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Vasile Luca (born László Luka; 8 June 1898 – 23 July 1963) was an Austria-Hungary-born and Soviet Union Communism 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 (née Betty Birman), a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, who was also imprisoned following her husband's arrest.
In the period following the Aster Revolution, as Transylvania's administration was taken over by Romania as a result of the Hungarian–Romanian War, he joined Károly Kratochwill's non-communist Székely Division (formed inside Hungary by Hungarian Transylvanian refugees),Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Drăgoescu, p. 27 which tried to oppose the Romanian military. After the Romanian Army crushed the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Luca moved to Brașov and began working for the Romanian Railways (CFR),Drăgoescu, p. 27 attempting to align railworkers' trade union with the Profintern.Betea,"Gheorghe Maurer..." Luca later admitted that, in Leninism 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 in 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. In 1924, as the party was outlawed and forced into the underground, Luca was elected secretary of the Brașov regional committee.Drăgoescu, p. 27; Tismăneanu, p. 125 Participating in the preparations for the 1929 Lupeni Strike in the Jiu Valley,Tismăneanu, pp. 125–126 he was also elected, together 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 Stalinism leadership, being recalled from his party functions and later on required to display a dose of self-criticism.
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). He took up Soviet citizenship, became deputy mayor of Chernivtsi, and a deputy in the Soviet of Nationalities of the Ukrainian SSR. The Trotskyist journal the New International accused Luca of having participated in a supposed deportation of almost 30,000 citizens from Northern Bukovina to the Asiatic republics of the Soviet Union.Toma On 26 March 1941, in Storozhynets, 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 1 April, 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.
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 Nazi Germany allies ( see Romania during World War II).Betea, "Sovieticul Vasile Luca"; Tismăneanu, pp. 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. 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
At the Party Conference in October, when the balance set after General Secretary Ștefan Foriș' 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 Bodnăraș, became focused on maneuvering against the rival faction.Cioroianu, pp. 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, pp. 161–162 His plans for rapid communization also rose opposition inside the party — Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu is known to have advised against them.Betea, "Ambiția..."
With those of Pauker, Teohari Georgescu, and Gheorghiu-Dej, his name was one of the most prominent in propaganda, including the famous collective slogan Ana, Luca, Teo, Dej / Bagă spaima în burgheji — "Ana, Luca, Teohari, Dej / Scare the bourgeois".Frunză, pp. 216–217; Tismăneanu, p. 118 The group of leaders was active in suppression of various inner-party political factions, starting with that of Foriș, and continued with those of Remus Koffler and Pătrășcanu.Tismăneanu, p. 126
He directed the forced transition to collective farming,Frunză, pp. 393, 413 and kept his ministerial office after the proclamation of the People's Republic. Inside the Secretariat, he, Pauker and Georgescu eventually became the main obstacle in the way of Gheorghiu-Dej's policies.Cioroianu, p. 175; Frunză, pp. 219–220, 241, 405; Tismăneanu, pp. 115, 118, 126 An article published in 1948 in the Trotskyism journal New International described Luca as the "most Sectarianism member of the Stalinism ruling gang".
Officially, the purge was centered on accusations regarding Luca's opposition to the monetary reform of the Romanian leu, a measure ordered by the Soviet Union and carried out on 28 January 1952.Cioroianu, pp. 180, 201; Drăgoescu, p. 28; Tismăneanu, p. 128 He had been charged, through the voice of Miron Constantinescu, with "grave Deviationism" and taking a "right wing opportunistic line, breaking away from the " ( see Right Opposition);Cioroianu, pp. 180, 202; Cristoiu; Drăgoescu, pp. 27–28; Frunză, p. 405; Tismăneanu, pp. 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 Moghioroș, Iosif Rangheț, Ion Vincze and others),Tismăneanu, p. 130 Luca fainted. He was arrested in the same month, some days after his deposition and political indictment.Tismăneanu, pp. 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 (Siguranța 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 Penal labour,Drăgoescu, pp. 27, 28; Tismăneanu, p. 130 and died 9 years later in detention at Aiud Prison, 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. In one of those letters (dated April 20, 1956), Luca argued against his conviction for economic sabotage, saying that all the decisions he took were under the guidance and supervision of the Soviet counsellor at the ministry, and the legislation that he had worked on had been approved by the PCR (including Gheorghiu-Dej himself).Lăcătușu 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, pp. 27–28 Alexandru Iacob, the deputy finance minister, received 20 years of Forced labour; Ivan Solymos, vice-president of Centrocoop, was sentenced to 15, while Dumitru Cernicica, the Centrocoop first vice-president, was condemned to 3 years of corrective jail. For a while Luca and Iacob were detained at Râmnicu Sărat Prison.
In 1952, charges against Luca implicated Teohari Georgescu, who was accused of împăciuitorism ("appeasing attitude")Cioroianu, pp. 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 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, pp. 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
The investigation revealed major irregularities and a pattern of abusive measures, including the direct implication of Gheorghiu-Dej, Iosif Chișinevschi, and Securitate chief Alexandru Drăghici, into the proceedings, as well as inhumane treatment to which Luca had been subjected.Drăgoescu, pp. 28–29; Oprea, pp. 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
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