Vitali Holostenco or Holostenko ( uk, Віталій Холостенко, ; c. 1900,

Izmail Izmail (, , translit. ''Izmail,'' formerly Тучков ("Tuchkov"); ro, Ismail or ''Smil''; pl, Izmaił, bg, Исмаил) is a city and municipality on the Danube river in Odesa Oblast in south-western Ukraine. It serves as the administra ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 17 December 1937) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

n and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

communist politician. He used several

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

s, among which were ''Barbu'' and ''Petrulescu''.

Early life

Born in

Bessarabia Governorate The Bessarabia Governorate (, ) was a part of the Russian Empire from 1812 to 1917. Initially known as Bessarabia Oblast (Бессарабская область, ''Bessarabskaya oblast'') as well as, following 1871, a governorate, it included ...

in the

(in present-day

Odessa Oblast Odesa Oblast ( uk, Оде́ська о́бласть, translit=Odeska oblast), also referred to as Odeshchyna ( uk, Оде́щина) is an oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administ ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

), he was a student in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

during the 1920s. Holostenco joined the

Socialist Party of Romania The Socialist Party of Romania ( ro, Partidul Socialist din România, commonly known as ''Partidul Socialist'', PS) was a Romanian socialist political party, created on December 11, 1918 by members of the Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSDR) ...

and was one of the members to vote for its transformation into the Socialist-Communist Party (future Romanian Communist Party, ''PCdR'') in May 1921. He was immediately arrested alongside the new formation's leadership, and faced prosecution in the

Dealul Spirii Trial Dealul Spirii Trial (Romanian language, Romanian: ''Procesul din Dealul Spirii'') was a political trial conducted by a military tribunal in the Kingdom of Romania. 271 members of the Communist Party of Romania were accused of treason after voting f ...

, being detained in Iași for the following year. Upon his release, he fled to the Soviet Union, becoming the ''protégé'' of Christian Rakovsky, and climbed in the hierarchy of the

Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine, Abbreviation: KPU, from Ukrainian and Russian "" is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine which was banned in 1991 (accord ...

. His return to Romania is still mysterious - in 1927, Holostenco was already general secretary of the Romanian party. The emerging Soviet leader

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

had taken care to tighten his grip on the select group of Romanian leaders, trusting Vitali Holostenco to enforce the Comintern thesis on the Romanian state's heterogeneous character (with the need for the liberation of oppressed people it ruled over). Reaction to this goal had already provoked a crisis within the Party: in 1924,

Gheorghe Cristescu Gheorghe Cristescu (October 10, 1882 in Copaciu, Giurgiu County – November 29, 1973 in Timișoara) was a Romanian socialist and, for a part of his life, communist militant. Nicknamed "Plăpumarul" ("The Blanket Maker"), he is also occasionall ...

had left the PCdR without its leadership after being expelled for refusing to take the directives.

Political role

Holostenco could not finish the assignment of unifying the Romanian ''prison faction'' (most of its members either were serving or had been serving time in jail on Romanian soil) with the group inside the Soviet Union (the ''Muscovite faction''). More attached to the latter, he faced the virulent opposition of

Marcel Pauker Marcel Pauker (rendered in Russian as ''Марцел Паукер'' - ''Martsel Pauker''; December 6, 1896, Bucharest – August 16, 1938, Butovo, near Moscow) was a Romanian communist militant and husband of the future Romanian Communist l ...

. Pauker had been involved in countless political battles inside Romania, and aimed at being the next general secretary. Stalin decided to reject both options, and called Marcel Pauker to the Soviet Union (assigning him mundane tasks), while replacing Holostenco with Alexander Stefanski. Holostenco was recalled in 1931, and was executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

s. The charges brought against him are not known, but several things would have made Holostenco an unlikely survivor. Beside his association with Rakovsky (probably creating the suspicion that he was a supporter of the

Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...

), he had become of no use to Stalin after the ''

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

'' doctrine re-oriented the Comintern.

References

* Victor Frunză, ''Istoria stalinismului în România'',

Humanitas ''Humanitas'' is a Latin noun meaning human nature, civilization, and kindness. It has uses in the Enlightenment, which are discussed below. Classical origins of term The Latin word ''humanitas'' corresponded to the Greek concepts of '' philanthr ...

, Bucharest, 1990, p. 50 *

Vladimir Tismăneanu Vladimir Tismăneanu (; born July 4, 1951) is a Romanian American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A specialist in political systems and comparative politics, he is di ...

, ''Fantoma lui Gheorghiu-Dej'', Editura Univers, 1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:Holostenco, Vitali 1900s births 1937 deaths People from Izmail People from Izmailsky Uyezd Institute of Red Professors alumni General Secretaries of the Romanian Communist Party Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union) politicians Comintern people Dealul Spirii Trial Ukrainian emigrants to Romania Executed activists Great Purge victims from Ukraine Romanian emigrants to the Soviet Union