During the 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt, he was an outspoken defender of the peasants and was arrested as an instigator of opposition. Gheorghiu was a member and leader of the "Working Romania" Socialist Circles and one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in 1910. He protested against Romania's participation in the Second Balkan War and published the manifesto "War against War" before dying, aged 35, of tuberculosis in Bucharest's Filaret Hospital.