O poveste dintr-o iarnă. „Căderea” Regionalei comuniste „Dunărea de Jos” (ianuarie 1941)
A Winter’s Tale. The “Collapse” of the “Lower Danube” Communist Regional Organization (January 1941)

Summary/Abstract: The histories of the Romanian interwar “left”, and of the Romanian interwar communism were actually never written. If an interest on this topic existed during the communist regime, the rhetoric of the historiographical discourse was strongly influenced by ideological and political interference. Subsequently, these topics were always avoided and even ignored by a historiography rather concerned with the repressive dimension of the regime established at the end of World War II. Starting with an excerpt from a propaganda material compiled in 1948 by the Agitprop Section of the Covurlui R.W.P. (Romanian Workers Party) County Organization, our study aims to reconstruct an important episode of the communist movement in Galati during World War II – the “collapse” of the “Lower Danube” Communist Regional Organization (January 1941), which led to the arrest of dozens of people and conviction of thirteen. The involvement in the events of a character as Miron Constantinescu who, after 1945, would experienced a fulminant political ascent – becoming a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Chairman of the State Planning Committee and Minister of Education, led to the falsification of the history. Thus, the January 1941’s events were reassessed, by attributing to Miron Constantinescu all the credits for coordinating the entire clandestine communist movement in the region. In reality, things were quite different. Our study is based primarily on unpublished archival sources, and it is reconstructing the sequences of the “Lower Danube” Regional Communist Organization history, but also the identities and roles of its members. Last but not least, we tried to reconstruct the subsequent destinies of those involved in the events of January 1941. Their lives tell interesting stories.

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