Dumitru Coliu

Dumitru Coliu (born Dimitar Kolev, , ; November 7, 1907 – 1985) was a Romanian communist activist and politician.

An ethnic Bulgarian, he was born in Vasilieva village in Southern Dobruja, several years before it became part of Romania. Coliu entered a leather-workers’ union in 1923. In 1925, he joined the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCR). During the 1930s, he was active in the Dobrujan Revolutionary Organisation. He left for the Soviet Union in 1940, spending the World War II years in Moscow with other Romanian communists, While there, he was a political officer in the Tudor Vladimirescu Division. holding that post until 1969. He sat in the Great National Assembly from 1948 to 1980, heading its foreign affairs committee from 1953 to 1955. By 1961, the Comintern veteran was among those advocating a turn toward national communism.

His wife Olga was a Soviet citizen whom he married while in Moscow. His awards included the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, second class (1948) and first class (1957).