Underground Activist
Niculi was born in Iaşi to a working-class family. Early on he started as an apprentice, then becoming a typographer. Starting in 1912 he actively joined the labour movement, participating in many work-related actions by Iaşi typographers and textile workers.
In 1921, he joined the newly-founded Romanian Communist Party (PCR), banned in 1924. Between 1923 and 1931, he served as secretary of the local workers' commission in Iaşi, affiliated with the General Council of Unitary Romanian Trade Unions. In this capacity, he represented Iaşi workers at congresses in Sibiu, Cluj and Timişoara.
Between 1925 and 1933, he was active in the Workers and Peasants' Bloc, as well as in other organisations founded and run by the PCR. He had an important role in the demonstrations at the Iaşi People's House (set up between 1918 and 1921), in printing the newspaper Moldova Roşie ("Red Moldavia") in the nearby village of Vlădiceni, in obtaining important documents needed for underground work, as well as in the activity of other workers' and socialist organisations in Iaşi.
Because of the conspiratorial activity he undertook and of the leadership roles he held in Communist workers' organisations, Niculi was arrested numerous times and sentenced to prison, serving time in facilities for political prisoners at Galata, Chişinău, Doftana and Târgu Jiu.
Read more about this topic: Ion Niculi
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