 Arrested again in 1933, he was freed in 1936 and integrated into the secretariat of the Central Committee, becoming head of the Bucharest party organization.Reconfirmed as a member of the PCR Central Committee in 1940, he was arrested that year, spending World War II in the Caransebeş penitentiary and the Târgu Jiu camp, where he was among the closest associates of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, especially after 1942.Having navigated for several years between the party's Gheorghiu-Dej and Ștefan Foriș, he participated in the staging of a plot that resulted in the latter's elimination and assassination, accusing him of being a collaborator of the Kingdom of Romania's secret police, Siguranța Statului.