Răutu first impressed critics of the regime by being able to survive Pauker's downfall (1952), and was one of the very few of the wartime exiles not to be designated a "Right deviationist". Together with Miron Constantinescu, the other PMR intellectual, he initiated the campaign to purge all other supposed inner-party oppositionists, drafting the PMR resolution on "prelucrări" ("processing", a euphemism for "interrogations"). In his speeches to the PMR sections, Răutu described the cadre verification policy as inspired by the 19th CPSU Congress and its talk of "ideological work" being paramount in the consolidation of socialism. He declared Pauker a saboteur of collectivization and her associate Vasile Luca guilty of "criminal activity".