be submitted to a vote, thus causing the faction to incriminate itself. Most of the accused were acquitted, an important reason for this being Cristescu's convincing testimony (alongside a hunger strike endured by most on the bench, as well as the absence of sufficient evidence). Cristescu depicted Goldstein as an anarchist, and declared most of the witnesses who had connected the terrorist with the Party to be spies for the Siguranța Statului secret police. Dissidence Cristescu started questioning his Party's policies after the decision taken by the Balkan Communist Federation during its 1923 Vienna Conference. The Federation had adopted the official Soviet policy recommending that Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania and Southern Dobruja (or all of Dobruja) be given the right to secede from Romania. Due to the ethnic composition of these regions, he could not accept that minorities be given self-determination (especially since this implied not autonomy or independence, but rather satisfaction of territorial demands that other nations had on Romania). Cristescu allegedly called for the party to revise its program in respect to these points, and thus resume legal activities. Notably clashing with his nominal subordinate Marcel Pauker over such issues, he did all in his power to prevent the Party from adopting a clear point of view: when his attitude was investigated by the Balkan Communist Federation (1924), he had to resign his position, being excluded from the Party in 1926. According to Vladimir Tismăneanu, Cristescu's marginalization inside the Workers and Peasants' Bloc (created as an umbrella group for the outlawed Communist faction) was a major factor in his conflict with other activists. 1930s, persecution, and rehabilitation After creating his own minor group, the Socialist Party of Workers (later known as Independent Socialist Party), in 1928, Cristescu joined the minor Unitary Socialist Party in 1932 (a Marxist group led by Leon Ghelerter, Ștefan Voitec, and Constantin Popovici, it eventually dissolved itself under pressure from the Communist Party in 1944). He retired from politics in 1936. His daughter Tita Cristescu, a former Miss Romania who had become the mistress of Liviu Ciulei (a famous lawyer and father of the director Liviu Ciulei), died in mysterious circumstances in 1936. Ciulei, arrested on charges that he had poisoned her, was acquitted later in the same year. A theory in circulation indicates Maria Suciu, Tita's maid, as the killer. During the first years of Communist Romania, he was severely persecuted for his political