A socialist since early youth and a party member since its creation in 1910, he returned from captivity in World War I to lead the PSDR from Bucharest, and involved himself in a violent clash with the Romanian authorities.

Young Moscovici joined up with Leon Ghelerter's "Social Studies Circle", where he became comrades with Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor, Ottoi Călin, Max Wexler, and Emanoil Socor.

[6] The following year, with Romania's entry into the Second Balkan War, Moscovici was drafted as a medic into the Romanian Land Forces, and sent to the Bulgarian front; he witnessed first-hand the failures of sanitation and healthcare in the army, as some 5,600 soldiers died of cholera and other treatable causes.

Joining him in this effort were other veterans of the Bulgarian campaign, including his lifelong friends Constantin Titel Petrescu and Toma Dragu, alongside the socialist physician Ecaterina Arbore.

For a while, he turned to regular journalism, and, with A. de Herz, Liviu Rebreanu, Scarlat Froda and Barbu Lăzăreanu, put out a theatrical daily, Scena.

[21] Even though they did not take part in organizing the actual workers' strike, the PS men were immediately identified as culprits by the authorities, who amassed a Chasseurs' Regiment around the Sfântul Ionică building.

[22] It was at that moment, on 26 December, that Moscovici and other moderates took the initiative, and sent couriers at factories throughout the city, calling union men to leave their stations and rally on the army-occupied street.

"[25] Some tens of workers were killed when the Chasseurs' Regiment fired on the columns gathering at Teatrului Square, on Calea Victoriei; up to 500 people, including labor organizer I. C. Frimu, were arrested.

[25] A large segment of PS activists (48 men), was court-martialled on various charges: with Cristescu, Popovici, Voinea and Alecu Constantinescu, Moscovici was indicted of sedition and "bringing offense" to King Ferdinand I.

The reorganized party, an uneasy alliance of reformists and Bolshevized radicals, held sway over the 156 trade unions in Greater Romania, having blocked out competition from syndicalism and anarchism.

[31] Moscovici, who represented the PS Executive Committee at the funeral ceremony of Marxist theorist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea,[32] ran in the May 1920 suffrage, carried out under a PP government.

In its ultimatum to the government, it asked for the recognition of collective bargaining, and demanded a unified and advanced system of workers' compensation, threatening with a general strike in case of non-compliance.

[38] When Averescu refused to give in, the PS put into motion the 20 October general strike, with the peaceful slogan: "Everyone stays at home, we will hold no demonstrations so as not to leave room for the provocateurs.

"[43] In May 1921, Averescu also passed a more liberal law on labor disputes, which allowed trade unions to form but screened their leadership for various criteria, including Romanian ethnicity.

"[47] The recipient of an amnesty,[citation needed] Moscovici returned to the PS just as the radical side, inspired by the consolidation of Soviet Russia, was pushing for the party's affiliation to the Comintern.

In essence, Moscovici, Petrescu and other centrists did not reject outright the notion of affiliating, but demanded guarantees—whereas the "rightist" side of the PS, with Jumanca, Voinea, and Iacob Pistiner, simply objected to all manner of contact with the Soviets.

[55] According to Bolshevik delegate Mihail Cruceanu, Moscovici was making efforts to boycott a PS vote on the issue, refusing to convene a congress and leaving intact the seal placed by Averescu's police on the Sfântul Ionică building.

[68] Back in Romania, he was one of the socialists who also joined the League of Human Rights, alongside left-leaning politicians such as Costa-Foru, Nicolae Lupu, Vasile Stroiescu and Dem I.

[73] For his part, Moscovici represented the FPSR and spoke about its policies at Dimitrie Gusti's Social Institute—one of a set of conferences in which Romanian doctrinaires advertised their respective ideologies.

[85] The alliance ended abruptly when the PNŢ cabinet of Iuliu Maniu used violence to quell down the Lupeni Strike of 1929, while also refusing to release left-wing political prisoners.

[90] Also in 1929, Moscovici and Socor sat on the board of a cooperative, Casa Poporului ("People's House"), which attempted to purchase land property and place it under proletarian administration.

[99] As Petrescu argues, PSDR leaders were persuaded when communists renounced their "provocative and libelous verbiage"; but they eventually found it impossible to deal with a party that did not accept "legality and democracy.

[103] The tied elections were decided by King Carol II, who blocked the Iron Guard threat by handing power to another fascist group: the National Christian Party (PNC, successor of the LANC) with Octavian Goga as Premier.

[117] Following the 23 August Coup of 1944, in which the PSDR played a significant part, Antonescu was toppled, and Romania made a swift return to multiparty rule.

During the subsequent democratic interval, Moscovici was commemorated by Tudor Teodorescu-Braniște with a belated obituary in Jurnalul de Dimineaţă: "there are very few politicians in our country to have remained faithful to an idea their whole lives.

"[118] Although the PSDR was rapidly expanding, claiming some 700,000 members in 1945,[119] it was being undermined by the infiltration of communists, who, inspired by the Soviet occupation of Romania, worked to absorb it into a much smaller PCdR.

[121] The PCdR recreated itself as a "Workers' Party", while the Independent Social Democrats, led by Petrescu and Jumanca, remained active until the 1948 installment of a fully-fledged Romanian communist regime.

Zilber, who fell out with the communist regime and spent 18 years as a political prisoner, noted in his memoirs that expunging Moscovici and other deceased but inconvenient socialists from the history of Romania was "not hard at all": "difficulties showed up only when it came to the live ones".

[124] The Moscovici family maintained close contacts with Italian President Sandro Pertini, informing him about the realities of Ceaușescu's rule, beyond its liberalized facade.

[126] The Ilie and Mira Moscovici papers, preserved by Victor Frunză, are stored at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and Memory of the Romanian Exile.