Ana Pauker
Encyclopedia
Ana Pauker was a Romania
n communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She was the unofficial leader of the Romanian Communist Party
after World War II
.
, Vaslui County
(the region of Moldavia
). Her parents, Sarah and Hersh Kaufman Rabinsohn, had 4 surviving children; an additional two died in infancy. As a young woman, she became a teacher. While her younger brother was a Zionist and remained religious, she opted for Socialism
, joining the Romanian Social Democratic Party
in 1915 and then its successor, the Socialist Party of Romania
, in 1916. She was active in the pro-Bolshevik
faction of the group, the one that took control after the Party's Congress of May 8–12, 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.
where she became an instructor for the Comintern and was also involved in the Communist movement elsewhere in the Balkans
. She returned to Romania and was arrested in 1935, being put on trial together with other leading Communists such as Alexandru Moghioroş and Alexandru Drăghici, and sentenced to ten years in prison. In May 1941 she was sent into exile to the Soviet Union
in exchange for Ion Codreanu
, a former member of Sfatul Ţării
(Parliament of Bessarabia that voted for Union with Romania
on the 27th of March 1918) detained by the Soviets after the occupation of Bessarabia
in 1940, just in time to escape the policy of oppression and massacre of Jews by the regime of Ion Antonescu
, in alliance with Nazi Germany
. In the meantime, her husband fell victim to the Soviet Great Purge
, in 1938. Rumors abounded that she herself had denounced him as a Trotskyist traitor; Comintern archival documents reveal, however, that she repeatedly refused to do so.
In Moscow
, she became leader of the Romanian Communist exiles who would later become known as the Muscovite faction. She returned to Romania in 1944 when the Red Army
entered the country, becoming a member of the postwar government, which came to be dominated by the Communists. In November 1947, the non-Communist Foreign Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu
was ousted and replaced by Pauker, making her the first woman in the modern world to hold such a post. But it was her position in the Communist Party leadership that was paramount: As a member of the 4-person Secretariat of the Central Committee and formally Number Two in the leadership, Pauker was widely believed to have been the actual leader of the Romanian Communists in all but name during the immediate postwar period. In 1948 Time
magazine featured her portrait on its cover, with the caption The most powerful woman alive. She was universally seen as unreservedly Stalinist and as Moscow's primary agent in Romania.
However, once in power, Pauker gradually began to take positions counter to those of the Kremlin. In 1949 she did not support the construction of the Danube-Black Sea Canal
, even though, according to her own testimony, Joseph Stalin
had personally proposed the project. She opposed the purging of Romanian veterans of the Spanish Civil War
and French Resistance
as part of Moscow's bloc-wide campaign against Josip Broz Tito
, as well as Stalin's plans to have former Communist leader Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
put on trial. She supported (and helped facilitate) the emigration of roughly 100,000 Jews to Israel from the spring of 1950 to the spring of 1952, when all other Soviet satellites had shut their gates to Jewish emigration in line with Stalin's escalating "anti-Zionist" campaign. And she firmly opposed forced collectivization that was carried out on Moscow's orders in the summer of 1950 while she was in a Kremlin hospital undergoing treatment for breast cancer
. Angrily condemning such coercion as "absolutely opposed to the line of our party and absolutely opposed to any serious Communist thought," she allowed peasants forced into collective farms to return to private farming and effectively halted additional collectivization throughout 1951. This, as well as her support for higher prices for agricultural products in defiance of her Soviet "advisers," led to charges by Stalin himself that Pauker had fatefully deviated into "peasantist, non-Marxist policies."
Pauker's "Moscow faction" (so called because many of its members, like Pauker, had spent years in exile in Moscow) was opposed by the Prison faction (most of whom had spent the Fascist period, mainly under Antonescu's dictatorship, in Romanian prisons, particularly Doftana Prison
). Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
, the de facto
leader of the Prison faction, had supported intensified agricultural collectivization and was a rigid Stalinist; however, he resented some strains of Soviet influence (which would become clear at the time of de-Stalinization
when, as leader of Communist Romania
, he was a determined opponent of Nikita Khrushchev
).
Gheorghiu-Dej profited from the mounting anti-Semitism
in Soviet policy, and persuaded Joseph Stalin
to take action against the Pauker faction. Dej traveled to Moscow
to seek
Stalin's approval for purging the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party, accusing Pauker, Vasile Luca
, and Teohari Georgescu
of fomenting factional intrigue. Soviet Foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov
intervened on behalf of Pauker, whereas NKVD
chief Lavrentiy Beria
defended Georgescu—their lives were spared Pauker and her supporters were purged in May 1952, consolidating Gheorghiu-Dej's own grip over country and Party.
Pauker was charged with "cosmopolitanism
", the charge Stalin used against Jews in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc
. According to biographer Robert Levy, Pauker was purged at Stalin's urging for being too soft. According to the memoirs of Silviu Brucan
, former Romanian ambassador to the United Nations
, Stalin told Gheorghiu-Dej that he had chosen him to lead Romania over Pauker, saying:
Pauker was arrested in February 1953 and was subjected to prolonged interrogations in preparation to be put on trial, as had occurred with Rudolf Slánský
and others in the Prague Trials. After Stalin's death in March 1953 she was freed from jail and put under house arrest
instead.
Following the rise of Nikita Khrushchev
in the Soviet Union, Pauker was recast by Romania's leaders as having been a staunch ultra-Orthodox Stalinist, even though she had opposed or had attempted to moderate a number of Stalinist policies while she was in a leadership position. Following the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow there were fears that Khrushchev might force the Romanian Party to rehabilitate Pauker and possibly install her as Romania's new leader.
In 1956, she was summoned for questioning by a high-level party commission, which insisted that she acknowledge her guilt. Again, she claimed she was innocent and demanded that she be reinstated as a party member, without success. Gheorghiu-Dej went on to scapegoat
her, Vasile Luca
, and Teohari Georgescu
for their alleged Stalinist excesses in the late 1940s and early 1950s, despite the fact that they had urged moderation against Gheorghiu-Dej's insistence on dogmatism. The period when the three were in power was marked by political persecution and the murder of opponents (such as the infamous brainwashing experiments conducted at Piteşti prison
in 1949-1952). Gheorghiu-Dej, who had as much to account for, used moments like these to ensure the survival of his policies in a post-Stalinist age.
During her forcible retirement, Pauker was allowed to work as a translator from French
and German
for the Editura Politică publishing house.
and Ana Pauker had 3 children:
Vlad and Tatiana (known as "Marie") now live in France.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n communist leader and served as the country's foreign minister in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She was the unofficial leader of the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life and political career
Pauker was born into a poor, religious Orthodox Jewish family in CodăeştiCodaesti
Codăeşti is a commune in Vaslui County, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Codăeşti, Ghergheleu, Pribeşti and Rediu Galian.Famous residents include politician Ana Pauker , and mathematician and member of the Romanian Academy, Radu Miron ....
, Vaslui County
Vaslui County
Vaslui is a county of Romania, in the historical region Moldavia, with the seat at Vaslui.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 455,049 and the population density was 86/km².*Romanians - over 98%*Romas, other-Geography:...
(the region of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
). Her parents, Sarah and Hersh Kaufman Rabinsohn, had 4 surviving children; an additional two died in infancy. As a young woman, she became a teacher. While her younger brother was a Zionist and remained religious, she opted for Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, joining the Romanian Social Democratic Party
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
in 1915 and then its successor, the Socialist Party of Romania
Socialist Party of Romania
The Socialist Party of Romania was a Romanian socialist political party, created on December 11, 1918 by members of the Romanian Social Democratic Party , after the latter emerged from clandestinity...
, in 1916. She was active in the pro-Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
faction of the group, the one that took control after the Party's Congress of May 8–12, 1921 and joined the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
under the name of Socialist-Communist Party (future Communist Party of Romania). She and her husband, Marcel Pauker
Marcel Pauker
Marcel Pauker was a Romanian communist militant and husband of the future Romanian Communist leader Ana Pauker....
, became leading members. They were both arrested in 1922 for their political activities and went into exile to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
on their release.
Communist leadership position
Ana Pauker went to FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
where she became an instructor for the Comintern and was also involved in the Communist movement elsewhere in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. She returned to Romania and was arrested in 1935, being put on trial together with other leading Communists such as Alexandru Moghioroş and Alexandru Drăghici, and sentenced to ten years in prison. In May 1941 she was sent into exile to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in exchange for Ion Codreanu
Ion Codreanu (parliamentary)
Ion Stepanovici Codreanu was a Moldovan politician.- Biography :In 1917, Codreanu was a founding member of the National Moldavian Party...
, a former member of Sfatul Ţării
Sfatul Tarii
Sfatul Țării was, in 1917-1918, the National Assembly of the Governorate of Bessarabia of the disintegrating Russian Empire, which proclaimed the independent Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917, and then union with Romania in April 1918.-Russian participation in World War I:In August...
(Parliament of Bessarabia that voted for Union with Romania
Union of Bessarabia with Romania
On , the Sfatul Ţării, or National Council, of Bessarabia proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania.-Governorate of Bessarabia:The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empires provided for Russian annexation of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality...
on the 27th of March 1918) detained by the Soviets after the occupation of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
in 1940, just in time to escape the policy of oppression and massacre of Jews by the regime of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
, in alliance with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. In the meantime, her husband fell victim to the Soviet Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, in 1938. Rumors abounded that she herself had denounced him as a Trotskyist traitor; Comintern archival documents reveal, however, that she repeatedly refused to do so.
In Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, she became leader of the Romanian Communist exiles who would later become known as the Muscovite faction. She returned to Romania in 1944 when the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
entered the country, becoming a member of the postwar government, which came to be dominated by the Communists. In November 1947, the non-Communist Foreign Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu
Gheorghe Tatarescu
Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania , three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs , and once as Minister of War...
was ousted and replaced by Pauker, making her the first woman in the modern world to hold such a post. But it was her position in the Communist Party leadership that was paramount: As a member of the 4-person Secretariat of the Central Committee and formally Number Two in the leadership, Pauker was widely believed to have been the actual leader of the Romanian Communists in all but name during the immediate postwar period. In 1948 Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine featured her portrait on its cover, with the caption The most powerful woman alive. She was universally seen as unreservedly Stalinist and as Moscow's primary agent in Romania.
However, once in power, Pauker gradually began to take positions counter to those of the Kremlin. In 1949 she did not support the construction of the Danube-Black Sea Canal
Danube-Black Sea Canal
The Danube – Black Sea Canal is a canal in Romania which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube to Agigea and Năvodari on the Black Sea...
, even though, according to her own testimony, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
had personally proposed the project. She opposed the purging of Romanian veterans of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
as part of Moscow's bloc-wide campaign against Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, as well as Stalin's plans to have former Communist leader Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
put on trial. She supported (and helped facilitate) the emigration of roughly 100,000 Jews to Israel from the spring of 1950 to the spring of 1952, when all other Soviet satellites had shut their gates to Jewish emigration in line with Stalin's escalating "anti-Zionist" campaign. And she firmly opposed forced collectivization that was carried out on Moscow's orders in the summer of 1950 while she was in a Kremlin hospital undergoing treatment for breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
. Angrily condemning such coercion as "absolutely opposed to the line of our party and absolutely opposed to any serious Communist thought," she allowed peasants forced into collective farms to return to private farming and effectively halted additional collectivization throughout 1951. This, as well as her support for higher prices for agricultural products in defiance of her Soviet "advisers," led to charges by Stalin himself that Pauker had fatefully deviated into "peasantist, non-Marxist policies."
Pauker's "Moscow faction" (so called because many of its members, like Pauker, had spent years in exile in Moscow) was opposed by the Prison faction (most of whom had spent the Fascist period, mainly under Antonescu's dictatorship, in Romanian prisons, particularly Doftana Prison
Doftana prison
Doftana was a Romanian prison. Built in 1895, it was used in the 1930s to detain political prisoners, among them the future president Nicolae Ceauşescu. It is situated close to the village with the same name, in the Telega commune...
). Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
, the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
leader of the Prison faction, had supported intensified agricultural collectivization and was a rigid Stalinist; however, he resented some strains of Soviet influence (which would become clear at the time of de-Stalinization
History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)
In the USSR, the eleven-year period from the death of Joseph Stalin to the political ouster of Nikita Khrushchev , the national politics were dominated by the Cold War; the ideological U.S.–USSR struggle for the planetary domination of their respective socio–economic systems, and the defense of...
when, as leader of Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, he was a determined opponent of Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
).
Downfall
General SecretaryGeneral Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
Gheorghiu-Dej profited from the mounting anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in Soviet policy, and persuaded Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
to take action against the Pauker faction. Dej traveled to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to seek
Stalin's approval for purging the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party, accusing Pauker, Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
, and Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu was a high-ranking member of the Romanian Communist Party.-Life:Born in Bacău, he was the third of seven children of Constantin and Aneta Georgescu. Georgescu, whose formal education ended after the fourth grade, began his career as an assistant in his father's store...
of fomenting factional intrigue. Soviet Foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
intervened on behalf of Pauker, whereas NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
chief Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
defended Georgescu—their lives were spared Pauker and her supporters were purged in May 1952, consolidating Gheorghiu-Dej's own grip over country and Party.
Pauker was charged with "cosmopolitanism
Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
", the charge Stalin used against Jews in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. According to biographer Robert Levy, Pauker was purged at Stalin's urging for being too soft. According to the memoirs of Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan was a Romanian communist politician. Though he disagreed with Nicolae Ceauşescu's policies, he never gave up his communist beliefs and did not oppose communist ideology...
, former Romanian ambassador to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, Stalin told Gheorghiu-Dej that he had chosen him to lead Romania over Pauker, saying:
- Ana is a good, reliable comrade, but you see, she is a Jewess of bourgeoisBourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
origin, and the party in Romania needs a leader from the ranks of the working classWorking classWorking class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
, a true-born Romanian.… I have decided…
Pauker was arrested in February 1953 and was subjected to prolonged interrogations in preparation to be put on trial, as had occurred with Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia...
and others in the Prague Trials. After Stalin's death in March 1953 she was freed from jail and put under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
instead.
Following the rise of Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
in the Soviet Union, Pauker was recast by Romania's leaders as having been a staunch ultra-Orthodox Stalinist, even though she had opposed or had attempted to moderate a number of Stalinist policies while she was in a leadership position. Following the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow there were fears that Khrushchev might force the Romanian Party to rehabilitate Pauker and possibly install her as Romania's new leader.
In 1956, she was summoned for questioning by a high-level party commission, which insisted that she acknowledge her guilt. Again, she claimed she was innocent and demanded that she be reinstated as a party member, without success. Gheorghiu-Dej went on to scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
her, Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca
Vasile Luca was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s...
, and Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu
Teohari Georgescu was a high-ranking member of the Romanian Communist Party.-Life:Born in Bacău, he was the third of seven children of Constantin and Aneta Georgescu. Georgescu, whose formal education ended after the fourth grade, began his career as an assistant in his father's store...
for their alleged Stalinist excesses in the late 1940s and early 1950s, despite the fact that they had urged moderation against Gheorghiu-Dej's insistence on dogmatism. The period when the three were in power was marked by political persecution and the murder of opponents (such as the infamous brainwashing experiments conducted at Piteşti prison
Pitesti prison
The Pitești prison was a penal facility in Pitești, Romania, best remembered for the brainwashing experiment carried out by Communist authorities in 1949-1952...
in 1949-1952). Gheorghiu-Dej, who had as much to account for, used moments like these to ensure the survival of his policies in a post-Stalinist age.
During her forcible retirement, Pauker was allowed to work as a translator from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for the Editura Politică publishing house.
Family
MarcelMarcel Pauker
Marcel Pauker was a Romanian communist militant and husband of the future Romanian Communist leader Ana Pauker....
and Ana Pauker had 3 children:
- Tanio (1921 - 1922);
- Vlad (born 1926);
- Tatiana (born 1928).
Vlad and Tatiana (known as "Marie") now live in France.
External links
- Communist Romania article from the City of BraşovBrasovBrașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
website on Romania's Communist period, including the conflicts between Pauker and Gheorghiu-Dej.