Early Life
Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930. A railway electrician by trade, he was arrested for taking part in the Griviţa Strike of 1933 and sentenced to prison in the same year, serving time in Doftana and other facilities. In 1936 he was elected to the party's Central Committee and became leader of the prison faction of the party (party members who were incarcerated, a term distinguishing them from party members living in exile in the Soviet Union).
As a known activist, he was detained at Târgu Jiu camp during Ion Antonescu's regime and the larger part of World War II, managing to escape in August 1944. He became general secretary in 1944 after the Soviet occupation but did not consolidate his power until 1952 when he purged Ana Pauker and the Muscovite faction from the party. Pauker had been the unofficial leader of the Party since the end of the war.
In 1946-1947, he was a member of Romania's Gheorghe Tătărescu-led delegation to the Paris Peace Conference.
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