Alexandru Bârlădeanu

Alexandru Bârlădeanu (or Bîrlădeanu; January 25, 1911 – November 13, 1997) was a Romanian Marxian economist who was prominent during the Communist regime until being sidelined in 1968. In his later years, following the collapse of the regime, he served as Senate President.

Born into a family of teachers in Comrat in the Imperial Russian province of Bessarabia, he finished primary school in Căuşeni in 1921, studying in Tighina in 1921–1926 and attending high school in Iaşi from 1926 to 1928. His first job was in 1928, as a functionary at the Tighina school inspectorate. For the following eight years, he was a tutor and substitute teacher at the commercial school and the apprentices' school in Iaşi. From 1929 to 1931, he attended Politehnica University of Bucharest sporadically, but did not graduate. From 1933 to 1937, he attended the Political Economy section of the University of Iaşi Law faculty, receiving his doctorate in 1940, having worked as university assistant under Gheorghe Zane for the preceding three years. Generally thought to have joined the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in 1943, other sources place the date at 1935. In either case, the student environment at Iaşi had drawn him into communist circles by 1933. Between 1934 and 1936 he headed the communist-inspired student organization "United Centers", worked on the leftist newspaper Manifest, and was an active member of the Antifascist League, the Tighina Antifascist Committee and Amicii URSS. In 1936, he was also in the leadership of the Iaşi section of the Student Democratic Front.

The June 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia found him on vacation there; he chose to remain and become a Soviet citizen. In September 1940 he began working at the Institute for Scientific Research in Chişinău, forced to flee in June 1941 following the province's recapture by Romania. Ending up in the Karaganda area, for nearly two years he was a teacher, school director, miner and party activist on a kolkhoz, until being sent to Moscow in 1943 to resume his studies. An active member of the Romanian communist exile circle in the Soviet Union during World War II, he worked in the Romanian-language division of Radio Moscow (1943–1945); contributed to TASS and to Graiul liber, the newspaper of Romanian prisoners in the Soviet Union (1943–1946); and was a teacher at the Romanian section of the anti-fascist school for prisoners (1944–1946), heading it in 1945. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he undertook the latter task as a party employee, helping indoctrinate Romanian prisoners. He also studied political economy at the Plekhanov Moscow Institute of the National Economy from 1943 to 1946 on a scholarship from the Chişinău institute. He taught there as well during his last year of study, but did not graduate because he left the country. He was brought back to Romania in June 1946 at the PCR's request, officially joining the party after recommendations from Leonte Răutu and Mihail Roller. From June to November 1946, he worked as instructor and assistant director at the central committee's economic section, beginning a rise that was aided by his start in an important position and his educated background.

...
Wikipedia