later reported that he had eventually been able to carry out the task. Responding to Hungarian-Romanian clashes, Pătrășcanu gave a speech in the city of Cluj, one in which he attempted to identify communism and patriotism. It stated: In the name of the government and of the PCR, I raise my voice against border changes [in connection with the disputed status of newly-recovered Northern Transylvania]. Democratic Romania ensures equal rights to coinhabiting nationalities, but the Magyar population needs to understand that its belonging to the Romanian state is definitive. Nobody has the right to debate our borders. He ran for the position of deputy in Arad County, and won through various electoral frauds (in Arad's case, forty inspectors nominated by the government had sole control over counting and recording the results). Pătrășcanu soon received harsh criticism from Gheorghiu-Dej, who branded the views expressed as "chauvinism" and "revisionism". In parallel, the National Peasants' Party, as the main force opposing the PCR, published praises of Pătrășcanu in its paper Dreptatea, until Pătrășcanu met with the editor, Nicolae Carandino, and explained that such articles were harming his image inside the Communist Party. Nevertheless, Pătrășcanu's writings of the time show that, in contrast with his 1928 point of view, he had largely accommodated Leninist principles regarding the national issue and Bessarabian topics, although he used more neutral terms than the ones present in official propaganda, and was known to have deplored the unwillingness of the PCR to reduce and refine its internationalist policies. Marginalisation In 1946-1947, Pătrășcanu was nevertheless a member of the Tătărescu-headed Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, and, in fact, one of the signatories of the Peace Treaty with Romania. According to Belu Zilber, during this time, he read Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon (a glimpse into forced confessions alluding to the 1936-1937 Moscow Trials, the book was banned throughout the Eastern Bloc). The attitudes he expressed in Paris were considered nationalist by his Soviet overseers, and he himself complained to Gheorghiu-Dej about the party's suspicion surrounding his diplomatic activities. He was progressively marginalized inside the Party: his texts became subject to censorship and, on public occasions, his name was mentioned after those of less significant politicians. The Communist press virtually ceased referring to Pătrășcanu as "comrade", and used instead the more distant formula "Professor Pătrășcanu", at the same time as Gheorghiu-Dej's speeches on combating internal currents of the Party.