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The afterlife of interwar French Communists : a group portrait from Communist
Romania
After the post-war takeover of power and stabilization of the new political and social
regime, the Communists from Romania seemed preoccupied with (re)writing their own history.
Lots of resources were invested for gathering data on the Communist past, especially on those
who took the risk of supporting the Party in its underground years (1924-1944), the so called
ilegalisti (underground members and supporters). In the quest of a Communist past that could be
easily used in the internal rivalries of the RCP's present, a significant quantity of underground
members' memoirs, interviews and other biographical data were gathered and cautiously
archived.
Our research deals with the post-war political and professional trajectories of a group
of ilegalisti from Romania, connected before 1944 with the French Communist Movement, who
returned in Romania after 1944. They participated in an 'internal survey' conducted by the
Membership Office of the Central Committee of the RWP between 1951-1952, aimed at
obtaining an accurate account of the members and sympathizers of the Romanian Communist
Partyduring
its ‘underground existence’ (1924-1944), and on their post-war political and
professional activities.
We created a digital tool of data inquiry and presentation of the almost 10000 files
gathered in this survey (for details see www.andco.ro/en). With the help of this tool we have
identified 24 persons who were active in the French Communist Movement, either as members
of the French Communist Party, of other French Communist organizations or of French
Resistance. Our results were confirmed by estimation of those who activated within the
Romanian Communist Group of the PCF or as members of the French Resistance, realized in the
second half of the 1950's by the Institute of the RCP History.
We will present the collective biographic profile of this group: the empirical-data is
coherent, homogenous and unitary, allowing us to draw statistic conclusions on the demographic
details and social-political profile of our group before and after 1944(sex, ethnic and regional
origin, professional distribution, relation with the French Communist Movement before 1944,
political and professional activities after 1944). Our presentation focus on the activities of the
group after 1944, trying to determine common patterns of professional and political
advancement.
In addition to this 'collective biography', we will also present two individual biographical
outlines of two members of the group : col. dr. BRILL Sullaim IOSEF (1910- 1978) and BASIL
Ignat ŞERBAN, (1914-)???. The first one joined the FCP in 1933, worked as physician during
the Spanish Civil War, was put in a French prison camp btw. 1939 and 1943, and returned in
Romania in 1944 , where he had high-ranking positions in the political bureau of the Romanian
Army. The second also fought in the Spanish Civil War, and was also put in a French prison
camp after the defeat of the Republican wing in Spain. Between 1940 and 1944 he undertook
important clandestine activities in the Armed forces of the PCF. Upon his return in Romania
(1946), he had an important diplomatic career, serving in Romanian legations at Rome and Bern.