the messenger (Popescu-Puțuri's wife Maria) with a gift of 2,000 lei. The note was encoded: "The inheritance [that is, the party documents] was passed down to us, and the head of the family [Foriș], his wife [Sârbu] and the family friend [Koffler] were taken to a good sanatorium [a house controlled by Bodnăraș' faction]." Gheorghiu-Dej's associate, Ion Vincze, described the events of 4 April as a "purge of the party leadership", carried out "without alerting the enemy." Pătrășcanu, who represented an isolated intellectual circle (which also included Miron Constantinescu and Grigore Preoteasa), had also agreed to support the move. His approval was probably obtained as early as 1943, though, as an outsider, he was never invited to share in the spoils. At the time, Foriș was alleged to have infiltrated the PCR as an informant for the Siguranța during the 1920s and '30s, and that collaboration with the authorities had ensured his freedom during the early 1940s. One such account argues that Foriș had agreed to help Siguranța agents in their 1930s fights with the Iron Guard. The official charge involved his "cowardice" in front of reactionary forces, probably due to his indifferent handling of the partisan movement. After the event, Foriș was assigned a position on the editorial staff for the underground newspaper România Liberă, which he maintained throughout the final months of Antonescu's regime. This was shortly before the anti-German coup of August 23, which took Romania out of the Axis; during these events, Petrea was recovered by the PCR, serving as Bodnăraș' liaison with General Dumitru Dămăceanu. During the coup's aftermath, Antonescu himself was jailed in the Bodnăraș hideout at Vatra Luminoasă. The PCR took power as part of the National Democratic Bloc (backed by King Michael I), and Gheorghiu-Dej ordered Foriș to be taken into custody by the PCR's paramilitary unit, the Patriotic Combat Formations; kidnapped in late September, he was set free in January 1945. During the interval, he completed another self-critical report, which noted: "In order to avert any complications and for the party to carry out its tasks with support from the Red Army, I handed in all my network, at once. I submitted a written statement attesting my unconditional submission, which the new C[entral] C[ommittee] could use to take over the party with no obstacle left in its path." Killing The period also saw the "Muscovites" making their return to Romania, with