Vasile Luca

Vasile Luca (born László Luka; June 8, 1898—July 23, 1963) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s. Noted for his activities in the Ukrainian SSR in 1940-1941, he sided with Ana Pauker during World War II, and returned to Romania to serve as the Minister of Finance and one of the most recognizable leaders of the Communist regime. Luca's downfall, coming at the end of a conflict with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, signaled that of Pauker.

He was married to Elisabeta Luca, a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, who was also imprisoned following her husband's arrest.

Biography

Early activities

A native of Szentkatolna (or Sâncatolna - present-day Catalina) [Drăgoescu, p.27; Luca's autobiography] in Transylvania (at the time part of Austria-Hungary), Luca was an ethnic Hungarian of the Székely community; during his later years, Luca also indicated that he was of Jewish [Cioroianu, p.175] and proletarian origin. [Tismăneanu, p.125]

In the period following the Aster Revolution, as Transylvania's administration was taken over by Romania, he joined Károly Kratochwill's Székely Division (formed inside Hungary by Hungarian Transylvanian refugees). [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Drăgoescu, p.27] After the Romanian Army crushed the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Luca took refuge in Braşov and began working for the Romanian Railways, [Drăgoescu, p.27] attempting to align railworkers' trade unions with the Profintern. [Betea,"Gheorghe Maurer..."] Luca later admitted that, in Leninist terms, he had been mistaken to leave the Division — after allegedly being persuaded to do so by a group of workers in Satu Mare —, as he had missed an opportunity to carry out "revolutionary work under party directives", although he confessed that he had been denied membership of the Hungarian Communist Party. [Luca's autobiography]

He soon adhered to the larger, maximalist, wing of the former Socialist Party of Romania, which had established the Romanian Communist Party, and became an associate of Imre Aladar. [Tismăneanu, p.125] In 1924, as the party was outlawed and forced in the underground, Luca was elected secretary of the Braşov regional committee. [Drăgoescu, p.27; Tismăneanu, p.125] Participating in the preparations for the 1929 Lupeni Strike in the Jiu Valley, [Tismăneanu, p.125-126] he was also elected, with Alexandru Nicolschi, to the internal Politburo (one of the two bodies established by the Comintern at the time, the other one supervising from inside the Soviet Union). [Tismăneanu, p.70] In conflicts inside the party, he was punished by the Comintern overseers and the Stalinist leadership, being recalled from his party functions [Drăgoescu, p.27] and later required to display a dose of self-criticism. [Luca's autobiography]

Prison and exile

Arrested in 1924, 1933, and 1938, and sentenced to prison terms; notably, Luca was successfully defended by attorneys paid for with Red Aid funds during a 1927 trial in Cluj (where Boris Stefanov was sentenced), [Ţiu] and was represented by Ion Gheorghe Maurer during his 1938 trial. [Betea,"Gheorghe Maurer..."; Tismăneanu, p.125-126] He was serving time in Cernăuţi, having been found guilty of attempt to cross the border between the Kingdom of Romania and the Ukrainian SSR, when the Soviet Union annexed Northern Bukovina ("see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina"). [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Drăgoescu, p.27; Tismăneanu, p.125]

Luca reoriented himself in the aftermath of the Great Purge (having already renounced the friendship with Purge victim Aladar, as well as those of Vitali Holostenco, Eugen Rozvan, and Elek Köblös). [Tismăneanu, p.125-126] He took up Soviet citizenship, became deputy mayor of Chernivtsi, and a deputy in the Soviet of Nationalities of the Ukrainian SSR. In this latter capacity, Luca participated in the deportation of almost 30,000 citizens from Northern Bukovina to the Asiatic republics of the Soviet Union. [Toma] On March 26, 1941, in Storojineţ, he gave a speech in front of a mass of people who were protesting the Soviet administration, calling them "spies, enemies, and diversionists"; the crowd responded with heckling. [Betea, "Masacrul din Fântâna Albă"; Popescu] On April 1, a large number of people from nearby villages were killed while attempting to cross the border from the Soviet Union to Romania in Fântâna Albă (now Bila Krynytsya, Ukraine) — "see Fântâna Albă massacre". [Betea, "Masacrul din Fântâna Albă"; Popescu]

After the start of Operation Barbarossa, he was instrumental in the creation of a Romanian language section for Radio Moscow, broadcasting propaganda against the Ion Antonescu regime and its German allies ("see Romania during World War II"). [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Tismăneanu, p.102, 126] At the time, he began his collaboration with Ana Pauker, who led the main cell of the PCR's "exterior wing", created by those who had taken refuge inside the Soviet Union. [Cioroianu, p.175] He enlisted in the Red Army, helped recruit Romanian prisoners of war to form the Tudor Vladimirescu Division, [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"] and then returned to Romania with the Soviet troops in late 1944 ("see Soviet occupation of Romania"). [Cioroianu, p.175; Drăgoescu, p.27] Luca later stated that he had been disappointed in the fact that local forces under King Mihai I had taken the initiative in ousting Antonescu and aligning the country with the Allies, arguing that the PCR was supposed to await the Soviets' presence. [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Frunză, p.153; Tismăneanu, p.126]

Political leadership

One year later, he became Party Secretary, and soon after the Finance Minister and the Deputy Premier in the Petru Groza cabinet which he had helped bring to power in February 1945 (with Pauker, he ensured the Allied Commission's support for Communists who were protesting against the Nicolae Rădescu executive). [Cioroianu, p.175] Luca became involved in all major conflicts between the PCR and the traditional opposition forces, the National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party: he gave inflammatory speeches on the issue of Northern Transylvania's return to Romania (recommending its postponing), on projects regarding the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as on collectivization. [Frunză, p.159, 165, 180, 194, 303-304, 508; Tismăneanu, p.126]

At the Party Conference in October, when the balance set after General Secretary Ştefan Foriş' downfall came to be questioned, Luca made his voice heard in opposition to Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's "internal wing", and proposed that the latter be kept as nominal leader (with Pauker taking over the party executive); Gheorghiu-Dej, who managed to obtain Joseph Stalin's approval through the intervention of Emil Bodnăraş, became focused on maneuvering against the rival faction. [Cioroianu, p.174-176; Tismăneanu, p.121]

In late 1945, the issue of collectivization brought Luca into a brief and intense conflict with the Ploughmen's Front (a group led by Petru Groza and allied with the Communists), which threatened to cease supporting the PCR if private property was not going to be guaranteed. [Cioroianu, p.161-162] His plans for rapid communization also rose opposition inside the party — Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu is known to have advised against them. [Betea, "Ambiţia..."]

With those of Pauker, Teohari Georgescu, and Gheorghiu-Dej, his name was one of the most prominent in propaganda (including the famous collective slogan in incorrect Romanian "Ana, Luca, Teo, Dej / Bagă spaima în burgheji" — "Ana, Luca, Teo [hari] , Dej / Scare the bourgeois"). [Frunză, p.216-217; Tismăneanu, p.118] The group of leaders was active in suppression of various inner-party political factions, starting with that of Foriş, and continued with those of Remus Koffler and Pătrăşcanu. [Tismăneanu, p.126]

He was personally charged with securing the brutal transition to collective farming, [Frunză, p.393, 413; Pauker's interrogation] and kept his ministerial office after the proclamation of Communist Romania. Inside the Secretariat, he, Pauker and Georgescu eventually became the main obstacle in the way of Gheorghiu-Dej's policies. [Cioroianu, p.175; Frunză, p.219-220, 241, 405; Tismăneanu, p.115, 118, 126] According to some authors, Luca was the "most sectarian member of the Stalinist ruling gang". [Toma]

Downfall

While Luca had supported the rise of Gheorghiu-Dej during the Griviţa Strike of 1933, his temper caused frictions with the new leader. He was quite open about his opposition to the Danube-Black Sea Canal—a pet project of Dej, apparently recommended by Joseph Stalin himself. On the initiative of General Secretary Gheorghiu-Dej, who sought and obtained Stalin's approval for purging the leadership in January 1952 [Cioroianu, p.201-202] (Dej had traveled personally to Moscow for that purpose; Vyacheslav Molotov intervened on behalf of Pauker, whereas Lavrentiy Beria defended Georgescu) [Hodos, p.103] Luca was dismissed from government office in March, and purged from the party in May (formally, in August 1953), together with Pauker. [Cioroianu, p.180, 201-202; Tismăneanu, p.129]

Officially, the purge was centered on accusations regarding Luca's opposition to the devaluation of the Romanian leu, a measure ordered by the Soviet Union and carried out on January 28, 1952. [Cioroianu, p.180, 201; Drăgoescu, p.28; Tismăneanu, p.128] He had been charged, through the voice of Miron Constantinescu, with "grave deviations" and taking a "right wing opportunistic line, breaking away from the working classes" ("see Right Opposition"); [Cioroianu, p.180, 202; Cristoiu; Drăgoescu, p.27-28; Frunză, p.405; Tismăneanu, p.128, 129] in addition to sharing the blame, Pauker was accused of having taken a "left wing opportunistic line" ("see Left Opposition") on various issues. [Cioroianu, p.202] Upon witnessing the attack on him during the Plenary meeting of May (immediately amplified by the interventions of Alexandru Moghioroş, Iosif Rangheţ, Ion Vincze and others), [Tismăneanu, p.130] Luca fainted. [Tismăneanu, p.130] He was arrested in the same month, some days after his deposition and political indictment. [Tismăneanu, p.129-130]

Luca's interrogation, approved and supervised by Soviet advisors, [Oprea, p.49] also involved aspects of his past: it was alleged that, as a youth, he had taken part in conflicts opposing the Székely Division and the communists on the side of the former, that he had been recruited by the Romanian secret police (Siguranţa Statului) in the early 1920s and had thus infiltrated the PCR, and that he had been paid to encourage fighting inside the party. [Drăgoescu, p.27; Tismăneanu, p.130]

In October 1954, he was sentenced to death for economic sabotage, but, after appealing to the PCR leaders, he had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment and hard labour, [Drăgoescu, p.27, 28; Tismăneanu, p.130] and died 9 years later in the prison of Aiud, having been kept in almost complete isolation. [Frunză, p.406] After his imprisonment, he wrote several letters to Gheorghiu-Dej, in which he continued to plead his innocence; it is not known if the addressee ever replied to Luca personally, but he would usually add derogatory comments to the margin of each letter. [Tismăneanu, p.130] Twenty-nine of Luca's present and former collaborators — from the Finance Ministry employees and from Centrocoop — were also arrested at the time. They were all subjected to torture. [Drăgoescu, p.27-28] Alexandu Iacob, the deputy Finance Minister, received 20 years of forced labor, while Ivan Solymos, vice-president of Centrocoop, was sentenced to 15 and Dumitru Cernicica, the Centrocoop first vice-president, was condemned to 3 years of corrective jail.

In 1952, charges against Luca implicated Teohari Georgescu, who was accused of "împăciuitorism" ("appeasing attitude") [Cioroianu, p.180-182, 202; Cristoiu; Tismăneanu, p.129] and admitted to "not having seen the gravity of Luca's deeds" [Georgescu, in Oprea, p.50] in a futile effort to save himself from incarceration. Pauker herself claimed that she had suspected Luca of attempting to topple Gheorghiu-Dej, and argued that her Jewish origins and Luca's Hungarian (or Jewish-Hungarian) roots had made them the target of Soviet suspicion (she recalled having been told so by Andrey Vyshinsky), as well as unpopular inside Romania. [Cioroianu, p.173, 202-203; Pauker's interrogation]

The entire writings of Luca, Pauker, and Georgescu were removed from their places in officially-sanctioned libraries, and quotes from them were systematically deleted from reference works. [Cristoiu]

Rehabilitation

In September 1965, just two years after his death and six months after the death of Gheorghiu-Dej, the change in tone signaled by Nicolae Ceauşescu, the new general secretary, led to the re-evaluation of Luca's case by a party commission that included Ion Popescu-Puţuri. [Drăgoescu, p.27; Tismăneanu, p.190]

The investigation revealed major irregularities and a pattern of abusive measures, including the direct implication of Gheorghiu-Dej, Iosif Chişinevschi, and Securitate chief Alexandru Drăghici, into the proceedings, as well as inhumane treatment to which Luca had been subjected. [Drăgoescu, p.28-29; Oprea, p.51-52] It resulted in Luca's rehabilitation in 1968 (although the final verdict seemed to confirm that Luca had betrayed some of his comrades during his 1920s stay in Jilava prison). [Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Cioroianu, p.175; Drăgoescu, p.27]

Notes

References

*ro icon [http://www.dntb.ro/sfera/articole/articol8text.htm Excerpt from Ana Pauker's interrogation] , in "Sfera Politicii"
*"Dosarele Istoriei", 2/I, 1996:
**Dragoş Drăgoescu, "Arma politică a reabilitărilor. Caruselul crimelor şi liderii comunişti români", p.20-34
**Marius Oprea, "Radiografia unei înscenări. «Devierea de dreapta»", p.48-53
*Lavinia Betea,
**ro icon [http://www.itcnet.ro/history/archive/mi1999/current1/m27.htm "Ambiţia de a intra în istorie"] , in "Magazin Istoric"
**ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_27680/gheorghe_maurer____aparator_al_comunistilor_.html "Gheorghe Maurer – «aparător al comuniştilor»"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", February 9, 2005
** ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_5004/masacrul_din_fantana_alba.html "Masacrul din Fântâna Albă"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", August 29, 2005
**ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_40526/sovieticul_vasile_luca.html "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", November 15, 2005
*Adrian Cioroianu, "Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc", Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005. ISBN 9736691756
*ro icon Ion Cristoiu, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_63112/romania_cu_ochi_albastri___pauker_si_luca__interzisi.html "România cu ochi albaştri - Pauker si Luca, interzişi"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", October 3, 2006
* George H. Hodos, "Show trials: Stalinist purges in Eastern Europe, 1948-1954", Praeger, New York, 1987. ISBN 0275927830
* Ion Popescu, [http://www.observatorul.com/articles_main.asp?action=articleviewdetail&ID=1951 "Crearea regiunii Cernăuţi"] , in "Obsevatorul", February 13, 2005
*Victor Frunză, "Istoria stalinismului în România", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
*ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol.php?id=27609 Vasile Luca's autobiography, addressed to the Comintern, and other testimonies he gave] , in "Jurnalul Naţional",February 8, 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 [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_35563/aliatul_lui_stalin.html Ilarion Ţiu, "Aliatul lui Stalin" ("Stalin's Ally")] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", June 7, 2005
* Valentin Toma, [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol14/no07/toma.htm "Stalinist Terror in Rumania - Real Face of the “Popular Democracy”"] , "New International", Volume 14, No.7, September 1948, p.213–215.