Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist by Robert s> Levy (review)

Abstract

770 SEER, 8o, 4, 2002 repressionwas much reduced. By the same token,many of the ideaspresented here are likely to prove useful to those researchingpost-communist conflicts within the region. One of the most valuable aspects of Petersen'swork is its identificationof new directionsforcomparativeandinterdisciplinaryresearch. As such, the work should constitute essential reading both for theorists of collective action and political violence and for those working on Lithuanian experiencesof Soviet and Nazi occupation. BalticResearch Unit D. J. SMITH University ofBradford Levy, Robert. AnaPauker.TheRiseandFallofaJewishCommunist. Universityof California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, and London, 200I. xii + 407 pp. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $35.00: /22.00. IT would be difficult to find a more sinister-lookingphotograph than that published in the Romanian Communist Party newspaper Scznteia on II February 1948 of the top-level Romanian delegation that left Moscow following the signing of a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union. The line-up, dictated by the Soviet authorities, showed Petru Groza, Molotov, Gheorghiu-Dej and Vyshinskiin the frontrow, with Ana Paukerand VasileLucabehind them. Gheorghiu-Dej was identifiedas head of the RCP, but Pauker,because of her position on the far left of the photograph, was listed in the caption first,followed by Groza, Luca, Molotov, Gheorghiu-Dejand the others. Of the Romanians, Pauker was better known to the West than her colleagues;hergrandleap into thepublic arenahad come only monthsearlier, on 7 November 1947, when she was appointed foreign minister. This senior position of state was guaranteed to bring her significant international exposure, even more so since she was the only woman of stature in the leadershipof a Communist satellite.The reactionswere frequentlyunfavourable . In a lengthy articlein Time(20 September I948) she was thus described: 'Now she is fat and ugly; but once she was slim and (her friends remember) beautiful. Once she was warmhearted,shy and full of pity for the oppressed, of whom she was one. Now she is cold as the frozen Danube, bold as a boyar on his richland and pitilessas a scythein the Moldaviangrain.'Her fidelityto Moscow attracteda numberofjokes. InJuly I952, when Paukerwasdismissed as Foreign Minister, Time recounted one of them: 'One sunny day in Bucharest, as the story goes, a friend stopped Ana Paukerin the street and asked: "Ana,why are you carrying an umbrella?It's not raining." Replied Romania's no. I Communist: "It's raining in Moscow. I heard it on the radio."' Undoubtedly, Pauker'sheavy build and masculine countenance reinforced the image of an unfeeling monster, but Robert Levy's biography probes far more deeply into her life and times than any previous study and shows that the caricatureis misleading. Likemany youngJewish intellectualsin Central and EasternEuropeAna was drawntowardsthe left, but afterthe FirstWorld REVIEWS 771 War she turned her back on democratic socialism and served the interestsof Soviet Communism, displaying a slavish obedience to the dictates of the Comintern. Her blind faith in Stalin deluded her into thinkingthat he could do no wrong, and thathowever uncomfortablethe moraldilemmasobedience to him imposed, Partydisciplinewas paramount. Until the returnof Paukerfrom the Soviet Union in mid-September 1944, the leadershipof the Romanian Communist Partywas composed principally of ethnic Romanians who had spent the war years in Romania: GheorghiuDej , LucreqiuPatradcanu,Constantin Parvulescu, Teohari Georgescu, and GheorgheApostol. Includedin thisgroupwas Emil Bodnara?,a Romanian of Ukrainian and German parents. But this group was, with the exception of Bodnara?,unknown to the Soviets and it was precisely because Stalin and Dimitrov, the head of the post-1943 'frozen' Comintern, had little idea of what was happening amongst the Communists in Romania, that Dimitrov ordered Paukerwho, after being exchanged for a Romanian politician held by the Sovietsin May 194 I spentthe restof the war in Moscow, to assumethe leadership of the Party. During an interrogation by a Party commission in June 1956, Pauker said that she was ordered by Dimitrov to return to Romania in September 1944 with two radio-transmissionspecialists.Pauker was apparentlyreluctantto do this:'ComradeDimitrov', she explained, 'I am a woman, I haven't been in Romania during the war, I was in prison [in Romania] and I've no idea what the situationis;ten years have passed and it is a difficultthing you are...