It was also outside Romania that the propaganda section of the Central Committee arranged for the publication of the regime’s official response to the book. Writing under the pseudonym of Petre Moldoveanu, Constantin Giurescu, the most distinguished Romanian historian at the time, was asked to produce a polemical pamphlet refuting Lazarev’s claims. Entitled How to Falsify History, it was printed in Milan by Constantin Dragan, an Italian millionaire of Romanian origin, under the imprint of his publishing house Nagard (Dragan spelt backwards) in 1975.

In Soviet Moldavia itself, reviewers gave an uncritical validation of Lazarev’s views, with one sycophant even hailing the book as ‘a major contribution to Soviet historiography’ [M. Sitnik, review in Codri, no. 12 (1974), p. 137]. This sparring over Bessarabia continued throughout 1975 and was fuelled by the rehabilitation of Marshal Ion Antonescu, the wartime dictator who had led Romanian forces in the joint attack with Germany upon the Soviet Union in 1941 in the hope of regaining Bessarabia. Previously regarded as a taboo figure, Antonescu’s success in reconquering Bessarabia and northern Bukovina was judged by the propaganda section of the Romanian Central Committee to be too sensitive a subject to be treated in a work of history, and therefore the Marshal’s re-entry into the public domain was entrusted to a novelist, Marin Preda (1922-80). In Delirul (Delirium) Antonescu is presented as a tragic figure who sees Romania’s only hope of retrieving Bessarabia in an alliance with Germany. For a Romanian public starved of all but Communist propaganda about Antonescu, the novel was like a breath of fresh air and its print-run of 35,000 copies sold out immediately. The partial vindication of the Marshal was roundly condemned in the Moscow Literaturnaia gazeta, and as a result Preda was instructed by the Central Committee to produce a revised edition, giving more emphasis to the struggle against Fascism in Romania during the war. This edition had a print-run of 100,000 copies. [25]

Being a successful author, the [Stalinist] repressive apparatus saw him as a "cultural good" of the people and [“]took care[“] of him.

First informative note comes dated September 9, 1952 and was published in the journal of culture "Altitudes", in May 2006, “the aforementioned individual will continue to be monitored to gather information and evidence in order to be regimented into a work cell.”

The writer confirms that authorities had an eye on him in the volume of essays "The Impossible Return": “By 1952 I was in Tusnad, in the first real vacation in my life. A friend very uneasy in his conscience, uneasiness I still don’t understand to this day, warned me in May of that same year that if I do not immediately write something to disperse the clouds of a disease that had been contracted to my name (naturalism!) and in which I floated unknowingly I was going to be kicked out of the Writers Union and this Literary disease will turn into a Political one. And that would be serious...  He had managed to turn me anxious as well.'” Marin Preda escapes the long arm of the political police by writing the story "Deployment", having as subject the collectivization.

"Jewish circles"

The second time when he falls under Securitate’s intense scrutiny is in 1965, when he married Eta Wexler, his second wife and Jewish literary critic. This marriage is not seen well in the eyes of the party and the political police, which considers that Marin Preda fell under the influence of "Jewish nationalist circles."

In the file with the number of 11.119 from Fund "D" of the Romanian Intelligence Service Archive is registered: “At the recommendation and arrangement of some Jews, Marin Preda married a Jewess, gradually getting to be surrounded and guided in literature and in life, almost exclusively by Jewish nationalist elements, such as Ovid S. Crohmalniceanu literary critic, hostile element, Paul Cornea, associate professor, hostile element, Horia Bratu, literary critic, Nina Cassian, writer, Tertullian N. literary critic and others.

The negative influence exerted on Marin Preda and especially that of Ovid S. Crohmalniceanu is observed especially in his attitude towards literary creation, toward the problems troubling the majority of writers, in the position he has toward our popular-democratic regime.” Following this report, in the home of Marin Preda they install listening devices. The writer escapes this time again, divorcing Eta and publishing the second volume of "Morometii" [movie1, movie2, movie full, text 1, text 2], which many critics consider a political compromise.

Theses of July

A third time the writer is tracked informatively by Securitate is in 1971, soon after the release of “July Theses”, used by Ceausescu to brutally disrupt freedom of speech and introduce censorship.

The dossier "Editor", as the report is code-named, is closed on March 19, 1973, with the conclusion: “Following discussions party organs have had with Marin Preda in December 1972, he improved his activity, increasing his standards in terms of quality and content of the works published at the publishing house he leads.”

In 1980, Marin Preda published his last novel, Cel mai iubit dintre pamânteni ("The Most Beloved Earthling") [movie, Vol 1, Vol 2], regarded as a violent critique of communism. After a few short weeks on the market, the novel was withdrawn from all public, university, and school libraries and all bookshops. It was not much later, on May 16, 1980, that the novelist died at the Writers' Mansion of Mogosoaia Palace. The autopsy, which took place 24 hours after his death, showed that his blood alcohol concentration was 3.5 BAC, enough to fall into a coma. The official cause of death was asphixiation.

LE: Also, above, should I have translated "element dusmanos" / "hostile element" with "suppressive", the term used by the Church of Scientology?

Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP, is a term used in Scientology to describe the "antisocial personalities" who, according to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, make up about 2.5% of the population. A statement on a Church of Scientology website describes this group as including notorious historic figures such as Adolf Hitler.  The term is often applied to those whom the Church of Scientology perceives as its enemies, i.e., those whose 'disastrous' and 'suppressive' acts are said to impede the progress of individual Scientologists or the Scientology movement.

One of the reasons Scientology doctrines portray Suppressive Persons as such a danger is that they are supposed to make people around them become Potential Trouble Sources (abbreviated PTS). Scientology defines a PTS as "a person who is in some way connected to and being adversely affected by a suppressive person. Such a person is called a potential trouble source because he can be a lot of trouble to himself and to others." PTSs are said to make up 17.5% of the population.