Marcel Pauker (rendered in Russian as Марцел Паукер - Martsel Pauker; December 6, 1896, Bucharest – August 16, 1938, Butovo, near Moscow) was a Romanian communist militant and husband of the future Romanian Communist leader Ana Pauker. During his life, Pauker took a series of pseudonyms, the ones used most being: Burghezul, Herman Gugenheim, Paul Lampart, Luximin, Puiu, Priu, Semionovici Marin, Stepan, and Paul Weiss. Early life Born to a secular Jewish family, Marcel Pauker was a polyglot, and noted speaker of Esperanto. He briefly studied engineering in Zürich, before enlisting as an artillery cadet and becoming a Second Lieutenant in 1916 (during World War I). Between 1919 and 1921, he lived in Switzerland for a second time, receiving his diploma in engineering. Militancy In December 1921, Pauker was designated a member of the Provisional Committee of the Communist Party of Romania; in 1922, his position became that of member of the Central Committee and the Politburo, being sent as delegate to the Balkan Communist Federation Conferences in Sofia (June 1922) and Berlin (1923). His activities brought him to the attention of the Romanian authorities: he was arrested and sentenced first to ten years imprisonment, and then to labour for life. Nevertheless, he managed to escape and flee to the Soviet Union in 1925, returning to Romania in 1929. On his arrival he was escorted back to prison, only to be released under the terms of an amnesty. He was yet again arrested in Petroşani, after his activities as an instigator during the Jiu Valley miners' strike of August 1929. Final years and death Marcel Pauker got involved in a political fight with Vitali Holostenco, reflecting the struggle between the Bucharest section and that of the Ukrainian SSR that had taken hold of the Party's wing inside the Soviet Union around the proceedings of the 4th Congress in Kharkiv. Again in the Soviet Union, Pauker was reprimanded by the Comintern. Forbidden from contributing to political activities, he was sent to assist as an engineer in the industrial expansion of Magnitogorsk (in western Siberia), a job he undertook between 1930 and 1932. At the same time, Joseph Stalin, whose priority at the time was showing the facade of "unity" within his subject Parties, had Holostenco removed from his position. In 1935 Pauker was appointed a member of the Secretariat of the Romanian Communist Party. He spent time in Prague until 1937,