The political rehabilitation of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party, was executed by shooting at Jilava prison on 16 April 1954.
Steliu Lambru, 29.09.2025, 14:00
Lawyer Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party, was executed by shooting at Jilava prison on 16th April 1954, a tragic ending for a man who naively believed that communist ideals would make this world a better place.
Pătrășcanu was 53 years old when he died. He was born in 1900 into a family of intellectuals from Bacău. He earned his doctorate in law from Leipzig University, in Germany. He is considered one of the founders of the Communist Party in Romania, having embraced Marxism in 1919. He published essays on law, history, philosophy, sociology and economics. When Romania, who was initially allied with Hitler’s Germany, switched sides to join the Allied Powers on 23rd August 1944, Pătrășcanu was named minister for justice. In this post, he contributed first hand to the transformation of Romania from a liberal democracy to a communist dictatorship. In 1948, he was accused of nationalism, of links with the British intelligence services and collaboration with the Romanian intelligence services from before 1945 and was sacked and held in house arrest. In fact, Pătrășcanu had entered into conflict with the leader of the party, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who went on to get rid of competition after the Stalinist model.
In 1965, after the death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the Communist Party elected a new leader, the young and ambitious Nicolae Ceaușescu. The latter wanted to remove the old guard loyal to Dej and represented especially by Alexandru Drăghici. Ceaușescu’s method was simple, namely rehabilitating Pătrășcanu and blaming the Dej loyalists. A general in the security services, Neagu Cosma told Radio Romania’s Oral History Centre in 2002 about the rehabilitation of Pătrășcanu, which began with the promotion of Alexandru Drăghici.
“Ceauşescu had this habit of displacing the people by promoting them. He didn’t think this was enough in this case, so he also dumped the Pătrășcanu issue on Drăghici. Part of the investigation and the preparation of the trial had been conducted in the interior ministry, in the security services, where Drăghici was in a leading position. He thought maybe that would be a problem for him. He called Ion Stănescu, who had been appointed head of the security services, and asked him if there were any documents about the Pătrăşcanu case in the archives. He told him to get them in order to be checked. It’s as if Drăghici knew what was coming and had prepared his own demise. If he had wanted to protect himself in the Pătrăşcanu case, he could have made the files disappear, but instead, he had everything in order.”
To project fairness, the decision did not have to be taken by the political leader. “Ceauşescu set up a commission made up of the Prosecutor General, the Minister of Justice, the head of personnel from the Central Committee, and others, and he appointed Grigore Răduică as secretary of this commission investigating the Pătrăşcanu case. Răduică was working in the military section of the Party’s Central Committee. A document was drafted which had to prove Pătrăşcanu’s innocence, but it was an absolutely biased document, lacking objectivity. It was supposed to demonstrate that Pătrăşcanu had been 100% a victim, that the whole story about British espionage had been fabricated by the Securitate.”
Several decades later, General Neagu Cosma tried to remain objective in his memoirs.
“I do not question Pătrăşcanu’s loyalty and patriotism, his professional and intellectual skills. I even knew him, he was an absolutely remarkable person. But surely he did have some connections. I am not saying he was an agent of the Intelligence Service, but he did have some connections with the Intelligence Service in order to study and observe Romania’s situation from a certain perspective. He realized what state we were in after 1945, that we were an occupied country, that our salvation could only come if the West made a move. He had some discussions, and when he attended the Paris Peace Conference, he was even offered the chance to stay in the West. But that did not mean these were serious accusations that should have led to his death. However, reinterpreted by Ceauşescu, they came out as mere fabrications.”
After the archives provided the answer he was waiting for, Ceauşescu rehabilitated Pătrăşcanu with all the appropriate zeal.
“In Pătrăşcanu’s case, the sentencing was completely ordered and directed. At the time, a document was signed in the restricted leading body, the Political Bureau or whatever it was called back then, and all of them signed the document for the death sentence. That meant they agreed with the trial and the sentence. What Ceauşescu no longer knew was whether he himself had signed that document condemning Pătrăşcanu. He had just recently entered the Political Bureau, and after a first question to Stănescu, others followed: ‘Am I listed? How am I listed? Did I sign? Didn’t I sign?’ Stănescu said that his face lit up when he found out he had not signed. He no longer remembered if he had signed. So, he was clean, and he could get involved in the Pătrăşcanu case as deeply as he wanted because he was not implicated. That’s the Pătrăşcanu case unfolded”.
Pătrăşcanu’s rehabilitation served to strengthen Ceauşescu’s image as a legitimate and just leader. Propaganda was mobilized as well, with the feature film “Power and Truth”, directed by Manole Marcus, carrying the strongest of messages. (CM & VP)
