Max Goldstein - Biography

Max Goldstein (1898–1924), 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 (part of Imperial Russia at the time), 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 (Demetriu Radu and Spirea Gheorghiu), 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 (under the provisional name of Socialist-Communist Party).

The bombing led to the conviction of the Communists during the Dealul Spirii Trial (named after Dealul Spirii, the hill on which the Senate building stood) and to the banning of the Communist party. Communist leader Gheorghe Cristescu rejected all accusations of conspiracy, and the matter of the Party's involvement is still unclear. Comintern directives did recommend violent actions, but did not necessarily approve of this particular one. During his stand on trial, Cristescu argued that Goldstein's actions were inspired by Anarchism more than anything else.

Right after the December 1920 bombing, Goldstein fled to Bulgaria. In October 1921, Goldstein was arrested while trying to enter Romania from Rousse, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died of pneumonia in 1924 in Doftana prison.