder, I989 (hereafter Nicolae Ceaupescu),
p.42.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
66i
Partyfiguresfromthis periodone thingin particularwas striking- an

aversionto discussionof the Party'slinks with the Soviet Union and
particularSovietofficials.
The release since I989 in Romaniaof documentsrelating to the
arrest interrogation,and trialof LucretiuPatraacanu,a leadingfigure
in the RomanianCommunistParty,has shed particularlight on the
strugglefordominancewithinthe Partywhichspannedthe yearsfrom
I944 to 1954. In the space of ten years, GheorgheGheorghiu-Dej
oversawthe removalof threepotentialrivalsfor power,two of whom,
tefan Fori?and LucretiuPatra?canu,were executedand the third,
Ana Pauker,reducedto the stateof a politicalcorpse.
That Dej shouldhavereachedthispositionwas,in part,testimonyto
his own abilities,thoseof a patienttacticianand consummatemanipulator. Yet his consolidationof powerdependedon avoidanceof anything which might give his Soviet masterany reasonto questionhis
loyalty. His vulnerabilityto Stalin's suspicionswas all the greater
becausehe, alone amongstthe leadingfiguresin the RomanianCommunist Party, had not been schooledin Moscow and was therefore
somethingof an unknownquantity.To correctthis disadvantageDej
usedeveryopportunityto exploitthepotentialflawsin the actionsof his
rivals,therebygivingStalingroundsto doubttheirreliability,whilstat
the sametime reinforcinghis own credentialsas a faithfulservant.
AlthoughDej was not directlyinvolvedin the planningof the coup
on 23 August I944 in which King Michaelorderedthe arrestof the
pro-GermandictatorMarshalIon Antonescu,his victoryin the contest
for Party control secured for him the credit in Communisthistoriographyof a leadingrole not only in the preparations,but also in the
eventsof the day. Afterthe arrestof LucretiuPatrascanuin I948 there
was, predictably,no mentionuntilthe earlyI 960sof the latter'spartas
the representativeof the CommunistParty in the discussionsof the
NationalDemocraticBloc precedingthe coup.Typicalof the regime's
versionof the coupwas the view, enunciatedby Dej in a speechin May
of thatyear, that King Michael'wasforcedto acceptthe planof action
establishedby the Communistparty, the only genuinepoliticalforce
activein the topplingof Antonescu'sgovernment'.4
The magnification
of Dej'spartin the coupwasfacilitatedby the factthathis rivalsforthe
leadership,Ana PaukerandVasileLuca,werestillin the SovietUnion
on 23 August I944 and couldthereforeclaimno creditat all.
The coup, and the use made of it by Dej, was but one of the two
eventsfromwhichwe can tracetheoriginsof theinternalPartystruggle
for supremacy.The second,which also took place beforethe entryof
4 G. Gheorghiu-Dej, Articole Xi cuvintdrii959-i96i,
from Romania,p. 32.
Bucharest, I 96I, pp. 438-40; quoted
662
DENNIS DELETANT
Soviet troops into Bucharest, was the decision to remove $tefan Fori?as
General Secretary of the Party in April I944. The circumstances in
which this decision was taken are not entirely clear, for the mists of
politically-engineered distortion still linger over the matter. According
to the version propagated during the period of Dej's supremacy within
the Party, a meeting was held on 4 April in the hospital of the Targu-Jiu
internment camp involving Dej, Emil Bodnara?, Constantin Parvulescu, losif Ranghet and Chivu Stoica at which Dej demanded the
removal of Foria on the grounds that he was a police informer.5In his
place a provisional secretariat of Bodnara?, Parvulescu and Ranghet
was appointed by those present who also instructed Bodnaras, Patra?canu and Ion Gheorge Maurer to join the other political parties in an
effort to extract Romania from the war with the Soviet Union. Both
these decisions could be seen as instrumental in establishing the
authority of Dej and his associates over the Party, in presenting Stalin
with an effective Party leadership which played a significant part in the
overthrow of Antonescu and in the new government, as well as in
providing the basis for the Party's claim for broadersupport within the
country. This is, indeed, how they were used in the period of Dej's
supremacy.
It is, however, important, in the light of the subsequent ascent of Dej,
to remember that he was not appointed Party leader at this meeting.
Nevertheless, in the course of time, Dej came to be portrayed in the
Communist media as having been the architect of the decision to
exclude Fori?,for it served both as a stick with which to beat rivals such
as Pauker who had allegedly questioned his removal when she arrived
in Romania, and as a banner of Dej's defence of Romanian interests
when the rift with Moscow occurred in the early I 96os.6 Yet the merit
to be gained from Fori?'s removal depended on his being proved a
'traitor'. Without that proof his dismissal and, more importantly, his
5In an undated declaration signed while under interrogation between 1949 and 1954,
Fori?'s deputy, Remus Koffler, maintained that on 3 April I944, Fori? revealed to Party
members that Bodnara? had recently succeeded in re-establishing contact with the Soviet
Union using espionage channels (pe linie despionaj) through a recently arrived agent from the
Soviet Union; see R. Levy, 'The Power Struggle within the Romanian Communist Party in
the Run-Up to the Groza Government', unpublished paper presented to an International
Symposium entitled '6 March 1945 - The Petru Groza Government and the Communization of Romania', Bucharest, 3-5 March I995 (hereafter 'The Power Struggle'),
pp. 1-1 3 (i). One must, of course, handle with caution information extracted from prisoners
under torture.
6 Nicolae Ceau,escu,pp. 38 and 276, note io. When Ana Pauker met Patracanu in Moscow
at the time of the armistice negotiations in September I944 she asked him why Foria had
been removed. Paftraf?canureplied that he had little knowledge of the affair. Pauker is said to
have put the same question to Dej when they met shortly after her arrival in Bucharest on
i6 September I944, being particularly anxious to know the reason as Fori? had been
confirmed in his position by the Comintern in 1940 (author's interview with Eduard
Mezincescu, i6June I994. Mezincescu was a protege of Pauker and was brought into the
Foreign Ministry by her in 1948).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
663
murder had no justification. Barely three years after Dej's death, the
accusation of 'traitor' made against Foris was dropped: in April I968
Nicolae Ceausescu condemned Dej for the 'assassination' of Fori?,who
was considered 'innocent' of being an enemy agent. Nevertheless, Fori?
was still branded as guilty of 'grave shortcomings' in his work which
had made his removal necessary.7
A number of questions springs to mind from the meeting of 4 April
I 944. One concerns the primacy of Dej in the Party at this time. He was
not made Party leader in place of Foris and, being interned, relied on
Bodnaras to implement the decisions taken at the meeting. Another is
whether Dej and his associates were acting on their own initiative or
were being prompted by instructions from Moscow, which might have
been channelled to them by Bodnaras, for the NKVD had good reason
to regard Foris as a traitor. Foris had, after all, been confirmed in his
position as Party Secretary General by the Comintern in I 940 and it is
unlikely that he would have been removed without the agreement of
Moscow.
Contact between Foris and the Comintern was assured via Soviet
agents in Sofia but this link was broken after Romania's entry into the
war with the Soviet Union in July I941, and instead messages were
relayed from Moscow to Fori?through Petre Gheorghe, the secretary of
the Party in Bucharest.8 Relations between Fori? and Gheorghe
became strained when the latter, apparently on the orders of the
Comintern, instructed Foris to organize sabotage actions behind the
Romanian lines. Foris refused, arguing that such a request was unrealistic in view of the fact that most of the Party members were either
interned or under house arrest.9
7 Nicolae Ceauzescu,
p. 13 1. Foris was born on 9 May 1892 in the village of Tariungeni near
Brasov. After completing a degree in physics and mathematics at Budapest University, he
returned to Bra?ov in September i919 and joined the Hungarian-language socialist
newspaper Munkasas an editor. He joined the RCP and moved to Bucharest in I 922. After
the proscription of the Party he worked underground as secretary of AjutorulRoju (Red Aid),
the Romanian section of the Comintern-controlled International Organization for Aiding
the Fighters of the Revolution, known from its Russian initials as MOPR (Mezhdunarodnaia
organizatsiia pomoshchi bortsam revoliutsii). The MOPR provided food and legal aid to
Communist activists in prison. In 1927 Foris was coopted as a member of the Central
Committee and took part in the Fourth Party Congress in I928. He was arrested and
imprisoned inJulyI 928 but a rapid deterioration in his health led to his release and he went
to Moscow. At the end of I 930 he returned to Romania and was arrested on 26 August I 931.
He was freed in 1935 and in I 938 was appointed to the secretariat of the Central Committee.
In December 1940 he was named General Secretary of the Party by the Comintern (N. I.
Florea, '$tefan Fori?', Analele de Istorie, I8, 1972, 3, pp. I50-53 [hereafter '$tefan Fori,']
[I50]).
8 Gheorghe
was of Bulgarian background and had been active in the Communist Party in
the southern Dobrogea. He had been sent to Moscow for training as an NKVD agent in the
mid- i 930s and on the eve of the war was sent to Bucharest.
9 E. Mezincescu, 'Polemici', Romdnialiterara, 27, 9-I5 September 1992 (hereafter 'Polemici'),
p.
2.
664
DENNIS
DELETANT
This differenceof opinionled Foril to removeGheorgheas head of

the Party organizationin Bucharest.Gheorghe,however,refusedto
handoverthe lists of passwords(the Partyhad beenoutlawedand was
thereforeforcedto act along conspiratoriallines). In I942 Gheorghe
was arrestedby Romaniancounter-espionageagents and accusedof
spying for the Soviet Union. Fori?refusedto give any legal help to
Gheorghe,10an act which would have offered proof of his Party
membership,and withoutthis Gheorghewas tried,not as a Communist, but as a spy. AfterStalingradMarshalAntonescucornmutedthe
death sentences of Communists(the last Communistwas allegedly
executedin OctoberI942) but not thoseof spies,and in the autumnof
1943 Gheorghe was executed.'1 Clearly, Fori?'s behaviour,if this
versionis true,madehim an enemyof the localPartymembers.
Yet accordingto another scenario,Fori?may have been acting
under instructionsfrom Moscow. Fori?,it is argued,had Moscow's
backing in autumn I943 to conclude a deal with Antonescuwhich
involvedthe sacrificeof the Communistsin Romania.12 Withplentyof
examplesof Sovietcynicismfromthe inter-warperiodto pointto, Dej
andhis internedcolleaguesdecidedto pre-emptthismoveby removing
Fori?and takingoverthe Partybeforethe arrivalof the RedArmyand
the Moscow bureau.The subsequentmurderof Fori?may well have
suited Stalin,forany publicrevelationsaboutattemptsto forgea deal
withAntonescu,not to mentionone madeat theexpenseof theinterned
Communists,would have exposedhim to chargesof duplicitybefore
the Romanianpublic,severelyembarrassedthe Gheorghiu-Dejfaction
in the Party,and damagedStalin'srelationswith theWesternAllies.13
10 The secretary general of the Romanian branch
of the MOPR during the war was Eduard
Mezincescu. In the autumn of I944 the organization's name was changed to 'Patriotic
Defence' (Apdrareapatrioticd).
11 'Polemici', p. 2.
12 TheNew Rumania,p. 2 I.
13 Gheorghe's arrest laid
Foris open to the charge of treachery, especially as Fori?, like all of
the senior Party figures who were not in internment, was regularly hauled in by the secret
police (the Siguranta)for questioning and possibly, as in the case of Patr6?canu, consulted by
General Piki Vasiliu, under-secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, about the attitude of
the Party regarding the conduct of the War. Indeed, it was precisely this charge which was
levelled at Fori? posthumously by Dej in I951 when he accused him of being a collaborator of
the Siguran;a (G. Ionescu, Communismin Rumania, I944-I962,
London, I 964 [hereafter
Communism],p. 8o). By the same token the charge of collaboration with the Siguraniawas
made against Patras,canu at his trial in April I954 and continued to be repeated parrotfashion by Dej and his colleagues. For example, at the Central Committee plenum of
November I 96 I Maurer claimed that he was interned in Targu-Jiu 'because of Pa.trascanu's
treacherous activities' (ibid.). The Party Commission set up to investigate the Patra?canu
case in I965 reported that Patra?canu had received an invitation in spring I944 from
General Vasiliu to discuss the situation in Romania with Marshal Antonescu, and that he
had received permission from the Party leadership to accept. In the event, Antonescu
changed his mind about seeing Patra?canu ('Raportul Comisiei de partid, constituita in
vederea clarificarii situatiei lui Lucretiu PNtracapu', Cuvfntul,36, 8-4 September 1992,
p. 6).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ'S
STRUGGLE
665
Responsibilityfor the decision to remove Fori? was consistently

attributedto Dej throughoutthe Communistera, but there is now
evidenceto suggestthat it was a decisiontakenin Moscow.Thereis no
doubt that the key part in its implementation,whateverthe sourceof
If we are to believethe
the decision,was played by Emil Bodnara?.14
testimony of some Party members,on the very same day that the
meetingat Targu-Jiudecidedthat Fori?shouldbe arrested,Bodnara?
and Ranghetmanagedto coverthe 325kilometresto Bucharestwhich,
on 4 April,had sufferedits greatestaerialbombardmentof thewar,and
askedFori?to show them a 'safe'house whichwould be less likelyto
sufferfromthe air-raids.WhenFori?led themto a housein the district
of Vatra Luminoasa,Bodnara?and Ranghetare said to have drawn
pistolsand handedhim overto a groupof menloyalto Bodnaras.15
Recent testimony, gleaned from informed sources within the
RomanianCommunistmovement,revealsthatFori?wasreleasedfrom
custody on 23 August to make way for MarshalAntonescuand his
associateswho werehandedoverto Emil Bodnarasand a detachment
of 'PatrioticGuards',and taken to the very same house. The former
SecretaryGeneralappearsto have been re-arrestedsix monthslater,
for in February1945 Fori?'smothercame to see EduardMezincescu,
head of the PatrioticDefenceorganizationwhich providedfood and
money for formerCommunistdetainees,with a requestfor help in
tracingher son who had disappeared.16
Just as the decisionto removeFori?was used as a politicalfootball,
firstby Dej and thenby Ceau?escu,so toowas the orderto murderhim.
The possibilitythattheordercamefromMoscow,andthatit suitedDej
by denyingFori?the chanceof a comebackas Partyleader,shouldnot
be overlookedin the discussionof this issue. Somehave attributedthe
decision solely to Dej,17others, basing themselveson Ceausescu's
14
Eduard Mezincescu, who had occasion later to discuss in detail the career of Emil
Bodnara? with Sergei Nikonov (Sergiu Nicolau), appointed head of the SSI, the Intelligence
Service, under Bodnaras in April 1945, learned from Nikonov that the replacement of Foris
had been first discussed in the prison hospital at Targu-Jiu inJune I 943. Dej's view was that
Foris should simply be ousted. The decision to place Foris under house arrest was
apparently a Soviet one, carried out by Bodnaras (author's interview with Mezincescu,
i6June 1994). According to a declaration of Victoria Sarbu, given under interrogation on
7 February I950, Bodnara? handed Foris a type-written note ordering him to surrender all
Party materials and authorizing his house-arrest. Bodnaras told Foris that the order had
come from the Soviet Union (see 'The Power Struggle', p. 6, note 5).
15 See, for example, Pavel Campeanu, 'Note asupra PCR in anii 4050',
Sfera Politicii,
2January 1993, p. I9. According to Ilie Zaharia, a veteran Communist interviewed by
Robert Levy, Foris was only detained for two or three months and was seen looking for work
at the Party headquarters in August 1944. He was re-arrested in I945 when Dej and
BodnAra? produced 'proof' that he was working for the Siguranta (R. Levy, 'The "Right
Deviation" of Ana Pauker', p. 6. I am grateful to the author for providing me with a copy of
this unpublished research paper).
16 Author's interview with E. Mezincescu, i6June I994.
17
See the articles by E. Mezincescu and V. Tismaneanu in Romdnialiterar6,nos 2I, 27 and
41, I992.
21
666
DENNIS
DELETANT
account given at the April I968 Central Committee Plenum at which

Fori? was rehabilitated, to a collective decision by Dej, Pauker, Luca
and Teohari Georgescu,18 although it is unlikely that such a move
would have been taken without the agreement of Stalin, especially as it
required the liquidation of a former Party leader without trial. Once
again, the fact that the assassination was entrusted to Pintilie Bondarenko (Gheorghe Pintilie), an NKVD agent, is not without significance. The latter, as head of the Political and Administrative Section of
the Central Committee, whose attributes included Party security, is
alleged to have admitted carrying out the death sentence imposed on
Foris. After his release from the Party's safe house on 23 August I944,
Foris was seized in the street several months later on Dej's orders by
Pintilie and held in the Party headquarters on Aleea Alexandru, where
he was eventually bludgeoned to death with an iron bar in February
I945 by Pintilie and his chauffeur, Dumitru Mitea. His body was
buried in the grounds of the building.19 Persistent enquiries from
Fori?'smother about her son's whereabouts led Pintilie to summon her
18
Romania,p. 34. Pauker's son-in-law, Gheorghe Bratescu, concedes that while his motherin-law was a party to the order to arrest Foris, she was not consulted about the decision to
murder him, which, he alleges, was taken one evening at a secret meeting of Dej, BodnAra?
and Pintilie. Indeed, after Pauker learned of Foris's death, she told Dej that Fori? should
have been put on trial. Dej replied that the Romanian courts were not competent to handle
such a trial. Pauker then said that, in that case, Fori? should have been handed over to the
Soviets (interview with G. Bratescu, 30July 1994). Dej's failure to consult Pauker over the
decision to murder Fori? lends weight to the view that Dej, supported by BodnAra?, had
Stalin's authority for the move.
19 Pintilie gave this account to Lieutenant General Grigore Raduica, a senior securitate
officer, who had been ordered by Nicolae Ceau?escu to investigate Fori?'s fate in I967 (P.
$tefanescu, Istoria ServiciilorSecreteRomaneqti,Bucharest, I994 [hereafter Istoria Serviciilor
Secrete],p. 25I). A Party obituary of Fori? dates his arrest to 9June I945 and his murder to
the summer of 1946 ('$tefan Foris', p. I53). This chronology is corroborated by George
Fotino, a private secretary to the Minister of the Interior, Teohari Georgescu, who recalled
an attempt made by Fori?'s mother to seek an unscheduled audience with Georgescu in the
early summer of I 945 to ascertain the whereabouts of her son. When Fotino, who had never
heard of Fori?, went into the Minister's office to tell him that a certain 'Mrs Fori?' was in the
ante-room and would like to see him, Georgescu went bright red and told him to tell her that
he had been called away to a meeting, adding an instruction to Fotino that 'the woman was
not to be allowed into the Ministry again' (author's interview with G. Fotino, 9 April I 994).
Pintilie was coopted as a member of the RCP Central Committee at a plenary meeting on
I 0- II June I 948 (Scanteia,13 June I 948, p. i). Despite being attacked in the April I 968
Central Committee plenary meeting for his role in Fori?'s murder, Pintilie was decorated by
Ceausescu in May I 97 I on the fiftieth anniversary of the Party. Pintilie's chaffeur, Dimitrie
Necin (Dumitru Mitea), had orginally been sent to Romania as one of a three-man NKGB
group parachuted in May 1944 into the area of Predeal with a radio transmitter to
communicate to the Red Army information on German military activity (see M. Mircu,
Dosar Ana Pauker, Bucharest, 1991 [hereafter Dosar Ana], p. I 30, note 2 I). Pintilie consistently denied to Eduard Mezincescu that he had wielded the iron bar, claiming that the
chaffeur Mitea struck the mortal blows (E. Mezincescu interview with the author, i6June
but his sadistic impulses were revealed in a drunken confession he once made at a
I994),
party to Tatiana Bratescu, Ana Pauker's daughter, in the early I950S. He told her that as a
member of the Komsomol in the Ukraine he had discovered a priest holding a service on the
edge of his village in a hollow. He gathered other youths and together they pinned down the
priest and buried him alive by piling earth over him with tractors (interview with T.
Bratescu,30July I994).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
'S STRUGGLE
667
to his office where he failed to convince her that no one in the Party had
any information about him. Pintilie then took advantage of the presence in the Party headquarters of a local Party leader from Oradea in
western Transylvania and told him to take the old woman and 'silence
her'. Pintilie persuaded Fori?'s mother to get into the official's car by
saying that her son was in the Oradea area and that the official knew
exactly where. Asked later what he had done with her, the local Party
chief said that he had handed Fori?'s mother over to two policemen in
Oradea who had thrown her into the Cri? river with a millstone hung
around her neck.20
Dej's internment came to an end on I2 August I 944 when a group of
Communists, under instructions from Ion Gheorghe Maurer, managed
to extract him from TarguJiu. They found shelter for several days with
a series of sympathizers in Oltenia, among them an Orthodox priest,
Joan Marina, who put them up in his parish house in Ramnicul Valcea,
and they then went on to Bucharest.21Again, Communist mystification
has clouded the truth of subsequent developments regarding the
Party's leadership. Although Dej was credited throughout the era of his
dominance and the Ceau?escu period with being general secretary of
the Party after the dismissal of Fori?, a study of the Party newspaper
Scanteia reveals otherwise. In its first non-clandestine issue of
21 September I944, a communique signed by Constantin Parvulescu
was published. Parvulescu was styled 'general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party'. The following day's edition printed his photograph with the same title. Over the next few weeks, Parvulescu was
given titular precedence in the paper when Party documents were
reproduced, but two other ethnic Romanians, Dej and Patras?canu,
were given the most column inches.22
20 IstoriaServiciilorSecrete,p. 250; see also V. Tismaneanu, 'The Tragicomedy of Romanian
Communism', East EuropeanPolitics andSocieties,3, I989, 2, pp. 329-76 (350, note 47).
21 The officially sanctioned
account of Dej's escape, written by one of the group instructed
by Maurer, was published at the height of Dej's power within the Party in I964; see
M. Roqianu, 'Cum a fost organizata evadarea tovaraaului Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej din
lagarul de la Targu-Jiu in august 1944', Scfnteia, i8 August I964, pp. 2-3 (in April 1954 an
orthographic reform was applied, thus changing Scdnteiato Scinteia. Marina's part earned
him elevation, on Dej's recommendation, to the position of Patriarch in May I 948. Another
light is shed on the initiative for the escape by Eduard Mezincescu who told this author that
although Bodnara?, Parvulescu, and Ranghet were all in favour of Dej's escape from the
camp, Dej himself was reluctant to leave because he felt safer inside than out. He agreed to
be released only on condition that Maurer make arrangements that would ensure that Dej
would not be hurt during the escape. Maurer therefore contacted the lawyer Grigore
Geamanu, a cousin of a senior official in the Inspectorate of Gendarmes in Bucharest, who
paid a suitable sum of money to the official to persuade Colonel berban Lioveanu, the camp
director, to relax security on the perimeter fence on the day planned for the escape.
22 Parvulescu's name continued to appear with this title. However, by July 1945 Scdnteia
styled him simply as a 'member of the Central Commitee of the RCP' (H. NestorescuBalce?ti, 'Structura Conducerii Superioare a Partidului Comunist Roman', ArhiveleTotalitarianismului,2, 1994 [hereafter 'Structura Conducerii Superioare'], I-2, pp. 332-70 [334]).
668
DENNIS
DELETANT
In the first few weeks after the 23 August coup, Patra?canu overshadowed Dej as the most prominent Communist and his gradual
eclipse from his leading position illustrated perfectly how Dej exploited
Soviet suspicion of a potential rival to his own advantage. In Patras?canu's case there was an added keenness to Dej's motivation because of
his resentment and envy of his Party colleague. Born in the Moldavian
town of Bacau in I900, Patrascanu came from a middle-class background quite removed from the working-class origins of Dej. His father
was a writer and professor and he himself achieved distinction in his
academic studies, graduating in law at Bucharest University in I922
and completing a doctorate at Leipzig on the agrarian reform of
19I8-21 in Romania. He continued his studies in France, was one of five
Communists elected to the Romanian parliament in I93I although he
never took his seat because the elections were declared invalid, and
from the autumnof I933 until the springof I934 was the permanent
representative of the Romanian Communist Party to the Comintern.
On his return to Romania he worked in the propaganda section of the
Party in Ia?i. During this period he acted as defence counsel for a
number of Communists and was himself arrested six times between
I924 and 194 1, although the longest period he was held for questioning
was two months.23
The contrast between Dej and Patrascanu was highlighted even in
their treatment by the authorities. While Dej and associates such as
Apostol, Moghioros and Stoica were sentenced to long prison terms,
Patrasvcanuwas simply placed under surveillance by the Siguraniaand
his home frequently searched. This apparent leniency on the part of the
police towards Patras?canuwas to be used later by Dej to support the
accusation that he was a police informer, and after Patra?canu'sarrest
in I948 Dej instructed his interrogators to extract confessions from
Patras?canu'sfriends to this effect.24 Patrascanu's relatively gentle
treatment at the hands of the Antonescu regime was exemplified by the
fact that he was only briefly interned on two occasions during the war,
for five months in 1940, and for eight months in Targu-Jiu in I943,25
and that for the rest of the time he was confined to the family villa at the
mountain resort of Poiana Tapului where he wrote two major political
23
24
Nicolae Ceaulescu,p. 40.
In the report of the Party commission, set up in November I965 to clarify the
circumstances of Patrascanu's arrest, interrogationand execution, this accusation was
deemed to be without foundation:see 'RaportulComisieide partid, constituitain vederea
clarificariisituatiei lui Lucreliu Patra?canu',Cuvfntul,35, 1-7 SeptemberI992, p. 9. The
reportwas made public for the firsttime in September1992.
25 Patrascanu'srelease from Targu-Jiu in 1943 came as a result of the interventionof
Colonel MagistrateV. Gelep, the secretarygeneralof the Ministryof InternalAffairs,who
had been paid a largesum of moneyby PatrA?canu's
wifeto secureherhusband'srelease:see
'Raportul Comisiei de partid, constituita in vederea clarificarii situatiei lui Lucretiu
Patrascanu',Cuvfntul,36, 8-14 SeptemberI992, p. 6.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
669
studies. In December I943 he obtained permission to spend twenty

days in the capital on medical grounds and extended his stay until May
I944. This he was able to do with the help of his cousins Colonel $tefan
Stoica, who worked at the Ministry of Military Procurement, and
Colonel Octav Ulea, who was on the staff of the Marshal of the Palace.
During his stay in the capital Patra?canuwas able to meet the King as
well as opposition leaders. According to Sigurantarecords, PNtrascanu
was unable to get permission to remain in the capital after May and he
therefore went into hiding, although this did not prevent him from
continuing to negotiate on behalf of the Party with the other parties in
the National Democratic Bloc between April and August I944. Patra?canu's subsequent appointment as the only Communist minister in
the Sanatescu government, and then as Minister of Justice from
November I 944 until February 1948, enhanced his standing both

within some circles in the Party and within the country.
Coupled with Dej's resentment of Patras?canu'sgrowing public
stature was an envy of his intellectual powers. Dej, by contrast, had
little formal education and published nothing. In 1944 and 1945
Patrasocanupublished two major political studies and was the author of
several articles in Sci'nteiaon industrialization in Romania.26 Patra?canu's analytical publications on the inter-war period had already
brought him prestige among the intellectuals of the Romanian Communist Party and Dej came to fear that Patrascanu was seeking to
capitalize upon this in order to make himself the centre of a popular
movement rivalling the Dej-Bodnara? leadership of the Party.27This
attempt had become manifest in the propagation of the slogan 'Patra?canu la putere' (Patrascanu to power), which was chanted at several
Communist-organized meetings held in September and October I 944.
It has been suggested that Patras?canuwas inspired to do this by 'a
small group of genuinely revolutionary intellectuals, mostly young and
ofJewish extraction, who, like him, were already sickened by the ease
with which opportunists, politicians and intellectuals alike, were given
full rights in the Communist Party under the new leadership'.28 A
manifestation of Dej's displeasure at Patra'?canu'spopularity was
recalled by Gheorghe Pintilie who related that when a column of
supporters shouted out Patras?canu'sname at a demonstration in early
I945, Dej tugged his arm and whispered 'Bugger that Paitrascanu'.29
26
Sub trei dictaturi,1944 and Un veacdefr6mfnt6risociale, 1945.

Personal communication to author from Eduard Mezincescu, 30 December 1992.
Communism,p. 95.
Cristian Popi?teanu, 'Cazul Grupului PItra?canu (v)', Magazin Istoric, I99I, i i (hereafter 'Cazul'), pp. 40-44 (44). Silviu Brucan, a deputy editor of Scdnteiaat the time, also
recalled how Patrascanu was wont to remark to foreign diplomats at receptions that he
should have been Party leader. Reports of these remarks undoubtedly reached Dej's ears
(conversation with S. Brucan, 15 June 1994). Patrascanu's behaviour at a New Year's Eve
27
28
29
670
DENNIS
DELETANT
Yet while Patra?canu offered a reassuring face of the Party to the

population, with his neatly groomed appearance and his suit and tie,
the smoothness of his public image obscured a distrust of him which the
Russians were beginning to feel. Patra'canu had aroused the suspicion
of the Russians at the armistice negotiations in September 1944 with his
close questioning of Molotov over some of the conditions.30During that
autumn and winter he advocated collaboration with the National
Peasant Party and this probably marked him out to the Russians as
unreliable, fuelling suspicions that he was placing his own personal
interest as a potential national leader above that of Soviet policy.
Knowledge of Patra?canu's secret meetings with some of his fellow
conspirators in the 23 August coup, with a view to finding a way out of
the impasse created by King Michael's demand on 20 August I945 for
the Groza government's resignation, hardened those suspicions, as the
Party enquiry into the Patra?canu case reported in i968. Although
Patra?canulater declared under interrogationthat he had informed the
Party about these discussions with Grigore Niculescu-Buze?ti, Victor
Radulescu-Pogoneanu, Constantin Vi?oianu, and Ion MocsonyStyrcea, all confidants of the King, he admitted hiding from the Party
the proposal made to him that he should become Prime Minister.31
Their deliberations, in any case, were rendered pointless in the face of
the Russians' firm rejection of Michael's demand and his eventual
submission.32
Soviet suspicions about Patra?canucan only have been confirmed by
comments made about him by Vasile Luca in a conversation with
V. Morev, the TASS correspondent in Romania, in December 1944.
party, thrown by Ana Pauker in 1944, shows how little he had in common with some of the
Party leadership. Pitracanu left before midnight, offering his apologies to Pauker and
thanking her for the invitation. When Pauker said that his departure would not look good to
Dej, BodnAra? and others, PatrA?canu said that he preferred to see the New Year in with his
students at the Faculty of Law (interview with Tatiana Bratescu, 30 July I994). Several
years later Pauker told her son-in-law, Gheorghe Bratescu, that she had a great admiration
for Patras?canuas a person but did not agree with his anti-Soviet views, and despite Stalin's
mistakes the future lay with the Soviet Union (interview with G. Bratescu, 3OJuly I 994) .
30 On his return from the armistice negotiations in Moscow on 14 September
I944,
Patrahcanu told Corneliu Coposu, who had an office adjacent to his in the Council of
Ministers where he (Coposu) was secretary general, that an audience with Zhdanov on
ii September had depressed him and made him pessimistic about Romania's future.
Zhdanov, whom PAtra?canu had known since he served as Romanian delegate to the
Comintern, met him with the reproach: 'What are you doing here Mr [that is, not Comrade]
PAtra?canu.' 'Well, we overturned the dictatorship and brought Romania onto the side of
the Allies, and we've come to sign the armistice'. To which Zhdanov replied: 'You've done
wrong, for you've upset all our plans'. These plans were for the Soviets to capture Bucharest,
overthrow Antonescu, and to treat Romania as a conquered enemy, without the impediment
of a Romanian government to deal with ('Exilul Romanesc: Identitate ?i Con?tiinta
istorica,' Lupta, 232, 7 October i994, p. 5).
31 'Raportul Comisiei de partid, constituita in vederea clarificarii situatiei lui Lucretiu
Patraacanu', Cuvfntul,38, 22-28 September 1992, p. 6.
32 A. $erbulescu [Belu Zilber], Monarhia de Drept Dialectic, Bucharest, I99I
(hereafter
Monarhia), p. 68.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
67I
Luca is reported to have said that Patra?canu'swords 'did not always

reflect the point of view of the Communist Party'. Patras?canu,Luca
continued, 'is not even a member of the Central Committee, he entered
by chance into history, and found himself at the helm of events. He is
not a consistent Communist.'33 Dej was to play on this Soviet distrust
to block Paitrascanu's election to the Politburo at the first National
Conference of the Party which opened on I 7 October I945,34 despite
the support the Minister ofJustice received from a second rival to Dej,
Ana Pauker. While Patras?canuwas elected to the Central Committee,
he did not find a seat on the seven-member Politburo, four of whom Dej, Pauker, Luca and Georgescu - were declared secretaries.
According to Dumitru Petrescu,.the political head of the army and a
fellow member of the Central Committee (although his military position prevented this from being made public), Pauker supported
Patras?canu'sinclusion in the Politburo over the objections of Dej, and
the matter was allegedly raised by all four secretarieswith Stalin during
a visit to Moscow.35 Petrescu claimed that Stalin came down on the
side of Pauker, which would explain why, according to the I 968 report
of the Party Commission set up to look into the Patra?canu case,
Patra?canu was coopted into the Politburo inJuly I946.36
Until the return of Pauker and Luca from the Soviet Union in
mid-September I944, the leadership of the Romanian Communist
Party was composed principally of ethnic Romanians who had spent
the war years in Romania: Dej, Patras?canu,Parvulescu, Georgescu
and Apostol. Included in this group was Bodnara?, a Romanian of
Ukrainian and German parents. The predominance of this group,
however, changed with the arrival of Ana Pauker. She was flown to
Bucharest on i6 September in a Soviet military aircraft with her
daughter Tatiana and upon arrival at Pope?ti-Leordeni airfield was
33 The Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, fond OI 25, opis'
33, folio 127, file (box) 6, pp. I28-34.
I am grateful to Professor Florin Constantiniu for
drawing my attention to this note. Copies of Morev's note, dated i oJanuary 1945, were sent
in the following order: i. Stalin, 2. Molotov, 3. Malenkov, 4. Beria, 5. Vyshinskii, 6.
Dekanozov, 7. to the file. Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, a Georgian, was a close
associate of Beria who brought him to Moscow in 1938 to serve as head of INO, the foreign
intelligence department of the NKGB/NKVD. In 1940 he was appointed Soviet minister to
Berlin, and in I94I became a Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs alongside
Andrei Vyshinskii. He was arrested in July 1953 at the same time as Beria and executed
alongside him in December.
34 Communism,
p. i i 8.
35 'Declaration of Dumitru Petrescu to the Party Commission of Enquiry into the Patra?canu case, dated 2 November I967', quoted in C. Popi?teanu, 'Un epilog neasteptat:
Malenkov aproba lichidarea lui Lucretiu PatrA?canu', Magazin Istoric, I992, 3 (March),
pp. 37-39 (38).
36'Raportul
Comisiei de partid, constituita in vederea clarificarii situatiei lui Lucretiu
Patra?canu', Cuvintul,35, I-7 September I992, p. 8. The first mention of Patra!canu as a
member of the Politburo of the RCP is in Scdnteiain its edition of 24 July I946, p. I; see
'Structura Conducerii Superioare', p. 357.
672
DENNIS DELETANT
whisked away to a safe house of the Romanian Communist Party. A

day or so later she was visited by Dej. Her cover was an order from the
Political Directorate of the Red Army to join the 'Political Directorate
of the Second Ukrainian Front' in Bucharest in order to supervise the
publication of the Romanian-language Red Army newspaper Graiul
Nou.37 In reality, she was sent, according to the testimony of her
daughter Tatiana, by Georgii Dimitrov with instructions to ensure the
Party's obedience to Moscow.38
Her deputy in this task was Vasile Luca. The exact date of his return
to Romania is still unclear, although recently published testimony has
placed him in the northern Moldavian town of Boto?ani in June 1944,
when he was allegedly seen in the uniform of a Soviet officer at the time
of the Red Army's entry.39By November 1944, Luca hadjoined Pauker
and Dej to form the leading triumvirate of the Party, with the latter two
appearing to share equal prominence. However, according to Pauker's
daughter and to Pattra?canu,Ana Pauker was, in effect, General
Secretary until the RCP National Conference of October I945.40
Their evidence contradicts the account given by Silviu Brucan of
Dej's elevation to the position of General Secretary. Brucan, who at the
time was a deputy editor of Scanteiabut still a junior member of the
Party, has claimed that Stalin anointed Gheorghiu-Dej General Secretary during the latter's visit to Moscow in January 1945. Dej did,
indeed, pay a visit to Moscowfrom3I DecemberI 944 to i6 January
I945)41 the official purpose of which was for Dej, in his capacity as
Minister of Communications in the Radescu government, to discuss
economic and transport problems with Stalin. The real aim was, as
Brucan points out, to allow the Soviet leader to size up Dej for
himself.42 Dej gave Brucan an account of his meeting with Stalin, at
which Viacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Prime Minister, was also present. Stalin came straight to the point by telling Dej that he had invited
him in order to discuss the leadership of the Romanian Communist
Party. In response to Stalin's enquiry as to the most urgent question
facing the Party, Dej replied that there were two such tasks; the first, to
defeat the Germans, and the second, to revive the Romanian economy.
Stalin agreed, at which point Molotov, a close friend of Ana Pauker,
intervened to say that he had spoken to her the day before and that she
E. Mezincescu, 'Punct', Romania literara, 9, 9 I5 March, I994, p. 14. Mezincescu
effectively torpedoes assertions that Pauker was met at the airport by Dej, on which occasion
she allegedly berated him for removing Foris.
38 Author's interview with Tatiana Bratescu, 3OJuly I994.
39 M. Stoian, 'Punctul pe i', Romanialiterara,9, 9-I5 March,
I994, p. I5.
40 Author's interview with Tatiana Bratescu, 30 July 1994.
Patr4canu made the same
claim in a declaration under interrogation dated 2 November I 949 (see 'The Power
Struggle', p. 6, note i i).
41 Archive of the Romanian Information Service (ASRI), Fond D,
Dosar 7432, p. 1 72.
42
S. Brucan, The WastedGeneration,Boulder, I 993 (hereafter WastedGeneration),p. 42.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
673
had underlinedthe priorityof the militaryfront.43After reflection

StalinaddressedMolotov:'MydearViacheslavMikhailovich,Anais a
good,reliablecomrade,butyou see, she is ajewess of bourgeoisorigin,
and the partyin Romanianeedsa leaderfromthe ranksof the working
class, a true-bornRomanian.'Stalinthen cameup to Dej and held out
his hand with the words:'I have decided. I wish you every success,
comradesecretary-general'.44
If we believeBrucan'saccount,we havedifficultyin explainingwhy,
in the light of Stalin's alleged decision, the question of the Party
leadershipshouldhave come up again in a meetingbetweenMolotov
and Paukerheld in Moscowin early summerI945. Accordingto her
family,the questionwas raisedby Stalin,and Paukerruledherselfout
as leaderon the groundsthat she wasJewish, that she was a woman,
that she was an intellectualand not a worker,and that she had spent
the war years in Moscow. She herselfrecommendedDej. Molotov
expressedpleasurewith her answer,declaringher 'a cleverwoman',
although her son-in-lawsuspectedthat Paukersecretlywished that
Molotovhad shownregretat her self-effacement.45
If Paukerand Dej sharedthe publicstageas the principalfiguresin
the CommunistPartyat this time, there is no doubt that behindthe
scenesEmil Bodna1ra?
was a pivotalfigure.He was also an ambiguous
one; even now it is far fromclearwherehis ultimateloyaltieslay. He
commandedconsiderableauthorityas Moscow'smost trustedagent
and his credentialsas an NKVD officermade him the obviouschoice
for the positionof secretarygeneralto PrimeMinisterPetruGroza,to
whichhe was appointedon I 7 March 1945. On 27 AprilGrozasigned
an ordergiving Bodnara?controlof the SSI, the ForeignIntelligence
Service. Bodnara?had developed a close personal bond with Dej,
which went back to theirdays togetherin the prisonof Doftana,and
this relationshipservedDej well in offeringhis Sovietmasters,through
the personof Bodnara?,a guaranteeof his obedience,and helped to
offsetany claimthat Paukercouldadvanceof a closerelationshipwith
the Kremlin.46
43 Pauker's connection to Molotov was through her close friendship with his wife, Poliana
Zhemchuzhina, who was later arrested in I949 as part of Stalin's anti-Semitic witch-hunt
and sent into internal exile.
44 WastedGeneration,
p. 42.
45 DosarAna, p. I4I, and author's interview with Dr G. Bratescu, 30July 1994.
46 There are many questions marks over
BodnAra?'s real loyalties. Born in northern
Romania at IaslovAt on io February I904 of Ukrainian-German parentage, Bodnaira?
studied law at Ia?i university where, according to his official obituary, he first came into
contact with Marxist groups. He then joined the officers' academy in Timi?oara where he
completed his training in I927 (Analedeistorie,22, I976, i, p. I89). His obituary says nothing
about the following seven years until his arrest and sentencing in I934 to ten years hard
labour. The gap, however, has been filled from other sources: in I927 he was posted to
Craiova with the rank of lieutenant and later transferred to a barracks at Sadagura in
northern Romania only thirty kilometres from the river Dniester and the border with the
674
DENNIS DELETANT
Ostensibly,collectiveleadershipof the Partycontinuedthroughout

the periodfrom I945 until I948. At the firstpost-warNationalParty
Conferenceof October I945 no new GeneralSecretarywas namedby
Soviet Union. From there he defected to the Soviet Union. Two questions arise at this point.
Why should Bodnairas, with his Ukrainian background, be posted so close to the Soviet
frontier? Was he, perhaps, recruited by Romanian military intelligence and his defection
planned? Information from the KGB archives now offers answers to these questions. It
reveals that Bodnara? was sent into the Soviet Union in 193I as the military intelligence
officer of the I2th artillery regiment based in Sadagura. He was turned, however, by the
Soviets and was trained as an agent at a school in the town of Astrakhan' (see G. Iavorschi,
'Pentru cine a lucrat "inginerul Ceausu"?', Magazin Istoric,28, I994, 9 [hereafter 'Inginerul
Ceau?u'], pp. 8-1i9 [i8] ). Bodnaras's fluent knowledge of German allowed him to be used
on various espionage missions by the NKVD in Poland and the Baltic republics before being
sent to Bulgaria in I934. En route through Romania he was recognized at Ploiesti station,
and tried for desertion and 'Communist activity', and sentenced to I0 years imprisonment.
Other questions also arise. Why was he sent by his Soviet masters to Bulgaria by train
through Romania, with all the risks of recognition that the journey entailed, when he could
have travelled direct by boat from Odessa to Burgas? Was he sent deliberately by train in the
hope that he would be caught by the Romanians as a Soviet spy and imprisoned with the
Romanian Communists whom he could infiltrate on behalf of the NKVD? Was he, in fact, a
double agent? His mission from the Soviets may well have been to evaluate Gheorghiu-Dej,
because the latter, unlike other leading figures in the RCP, had not studied in the Soviet
Union. Sergei Nikonov, the Soviet-trained head of the SSI (the Romanian Intelligence
Service) from 1945 to I954, expressed the conviction in a conversation in I988 with Titu
Simon, a former officer in Romanian military intelligence, that Bodna'ras had been recruited
in the I920S by an officer in the SSI named Florin Becescu (cover-name Georgescu) to
penetrate the NKVD and that this was the purpose of his mission to the Soviet Union. In
I 947 information was passed to Bodnaras by the Russians that Georgescu had worked as a
double agent, for both the Romanians and the Soviets, and Bodnara? gave orders for his
liquidation, before Nikonov could investigate the charges. The reason for Bodnaras's haste,
Nikonov believed, was to prevent the emergence of any details of his recruitment by Becescu
(T. Simon, Pacepa: Quo Vadis?,Bucharest, I992, pp. 77-78). Simon's account of Bodnara?'s
hand in Becescu's death is corroborated by Traian Borcescu, head of the counterintelligence section of the SSI between I 94 I and I 944. Becescujoined the Communist Party
after 23 August I944 and was appointed head of counter-intelligence in the SSI (he had held
this post until I941). However, he released information about Ana Pauker's private life as a
young woman and lost the confidence of Bodnaras. It was for this indiscretion that
Bodnaras, according to Borcescu, ordered Becescu's removal. While travelling to attend a
meeting in Sinaia on the orders of Bodnaras, Becescu's car was ambushed and he was shot
dead by Communist agents (author's interview with Traian Borcescu, 8 March 1995).
Bodnaras served his sentence at Doftana, Aiud, Galati and Brasov according to the official
obituary. He was also held at Caransebe? jail, for he was seen there as a prisoner by fellow
inmate Mircea Opri?an in I 942 (letter to the author from M. Opri?an, 29 August I 994). In
Doftana he formed a close friendship with Gheorghiu-Dej and became a member of the
Communist Party. He was released from prison on 7 November I 942 at the suggestion of the
SSI (the Romanian Intelligence Service) and was settled in the town of Braila near the
mouth of the Danube in order to act as a channel for peace-feelers with the Soviet authorities
following the defeat at Stalingrad. Using the cover of a commercial representative for a small
company based in Braila and the name of 'engineer Ceau?u', Bodnara? travelled freely,
albeit under the surveillance of the Siguranla,and he was a frequent visitor to Bucharest and
to Targu-Jiu where, by suborning Colonel $erban Lioveanu, the commandant of the
internment camp, he was able to consult Gheorghiu-Dej on several occasions. Drawing on
secret Communist Party funds, Bodnaras bought weapons from German soldiers based in
Romania in order to arm Communist detachments which he formed in Bucharest in the
early summer of 1944. This activity did not escape the attention of the Gestapo who
requested his arrest but Colonel Traian Borcescu, the head of counter-intelligence in the
SSI, resisted on the grounds that Bodnaras 'could be of use in Romania's exit from the war'
(see 'Inginerul Ceausu', p. I9).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ'S
STRUGGLE
675
Scanteiaand four of the seven-memberPolitburo,namelyGheorghiuDej, Pauker,Luca and TeohariGeorgescu,weredeclaredsecretaries.

Gheorghiu-Dejpresentedthe politicalreportto the Conference,while
Paukergave the reporton the Partystatutes,and the precedencegiven
to these two in the Partynewspaper,with Dej'sname beinglistedfirst
in alphabeticalorder, was maintainedfor the next three years.47
Gheorghiu-Dejwas appointed 'political'secretary(in other words,
General Secretary)by the secretariat,48although a record of this
meeting has only recently entered the public domain.49 Dej's public
role had been enhanced by his inclusion in November I94 in the
second San'atescugovernment as Minister of Transport and Communications, and was consolidated in the Groza government of March
I 945 when this portfolio was enlarged to include public works.Joining
fellow Communists Dej and Patras?canuin the government was Georgescu, who was promoted from Under Secretaryto head the Ministry of
the Interior. In November I 946 Dej took over as Minister of National
Economy (a ministry re-named the following year as Industry and
Trade) and in this capacity he ensured that Romania's economic
obligations under the armistice agreement were met, whilst at the same
time taking stock of the national resources and wealth in preparation
for nationalization. This particular ministerial responsibility required
several visits to Moscow which Dej doubtless used to impress upon the
Soviet leadership his obedience.
Pauker's grand leap into the public arena came on 7 November I 947
when she was appointed Foreign Minister. She was joined by Vasile
Luca, who was named Minister of Finance on the same day. Ana's
leading position within the Party was translated into a senior position
of state, one which was guaranteed to bring her the greatest international exposure, albeit of a notorious kind.50With the establishment
of the People's Republic on 30 December the foundations of the
totalitarian state could be put in place. The first step was to cement
Romania into the Soviet bloc from a military point of view and a
top-level delegation led by Prime Minister Groza, Dej and Pauker left
for Moscow on 4 February I948. There they signed a Treaty of
p. 44.
CeauXescu,
ANicolae
Communism,p. i 88.
49 'The Power Struggle', p. 2.
50 Characteristic of the sensationalistic and cruel depictions of Pauker in the Western media
was a lengthy article in Time(20 September 1948) where she was described thus: 'Now she is
fat and ugly; but once she was slim and (her friends remember) beautiful. Once she was
warmhearted, shy and full of pity for the oppressed, of whom she was one. Now she is cold as
the frozen Danube, bold as a boyar on his rich land and pitiless as a scythe in the Moldavian
grain'. InJune I952, on the occasion of Pauker's purge, Timerepeated its barbs: 'One sunny
day in Bucharest, as the story goes, a friend stopped Ana Pauker in the street and asked:
"Ana, why are you carrying an umbrella? It's not raining. Replied Romania's no. I
Communist: "It's raining in Moscow. I heard it on the radio".'
47
48
676
DENNIS
DELETANT
Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. The photograph of

the delegation's departure from Moscow on i i February, however,
published in Scanteia,indicated the Soviet view of precedence in the
RCP, even if the caption beneath it, entered in Bucharest, did not
reflect this. The line-up for the photograph, dictated by the Soviet
authorities, showed Groza, Molotov, Dej and Vishinsky in the front
row. Pauker and Luca were relegated to the second row. Dej, second
only to Prime Minister Groza in the Romanian delegation in the
photograph, was identified as head of the RCP. However, because of
her position on the far left of the photograph, Pauker was listed in the
caption first, followed by Groza, Luca, Molotov, Dej and the others.51
Stalin's preference for Dej was confirmed at the First Congress of the
new Romanian Workers' Party (RWP), formed from the union of the
RCP and the Social Democratic Party, and held on 2I-23 February.
Dej was elected General Secretary while Pauker and Luca were
appointed to the Party secretariat and the Politburo. Dej's elevation to
a position of primus interpares in the Party was complemented by the
final eclipse of his earlier rival Patr,ascanu. Although the latter had
been pictured in Scanteiaonly ten days earlier greeting the Romanian
delegation upon its return from Moscow, he was suddenly accused in a
speech given at the congress by Teohari Georgescu, Minister of the
Interior, on 22 February of 'becoming an exponent of bourgeois
ideology' and of 'over-estimating the forces of the class-enemy,
potentially helped by the Western imperialist powers'.52 Patra?canu
was not elected to any of the RWP bodies and shortly afterwardshe was
dismissed from the Ministry of Justice. The final sanction upon him
came after a few weeks when he was banned from giving his lectures at
the Bucharest law faculty.53
Patrascanu's downfall cannot be attributed solely to Dej. While it is
clear that Dej disliked Patras?canu,and that his behaviour had angered
other senior Party members,54the available evidence points to Moscow
p. 46.
51'Nicolae CeauXescu,
52
Communism,p. 152.
Pressure was brought to bear on George Fotino, a private secretary to Georgescu, to
'unmask' PatrA?canu in front of the students, but Fotino alerted Patra?canu to this and as he
entered the classroom the first words of his lecture were already on his lips, thereby denying
Fotino the opportunity to denounce him (interview with G. Fotino, 9 April I 994).
54 Most importantly,
Bodnara?. In a memorandum addressed to Nicolae Ceauaescu,
secretary general of the Communist Party, at the time when the latter had ordered an
enquiry into the abuses committed by the securitate(I967-68),
Anton Ratiu, a former
commander of the 'Patriotic Guards', claimed to have been present at a discussion at the
beginning of November between Bodnaras and Vania Didenko, an agent of the NKVD in
Romania who had been released after 23 August I944. Bodnaras commented on the fact
that, at a meeting on 7 November I944 in the 'ANEF' stadium in Bucharest, the slogan
'Patrascanu as Prime Minister' had been chanted. Bodnaras remarked: 'That man is getting
too big for his boots. We've got to get something on him! Pantiusha, Serghei, Vania and
Misha should tail him!' (State Archives, Bucharest, Archive of the Central Committee of the
Romanian Communist Party, fond 95, file 122.420, p. 4. I am grateful to Claudiu Secasiu for
53
GHEORGHIU-DEJ'
S STRUGGLE
677
as the source of the order for his demise. A catalogue of 'errors' had
been committed, in Soviet eyes, by Patra?canu since the coup of
23 August. Soviet distrust of Patra?canuhad been fuelled in particular
by his rash display of patriotism in a speech delivered in Cluj on I 3June
I945 in which he announced the establishment of a People's Tribunal
there for the trial of war criminals. Taking a line which contrasted
sharply with the conciliatory approach of Groza, Patra?canu
denounced 'chauvinist elements' who were, he said, conducting a
whispering campaign designed to convince the Hungarian population
of Northern Transylvania that the return of this province to Romania
was not final. After paying tribute to the Red Army's part in the
liberation of this region, he appealed to the Hungarian population to
accept the idea of a single Romanian state and of its national symbols.
The appearance of the Soviet flag side by side with the Romanian had
been hailed with enthusiasm, he said, but the juxtaposition of Soviet
and Hungarian colours had not always been made in good faith and at
times it was intended as an incitement to chauvinism and Fascism. The
official language of the whole country was Romanian and in all
branches of the administration, including justice, the Romanian
language alone was valid. In conclusion Patrascanu stated that he was
not prepared to consider as reactionary the opposition of a 'small part'
of the Romanian population to the Groza government as this was
largely because of ignorance.55
Patras?canu'scomments had provoked an animated debate within
the Communist Party leadership and the speech was released for
publication in the face of strong opposition from Luca and Moghioros,
both Hungarians, and Chi?inevski. One year later almost to the day,
Patra`?canureturned to Cluj in the wake of clashes between Hungarian
and Romanian students in the city over the proposals in the Paris Peace
Treaty to ratify the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania.
Speaking in the name of the government and the RCP Central Committee, Patra`canu claimed that the tension in Northern Transylvania
had been fuelled by Hungarians from the region who had left Romania
before August I 940, the time of its award to Hungary, and had returned
during the Hungarian occupation. Measures would be taken, he said,
this information.See also his unpublishedpaper'The IntelligenceServiceof the Romanian
Communist Party', presentedat the InternationalSymposiumentitled '6 March I945 The PetruGrozaGovernmentand the Communizationof Romania',Bucharest,3-5 March
I995, pp. I-IO [5].) The fourmen designatedby Bodnara?werePintilieBondarenko,known
as Pantiusha (he later called himself Gheorghe Pintilie), Sergei Nikonov, Ivan/Vania
Didenko (known later as Ioan Vidrascu) and Misha Postanskii (later Vasile Posteuca).
They were amongsta groupof about fortyNKVD agents who had been sent to Romaniain
the inter-warperiodand captured.
55 Despatch from I. Le Rougetel, BritishPoliticalRepresentativein Bucharest,to Foreign
Office, 22June I945, Public RecordOffice,FO 37I/48645/ XC 5498.
678
DENNIS
DELETANT
against Hungarians and Romanians alike who stirred up hatred and

tried to disturb the peace in Transylvania.56
Although well received by pro-government and opposition newspapers, this speech had attracted the wrath of Dej who, in an address to
the Central Committee on 'the position of the RCP regarding chauvinist and revisionist trends' delivered on 7 July I946, criticized Patra?canu for allegedly not mentioning the role of the National Peasant and
National Liberal parties in fomenting hatred amongst the Romanians
of the Hungarian minority.57 Yet in the back of Dej's mind was the
forthcoming Peace Conference in Paris where charges of fomenting
ethnic tension were the last thing Romania needed if her possession of
Northern Transylvania was to be confirmed. Indeed, Patras?canu's
presence at the Conference in Paris was later exploited by his interrogators to bring accusations of attempting to foment a split in the RCP
and of assisting Foreign Minister Constantin Vi?oianu's flight to the
United States.58
'Chauvinism', a cardinal sin in Stalin's catechism of the late I940S,
was served up in I948 as a euphemism for the alleged anti-Russian
postures of Tito in Yugoslavia, Kostov in Bulgaria, Gomulka in
Poland, and Rajk in Hungary. In Patra4canu'scase it had been used by
Dej in I 946 to refer to the latter's anti-Hungarian attitude. Dej had not
been alone in the Party in his anger at Patra?canu's intemperate
pronouncements: Pauker, Luca, Ranghet and other senior Central
Committee members such as IosifChi?inevski, the Propaganda Secretary, and Miron Constantinescu, had all expressed criticism at Party
gatherings over the summer and autumn of I946 of Patra?canu's
56 Roumania:Annual Review
for I946, Mr A. Holman to Prime Minister Attlee, I2 March
1947, PRO, FO 37I/67233/I
I4052. A text of Pa.tras,canu'sspeech was printed in Scinteiaon
I4June I946. Among the declarations made by Patras,canu during his interrogation by the
securitateand written up by Lieutenant Major Simion Siegler on 7 January I952 was an

'admission' that 'he concealed a part of his Cluj speech from the Central Commitee because
he feared that he would not receive the party's permission to use it since it addressed the
problem of Northern Transylvania'. It is not clear to which of the two Cluj speeches, that in
June 1945 or that in June I946, Siegler is referring. Patrascanu is also alleged to have
recognized that 'his nationalist deviations and manifestions placed him in the position of a
traitor, exacerbating the conflict between Hungarians and Romanians in his Cluj speeches
ofJune I 945 andJuly (sic!) 1946' ('Cazul', p. 41).
57 Communism,
p. I 54 and Scdnteia8July 1946, p. 3.
58 In a declaration signed whilst under interrogation on i i June 195 I
PatrA?canu stated
that before his departure for Paris at the end ofJuly 1946 Visoianu had sought an audience
with him at the Ministry of Justice and passed on to him an invitation from Brigadier
General Cortland Van Rensselaer Schuyler, the American military representative on the
Allied Control Commission, to go to the United States 'on whatever terms he wanted'.
Patrascanu adamantly turned down the invitation. Because he had failed to divulge this
invitation to the Party, Patrascanu 'admitted' his complicity in Vi?oianu's defection
(Vi?oianu left Romania secretly in an American aircraft in October 1946 and settled in the
United States). Patrascanu also admitted to having had a conversation with Richard
Franasovici, a member of the Romanian delegation in Paris, who proposed to him that he set
up a breakaway Communist Party, and that he had failed to disclose this to the Party
('Cazul', pp. 40-41).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
679
'self-importance'and his failure to follow an agreed Party line,

althoughthis had not led to any sanctionagainsthim.59
vulnerabilityhad been increasedby the arrestin July
PaItra?canu's
I947 of lulin Maniu, leader of the National Peasant Party. The
unsuccessfulattempt by Maniu's deputy Ion Mihalacheto flee the
countryat this time gave the Grozagovernmenta huge propaganda
coup. On I4 July Mihalache and several prominentfigures in the
Peasant Party were arrestedas they were about to leave for Turkey
fromTamadauairfield,forty-sixkilometresfromBucharest.60A few
days later Maniu was detainedand the whole leadershipof the Party
was put on trial on 30 Octoberfor plottingagainstthe securityof the
state. Maniu and Mihalachewere both sentencedto hard labourfor
life, commutedto life imprisonment.61
The arrest of Maniu and his associatesin the National Peasant
Party, among them Victor Radulescu-Pogoneanu,
greatly unnerved
Patra`canu. Fearful that Radulescu-Pogoneanumight reveal their
secretmeetingsin AugustandSeptemberI945overtheKing'sdemand
for the Groza government'sresignation,and that the Soviets might
order his own arrest, Patrascanudecided to flee the country. He
instructeda trustedassistant,NicolaeBetea,to finda pilotwho would
fly themto IstanbulandBeteawas putin touchwitha captainZaharia.
Unfortunately,Zahariawas also an SSI informer.When Betea told
Patra"canuthe pilot'sname, the latterrecognizedit and realizedthat
his plans were compromised.62
headof the SSI, passedthis
Bodnaira?,
informationon to both Dej and Paukerand the latterallegedlyasked
Bodnara?forproof.
The expulsionfrom the Party of Herbert (Belu) Zilber in March
I947 for not followingthe 'Party line' and on suspicionof being an
'Anglo-Americanspy' had provideda clear warningto Patra?canu.
Zilber was a close friendwho had secondedPattrascanu
in the talks
59 Author's interview with E. Mezincescu, 30 December
1992.
60
Declarations made to the security police by those involved in the escape attempt are
published in CarteaAlbd a Securitdtii,vol. i, Anexa, Manifestatia de la 8 Noiembrie I945.
Capcana de la Tamadau, I4 lulie 1947, Bucharest: SRI, I995, pp. 51-92.
61 According to Ion Pacepa, in the winter of I 947 Pintilie informed Petr Vasilevich Fedotov,
the new head of the foreign intelligence service of the KI, the Committee of Information
(formed from the merger of INU and GRU [Soviet Military Intelligence] in the autumn of
that year), that PAtra?canu was sabotaging 'Romania's march towards Communism' and
furnished proof that the Minister ofJustice was using his position to protect opposition party
leaders (Moltenirea Kremlinului, Bucharest, p. io8). It would go against the pattern of
relations between local security heads and their Soviet advisors for the former to have had a
direct channel of communication with the head of a Soviet intelligence body in Moscow.
62 Monarhia,p. 69. These details were confirmed by George Fotino in an interview with the
author on 9 April I 994. However, the Party Commission of Enquiry set up to examine the
Patrascanu affair concluded that 'Patrascanu did not intend to leave the country permanently, even though he had many opportunities to do so' ('Raportul Comisiei de partid,
constituita in vederea clarificarii situaliei lui Lucretiu Patrascanu', Cuvfntul, 43,
27 October-2 November 1992, p. 6).
68o
DENNIS
DELETANT
conducted with the opposition parties to plan the 23 August coup.

Abandoned now by his own friends and colleagues Zilber was driven to
pen a letter to Ana Pauker in November I 947 requesting his own arrest
and interrogation so that his innocence could be established. His
request was granted, for on 6 February 1948 he was arrestedby otder of
the Central Committee.63
Patra?canu's downfall may well have been sealed by plans to
establish a Balkan federation embracing Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and
Romania, and Stalin's reaction to them. On 17 January I 948 Georgi
Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Communist leader, had signalled the creation
of a Balkan federation in a statement made in Bucharest. Both Dej and
Pauker were careful to refrain from backing it, especially in view of
Tito's visit one month earlier to the Romanian capital for the signing of
a Yugoslav-Romanian Treaty. Dimitrov was forced to retract his
statement following a violent attack on him in Pravdaon 28 January,
and on io February he was summoned to Moscow by Stalin who
instructed him to cease all talk about a federation;his death in Moscow
shortly afterwards ensured just that. At the same time Stalin is said to
have told Ana Pauker, during the visit of the top-level Romanian
delegation, to distance Romania from Tito; on I 2 February the
Romanian government ordered that all pictures of Marshal Tito be
removed from shop windows. A further instruction then followed from
Moscow: 'chauvinistic' elements were to be purged from the Party.64
Patra?canu was the obvious victim. He had, moreover, been
amongst those who had received Tito in the previous December and
could easily be implicated in charges of a pro-Tito conspiracy. Failure
to act promptly might invite a charge of 'chauvinism', this time with an
anti-Russian meaning, against other Party leaders. Teohari Georgescu, as Minister of the Interior, was called upon by Dej to make the
public denunciation of Patracanu on 23 February. Georgescu named
Patrawcanuas one of those who had become 'exponents of bourgeois
ideology in various respects, were breaking away from the masses, and
were distancing themselves completely from the ideology and principles of the party of the working class'.65 Four months passed before
the charges were made more explicit. In a resolution of the Central
Committee plenary meeting of I 0- i I June it was alleged that
severalweeksbeforeMarch1945Patras,canu,
in completecontradictionto
the party line, resuscitatedthe slogan of collaboration'with the whole
bourgeoisieor with an importantpartof it'. In I 946 he defendedthe thesis
63
Monarhia,p. 46.
G. Hodos, Show Trials. Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, I948-I954, New York, I987
(hereafter Show Trials), p. 96.
65
CongresulPartidului MuncitorescRoma^n.Bucuresti,2I-23 februarie I948, Bucharest, I948,
64
p. I56.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
68i
of an alliancewith the 'whole'peasantry,thereforealsowith the exploiting

elementshostile to the workingpeasantry... In his practicalactivityhe
followedthe policy of appeasementtowardsthe exponentsof bourgeoislandlordreactionwhen the Partywas fullyengagedin the struggleagainst
reaction.He followedthe line of nationalist-chauvinist
policy.66
Indications that a Soviet hand was behind these accusations was the
claim that Patras?canuwanted to work with 'the whole peasantry,
including the exploiting elements hostile to the working peasantry'.
This charge echoed one made at the same time by the Soviet Communist Party against the Yugoslav one, namely that the Yugoslav
Communist Party failed to distinguish between kulaks and other
peasants and that it had ceded the leading role in the country's affairsto
the Yugoslav People's Front composed of 'kulaks, merchants, small
manufacturers, bourgeois intelligentsia, various political groups,
including some bourgeois parties'.67 The link between the charges
and the Soviet-Yugoslav crisis became clearer two
against Pattras?canu
weeks later when the Yugoslav Communist Party sent a letter on
20June announcing its decision not to attend the Cominform Conference, due to be held at the end of the month in Bucharest. In retaliation,
the Cominform expelled the Yugoslav Communist Party, making its
decision public on 28 June, and moved its headquarters from Belgrade
to the Romanian capital.
The chronology of the steps taken against Patras?canushows Dej's
need to follow a scenario whose script was prepared by Stalin or Beria,
or both. The interval between Georgescu's attack on 23 February,
Patras?canu'sdetention on 28 April, the explicit charges on i oJune, and
the fact that he was only formally arrested two months later on
24 August, indicates that there was some hesitation as to how to
proceed against him. The delay can probably be attributed to two
things: Patra?canu's stubborn refusal to subscribe to all the charges
against him, and Dej's need to await furtherinstructions from Moscow
which were slow in coming.
The five-month interval between Patras?canu'sarrest in August I 948
and his police, as opposed to Party, interrogation in January I949
probably resulted from Moscow's wish to coordinate his purge with the
purges of Titoist heretics in other satellite states, which culminated in
the trials and executions of Laszlo Rajk in Hungary and Traicho
Kostov in Bulgaria in September and December I949 respectively. In
testimony given on i i May I967 before the Committee of Enquiry set
66
Scdnteia,21 June 1948, p. I. These charges are analysed by Ghita Ionescu in Communism,
pp. 152-54.
67 'Letter
from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 4 May I948' in The SovietYugoslavDispute, London, 1948, pp. 1-79 (45) .
682
DENNIS
DELETANT
up by the Party'sCentralCommitteeto preparethe rehabilitationof

Patra?canu,Fori?and others,GheorghePintilieclaimedthat he had
been ordered(he did not say by whom)in I949 to contactthreeSoviet
counsellorsbasedin Bucharestoverthe Patra?canucase. Pintiliecould
only recall the names of two of them, AleksandrMikhailovichSakharovskii,and Patriki.Fromthe latterPintilielearnedthatall threehad
been involvedin preparationsfor the trial of Rajk.ThroughoutI949
both Patrawcanu
and his wifewereinterrogatedat lengthin the DGSP
(securitate)headquarterson Calea Plevnei,and duringthis periodthe
interrogationwas guided by the Soviet counsellorsin an unofficial
capacity. They were assisted by a second secretaryfrom the Soviet
Embassywho communicatedinformationabout the progressof the
interrogation to Moscow. Later in the year, Sakharovskiiwas
appointedchiefMGB adviserto the Ministryof the Interiorwhile the
other two counsellorsreturnedto Moscow.68Dej, Paukerand Chi?inevskiwere kept informedby Sakharovskiiabout the Pattra?canu
case, and occasionallyPintiliewas summonedto Dej'shometo discuss
it with him and Chi?inevski.69
Severalstages can be establishedin the evolutionof Patra?canu's
interrogationand that of his friends.In March I948 the SSI arrested
NicolaeBetea,AntonRatiu,ConstantinPavelandRemusMic?a,all of
whom werefriendsof Patra4canuwith posts in publicinstitutions.In
the following month Patra?canuand his wife were detained and
questioned by members of the Party Central Committee.In June
Betea, Ratiu and Pavel were handed over to the securitate.Between
Januaryand October I 949 Patra?canuand his wifewereinterrogated
by the securitate.In OctoberI 949 the SSI tookoverthe interrogationof
Patraw?canu
and twenty-fiveotherpersonswhichlasteduntilMay I950.
On 24January-I950 thirty-sixotherpersons,led by Alexandru$tef'anescu, wereexaminedby the securitate.Then, in FebruaryI 95 I another
stageof the enquirybegan,with the interrogationby thesecuritate
of the
groups associatedwith Patrawcanu,
$tefanescuand Remus Kofler,a
veteranPartycolleagueof Fori?,and attemptsto linkthemin a grand
plot against the regime.70
FromdetailsgivenbyAlexandruDraghicito his friendandcolleague

EduardMezincescu,it emergesthat it was only on 28 April I948 that
Patrawcanu
was summonedby Dej to the Partyheadquarters,that is,
68
The MGB (Soviet Ministry of State Security) I 946-54 was the successor to the NKGB
(People's Commissariat of State Security), I94I and I943-46. The NKVD (People's
Commissariat for Internal Affairs), I922-46, incorporated the OGPU (Soviet Security
service) between 1922-23
and I934-43.
In I946 the NKVD became the MVD (Soviet
Ministry of Internal Affairs).
69 'Cazul', p. 43.
70 C.
Popi?teanu, 'Cazul.Grupului Pitra?canu (III)', MagazinIstoric, 199I, 9, pp. 48-52 (48).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ'S
STRUGGLE
683
two months after his denunciation at the Party congress.7' This lapse in
time was probably due to a delay in receiving furtherinstructions from
Stalin as to how to proceed with 'national chauvinists'. Patra?canuwas
told by Dej in Draghici's presence that he would have to appear before
a Party commission charged with investigating his activity during the
He was
period in which the Party was outlawed (namely, 1924-44).
escorted by Dej from the headquarters to a secret house for interrogation at Baneasa belonging to the political and administrative section of
the Central Committee, where a commission composed of Teohari
Georgescu, the Minister of the Interior, losif Ranghet, deputy member
of the Politburo and secretary responsible for the Party cadres and
counter-espionage in the Party, and Alexandru Draghici, head of the
political and administrative section, awaited him.
The commission began its enquiries by asking Patras?canuabout his
alleged intention to flee the country, an intention which the former
Minister of Justice resolutely denied. For several weeks its members
sought to get Patrascanu to admit to plotting against the Party
leadership, but its effortswere frustratedbecause Georgescu himself, or
so Draghici suspected, had advised Patrascanu to keep his mouth
shut.72 It appears that Patra?canu was not at this time technically
under arrest, an indication, perhaps, that Dej was waiting for further
signals from Moscow.
The failure of the commission's investigations 'along Party lines', as
the Partyjargon put it, to get the former Minister ofJustice to admit to
any 'mistakes' necessitated the adoption of more coercive measures. A
warrant for Patras?canu'sarrest was issued on 24 August 1948,just nine
days after Gheorghe Pintilie's appointment as Director of the newly
established General Directorate of People's Security. Patras?canuwas
accused of being a police informer and an agent of British espionage
who 'carried out a criminal activity to paralyse the actions of the
Romanian Communist Party and to destroy the Party from within,
thereby contributing to the cause, maintenance and continuation of the
war against the USSR'.73 Orders were given to take him tojilava jail.
However, Eduard Mezincescu maintains that after the issue of the
warrant Patra`?canuwas driven the few kilometres from the house in
Baneasa to his villa by Lake Snagov some thirty-five kilometres to the
north of Bucharest, where he rejoined his wife Elena. Both were held in
71 The Report of the Party Commission on the Patrascanu case stated that he was detained
on this date on the basis of 'an instruction given by Dej', 'Raportul Comisiei de partid,
constituita in vederea clarificarii situatiei lui Lucretiu Patrascanu', Cuvfntul, 35, 1-7
September 1992, p. 8.
72 E. Mezincescu, 'Detentie fara mandat de arestare', Magazin Istoric, 1992,
6 (hereafter
'Detentie'), pp. 57-58 (57).
73 C. Popisteanu, 'Cazul Grupului Lucretiu
Pitri?canu', Magazin Istoric, 199 I, 7, pp. 62-66
(62).
684
DENNIS
DELETANT
confinementthereunderarmedguardforthe followingfive months.74

On Ig January I 949, the next stage in their ordeal began.
On that date they were visited by Gheorghe Pintilie, Colonel Valerian Bucikov, an MGB adviser to the Sixth Directorate, responsible for
Dej's bodyguard,75 and losif Ranghet who brought them to the
DGSP's headquarters on Calea Rahovei in Bucharest where they were
placed in separate cells in the basement.76They were not to see each
other again. Their interrogation followed Beria's blueprint for the
purges of 'Titoist heretics' which were being prepared in Hungary,
Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. Synchronization with these trials
required that charges that Patracanu was a traitor and police informer
be proved, and that he was not working alone, but as the head of a
group of conspirators with links to Tito and the 'western imperialists'.
To give the semblance of a plot, Remus Kofler, a long-standing friend
of the murdered General Secretary $tefan Foris, was arrested several
months later, on I 3 December I949. Under torture a 'confession' was
extracted from Kofler admitting that he and Fori? had been 'agents of
the bourgeois-landowning Fascist police', and that in I94I they had
recruited Paitra?canu.The latter, it was alleged, had given information
to the police which had led to the arrest of a number of Communists,
including Teohari Georgescu.77
The links to Tito and the imperialists were provided by the inclusion
in the 'plot' of several representatives of Yugoslav minority organizations in Romania and of a number of Patra?canu's friends, among
them Herbert (Belu) Zilber, the veteran Communist expelled from the
Party, as already noted, in March 1947 for alleged 'transgressions' in
the inter-war period and arrested on 6 February I 948; Ion MocsonyiStyrcea, former Marshal of the Royal Court;78Alexandru $tefanescu,
74
'Detentie', p. 58.
75 Bucicov also supervised the search of Ana Pauker's house after her arrest (author's
interview with Tatiana Br'atescu, 30July I 994).
76
7
E. Mezincescu, 'Ecouri la "Cazul" P'tra?canu', MagazinIstoric,I992, 7, pp. 33-37
ShowTrials,p. 99.
(n).
78 Baron Ion de Mocsonyi-Styrcea was born at Cerniuti on i6 May I909. He graduated

from Cambridge with a degree in modern languages in I932 and joined the Romanian
Foreign Ministry two years later. Between i April and ii August I942 he was private
secretary to King Michael and head of the royal chancery, and from the latter date until
I April I944 served as acting Marshal of the Royal Court. On 23 August I944 he was made
Marshal of the Court, a position from which he resigned on 4 November I944 for health
reasons, but he remained on the roll of the Foreign Ministry until the purge of nonCommunist employees on 6 March 1946. He was arrested on his estate at Bulci in the Banat
on 6 September I947 and forced to become a prosecution witness in the trial of Maniu and
others in which he was a co-defendant (29 October-u I November I947). Sentenced to two
years' imprisonment for concealing the so-called Maniu 'plot' to overthrow the regime, he
served his time in Craiova jail from I2 December I947 until 22 October I949. He was
charged a month after his release with being 'a wartime profiteer' because of his ownership of
large estates in the Banat, and although acquitted before a tribunal in Timi?oara, continued
to be held in custody, first in Timi?oara jail (23 November I949-25 September 1950), and
then at Casa verde, a former royal hunting lodge ten kilometres from the city (25 September
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
685
an industrialist;Jac Berman and Emil Calmanovici, both construction

engineers; Victoria Sirbu; Harry Brauner, a musician and former
director of the Institute of Folklore;Herant Torosian, a Romanian-born
Armenian businessman who had served as consul in Paris;79and Lena
Constante, an icon painter.80The Yugoslav officials were portrayed as
agents of Tito, while Patra'?canuand his friends were alleged to have set
up a spy network under orders from the British and American intelligence services.
These allegations against Patra?canu mirrored the charges against

Laszlo Rajk. Rajk had served in the Spanish Civil War as a Communist
'volunteer' and was interned in the south of France when it ended. He
was released from internment in I94I with the help of Noel Haviland
Field, an American NKVD agent working as a relief worker, and
returned to Hungary; but Field's subsequent eccentricbehaviour, which
included contact with Allen Dulles, head of the Office of Strategic
Services (the forerunner of the CIA) in Switzerland, aroused Soviet
suspicions about his motives in helping with Rajk's release. In the
summer of 1948 Matyas Rakosi, the Hungarian Party First Secretary,
was summoned to Moscow to be informed that Rajk, his Minister of the
Interior, was an American agent infiltrated into the leadership of the
Hungarian Party. General Fedor Belkin, chief Soviet adviser of the
MGB for South-East Europe, sent two generals, Likhachev and
Makarov, to Budapest, to supervise preparations for Rajk's arrest and
show trial. Some thirtyother MGB officersjoinedthem later. On 30 May
1949 Rajk was arrested and his interrogation overseen by Belkin.81 His
trial, which opened on i6 September, implicated Patra?canu. Lazar
1950-i6 May 1951). On I6 May I 95I he was taken, first to Timi?oara securitateheadquarters
for interrogation in connection with the Patra?canu 'plot', and afterwards to the Ministry of
the Interior in Bucharest where he remained until i8 March I952. He was then transferred
to the SSI's interrogation centre at Malmaison on Calea Plevnei in Bucharest where he was
held until the trial of PAtrA?canuon 6 April I 954 in which he was also a defendant. He was
sentenced on I4 April to fifteen years' hard labour which he executed in a succession ofjails:
Aiud (8 April J954-15 February 1955); Jilava prison (I5 February-4April 1955); Aiud
(4 April 1955-13 August 1956);Jilava (I3 August 1956-20JUly
I957); and Pite?ti (20July
195 7-I June 1959). On i June 1959, he was transferred,togetherwith other prisonersfrom
the Patrascanu trial, to Dej prison. On i8 October I96I he was brought to Malmaison and
was offered a deal by Draghici: that he should write his eye-witness account of the 23 August
coup as a condition for his release from prison into house arrest. Styrcea accepted and on
completion of his text, which he was forced to re-write several times, he was sent to the town
of Campulung-Muscel on 28 November I 962 to which he was confined until he was allowed
to leave Romania on 4 September I964. He settled in Switzerland (letter from MocsonyiStyrcea to the author, 4 August I984).
79 Torosian was caught trying to leave Romania secretly in March I948 in order to rejoin
his wife in Paris who was ill. He was sentenced to five years in jail.
80 Constante has given an account of her ordeal in her book TheSilentEscape, Berkeley and
Los Angeles, 1995.
81 C. Andrew and 0. Gordievsky, KGB. TheInsideStoryof its ForeignOperations
from Leninto
Gorbachev,
London, 199 1, pp. 413-I 5.
686
DENNIS
DELETANT
Brankov, one of Rajk's co-defendants, alleged that Patra?canusupported Tito's plans to create a Balkan federation of 'bourgeois democratic
states' which would include Romania.82
Shortly afterwards, in October I949, Patra?canu and his wife were
handed over to the SSI for questioning on the personal order of Dej
acting on instructions from Sakharovskii. Lieutenant General Sergei
Nikonov (Sergiu Nicolau), head of the SSI, explained that the reason
for this was to establish his connection with foreign espionage agencies
through the intermediary of Lena Constante.83 Petre (Petr) Gonceariuc, the head of the Counterespionage Directorate of the SSI, 'was
charged with Patras?canu'sinterrogation. In a deposition made on
3July I967 to the Committee of Enquiry set up by the Party's Central
Committee to prepare the rehabilitation of Patras?canu,Fori? and
others, Gonceariuc declared that in 1950 he had received verbal orders
from Nikonov/Nicolau, the SSI head, to interrogate the Patra?canus
and that they were brought to him at the headquarters of the SSI
Second Directorate on Maxim Gorki street from a villa near Baneasa
airport by Colonel Valerian Bucikov. Nikonov/Nicolau gave Gonceariuc a list of questions which needed clarification in the course of the
interrogation and these included the following: which of the enemy
intelligence agencies had recruited Patras?canuas an agent?; what
undertakings had Patra?canugiven to a Siguranfachief upon his release
from prison?;how did he prepare his own flight and that of Anton and
Betty Ratiu?; what links did he and his wife Eva have with foreigners?
When Gonceariuc was transferredto the DGSP, following its gradual
absorption of the SSI during the final months of I 950, he passed on the
Patra"?canudossier, on Pintilie's orders, to Lieutenant Colonel Joan
$oltutiu.84
The specific espionage agency for which Patra?canuwas accused of

working was British intelligence, and the links with it were allegedly
provided by Harry Brauner, Lena Constante, Kofler, and $tefanescu.
The contacts which they had with British officials on the Allied Control
Commission were now adduced as proof of Patra?canu'scomplicity in
82
Show Trials, p. 63.

Popi?teanu, "'Cazul" Grupului Pitra?canu'
83 C.
(vi), Magazin Istoric, I99I,
I2,
pp. 7 I-75
(72).
84 Gonceariuc added that during his investigation of
PAtrA?canuthe SSI was absorbed into
the DGSP and he was made head of Directorate B for Counterespionage with the rank of
Colonel (C. Popisteanu, 'Cazul Grupului PNtrA?canu(vii)', Magazin Istoric, 1992, i, p. 86).
According to the records of the Ministry of the Interior, the SSI was absorbed into the
Directia Generalda SecuritdliiStatului (the name by which the Directia Generalda Securitdii
Poporuluihad been rechristened in I949) on 2 April I 95I. Preparations for the merger had
been under way during the preceding months under the supervision of Sakharovskii which
involved the transfer of staff from the SSI into the DGSS directorates and, in some cases,
their allocation to other duties. Thus the SSI head, Sergei Nikonov, was appointed head of
Directorate A, the foreign intelligence department of the DGSS, which was reorganized at
the direction of Sakharovskii.
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
687
espionage,eventhoughat the timethe Britishwerealliesof the Soviets.

At the same time as confessions were extracted through beatings from
the accusedto supportthesecharges,the accusationsof'Titoistheresy'

were not forgotten.An item in the officialYugoslavdaily Borbaon
was shortlyto be triedwitha
4 MarchI950 announcedthatPatras?canu
number of Yugoslav citizens for a pro-Tito conspiracy,85but for
reasonsthat are still unclearBeriaallegedlyordereda postponement.
One explanationgivenis thatin comparisonwith the Rajkand Kostov
trials, which led to extensive governmentpurges in Hungary and
Bulgaria,the Patras?canu
versioncouldonly appearlameand therefore
Beria demanded a wider and deeper purge.86The reason for its
lamenesswas the failureto extractfromPatras?canu
a confessionto his
'crimes', and the absence of any corrobatingevidence from his
friends.87
These difficultieswerehighlightedby Pintiliein his statementgiven

on i i May I967 to the Committeeof Enquiryinto the Paitraqcanu
and
cases.
He
admitted
that
it
was
after
only
'hard'
persistent
Fori?
questioningthatthe interrogatorsmanaged,in thefirstplace,to linkall
the membersof the so-calledPatras?canu
groupto the same charges.
Fortwo or threemonthsafterthe Patracanus werehandedoverto the
securitate(in January
the three Soviet counsellors, led by Sakharovskii, guided the lines of interrogation, without having any official
status. It was only later in the year that Sakharovskii was named
principal counsellor to Teohari Georgescu. There was also a second
secretary in the Soviet embassy who reported to Moscow on the
progress of the interrogations. These Soviet officials kept Dej, Pauker
and Chi?inevski informed about the Pa.tras?canucase, but Pintilie
provided no evidence of any opposition from them to its conduct.88
Attribution of the delay in bringing Patras?canuto trial to deliberate
obstruction by Dej,89or indeed by anyone else in the RCP leadership, is
impossible to substantiate in the light of present information. Against
such a claim, one must consider the atmosphere of terrorthat reigned in
85
I949),
p. 155.
Communism,
86
Show Trials, p. 99.

87
This was not through want of trying on the part of Gonceariuc. In his deposition of 3July
I 967, he claimed that neither Patra,canu nor his wife was tortured. He did admit, however,
that after one session Pitra?canu tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor
blade. In order to prevent detection of the source of the blade PAtr5?canu broke it into small
pieces and swallowed it. What Gonceariuc did not add was that SSI officers were instructed
to give laxatives to Patrascanu in an effort to retrieve the fragments and they examined
closely his bowel movements. Although they managed to piece together the object the gastric
juices had removed any traces of finger prints. After recovering Patrascanu was moved to
another building of the SSI where he took an overdose of sleeping tablets in another
unsuccessful attempt at suicide (E. Mezincescu, 'Ecouri la "Cazul" Patras,canu', Magazin
Istoric, I992, 7, pp. 33-37 [351])
88
'Cazul', p. 43.
89
As maintained by Hodos in Show Trials, p. Ioo.
688
DENNIS
DELETANT
the satellite Parties during and immediatelyafter the show trials of

wouldhavedictatedprudenceand a respectfor
I 949. Self-preservation
Soviet dictates.Dej followedinstructionsfromMoscow,which might
have originated from Beria, now ably abetted by his sycophant
Vyshinskii,who in I949 had replacedMolotovas ForeignMinister,
and the purge scenariochangedaccordingto the prevailingpolitical
mood of Stalin. This is borne out by the leading role of Soviet
counsellorsin establishingthe thrustof the Patras?canu
group'sinterrogation between October I 949 and I 952.
That Dej was anxiousto do anythingto removeanysuspicionsabout

his loyaltyto Stalinandto followSovietinstructionsto theletteris clear
from his address to the Third CominformConference, held in
Bucharestin November I949, when he attackedTito's heresiesand
identified Rajk, Brankov,Kostov and Patras?canu
as agents of the
Anglo-Americanimperialistespionageagenciesalongsidethe Yugoslavleader.90Dej'saddresswas, accordingto Khrushchev,preparedin
Moscowby Pavel ludin, MikhailSuslov,and GeorgiiMalenkov.91
At
the same time, Dej's deliveryof the addresswas confirmationof his
seniorityin the RCP. Yet therewas still no confessionto backup this
charge against Pattrascanu.Effortsto produce one led to renewed
effortsto prove the existenceof a grand plot involvingPatras?canu,
Koflerand $tefanescu,andlinkingthemwithRajk,Kostovandothers.
These efforts were characterized by the securitate
as 'the last stage in the
enquiry'which began in February1951.92 A sign that the directions

had comefromMoscowwas an attackby Gheorghiu-Dejpublishedin
Pravdaon 4 SeptemberI95I underthe title 'The RevolutionaryVigilance of the Peoplesin the Strugglefor Socialism',in which he listed
Patrascanuamongthose'inveteratetraitorsandpaidprovocateursand
agents of the bourgeoisclass like Rajk, Kostov, Ko?i, Dzodze and
otherswhowereled by the BelgradeagencyofAmericanespionage,the
90 Scanteia,6 December 1949, p. I .
91 KhrushchevRemembers.The Glasnost Tapes, translated and edited by J. L. Schecter with
V. V. Luchkov, Boston, I 990, p. I 03. I am grateful to Robert Levy for this reference. ludin is
more likely to have been consulted in Bucharest since he was the representative of the
Cominform when it was based in Yugoslavia and moved with it when its headquarters were
transferred to Bucharest in June I948. Pavel Fedorovich ludin (I899-I968)
was a leading
theoretician of the Soviet Communist Party. Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences from I938 to I944, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the
journal Sovetskaiakniga in I946 and elected a member of the Central Committee at the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Party Congresses. He was succeeded as Cominform representative in Bucharest by Mark Borisovich Mitin. Mikhail Andreevich Suslov was appointed
secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in I947, and between
I 947 and I 950 was editor-in-chief of Pravda.In I 950 he became a member of the Presidium of
the Supreme Soviet. Georgii Malenkov was a trusted servant of Stalin. In the I930S he
helped to evaluate intelligence provided by the NKVD for the Politburo and became a
member of the five-man State Defence Committee in I941. He briefly succeeded Stalin as
First Secretary.
92 C.
Popi?teanu, 'Cazul Grupului Patrascanu (III)', MagazinIstoric, 1991, 9, pp. 48-52 (48).
GHEORGHIU-DEJ
S STRUGGLE
689
band of Tito and Rankovici.'93This last stage was initially entrusted to

Colonel Mi?a Dulgheru, head of the penal investigation directorate
(Directorate G) of the DGSS, who received instructions from Sakharovskii and Tiganov, the Soviet counsellor for this Directorate. Still no
satisfactory progress was made. The frustrationof Dej, and no doubt of
the Soviet counsellors, was translated into the decision at a plenary
meeting of the Central Committee on 26 May I 952 to replace Teohari
Georgescu as Minister of the Interior with his deputy Alexandru
Draghici. Among the accusations levelled at Georgescu was that 'even
after four years he had failed to bring to a conclusion the investigation
regarding the espionage and counter-revolutionary activity of Patra?canu and Kofler'.94
A fresh team of interrogators was constituted under Colonel Joan
boltutiu, who had formerly been Party Secretary for Cluj county and
had been recruited into the SSI in I 949. The rest of $oltutiu's team was
composed of Major Toma Dr'aghici, Major Gheran Moraru, Major
Victor Vana'toru, Major Teodor Staicu, Major Mircea Anghel, Major
Teodor Micle, Gheorghe Rujan and Alexandru Gorun, who acted as
secretaries. According to Vanatoru, $oltutiu reported to Sakharovskii
and Chisinevski and repeatedly urged the team to establish Pa'trascanu's guilt as a traitor. Beatings were administered to Kofler, Calmanovici and Berman, but they consistently denied the allegations made
against them. The frustrationfelt by Sakharovskiieventually led him to
order the arrest on 26 November 1952 of Colonel Dulgheru on the
grounds of having delayed the investigation.95
The procedure of investigations against Patrascanu between I 948
and I952 clearly confirms the back-seat role to which Dej and others in
the RCP leadership were confined by their Soviet masters in the
conduct of Romania's affairs. The interrogation of Patras?canuand his
associates lay firmly in the hands of Aleksandr Mihailovich Sakharovskii, the MGB adviser to Georgescu, the Minister of the Interior,
and the sequence of different accusations levelled against Patraw?canu
followed a scenario established in Moscow, perhaps by Beria himself.
Dej's behaviour, and that of the Romanian Party leadership, during the
interrogations indicate men and women anxious, not unnaturally, to
protect themselves from the whims of Stalin and to demonstrate their
93 'Structura Conducerii Superioare',

94 Ibid., p. 362.
95 C. Popisteanu, "'Cazul" Grupului
p. 36 I.
Patrascanu' (vi), Magazin Istoric, I991, I2, pp. 7I-75

(74). At the plenary meeting of the Central Committee held on 26 May I952 Georgescu was
removed from all his Party and government positions and criticized, amongst other things,
'for not having completed after four years the investigation into the counter-revolutionary
and espionage activity of Patrascanu and Kofler' ('Structura Conducerii Superioare',
p. 362).
690
DENNIS
DELETANT
fidelity to Moscow.96 Holding onto power required anticipation of

Stalin's next move and preemptive action in accordance with one's
instincts. This explains the caution with which Dej proceeded over
Patras?canu and why he and Pauker were anxious to be kept informed at
every stage of the progress, or lack of it, in respect of his interrogation.
Either could be implicated as an imagined enemy in the absurd game of
roulette which was played Qut in Stalin's mind. It was Dej who
weighted the wheel in his own favour.
96
For this reason Dej and Pauker compiled questionnaires which were put to Belu Zilber by
his SSI interrogator George Firescu (real name Filipescu) in the winter of I949. Dej could
not hide signs of an inferiority complex in the questions he had transmitted, being
particularly insistent as to why Zilber had allegedly described him as a 'zombie' and
uneducated. Pauker, on the other hand, was more interested in the 'capitalist' literature
Zilber had read (see Monarchia,p. 75).

Gheoghe Gheorghiu Dej - The Fight For Power

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Gheoghe Gheorghiu Dej - The Fight For Power

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New Light on Gheorghiu-Dej's Struggle for Dominance in the Romanian Communist Party, 1944

SEER, Vol.73, No. 4, October

with the recent publication of archival material and the

Partyfiguresfromthis periodone thingin particularwas striking- an

Bucharest, I 96I, pp. 438-40; quoted

This differenceof opinionled Foril to removeGheorgheas head of

Responsibilityfor the decision to remove Fori? was consistently

account given at the April I968 Central Committee Plenum at which

Nicolae Ceaulescu,p. 40.

studies. In December I943 he obtained permission to spend twenty

November I 944 until February 1948, enhanced his standing both

Sub trei dictaturi,1944 and Un veacdefr6mfnt6risociale, 1945.

Yet while Patra?canu offered a reassuring face of the Party to the

Luca is reported to have said that Patra?canu'swords 'did not always

whisked away to a safe house of the Romanian Communist Party. A

had underlinedthe priorityof the militaryfront.43After reflection

Ostensibly,collectiveleadershipof the Partycontinuedthroughout

Scanteiaand four of the seven-memberPolitburo,namelyGheorghiuDej, Pauker,Luca and TeohariGeorgescu,weredeclaredsecretaries.

Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. The photograph of

against Hungarians and Romanians alike who stirred up hatred and

securitateand written up by Lieutenant Major Simion Siegler on 7 January I952 was an

'self-importance'and his failure to follow an agreed Party line,

conducted with the opposition parties to plan the 23 August coup.

of an alliancewith the 'whole'peasantry,thereforealsowith the exploiting

up by the Party'sCentralCommitteeto preparethe rehabilitationof

FromdetailsgivenbyAlexandruDraghicito his friendandcolleague

confinementthereunderarmedguardforthe followingfive months.74

E. Mezincescu, 'Ecouri la "Cazul" P'tra?canu', MagazinIstoric,I992, 7, pp. 33-37

78 Baron Ion de Mocsonyi-Styrcea was born at Cerniuti on i6 May I909. He graduated

an industrialist;Jac Berman and Emil Calmanovici, both construction

These allegations against Patra?canu mirrored the charges against

The specific espionage agency for which Patra?canuwas accused of

Show Trials, p. 63.

(vi), Magazin Istoric, I99I,

espionage,eventhoughat the timethe Britishwerealliesof the Soviets.

the accusedto supportthesecharges,the accusationsof'Titoistheresy'

These difficultieswerehighlightedby Pintiliein his statementgiven

Show Trials, p. 99.

the satellite Parties during and immediatelyafter the show trials of

That Dej was anxiousto do anythingto removeanysuspicionsabout

enquiry'which began in February1951.92 A sign that the directions

band of Tito and Rankovici.'93This last stage was initially entrusted to

93 'Structura Conducerii Superioare',

Patrascanu' (vi), Magazin Istoric, I991, I2, pp. 7I-75

fidelity to Moscow.96 Holding onto power required anticipation of

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