Emil Bobu

Emil Bobu (22 February 1927 – 12 July 2014) was a Romanian Communist activist and politician, who served as Interior Minister from 1973 to 1975 and as Labor Minister from 1979 to 1981. He was an influential figure in the later years of the Communist regime until his downfall during the 1989 Revolution.

Biography Bobu was born to a peasant family in Vârfu Câmpului, Botoșani County. He attended seven grades of primary school and the school for Romanian Railways (CFR) employees, subsequently becoming a lathe operator at the CFR workshop in Iași from 1943 to 1945. He entered the Union of Communist Youth in 1941 and the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in November 1945. From that time until 1947, he was responsible for youth issues in the communist organization at the Iași CFR workshop. During 1948, by which time a communist regime had been established, he studied in Bucharest to become a teacher at the CFR schools. In 1949, he attended law school at the University of Iași, and in 1950 he was named principal legal counsel at the Justice Ministry. Also that year, he became a military prosecutor in Bucharest, receiving the rank of lieutenant, and in 1952, he was promoted to the general prosecutor's office with the rank of captain. He studied law at the university level between 1954 and 1957. Meanwhile, at the administrative section of the party's central committee, he was named law instructor (March–November 1953) and deputy section chief (1953–1958), as well as instructor at the central committee's mass organizations section. He also attended courses at the Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy during this period. He was Interior Minister from March 1973 to March 1975. According to Ion Stănescu, who was Tourism Minister at the time, the fourteenth and final party congress of November 1989 saw flagging enthusiasm among attendees. It was Bobu who encouraged delegates with vigorous applause and shouted slogans, getting up and clapping after every phrase, sometimes interrupting Ceaușescu with applause before he had finished speaking.

He was a member of the Great National Assembly between 1961 and 1989, variously representing Suceava, Iași, Dâmbovița, and Dolj counties. In 1981, he was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor. Starting in 1982, as part of her personal court of hagiographers, he was the undisputed second-in-command of Elena Ceaușescu; described by Tismăneanu as "her most obedient servant", they were together responsible for all personnel appointments. In their study of the regime's last years, Roger Kirk, United States Ambassador to Romania from 1985 to 1989, and Romanian diplomat Mircea Răceanu assert that Bobu was "arguably the most powerful Romanian after the two Ceaușescus", although his status within the party structure slipped following the thirteenth congress in November 1984.

On 20 December 1989, Ceaușescu sent Bobu, together with Prime Minister Constantin Dăscălescu, to Timișoara, ordering them to try and quell the revolutionary activities there. The mission ended in failure and they returned to Bucharest early the following morning. On the morning of 22 December, he accompanied Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu in their flight by helicopter as far as the presidential retreat at Snagov. In February 1990, the Bucharest Military Tribunal pronounced sentence on four former CPEx members; Bobu, found guilty of complicity in genocide for his role in issuing orders to fire during the Revolution, received a term of life imprisonment and confiscation of all his personal property. Bobu died in 2014 in a Bucharest hospital, as the result of a brain ischemia. He was buried in the city's Domnești (Ghencea 2) Cemetery.

He married Maria Cristian in 1957; she served as Justice Minister from 1987 until the 1989 revolution.