The Simpletons

A favorite Communist morality play casts the Communists themselves as gulls and simpletons: a diabolically clever villain, an "enemy of the people," insinuates himself into the party, dupes the honest comrades, rises higher and higher, and finally is given top responsibilities and honors. All the while he is conniving with other "enemies of the people," internal or external. But at last the crafty wretch is "unmasked," and the honest comrades, roused from their torpid illusions, take their vengeance.

Probably no Communist will ever play the villain's role as sensationally as the late Lavrenty Beria of Moscow. But in Bucharest last week, Moscow's Rumanian satellites staged a highly professional road-show version of the melodrama, and the lead was played in fine style by Vasile Luca, a Hungarian from Transylvania who climbed from a locksmith's shop to a Communist education in Moscow and up to the posts of Deputy Premier, Finance Minister and No. 3 Red in postwar Rumania. Purged in 1952, Luca has since been in prison. Last week Bucharest announced that he had been convicted of treason and handed the death sentence.

Charitably, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Bloody Massacres. The 1951 Communist Party biography said of Comrade Luca: "While the revolutionary spirit was on the upsurge in Hungary [1918-19], Comrade Vasile Luca was among the first volunteers . . . With rifle in hand he fought against enemies of the revolution." The indictment released last week said that in that year Luca "participated in bloody massacres of workers and peasants."

Said the 1951 biography: "Toward the end of 1924, agents of the security police arrested Comrade Vasile Luca and subjected him to untold tortures and sufferings, trying to make him betray names of his comrades and to make him betray his party. Like a true Communist, he remained steadfast and unshaken, and refused to betray the cause." Said last week's indictment: In 1924 he enrolled as an agent for the Rumanian secret police and "acted as an agent provocateur."

Scapegoat Needed. As recently as three years ago, Luca was at the top of Rumania's Communist heap--along with homely Foreign Minister Ana Pauker (also purged, demoted, and possibly awaiting trial) and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who is still Premier. But in 1952 the Red regime drastically devalued the Rumanian leu, thus depriving the people of most of their savings. News of the impending devaluation leaked out; party favorites and some others got rid of their old currency ahead of time. As Finance Minister, Luca took the rap. In addition, the regime now needed a villain to blame for the desperate economic problems caused by the persistent Russian plundering of Rumania. He was already on hand --that old trouper, Comrade Luca.

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