Radio Free Romania

Radio Free Romania is the name of a little-known radio station broadcasting in the Romanian language as part of the Comintern.

Steliu Lambru, 12.05.2025, 14:00

Radio Free Romania is the name of a little-known radio station broadcasting in the Romanian language as part of the Comintern and which disseminated communist, internationalist, antifascist and anti-war ideas during WWII. It should not be confused with Radio Moscow in the Romanian language which aired the programmes of the public radio station in the Soviet Union and aimed at the Romanian-speaking world.

Anton Bejan was born in 1919 in Bessarabia and became a communist activist before the war. In June 1940, when the Soviets invaded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, he remained in the occupied territory. When a Romanian speaker was needed for the new Radio Free Romania, he was in Georgia, in Tbilisi, where he was working at an arms factory. In a 1997 interview with the Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Bejan recalled how his career as a journalist began in 1943:

“Ana Pauker and Valter Roman wanted to find someone who knew Romanian well and could be an announcer on Radio Free Romania. Lenuta Tudorache, a friend, recommended me. They sent a telegram to the Central Committee in Georgia and I was summoned to the Central Committee. It was very difficult to travel, they gave me train tickets to go to Moscow, they couldn’t give me tickets to travel by plane. It took me about a week to complete the train journey.”

Bejan was hired together with eight other Romanians, six women and three men. The working conditions were normal and the atmosphere was international:

“There were a number of employees there, with salaries and everything we needed. There was a Broadcasting Centre that broadcast in almost all the languages ​​of the world. It was directed by the Comintern, but it was separate from the Comintern building. This Centre had editorial offices for each different country, namely the countries in the Balkans, with whom we were on the best of terms, the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks; then were the Czechs, the Hungarians, with whom we argued all day, the Austrians, the Germans, the English, the Americans, and the Finns.”

Radio Free Romania was at the time supporting a different line than that embraced by Romania at the time and it was its aim to change public opinion. Anton Bejan: “We had three one-hour broadcasts a day. They were primarily anti-fascist propaganda programmes directed against Germany. We were basically waging psychological warfare behind the front line. There was also news. In our broadcasts, we called on the historical parties and on ordinary Romanian citizens to oppose the war, to save their homeland. The programmes were not directed against Romania, on the contrary, we were fighting to save Romania, which had walked into a catastrophic situation. We knew that Romania could do nothing against the United Nations, the largest countries and that the fate of the war was sealed. We also broadcast news from inside the country, we received newspapers from Romania through Turkey, we took our news from there and we provided our commentary.”

In addition to news, commentaries and reports, Radio Free Romania’s journalists also monitored the broadcasts of other Romanian-language radio stations. Although each service had its own specifics, there was a coordinating body that established the station’s editorial policy. Anton Bejan explains:

“All these editorial offices were coordinated by a group led by Bedřich Geminder, a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, an extraordinarily capable man. His team published a bulletin with news from these broadcasts, different for each country. And this bulletin circulated among the members of the Comintern, the Central Committee, was reproduced in several hundred copies and distributed. This bulletin also included some guiding articles written by more prominent members from each country, especially about the political situation in their countries, the situation of the political parties, and so on. It was an information bulletin. Practically, we had no censorship except from this Geminder, but he did not read our programmes, he often conducted surveys with the aim of helping us. He did not interfere, nor did he know our problems. In any case, there was a centralisation of the activity of this Broadcasting Centre.”

The station did not enjoy much popularity among the Romanian public, despite the encouragement received from the democratic countries. Anton Bejan: 

“We received a message from Radio London congratulating us on our work and wishing us success. We responded in kind, with a message. As I realized after coming to Romania, our station didn’t really have a large audience. However, I met some people who listened to us.”

Radio Free Romania ended its activity in August 1944, after Romania withdrew from the alliance with Germany.