Ion Flueraș – a left-wing activist’s path to God

Son of ploughmen – PSD leader

Ion Flueraș was born on 2 November 1882 in Arad, in the commune of Chereluș. His parents, Moise and Maria, were peasants; the Flueraș family’s wealth was represented by the house they lived in and the 2 hectares of land that ensured their existence. Ion Flueraș attended the primary school in his native community, showing great qualities and an inclination to study.

Unfortunately, his parents did not have the means to send him to school, so the young man was sent to a wheelwright in Pancota to learn the trade. When he finished his apprenticeship in 1901, he was accepted into a carpentry workshop in Arad, where he came into contact with political ideologies and decided that he had to take an active part in political life, wanting to fight for the Romanian nation to achieve union. That same year he joined the Socialist Democratic Party.

At the service of the nation

In a short time he became one of the main militants of the PSD in Arad; at the same time he started his editorial activity, becoming a collaborator of many workers’ publications and of the Budapest newspaper Adevărul, the organ of the Romanian section of the PSD in Hungary.

Between 1905 and 1918 he lived in Budapest, where he was in charge of the propaganda and press department of the PSD and became the responsible editor of the newspaper Adevărul.

During the First World War, he worked in an aircraft factory on the island of Csepel, but was demobilised and returned to Budapest, where he became involved in politics again.

In October 1918, he was sent by the Romanian section of the PSDU to try to get closer to the Romanian National Party, with a view to a collaboration that would eventually lead to the Great Union. Ion Flueraș fulfilled his mission in an exemplary manner: the two parties formed a Central Romanian National Council, composed of 6 representatives from each party. One of the six PSD representatives was Ion Flueraș.

Fighting for the Great Union

He contributed to the finalisation of the resolution of the Great National Assembly of 1 December 1918, and was elected vice-president of the Assembly, and then elected to the Governing Council as head of the Social Welfare and Hygiene Resort. Also in Alba Iulia, on 1 December 1918, he was elected General Secretary of the PSD.

In 1920 he was part of the Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, in 1924 he attended the International Labour Conference in Geneva and then in London, where he presented the accession of the Romanian Social Democratic Federation to the Socialist Labour International.

Between 1921 and 1926, he was editor of the Tribuna Socialista newspaper in Cluj. From 1922, he settled in Bucharest, where he worked in the Ministry of Labour, in the Social Welfare Department, until 1938, when, with the royal dictatorship, he worked in the workers’ guilds.

Rejection of the PCR and Sovietization

In August 1929, as a representative of the Socialist Party of Transylvania and Banat, he was sent to Moscow to participate in the work of the Second Congress of the Third International and to discuss the question of the affiliation of the future Communist Party of Romania to the Third International.

But he was not admitted to the congress because Buharin accused him of participating in the Romanian government as a member of the Transylvanian Governing Council. Flueraș defended his position, but the Soviets said he had behaved shamefully. Buharin also decided to expel him from the party. This did not happen.

Between 1927 and 1932, he took an active part in the political life of the country, standing as a candidate on the list of deputies and being elected three times: 1928, 1931, 1932. In Parliament, Ioan Flueraș was a constant and firm defender of the people from below, with priority given to the peasantry.

After September 1944, he participated in the reorganisation of the PSD with Constantin Titel Petrescu, Lotar Radaceanu, Stefan Voitec, etc., but he did not accept collaboration with the PCR and fought against it in order to preserve the identity of the PSD.

He refused Groza and was arrested.

Although his attitude towards the Soviets was firm, their representatives tried several times to win him over to their side. Petru Groza himself offered him the post of Labour Minister in the 6 March 1945 government. Flueraș refused, reiterating his refusal to accept the Soviet occupation, which he described as a dictatorship.

Flueraș lived with his wife Ileana in Bucharest. They had a carpentry workshop near the Izvor district. It was there that they met Mircea Ștefanovici’s band, “Tinerimea Libera” (an association of left-wing young people, students at the Polytechnic, who fought in particular for the right to freedom of the press).

In 1945, the members of this legally operating association were arrested. Along with them was Ion Flueraș, who was not a member of the “Free Youth”, but was said to have supported and hosted it. He was also accused of distributing banned democratic manifestos. After three months of investigation and detention in Jilava, Flueraș was released.

After the PSD congress of 10 March 1946, which decided to contest the parliamentary elections of 19 November 1946 on a joint list with the PCR, the independent PSD was formed under the presidency of Titel Predescu, which Ion Flueras joined and where he remained active until the autumn of 1948, when he was arrested.

Rejection of communism: the crime of treason

Arrested for his political convictions and his exemplary loyalty to the socialism practised by Constantin Titel Petrescu, Flueraș was accused of high treason and sentenced on 16 June 1949 to 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 5000 lei.

Flueraș served his sentence in Gherla prison, where he was taken in 1949. Too old and ill to work in the workshops, he was assigned to various jobs, such as sweeping, washing toilets, etc.

These jobs allowed him to move around the prison, and from time to time he was able to sneak into one of the prison buildings where icons and other items from the old prison chapel were kept.

Although all those who knew Flueraș before 1948 testify that he was an extraordinary man, a man of rare honesty and dignity, it was only in prison that Flueraș’ soul opened to God and discovered the Truth and the Way.

The former political prisoner Dumitru Bordeianu, in his monumental work “Testimonies from the Swamp of Despair”, testifies to this transformation and especially to Flueraș’ Christian behaviour.

“I was amazed to see an old man on his knees with his hands folded. He was praying before an icon. At the sound of my footsteps he turned his head and, seeing that I was a prisoner like himself, beckoned me to come closer. I approached with trepidation and knelt down as well.

After he had finished his prayer, I asked him in astonishment: “How is it that he, who should have been an atheist, still prays to God?” In a voice that warmed my heart, the old man told me that it was in his youth, that it was all a lie, and that now he prayed to God for forgiveness.

As we parted, I whispered to the old man to be careful, for there are many informers, and some informer might be found to denounce him. But he replied that he was no longer afraid, and so I left him in peace… My meetings with Flueraș in the chapel were repeated several times.

He would always call me to him to stand shoulder to shoulder and pray… he would pray with a warm heart, overwhelmed by the presence of God.

During our meetings in that chapel, I felt old Flueraș so close and warm to me, as if he were my father, with his white beard… I still remember what he said to me: “My son, it’s all lies. Don’t lose God, you’ll lose everything”.

(Cezarina Bărzoi and Ionuț Băiaș – HotNews)