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The1936 Craiova Trial (Romanian:Procesul de la Craiova) was apolitical trial of some members of theRomanian Communist Party, part of therepression of communists in the Kingdom of Romania, judged by a military tribunal inCraiova.
During the night of July 12, 1935, police arrestedAna Pauker, a leader of the Romanian Communist Party,[1][2] together withȘmil Marcovici andDimitrie Ganev, members of the Communist Party, as well as the Kaufmans, who rented the house where the Communists' meetings took place.[1] During the arrest, Pauker was shot in both legs.[2] Further 14 communists were arrested in July 1935, during a meeting of theUnion of Communist Youth.[1] These includedAndor Bernat, Vilma Kajeso,Donca Simo [ro],Ady Ladislau, Samuel Krug, János Herbák, Ernest Schoen, Ștefan Csazsar, Ana Csazsar, Ștefan Naghi,Leizer Grünberg,[1]Alexandru Drăghici,Liuba Chișinevschi,Alexandru Moghioroș, andEstera Radoșovețki.[1][2]
The main charges set by military prosecutor ColonelPetre Popescu-Cetate[2] against the defendants were "activity against the Romanian state" anddisturbing the peace.[1]
The trial was supposed to start in Bucharest on June 5, 1936. Large pro-communist rallies were organized in front of the War Council in Bucharest and, in some cases, the soldiers firedwarning shot to calm the crowd. Due to this, the authorities decided to hold the trial inside amilitary engineering barracks 7 km (4.3 mi) away fromCraiova, a city with little antifascist movement and the same place where the unionists involved in theGrivița Strike of 1933 were convicted in the1934 Craiova Trial.[1]
The train which took the accused to Craiova was defended by a hundred gendarmes. The barracks were surrounded by all the gendarmes in theDolj County, while the barracks gate was defended bymachine guns. The access to the hall was allowed only to officers andSiguranță agents, while the journalists were allowed only if they described the debates "in a reasonable way".[1]
The defendants had a team of 20 lawyers from Bucharest led byLucrețiu Pătrășcanu andIon Gheorghe Maurer. Pătrășcanu was however required to leave the tribunal, as he had been in the meantime suspended by theBucharest Bar due to his involvement in the Grivița Strike.[1] Seven foreign lawyers advised the team of lawyers and they also helped to publicize the trial at a European level.[1]
The Romania media and society followed the trial, with clashes between the communists, who organized rallies for the freeing ofAna Pauker andlegionnaire students, who burned theAdevărul andDimineața newspapers, which they saw as "communist rags".[1]
The defense team tried to argue that the defendants were not against the Romanian state, but only that only against the way of organization of the country. They also argued that ideas should be fought with words, not through the justice system.[1]
The three leaders of the Communist Party, includingAna Pauker, were found guilty and received the maximum penalty: 20 years in prison and a fine of 100,000lei. The other communists received between 5 and 9 years in prison. The penalties totaled at 155 years in prison, 190 years of correctional interdictions and 5 million lei in fines.[1] Pauker's authority within the Communist Party was enhanced by her behavior during the Craiova Trial; while being detained atMislea andDumbrăveni prisons until 1940, she became one of the leaders of the prison faction of the party.[3]