Chivu Stoica

Chivu Stoica (the family name being Chivu; 1908 – 18 February 1975) was a leading Romanian Communist politician, who served as President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the Socialist Republic of Romania.

Early life Stoica was born in Smeeni, Buzău County, the sixth child of a ploughman. At age 12, after 5 years of elementary school, he left home, and started working as an apprentice at Căile Ferate Române, the state railway corporation. In 1921, he moved to Bucharest, where he worked as a boilermaker at the Vulcan, Lemaître, and Malaxa companies. He spent time at the Aiud, Doftana, Târgu Ocna, Văcărești, and Caransebeș prisons. In 1940, his sentence was reduced to 9 years of hard labor. Later, the War Council of the 1st Army Corps pardoned him, but he was interned in the Târgu Jiu camp. At the internment camp, he was close to Gheorghiu-Dej, who may have wanted Stoica to be his successor as General Secretary.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers' Party from 1945 to 1975, and a member of the Politburo. He was Prime Minister of Romania between 1955 and 1961 and President of the State Council of Romania (de facto head of state) from 1965 until 1967.

Stoica was awarded the Order of the Crown of Romania in the rank of Grand Officer (1947), the Order of the Star of the Romanian People's Republic, 1st class (1948, 1958), the , 1st class (1959), the title of Hero of Socialist Labour and the Hammer and Sickle Gold Medal (1958), the , 1st class (1959), the , 1st class (1966), and the title of Hero of the Socialist Republic of Romania (1973).

Death He died aged 66 at his residence in the exclusive Primăverii neighborhood of Bucharest. His second wife was Ecaterina Micu-Chivu (née Klein), a communist activist who worked after 1947 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Romanian–Soviet Institute, and the Red Cross, and was a professor at Politehnica University until 1955. The couple had a daughter, Ana; they also adopted a son, but later revoked the adoption.