Pauker's Progress

Russia had placed an iron mop in the hands of Ana Pauker, its No. 1 Rumanian Communist, and Ana was busy mopping up. A fortnight ago, the leaders of the liberal National Peasant Party had been arrested (TIME, July 28). Aging (74) ex-Premier Juliu Maniu was in Malmaison Prison. Jon Mihalache had been moved to the cellar of the Ministry of Interior. Last week a rubber-stamp parliament outlawed the National Peasant Party, Rumania's majority party (70% of voters).

Communist Interior Minister Teohari Georgescu's home-grown version of the Soviet MVD snatched some 5,000 persons from offices, homes and streets. They were not all Peasant Party members. But they were mostly Maniu followers. In the prison basement of the white marble ministry they got ari MVD-style* rubber hosing with one purpose: to extort confessions exposing a National Peasant Party plot against Kremlin Puppet Petru Groza and the Soviet Union.

In her day, Ana Pauker, too, had spent some years in Rumanian prisons. There she had been able to read, study and organize clandestine Communist cells. Rumanian prisons now afforded no opportunities for students and plotters, only slow starvation, tuberculosis, typhus.

* As described by a recent victim: five to 15 hours of interrogation daily; during questioning prisoner sits under blinding arc lamps, hands flat on table; food is two thin slices of bread, jug of hot water daily, elaborately served by white-capped chef with retinue.

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