Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, (November 4 1900, Bacău–April 17 1954) was a leading member of the Communist Party of Romania, a lawyer, sociologist and economist.

Pătrăşcanu was born into a leading political family. Nevertheless, he became a socialist in his youth. Professionally, he was educated at the University of Leipzig and wrote studies of social history. He served as the Romanian Communist Party's representative to the Comintern in 1934 and 1935 during which he is thought to have developed doubts about Stalinism.

He put these questions aside in order to prioritize opposition to fascism and remained active in the party. He was imprisoned during the war and spent time at the Târgu Jiu concentration camp with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and the "prison faction" of the party. He joined the Central Committee of the party in 1945 after returning to Romania with the Red Army at the end of World War II. During Soviet occupation he served on the Politburo from 1946 to 1947 and became Minister of Justice in the new government. Pătrăşcanu was one of the leading figures in the negotiations that led to the fall of the Antonescu dictatorship and was considered leader of the party's "Secretariat faction".

Pătrăşcanu was arrested in 1948 at the instigation of Gheorghiu-Dej and was interrogated by the Securitate, which was at the time run by Soviet "advisors", but refused to co-operate. He was kept in detention until 1954 when he was executed at Jilava after a show trial. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1968 by Nicolae Ceauşescu in his attempt to discredit his predecessors and establish his own legitimacy.

See also

• Communist Romania