opposition [to Antonescu]." In the end, they decided to blame Rangheț for the debacle, assigning it to Bodnăraș, who took Pîrvulescu as his assistant. In 1943, Foriș was looking forward to the prospect of an Allied landing in the Balkans, as an exterior prop in the movement to topple Antonescu. Though he owned a two-way radio, specifically provided to him as a means to contact Moscow, Foriș never used it, allegedly prompting Georgi Dimitrov, of the Comintern's Research Institute 205, to angrily point out that "he had no idea what was going on there [in Romania]". Instead, in late 1942 Foriș and Pătrășcanu met again in Lena Constante's home. Here, they wrote a memo for the Secret Intelligence Service, reporting on PCR units that could serve in the event of a British landing. Caransebeș conspiracy Apostol notes that his fellow inmates were planning to break out of Caransebeș in spring 1943, and had secured support from a prosecutor. The plan was reportedly obstructed by Foriș, who wanted the PCR to take full credit for any such attempt. In this context, Foriș (or "Marius") became an obstacle to the rise of the "prison faction", who now acknowledged Gheorghiu-Dej as its leader. Foriș was also increasingly critical of his subordinates' behavior and ideology, which probably contributed to his isolation inside the party he led. Câmpeanu reports that Foriș's personal habits also eroded his legitimacy: "The [Redlingher villa] on Iuliu Tetrat Street served two purposes: one was as a refuge, protecting him either from arrest or from being tailed by the Siguranța; the other was as a command center. The first of these two was only an instrument to help in fulfilling the latter. Foriș's peculiarities inverted the relationship between the two functions. With his endless loitering in his upstairs room [...], he unquestionably drifted away from the lively ambiance of the city and of the country at large, but also of the party, the same party which he was otherwise bent on leading. Slowly but surely, he was becoming the imaginary leader of a party that, as it turns out, mostly existed in his own imagination." In addition to losing party cadres in mass arrests, Foriș was purposefully alienating PCR veterans, removing them from positions of importance and pushing instead figures such as Carp and Petrea, both of whom were in their twenties, and the 30-years-old Nicu Tudor (who was a Siguranța