Alexandru Nicolau

Alexandru Nicolau was a Romanian lawyer, socialist and later communist activist. Active in the Romanian and French socialist movements before and during World War I, he left for Russia during the 1917 Revolutions. There, he became one of the organisers of Romanian volunteer detachments in support of the Soviets. Arrested shortly after returning to Romania in 1920, he left for Soviet Russia after a successful prison escape. During the later part of his life he held teaching positions at several Soviet universities, before falling victim to the Great Purge in 1937. His name was posthumously rehabilitated both in the Soviet Union and in his native Romania.

Nicolau was born in Bucharest in 1889. As student at the Saint Sava High School, he was friend with Constantin Titel Petrescu and Mihail Cruceanu, both of whom would later become known as socialist militants. After finishing his secondary education, Nicolau trained as a lawyer, receiving a degree from the local University, and a PhD in Paris, and admitted to the Bucharest Bar. His first contacts with the Romanian socialist movement, disorganised at the moment, came through his membership in the Bucharests Study Circle of the Socialist Students between 1908 and 1909. Soon after he began writing for Romnia Muncitoare, the main socialist press venue. One of his first notable contributions was his correspondence from Italy, when he criticised the reformist stance of the local socialist party. In 1911, Romnia Muncitoare published Nicolaus antimilitarist manifesto To the recruits, in which he called on the new recruits not to support the government crackdown on the demands of the workers and

Source: Wikipedia