ASPECTE ALE ACTIVITĂŢII COMUNISTE ÎN BANAT DUPĂ 23 AUGUST 1944
ASPECTS OF COMMUNIST ACTIVITY IN BANAT AFTER AUGUST 23, 1944

Summary/Abstract: After the “coup d’état” on August 23, 1944, the P.C.d.R., an insignificant party on the political scene of Romania, taking advantage of the fact that it had been imposed in the National Democratic Bloc, by the Soviets, began an activity on multiple levels, to seize power politics in all areas of the country. This phenomenon also happened in the south-west of Romania, where the Regional P.C.d.R., extended over four counties: Arad, Caraş, Severin and Timiş-Torontal, had, on August 23, only 38 members. The party tried to penetrate the Banat society not so much through its own forces, which were minor, but through unions, now called unique or unitary, organized on the political criterion, and not on the professional one, as was natural in a democratic society. At the same time, the communists took advantage of the allied formations, the so-called temporary road companions, such as: the Plowmen’s Front, the Union of Patriots, the Patriotic Defense and Madosz, which they had also initiated. Communist propaganda in Banat was also augmented by the appearance, starting on September 7, 1944, of the press organ of the Regional, entitled Luptătorul Bănăţean, whose founding was also attended by the future high communist official Miron Constantinescu, released – at the end of the month August 1944 – from the Lugoj Penitentiary, where he had been detained during the war. The communists from Banat paid a real eulogy to the Soviet Union and the Red Army, called liberators, a fact also supported by the statements of the communist dignitary Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, in his statements made in Moscow. In the same sense, Leontin Silaghi, the first secretary of the Banat Region of the P.C.d.R., who became the Minister of the Armed Forces, and other future high communist dignitaries, such as: Iosif and Eva Rangheţ, Ilie Drăgan and Mihai Dalea, expressed themselves. The “Tudor Vladimirescu” Division, made up of prisoners from the Romanian Army in the U.S.S.R., in reality deserters from the Romanian troops, but with whom Ana Pauker came – to the country – was also praised, and giving this division military actions that he hadn’t done them. The chaotic situation in Banat is also addressed, due to the attacks of the German army, and especially its aviation, which frequently bombarded this area. Their rejection was mainly attributed to the Red Army and the communists here, and not to the Romanian Army, which had sacrificed itself in the battles fought with the Germans, especially in mid-September 1944. So, the activity of the P.C., an insignificant party, tried to penetrate the Banat society through different methods, especially through false propaganda and through facts that he was not even present at.

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