Max Goldstein

Who was Max Goldstein?

Max Goldstein, also known as Coca, was a Romanian revolutionary, variously described as a communist and an anarchist.

Born in Bârlad to a Jewish family, he worked as a clerk and moved to Bucharest, where he became a Communist sympathizer. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, he escaped and fled to Odessa, returning with money and new instructions. He lost a hand, presumably while doing experiments with explosives, and replaced it with a hook, being known to the police as the "man with the hook".

In November 1920, Goldstein attempted to kill the Minister of Internal Affairs, Constantin Argetoianu, who was Romania's most vocal anti-Communist politician. The attempt, however, failed: the bomb placed under Argetoianu's train coach destroyed the empty half of the coach.

On 8 December 1920, Goldstein, together with Gelber Moscovici, Leon Lichtblau, and Saul Ozias, organized another politically motivated bombing. Their improvised explosive device, made from an unexploded German 76 mm artillery shell from World War I, and placed in front of the Romanian Senate, killed Minister of Justice Dimitrie Greceanu and two senators, and wounded the president of the Senate, Constantin Coandă. It was alleged that their group did not act alone, and that it would have had among its accomplices Alexandru Constantinescu, a leader of the extreme-left group of the Socialist Party, which in 1921 split and formed the Romanian Communist Party.