Leonte Filipescu

Who was Leonte Filipescu?

Leonte Filipescu was one of the leaders of the early Romanian communist movement, shot in custody by the Romanian authorities.

Leonte Filipescu was born in a family of workers in Bârlad, Romania. He worked from an early age, first as a dock labourer in the port of Galaţi, and after 1910 as a waiter in Bucharest, Romania's capital. In Bucharest he met several trade unionist active in the waiter's guild, such as Gheorghe Niculescu-Mizil, Iancu Olteanu and Marian Cristescu, who introduced him to socialist ideas. He took part in several waiters' protest, and, after the start of World War I, in the anti-war demonstrations organised in Bucharest by the Socialists. In the meantime, he also joined the Social Democratic Party, sitting on its far left wing.

As Romania joined the war on the side of the Entente in 1916, Leonte Filipescu was drafted and sent to the front, but was soon captured by the German Army and interned in a concentration camp. He succeeded in escaping along with several prisoners, and by the spring of 1917 he was back in Bucharest, taking part in the demonstration organised by the Socialists in front of the German Army Headquarters in occupied Romania.