poet—though he remains less known than his political namesake. Another coincidence brought Foriș the communist into contact with the parents of Violeta Andrei, later famous as a film actress and as the wife of PCR potentate Ștefan Andrei. Foriș's own parents, István Fóris Sr and Anna Kocsis, had a peasant background. In a 1940 autobiographical record, Foriș described his father as a woodcarver, bricklayer, and "small entrepreneur", whose one financial achievement was in setting up his own brickworks, always on the verge of bankruptcy. He claims to have supported himself from fourth grade, when he became a tutor to Saxon children. Such statements are partly contradicted by his grandson, architect Ștefan Sîrbu, who notes that Anna ended up owning several brickworks, allowing her son a comfortable existence. According to Diac, the family was successful enough to have been rated as "exploiters" under the communist guidelines. István Jr, who Romanianized his Christian name as "Ștefan", grew up to an impressive height of over 1.80 meters (approximately 6 feet); he was also "noticeably obese". The future PCR leader completed his secondary studies in exact sciences at a lyceum in Brassó (today Brașov). On 1 August 1914, just shortly after the start of World War I, Foriș was drafted in the Hungarian Landwehr as an artillery cadet. According to his own reports, he saw action on the Italian front, and later in Albania. He served to November 1918, when he was demobilized as a Hadnagy (Lieutenant). He then resumed his education at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, graduating from its Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in 1919. Marxist historian Florea Nedelcu argues that, in this context, Foriș also became "fully acquainted with the powerful revolutionary movement that was rocking the Austro-Hungarian empire, with the emancipation struggles of the popular masses, with national liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the Habsburg monarchy." The young veteran had joined the Galileo Circle, which he called a "progressive organization". During the formation of a People's Republic, he was also drawn into the Hungarian Communist Party, which he formally joined in December 1918. His loyalties were split that same month, when the journal Szabad Gondolat ("Free Thought"), put out by the Galileo Circle, proceeded to mock communism. Foriș responded by writing a brochure defending his party, but in the end decided not to publish it. As he noted, the text was heavily influenced by anarchism, which