Gheorghe Cristescu

Nicknamed "Plăpumarul" ("The Blanket Maker"), he is also occasionally referred to as "Omul cu lavaliera roșie" ("The man with the red four-in-hand necktie"), after the most notable of his accessories.

Soon after a Romanian Railways employee named Stoenescu attempted to assassinate Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu on December 9, 1909, Cristescu, alongside other România Muncitoare activists (including I. C. Frimu and Dimitrie Marinescu), was arrested and interrogated on suspicion of having inspired the action.

[5] After the Central Powers offensive (see Romanian Campaign), he remained active in enemy-occupied Bucharest, and kept contacts with Social Democratic Party of Germany with the help of German soldiers who sympathized with the latter.

In this capacity, he became noted in debates over the imprisonment of Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor, a Romanian citizen who had joined the Russian Red Army in Bessarabia during the October Revolution, and who had been tried for treason.

[15] The charge against the communists was based on their rejection of Greater Romania as a concept, and their commitment to "world revolution" and the Comintern, which raised suspicion that they were trying to overthrow the existing order through actions such as that of Goldstein.

[16] Constantin Argetoianu, Interior Minister in the second Alexandru Averescu cabinet and main instigator of the arrest, later admitted that his order lacked legal grounds, and stated that he had given Cristescu approval to hold congress with the knowledge that Comintern policies were to be submitted to a vote, thus causing the faction to incriminate itself.

[17] Most of the accused were acquitted, an important reason for this being Cristescu's convincing testimony (alongside a hunger strike endured by most on the bench, as well as the absence of sufficient evidence).

[21] According to Vladimir Tismăneanu, Cristescu's marginalization inside the Workers and Peasants' Bloc (created as an umbrella group for the outlawed Communist faction) was a major factor in his conflict with other activists.