THE LEADERS
The early years of Communism rule in Romania were marked by repeated changes and by numerous arrests and imprisonments, because various factions fought for dominance.
First years
Dr. Petru GROZA
He was a leading political figure in interwar Romania who eventually became Premier of the state's coalition government from 1945 to 1952.Under Groza's term as premier until 1952, Romania's King, Michael I, was forced to abdicate as the nation officially became a "People's Republic". Despite giving the appearance of liberalism by granting women's suffrage, Groza pursued a series of reforms attempting to clamp down on the prominence of politically dissident media outlets in the nation. During the first month of his premiership, Groza acted to close down Romania Nouă, a popular newspaper published by sources close to Iuliu Maniu, leader of the traditional National Peasants' Party who disagreed widely with Groza's attempted reforms. Within a month of his assumption of the premiership, Groza shut down over nine provincial newspapers and a series of periodicals which, Groza declared, were products of those, "who served Fascism and Hitlerism". Groza soon continued this repression by limiting the number of political parties allowed within the state.
In the communist leadership, there were three important factions, all of them Stalinist, differentiated more by their respective personal histories than by any deep political or philosophical differences:
- The "Muscovites," notably Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca, had spent the war in Moscow.
Ana
PAUKER
She was active in the pro-Bolshevik faction of the group, the one that took control after the Party's Congress of May 812, 1921 and joined the Comintern under the name of Socialist-Communist Party (future Communist Party of Romania). She and her husband, Marcel Pauker, became leading members. They were both arrested in 1922 for their political activities and went into exile to Switzerland on their release.
- The "Prison Communists," notably Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, had been imprisoned during the war.
Gheorghe GHEORGHIU - DEJ
He joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930. He was arrested due to taking part in the Grivița Strike of 1933 and sentenced to prison in the same year, serving time in Doftana and other facilities. In 1936 he was elected to the party's Central Committee and became leader of the prison faction of the party. He shared the same cell as Nicolae Ceausecu and was his mentor.
He became the architect of Romania's semi-autonomous foreign and economic policy within the Warsaw Pact, notably by initiating the creation of a heavy industry which went against Soviet directions for the Eastern Bloc as a whole (the new large-scale steel plant in Galatzi was a burden on Romanian economy, as it relied on iron resources imported from India and Australia).
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The somewhat less firmly Stalinist "Secretariat Communists," notably Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu had made it through the Antonescu years by hiding within Romania and had participated in the broad governments immediately after King Michael's 1944 coup.
Lucretiu PATRASCANU
He was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University. The author of ample studies of social history, which expressed Marxist views, he was at the center of several controversies concerning his attitudes towards nationalism.
Pătrășcanu rose to a government position before the end of World War II and, after having disagreed with Stalinist tenets on several occasions, eventually came into conflict with the Romanian Communist government of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. He became a political prisoner and was ultimately executed; fourteen years after Pătrășcanu's death, Romania's new communist leader,Nicolae Ceausescu, endorsed his rehabilitation as part of a change in policy