Valter or Walter Roman (October 9, 1913 – November 11, 1983), born Ernst or Ernő Neuländer, was a Romanian communist activist and soldier. During his lifetime, Roman was active inside the Romanian, Czechoslovakian, French, and Spanish Communist parties as well as being a Comintern cadre. He started his military career as a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, and rose to prominence in Communist Romania, as a high-level politician and military official.
Valter was the father of Petre Roman, a post-1989 politician, who served as Prime Minister.
Biography
Early life
Born in Nagyvárad, Austria-Hungary Empire (today Oradea, Romania), he was the child of Jewish parents whose first language was Hungarian. In later testimonies, he indicated that his ethnic background was not entirely relevant to him: "Germans said I was a Hungarian, Hungarians that I was Romanian, Romanians said that I was Jewish, but Jews said I was a communist, although I was not yet one at the time".
Roman obtained a degree in electrical engineering in Brno, Czechoslovakia.
Military career
Initially active inside the PCR's agitprop section, he was a volunteer in a Romanian artillery unit of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (see also Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War) — according to one source, it was then that he first adopted the name Valter Roman, while also using the pseudonym G. Katowski. Wounded twice during combat, Roman eventually left for the Soviet Union.
In 1938–1941, Roman worked at a plane factory in Kalinin, later for one of the Comintern sections, and, during World War II, for an Institute for Scientific Research (1941–1945). During the period, he married Hortensia Vallejo, who was originally from Santander, Spain.
At the time, Roman also headed the Romanian-language radio station of the Comintern (România Liberă), broadcasting propaganda against the regime of Ion Antonescu and Romania's actions on the Eastern Front as an ally of Nazi Germany (see Romania during World War II). He returned to Soviet-occupied Romania in July 1945, as the political commissar for the Soviet-organized Horea, Cloșca și Crișan Division, commanded by General Mihail Lascăr.
Under the communist regime, Roman became a general in the Romanian Army (Major General after May 1, 1948) with political responsibilities (Chief of the Army Directorate for Education, Culture, and Propaganda, 1946; Chief of the Superior Political Direction of the Romanian Army and Chief of Staff, 1947–1951), and Minister of Telecommunications (March 29, 1951 – January 24, 1953). At the time, he declared himself in favor of recruiting a new military force "from the ranks of the working class, of the toiling peasantry and of the progressive intelligentsia".
Close to the Ana Pauker "Muscovite wing" of the PCR, he came into conflict with the party leadership around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Initially removed from his Army position in 1950, at the same time as all cadres who had fought in the International Brigades or the French Resistance, Roman was deposed from government office, purged from the PCR and Army on charges of "Titoism" and "espionage", and singled out for a possible show trial (1952). He became subject to daily interrogations by the Party Control Commission.
Pressures on him were relaxed after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Roman became head of Editura Politică (1954–1983). He remained a suspect at a time when Gheorghiu-Dej felt increasingly threatened, was subject to a "vote of censure" in 1954, and was completely rehabilitated only in 1956.
Party leadership
In 1956 and 1957, as a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, Valter Roman was involved in deciding Romanian policies in regard to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which threatened to spark similar actions in Romania. He spent late October in Budapest, sending back reports which inflamed sentiments by presenting alleged revolutionary violence. After the Red Army invaded Hungary, he accompanied Gheorghiu-Dej, the writer Mihai Beniuc, and other local Communists to Budapest, where the three of them reviewed the situation and expressed approval of Soviet policies. Later on, he was involved in interrogating Imre Nagy during his detainment in Snagov, while also ensuring contacts between Nagy and Soviet officials. Nagy was returned to Hungary, secretly tried and executed. According to Fedor Burlatsky, Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries."