Force fed on a a hunger and thirst strike; the words of Marcel Pauker. Pauker was a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party whose release from Yilava prison was won by his hunger strike and pressure of an international campaign in 1929. Pauker would end up in exile in Moscow with his wife, future Romanian Communist leader Anna Pauker. Marcel would be a victim of the Moscow Trials, executed for ‘espionage’ on August 16, 1938 and ‘rehabilitated’ in 1957.

‘Jailed Rumanian Communist Tells of His Hunger Strike’ by Marcel Pauker from The Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 117. July 23, 1929.

BUCHAREST, July 22. The energetic national campaign of the I.R.A. on behalf of the Roumanian working leader, Marcel Pauker, and his own determined attitude have caused the Roumanian authorities to release him. Marcel Pauker had been on hunger-strike for over a month. Protests from the workers and from intellectuals in all countries swamped the Roumanian government daily. In order to save the credit of the Roumanian authorities abroad, Marcel Pauker has now been released from prison. He continued his hunger-and thirst-strike up to the very last moment of imprisonment.

BUCHAREST (by mail). Marcel Pauker, Rumanian workers’ leader, prominent in the ranks of the Communist Party, was forcibly fed by the Rumanian fascist terrorists after twenty days of a hunger strike. Pauker was failed and sentenced for life by the fascist terror. He wrote the following letter on the seventeenth day of his hunger strike, from the dreaded Jilava prison, where the Rumanian fascists have tortured and murdered hundreds of Communists and other militant workers. The letter was written to a comrade.

Dear Comrade,

It is good that I acquaint you with the details of the present situation, both with regard to the “amnesty” and to my own position, including my process and my present hunger strike. I will write as long as I can, but I am already very weak.

First of all with regard to the “amnesty.” On the 13th inst., a royal decree was issued according to which all political crimes and offences contained in the penal code or in any of the exceptional laws will be amnestied as far as no final conviction has been obtained.

It must be pointed out that all those political prisoners already convicted, and they are the vast majority, will remain in prison, further, the Rumanian laws do not recognize political offences anyhow, and this is very important. In Rumania only common law exists, and all political processes are carried out according to this law, the usual charge being that of high treason, or crimes against the internal and external security of the state. The exceptional law (Marzescu) declares expressly that all persons convicted under this law shall not be regarded as political offenders.

The truth is that this amnesty need apply to no single revolutionary worker, and that no single revolutionary can hope to escape prosecution and conviction on the basis, of this decree. The fact of the matter is that this decree is nothing but a huge bluff intended to deceive public opinion abroad and at home also if possible. The working class press is practically suppressed and the bourgeois and social democratic press is writing about a “political amnesty,” with the result that hundreds of thousands of people have gained the impression that we have all been released, and this is exactly what the government wants.

The issuing of a political amnesty is the privilege of the king, but the release of persons convicted of criminal offences is the privilege of parliament. And in fact an amnesty for criminal offenders will also be issued in a few days. Perhaps, you may think, these comrades who have been treated as common criminals may be released under this amnesty.

Not at all, or this amnesty refers solely to the civil courts. The military courts have amnestied only a few insignificant offences, including desertion. But we have all been sentenced by the military courts.

In any case, even if we were all regarded as political prisoners, only a few of us would be released, including Dobrogheanu-Gherea, myself and those arrested in connection with the Cluj affair. There are no more as far as I know. Those sentenced in the monster process against Kahane and his comrades (who are alleged to have made a conspiracy in prison) would not come under the amnesty although their sentences are not yet final, for the simple reason that most of them have been convicted within the last three years in Galatz. The amnesty excludes all persons convicted for other offences within the last three years.

The situation is now that my two processes alone are under the military authorities. The first is the process against Stefanov and Dobrogheanu. I was sentenced in the same process in my absence in 1925. The authorities say nothing about this process any more. In 1922 the police made investigations against me, against my wife Anna Pauker and against Elena Filipovici, Dimitriu Filipescu and Sandor Lieblich. We were arrested at the time but released soon after, for the simple reason that the police were unable to find anything but perfectly legal material. Lately the authorities remembered this and on the 15th of April, 1929, a process was carried out in the absence of the accused. No one knew anything about it, and no one was invited although some of the accused were abroad with perfectly legal passes whilst others were living perfectly legal in Rumania. I was the only one who had “disappeared.” In a few minutes we were all sentenced to hard labor for life for high treason.

And now with regard to my hunger strike. I commenced this hunger strike on the day of my arrest, 3^rd of May. On the 5th of May I was taken to Yilava. On the 8th of May the authorities commenced artificial feeding. Despite my resistance, despite my written protest and despite the fact that it is illegal, the artificial feeding is being continued. My resistance is brutally overcome, my clothing tom and my body bruised and scratched. Two or three times a day I am forced down on a mattress and my hands, feet and head are held by soldiers. The liquid is then pumped through the nose. This procedure is painful, and I suffer very much from bleeding at the nose.

This has gone on now for two weeks without one single newspaper having recorded the bare facts, much less published my protests.

The efforts of the authorities are useless for the simple reason that immediately afterwards, the liquid is expelled by vomiting. In addition, on the 8th of May I refused to drink anything further as a protest against the forcible feeding. On a number of occasions the authorities have pumped salt water into my mouth in order to aggravate the pains of thirst. Of course I cannot say everything in this letter, but I can tell you that the efforts of the authorities will not be successful. I reckon upon the active solidarity of the international proletariat which must force the government to recognize our offences as political and to amnesty them.

The regime here in Yilava is worse than it was under the Liberal government. We are being held in strict confinement and are not permitted to speak to anyone except the warders. We maintain connections only with great difficulties and at great danger to ourselves.

 With proletarian greetings,

MARCEL PAUKER.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n117-NY-jul-23-1929-DW-LOC.pdf