Romanian members of the International Brigades in party investigations (1949 – 1965)

On 15th of May 2015, Mihai Burcea participated to the national conference „Provocări istorice: spații, idei, interpretări doctorale”  (Faculty of History, UNiversity of Bucharest) with the presentation „Interbrigadiști români în anchetele de partid ale CC al PMR (1949 – 1965)”/ Romanian members of the International Brigades in party investigations (1949 – 1965).

Abstract
The volunteers that fought in the International Brigades of Spain, created in the Autumn of 1936, came from 55 countries around the world: Romania (approximately 400 volunteers), USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Bulgaria, USA, etc. Their total number is estimated by most of historians to be somewhere between 32000 and 350000, from which 13.500 persons lost their lives in the combat.

After the end of the 2nd World War, many of the Romanian volunteers in the International Brigades, returned to Romania in order to participate to the building of the new political regime of ‘popular democracy’. A special Commission for the verification of the past of the former fighters in the International brigades and French Resistance was created in the autumn of 1949. The commission was subordinated to the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers Party

My presentation focus on the creation, the structure and the workings of the this Commission, as well as on some of the biographies of the persons it investigated. Moreover, I will emphasize the long and medium term effects these investigations had for the professional and political careers of those placed under investigation.