Petru Groza

Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the first Prime Minister of the Communist Party-dominated government under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania, and later as the President of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly, the nominal head of state of Romania, from 1952 until his death in 1958. Groza emerged as a public figure at the end of World War I as a notable member of the Romanian National Party, preeminent layman of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and then member of the Directory Council of Transylvania. In 1925–26 he served as Minister of State in the cabinet of Marshal Alexandru Averescu. In 1933, Groza founded a left-wing Agrarian organization known as the Ploughmen's Front. The left-wing ideas he supported earned him the nickname 'The Red Bourgeois'. During Groza's tenure, Romania's King, Michael I, was forced to abdicate as the nation officially became a "People's Republic". Although his authority and power as Premier was compromised by his reliance upon the Soviet Union for support, Groza presided over the onset of full-fledged Communist rule in Romania before eventually being succeeded by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in 1952 and became the President of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly until his death in 1958.