Siguranța Statului, the Kingdom of Romania's secret services, began to keep an eye on him, and he was first arrested in 1933 for authoring leaflets that were spread in the typesetters' room at Cartea Românească.

He was well-qualified for the clandestine work the job required: in 1940, in Moscow, Georgescu had received training, coordinated by Georgi Dimitrov, from NKVD agents; he learned both the secret code for corresponding with the Comintern, and a special technique for writing its messages on glass.

He also served on the Politburo, was the Secretary of the Party's Central Committee, and ran the United Workers' Front, which coordinated the actions of communists and social democrats.

As Minister of Interior he contributed to the country's denazification and later to the reorganization of the law enforcement system along the Soviet model, supervising the establishment of several penal colonies and coordinating a dekulakization campaign.

[6] Unlike the other two, he had not spent World War II in Moscow, but the Comintern's suggestion in 1940 that Georgescu be made General Secretary kept Gheorghiu-Dej wary of his influence.

He died in obscurity; after cremation, his ashes were placed in the Monument of the Heroes for the Freedom of the People and of the Motherland, for Socialism in Bucharest's Carol Park, being removed after the Romanian Revolution of 1989.