Vasile Luca (born László Luka; 8 June 1898 – 23 July 1963) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian and Soviet communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) from 1945 and until his imprisonment in the 1950s. Noted for his activities in the Ukrainian SSR in 1940–1941, he sided with Ana Pauker during World War II, and returned to Romania to serve as the minister of finance and one of the most recognizable leaders of the Communist regime. Luca's downfall, coming at the end of a conflict with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, signaled that of Pauker. He was married to Elisabeta Luca (née Betty Birman), a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, who was also imprisoned following her husband's arrest. Biography Early activities A native of Szentkatolna, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary ((today part of Catalina, Covasna County, Romania). Luca was an ethnic Hungarian from the Székely community, of "proletarian" origin. He was sometimes erroneously identified as Jewish by some Romanian historians and journalists, or as a Transylvanian German. In the period following the Aster Revolution, as Transylvania's administration was taken over by Romania as a result of the Hungarian–Romanian War, he joined Károly Kratochwill's non-communist Székely Division (formed inside Hungary by Hungarian Transylvanian refugees), which tried to oppose the Romanian military. After the Romanian Army crushed the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Luca moved to Brașov and began working for the Romanian Railways (CFR), attempting to align railworkers' trade union with the Profintern. Luca later admitted that, in Leninist terms, he had been mistaken to leave the Division — after allegedly being persuaded to do so by a group of workers in Satu Mare — as he had missed an opportunity to carry out "revolutionary work under party directives", although he confessed that he had been denied membership in the Hungarian Communist Party. He soon adhered to the larger maximalist wing of the former Socialist Party of Romania, which had established the Romanian Communist Party, and became an associate of Imre Aladar. In 1924, as the party was outlawed and forced into the underground, Luca was elected secretary of the Brașov regional committee. Participating in the preparations for the 1929 Lupeni Strike in the Jiu Valley, he was also elected, together with Alexandru Nicolschi, to the internal Politburo – one of the two bodies established by the Comintern at the time, the other one supervising from inside the Soviet Union. In