Voitec, Ştefan

Ștefan Voitec (also rendered Ștefan Voitech, Stepan Voitek; June 19, 1900 – December 4, 1984) was a Romanian Marxist journalist and politician who held important positions in the state apparatus of Communist Romania. Debuting as a member of the Socialist Party of Romania in his late teens, he formed the Socialist Workers Party of Romania, then the United Socialist Party, while also engaging in human rights activism and advocating prison reform. The mid-1930s brought him into contact with the Romanian Communist Party, with whom he formed tactical alliances; however, he rejected its political line, and was for a while known as a Trotskyist. In 1939, he joined the consolidated Social Democratic Party, which reunited various socialist groups outlawed by the National Renaissance Front. During World War II, despite ostensibly withdrawing form political life to do research, Voitec served as the party's Secretary and joined the anti-fascist underground. Some reports suggest that he was also a committed anti-communist, critical of the Soviet Union to the point on endorsing war in the East. As a war correspondent, Voitec made contributions to Nazi propaganda, an issue which made him vulnerable to blackmail in later decades. From June 1944, Voitec played a part in plotting the Anti-fascist Coup, negotiating a unified platform with communist Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. Following this regime change, he emerged as a leader of the legalized Social Democrats. In November, he became Minister of Education, serving under increasingly communized governments to December 1947. Himself won over by Marxism-Leninism, Voitec directed a purge of the teaching staff, and engineered his party's alliance with, then absorption by, the Communist Party. Voitec was a member of the unified group's Politburo, and represented Dolj County, then Electroputere factory, in the Great National Assembly; he also served as member of the first republican presidium in 1948, and was briefly the Deputy Prime Minister to Petru Groza. Criticized for his leniency and inconsistencies in applying party dogma, he was sidelined and placed under Securitate surveillance in the early 1950s. After serving as head of Centrocoop, which grouped Romania's consumers' cooperatives, Voitec returned to the forefront in 1955–1956, when he was reappointed minister, then Deputy Premier. In 1961, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej also included him on the State Council, as Assembly Chairman. As such, Voitec sanctioned the rise of Nicolae Ceaușescu, participating in his investiture as the first President of Romania (1974). Though his offices were by then largely ceremonial, he used his position to demand privileges for other former Social Democrats, and also obtained reconsideration for Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the Romanian Marxist classic. Shortly before dying of cancer in 1984, Voitec reportedly expressed regret for his communist conversion, which led to his second marginalization by Ceaușescu. He is remembered for his contributions to cultural development, responsible in large part for the establishment of Craiova University, the National Theater Craiova, and Magazin Istoric journal.