to Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in 1923, working as a junior accountant for a real estate magnate, Mihail Askenasy; he was also an editor for Munkás ("The Worker"), the PCR's Hungarian-language newspaper, alongside Dezideriu Lichtenstein. In April 1924, the authorities moved to outlaw the PCR, shutting down its newspapers. As Foriș recounts, Lichtenstein was expelled from Romania, while he himself was "invited" by the Romanian secret police, or Siguranța Statului, to an interrogation. He decided not to show up, and became a wanted person, some eight months before the Romania actually criminalized PCR membership. In June, he was reassured by the PCR general secretary, Gheorghe Cristescu, that it was safe for him to return from hiding. He was nonetheless arrested, and subjected to interrogation as to "who had contributed the last issue of Munkás". Foriș declined to answer and opted to go on hunger strike, being ultimately set free by a military prosecutor a week into his protest. Foriș returned from jail as an accountant for another firm, Metalica, and signed up for trade union representing the interests of petty clerks, but quit his job for another editorial office, at N. D. Cocea's Facla. He was co-opted by the PCR's front organizations, joining the executive board of the Red Aid section, where, in 1925, he took over the office of secretary from Gheorghe Vasilescu-Vasia. He established a strike action committee for the Unified Trade Unions, and also created League Against Terror, placing the latter under Dem I. Dobrescu. After the Tatarbunary Uprising and its quashing, Foriș and his Red Aid section worked to elicit an international reaction against the rebels' prosecution. Foriș acknowledged that the move failed when the local Red Aid, advised by Mihail Cruceanu, attempted to bribe the judges. The resulting scandal prompted the Red Aid's international bureau to cut off funding for Romania. He was himself re-arrested in October 1925, but released when the Red Aid and Cocea intervened in his favor. Foriș was subsequently appointed to the Central Committee of the Peasant Workers' Bloc. He was then caught up in the clampdown which began with Boris Stefanov's arrest in 1926, but, faced with a negligent prosecutor, was able to slip out of custody, and was promoted on the Central Committee secretariat during a clandestine meeting (November 1926). Arrests continued, and each new one carried the risk of a denunciation. Foriș was exposed in April 1927, following