Ion Gheorghe Maurer

Infobox_Prime Minister
name = Ion Gheorghe Maurer
nationality =Romanian
small



caption =
order =Prime Minister of Romania
term_start =March 21, 1961
term_end =March 29, 1974
vicepresident =
deputy =
predecessor =Chivu Stoica
successor =Manea Mănescu
order2 =Foreign Affairs Minister of Romania
term_start2 =July 15, 1957
term_end2 =January 15, 1958
predecessor2 =Grigore Preoteasa
successor2 =Avram Bunaciu
birth_date =birth date|1902|9|23|mf=y
birth_place =Bucharest, Romania
death_date =death date and age|2000|2|8|1902|9|23|mf=y
death_place =Bucharest, Romania
constituency =
party =Romanian Communist Party
spouse =Elena Maurer
profession =Lawyer
religion =


footnotes =|

Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer (September 23, 1902 - February 8, 2000) was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.

Biography

Born in Bucharest to an (Alsatian-)French father and a French mother, [Partoş; Deletant indicates in passing that Maurer's father was an Alsatian French language teacher, and that his mother was Romanian ("Communist Terror...", p.19); he also states that Maurer was of "German origin" ("Ceausescu...", p.69)] he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements. [Betea; Deletant, "Communist Terror...", p.19; Tismăneanu, p.298-299] Occasionally, as in the 1936 trial of Romanian Communist Party (PCR) activists, including Ana Pauker, Alexandru Drăghici, and Alexandru Moghioroş in Craiova, he assisted Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu). [Deletant, "Communist Terror...", p.19; Tismăneanu, p.298-299]

Before 1937, he was briefly active in the Radical Peasants' Party, formed by Grigore Iunian as a splinter group of the National Peasants' Party; [Alexandrescu et al.] however, he was by then already a member of the illegal Communist Party [Deletant, "Communist Terror...", p.19; Tismăneanu, p.99, 298] and active in the Agitprop section. [Tismăneanu, p.99]

In 1942-1943, during World War II he was imprisoned for his political activity (notably, in the camp at Târgu Jiu), [Frunză, p.468; Tismăneanu, p.298] and, as a member of a paramilitary grouping, [Tismăneanu, p.298] played a secondary part in the events of August 23, 1944 that led to the downfall of the Ion Antonescu regime. [Frunză, p.129] During this time, although present among the few active leaders of the Party around general secretary Ştefan Foriş, [Tismăneanu, p.119] he became a supporter of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's faction (dominated by imprisoned activists). [Tismăneanu, p.37, 298, 323] In 1944, he played a hand in Foriş' deposition, assisting Emil Bodnăraş and Gheorghiu-Dej. [Tismăneanu, p.151]

After the war, Maurer became a member of the Central Committee of the "Romanian Workers' Party" (the new name of the PCR after it had incorporated the Social Democratic Party) and took several ministerial positions in the new communist government of Romania — including that of undersecretary of the Communications and Public Works Ministry under Gheorghiu-Dej in the first Petru Groza government. [Frunză, p.188, 217; Tismăneanu, p.112] In 1946-1947, he was a member of Romania's delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (headed by Gheorghe Tătărescu) and was briefly employed by Ana Pauker at the Foreign Ministry, before being dismissed for having an unsatisfactory level of political conviction. [Tismăneanu, p.239, 298-299] He was removed from the forefront for the following decade, [Frunză, p.437; Tismăneanu, p.299] working for the Institute of Juridical Research. [Tismăneanu, p.299]

He supported Gheorghiu-Dej's nationalist policy, eventually becoming foreign minister of Romania in 1957 (replacing Grigore Preoteasa), holding office for six months, and serving in the delegations establishing closer contacts with the People's Republic of China during the Sino-Soviet Split and a détente with France in 1959. [Frunză, p.240, 439, 448, 452; Tismăneanu, p.215, 219, 299, 342]

Regarded, according to some claims, [Frunză, p.462] as Gheorghiu-Dej's chosen successor, he was head of state (President of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly of Romania) from 1958 to 1961. He took the seat previously occupied by Constantin Pîrvulescu on the Politburo, [Tismăneanu, p.207] and then replaced Chivu Stoica as Prime Minister of Romania in 1961. [Tismăneanu, p.207, 299] In the latter capacity, he was the recipient of a 1963 letter by the British philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell, who pleaded with the Romanian authorities to free from jail Belu Zilber (a victim of the conflict between the Party leadership and Pătrăşcanu, Zilber had been a political prisoner for sixteen years by then). [Griffin, p.572] Ion Gheorghe Maurer was also one of three acting Chairmen of the Presidum of the Great National Assembly (heads of state) between March 19 and March 24, 1965.

Alongside Emil Bodnăraş, Maurer was an important member of the Politburo in opposing the ambitions of Gheorghe Apostol and, together with Bodnăraş, helping along the establishment of the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime. [Frunză, p.463-464, 475-478; Tismăneanu, p.213, 221-222, 299, 323, 344] Among others, Maurer helped silence potential opposition from inside the Party by withdrawing his support for Corneliu Mănescu and welcoming Ceauşescu's directives, before being himself criticized and sidelined (at the same time as his collaborator Alexandru Bârlădeanu). [Deletant, "Ceausescu...", p.69-70; Frunză, p.479-480, 483, 510-511; Tismăneanu, p.37, 299] Pensioned in 1974, he was still present in the forefront at most Party ceremonies. [Tismăneanu, p.239]

A prominent member of the nomenklatura for much of his life, he was known for his latent conflict with a large part of the PCR hierarchy. [Tismăneanu, p.299] He accumulated a sizable wealth and was known for his ostentatious lifestyle. [Tismăneanu, p.299] In 1989, Maurer's earlier support for Ceauşescu led the sidelined PCR members who were planning to state their opposition to the regime by drafting the so-called "Letter of the Six" (Apostol, Bârlădeanu, and Pîrvulescu, together with Silviu Brucan, Grigore Răceanu, and Corneliu Mănescu) not to enlist his assistance in the process. [Tismăneanu, p.299, 343]

He died in Bucharest a decade after the Romanian Revolution, leaving a son, Jean.

Notes

References

*Ion Alexandrescu, Ion Bulei, Ion Mamina, and Ioan Scurtu, "Partidele politice din România, 1862–1994: Enciclopedie", Bucharest, Editura Mediaprint, 1995; fragment published in "Dosarele Istoriei", 12/III 1998, p.26-27
*ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_27680/gheorghe_maurer____aparator_al_comunistilor_.html Lavinia Betea, "Gheorghe Maurer – «aparător al comuniştilor»"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", February 9, 2005
*Dennis Deletant, "Communist Terror in Romania", C. Hurst & Co., London, 1999; "Ceausescu and the Securitate", M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York, 1995
*Victor Frunză, "Istoria stalinismului în România", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
*Nicholas Griffin (ed.), "The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell", Routledge, London, 2002
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000215/ai_n14289993 Gabriel Partoş, "Obituary: Ion Gheorghe Maurer"] in "The Independent, February 15, 2000
*Vladimir Tismăneanu, "Stalinism pentru eternitate", Polirom, Iaşi, 2005 ISBN 973-681-899-3 (translation of "Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism", University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, ISBN 0-52-023747-1)