Gheorghe Cristescu

Gheorghe Cristescu (October 10 1882—November 29 1973) was a Romanian socialist and, for a part of his life, communist militant. Nicknamed "Plăpumarul" - "The Blanket Maker", he is also occasionally referred to as "Omul cu lavaliera roşie" ("The man with the red four-in-hand necktie"), after the most notable of his accessories.

Biography

Early activism

Born in Copaci (at the time part of Ilfov County, presently in Giurgiu County), Cristescu trained as a blanket-maker and became the owner of a blanket-making shop. [Constantin Argetoianu, in Tandin; Cioroianu, p.24, 40; Constantiniu] Active in socialist circles as early as 1898, he soon became a leading member of the Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (up to 1899, when the Party disbanded). ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.12; Cioroianu, p.40-41] In 1900, he joined the leadership of the only surviving group of the Party, its Bucharest socialist circle, "România Muncitoare" (led by Christian Rakovsky). [Ornea, p.522]

Up until the creation of a Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSDR) on January 31, 1910, Cristescu was one of the leaders of the short-lived "Socialist Union of Romania". Soon after a Romanian Railways employee named Stoenescu attempted to assassinate Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu on December 9, 1909, Cristescu, alongside other "România Muncitoare" activists (including I. C. Frimu and Dumitru Marinescu), was arrested and interrogated on suspicion of having inspired the action. [Ornea, p.522] From 1910 to 1916, he was one of the PSDR's leaders; ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.14] in 1908-1920, he was active in the trade union movement.

In 1916, the Party was banned for its activities in support of the Zimmerwald Conference at a time when Romania entered World War I on the Entente side. ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.15] After the Central Powers offensive ("see Romanian Campaign"), he remained active in enemy-occupied Bucharest, and kept contacts with Social Democratic Party of Germany with the help of German soldiers who sympathized with the latter. ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.15] In 1918, when Romanian authorities resumed control, Cristescu and many other leaders of the PSDR (Ecaterina Arbore, Constantin Popovici, Ilie Moscovici, and Constantin Titel Petrescu among them) were arrested on charges of collaboration. ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.15]

The PSDR re-emerged in November 1918, as the Socialist Party of Romania, with Cristescu becoming one of its representatives in Parliament after the elections of 1919. In this capacity, he became noted in debates over the imprisonment of Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor, a Romanian citizen who had joined the Russian Red Army in Bessarabia during the October Revolution, and who had been tried for treason. [Constantinescu, p.40-41] Constantin Argetoianu, who negotiated a failed merger of the Socialist Party into the People's League in late 1919, stated that Moscovici voiced criticism of his party's far left wing, where, as Argetoianu formulated it, "the blanket-maker Cristescu and others were agitating". [Argetoianu, "Memorii" ("Magazin Istoric"), p.75]

In the early elections of 1920, Cristescu, together with Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea and Boris Stefanov, was not validated into Parliament, despite having carried the popular vote. [Ţiu] He was eventually confirmed for office. [Constantiniu]

Communism

Although he had originally voted against Vladimir Lenin's thesis as a delegate of the socialists to the Comintern World Congresses in Moscow (with Eugen Rozvan, Constantin Popovici, Ioan Flueraş, David Fabian, and Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea), [Constantiniu; Diac, "La «kilometrul 0»...", "Delegaţii socialişti..."] and despite Rozvan's suspicions that he had maintained a "minimalist position", [Cioroianu, p.24] he became more and more radical, supporting the transformation of the Party along Bolshevik lines, but showed himself opposed to control from Russia. [Diac, "Delegaţii socialişti..."] In deliberations for the 1920 vote, he expressed his opposition to Comintern control over local parties, [Cristescu, in "Dosarele Istoriei"; Diac, "Delegaţii socialişti..."; Tismăneanu, p.45-47] and subsequently met with Lenin - Cristescu later claimed that the Russian leader had accepted his dissent and had offered some "non-political" concessions to the Romanian socialists (the claim was partly backed by a testimony of Dobrogeanu-Gherea). [Cristescu, in "Dosarele Istoriei"; Dobrogeanu-Gherea, in Frunză, p.22-23] During the Congress, both Cristescu and Dobrogeanu-Gherea were ridiculed at home by the non-communist press (their bourgeois status, in contrast to their activism, was highlighted in the nicknames "Cristescu-Blanket Maker" and "Dobrogeanu-Restaurant", the latter of which alluded to the business Dobrogeanu-Gherea was managing in Ploieşti). [Diac, "Delegaţii socialişti..."]

Cristescu led the faction that separated itself after the Party's Congress of May 8-12, 1921, and was elected as the first general secretary of the newly formed "Socialist-Communist Party" (soon to be the Romanian Communist Party). Those maximalists who had designated themselves as "communists" (including Gheorghe Cristescu) were arrested and indicted in the Dealul Spirii Trial: Romanian authorities attempted to connect them with Max Goldstein, a terrorist of uncertain affiliation who had detonated a bomb inside the Romanian Senate on December 8, 1920. [Cioroianu, p.29; Constantiniu; Tănase; Tismăneanu, p.49-50] The charge against the communists was based on their rejection of Greater Romania as a concept, and their commitment to "World revolution" and the Comintern, which raised suspicion that they were trying to overthrow the existing order through actions such as that of Goldstein. [Cioroianu, p.29; Tănase] Constantin Argetoianu, Interior Minister in the second Alexandru Averescu cabinet and main instigator of the arrest, later admitted that his order lacked legal grounds, and stated that he had given Cristescu approval to hold congress with the knowledge that Comintern policies were to be submitted to a vote, thus causing the faction to incriminate itself. [Argetoianu, in Diac, "La «kilometrul 0»..."]

Most of the accused were acquitted, an important reason for this being Cristescu's convincing testimony (alongside a hunger strike endured by most on the bench, as well as the absence of sufficient evidence). [Cioroianu, p.29; Tănase] Cristescu depicted Goldstein as an anarchist, and declared most of the witnesses who had connected the terrorist with the Party to be spies for the "Siguranţa Statului" secret police. [Tănase]

Dissidence

Cristescu started questioning his Party's policies after the decision taken by the Balkan Communist Federation during its 1923 Vienna Conference. The Federation had adopted the official Soviet policy recommending that Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania and Southern Dobruja (or all of Dobruja) be given the right to secede from Romania. Due to the ethnic composition of these regions, he could not accept that minorities be given self-determination (especially since this implied not autonomy or independence, but rather satisfaction of territorial demands that other nations had on Romania). [Frunză, p.37-38] Cristescu allegedly called for the party to revise its program in respect to these points, and thus resume legal activities. [Constantiniu]

Notably clashing with his nominal subordinate Marcel Pauker over such issues, [Cioroianu, p.34; Tismăneanu, p.56-57] he did all in his power to prevent the Party from adopting a clear point of view: when his attitude was investigated by the Balkan Communist Federation (1924), he had to resign his position, being excluded from the Party in 1926. [Constantiniu; Frunză, p.50; Tismăneanu, p.56-57] According to Vladimir Tismăneanu, Cristescu's marginalization inside the "Workers and Peasants' Bloc" (created as an umbrella group for the outlawed Communist faction) was a major factor in his conflict with other activists. [Tismăneanu, p.67]

1930s, persecution, and rehabilitation

After creating his own minor grouping, the "Socialist Party of Workers" (later known as "Independent Socialist Party"), in 1928, Cristescu joined the minor and "Unitary Socialist Party" in 1932 (a Marxist group led by Leon Ghelerter, Ştefan Voitec, and Constantin Popovici, it eventually dissolved itself under pressure from the Communist Party in 1944). [Cioroianu, p.25; Constantiniu; Frunză, p.147, 203-204, 214; Tismăneanu, p.59] He retired from politics in 1936. [Constantiniu]

His daughter Tita Cristescu, a former Miss Romania who had become the mistress of Liviu Ciulei (a famous lawyer and father of the director Liviu Ciulei), died in mysterious circumstances in 1936 [Cioroianu, p.25; Tandin] — most likely, she was murdered; Ciulei, arrested on charges that he had poisoned her, was acquitted later in the same year. [Tandin] A theory in circulation indicates Maria Suciu, Tita's maid, as the killer. [Tandin]

During the first years of Communist Romania, he was severely persecuted for his political views, being arrested and imprisoned in the Danube-Black Sea Canal labour camps from 1950 to 1954. ["110 ani de social-democraţie", p.25; Constantiniu; Frunză, p.391-392] Released through the first amnesty of political prisoners (occurring very soon after Joseph Stalin's death), Cristescu spent his remaining years in relative anonymity. [Cioroianu, p.25] While his name was cleared by Nicolae Ceauşescu's rehabilitation policies, [Constantiniu; Cioroianu, p.25; Frunză, p.488] his uncomfortable opinions were censored and he was subject to Securitate surveillance until the day he died. [Cioroianu, p.25; Frunză, p.488] Although occasionally hailed up as an anti-Comintern communist during a time when the Ceauşescu regime developed a nationalist discourse, Cristescu avoided being associated with the party he had helped found. [Constantiniu]

Notes

References

*ro icon [http://www.fisd.ro/PDF/110ani.pdf "110 ani de social-democraţie în România" ("110 Years of Social Democracy in Romania")] , Social Democratic Party, the Ovidiu Şincai Social Democratic Institute, Bucharest, July 9, 2003
*"Dosarele Istoriei", 10/1998
*Constantin Argetoianu, "Memorii" ("Memoirs"; fragment), in "Magazin Istoric", March 1968
*Adrian Cioroianu, "Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc" ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005
*Ion Constantinescu, "Dr. N. Lupu: «Dacă şi d-ta ai fi fost bătut...»" ("Dr. N. Lupu: «If You Yourself Had Been Beaten...»"), in "Magazin Istoric", August 1971
*Florin Constantiniu, "Cristescu, Gheorghe", in "Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders", Greenwood Press, Oxford, 1995, p.229
*ro icon Cristina Diac,
** [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_19402/la__kilometrul_0__al_comunismului_romanesc.html "La «kilometrul 0» al comunismului românesc. «S-a terminat definitiv cu comunismul in România!»" ("At «Kilometer 0» in Romanian Communism. «Communism in Romania Is Definitely Over!»")] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", October 6, 2004
** [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol.php?id=19478 "Delegaţii socialişti români la Moscova" ("Romanian Socialist Delegates in Moscow")] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", October 7, 2004
*Victor Frunză, "Istoria stalinismului în România" ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
*Z. Ornea, "Viaţa lui C. Stere" ("The Life of C. Stere"), Vol. I, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 1989
*ro icon Stelian Tănase, [http://www.itcnet.ro/history/archive/mi2003/current10/dealul_spirei.html "Procesul din Dealul Spirei" ("The Dealul Spirii Trial")] , in "Magazin Istoric"
*ro icon Traian Tandin, [http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_print_32088_5_-1_5_-1-Istoria-crimelor-pasionale-Cazul-Liviu-Ciulei.htm "Istoria crimelor pasionale: Cazul Liviu Ciulei" ("The History of Crimes of Passion: the Liviu Ciulei Case")] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", September 17, 2005
*Vladimir Tismăneanu, "Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism", University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003 ISBN 0-520-23747-1
*ro icon Ilarion Ţiu, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_35563/aliatul_lui_stalin.html "Aliatul lui Stalin" ("Stalin's Ally")] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", June 7, 2005