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. 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. 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", He became subject to daily interrogations by the Party Control Commission. He remained a suspect at a time when Gheorghiu-Dej felt increasingly threatened, was subject to a "vote of censure" in 1954, 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." An associate of
Leonte Răutu, Roman seconded
Emil Bodnăraş in the 1959 process of writing and compiling Party history, with a mission to highlight both Gheorghiu-Dej's role in the 1944 toppling of
Ion Antonescu's regime and the insurrectional character of the coup. In 1961, he was among the Party leaders who spoke out against
Iosif Chişinevschi and other former leaders who had been since marginalized, such as Pauker (whom he accused of having maintained contacts with Soviet police chief
Lavrentiy Beria),
Boris Stefanov, and
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu. He also rallied with Gheorghiu-Dej's positive views on
de-Stalinization, claiming that Pauker's fall had been a sign of Romania parting with
Stalinism. Elected to the
Central Committee on July 24, 1965, he was in office until his death. Decorated a
Hero of the Socialist Labor, Roman was also employed as a University professor. By the 1970s, he was becoming opposed to the Ceauşescu leadership and questioned
Leninism itself; a diary entry of 1975 shows that he resented the massive enrollment of obedient
cadres into the PCR, and speculated that "when
Lenin elaborated the concept of the
new-type party he took inspiration from, he also thought of
Ignacio de Loyola, of his «
company of Jesus», of what it represented from the point of view of discipline, of obedience, hence there later emerged many negative consequences and, first of all, the deterioration of human character, of human integrity". ==Controversies==