Petru Groza

Who was Petru Groza?

Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania.

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 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.

Groza became Premier in 1945 when Nicolae Rădescu, a leading Romanian Army general who assumed power briefly following the conclusion of World War II, was forced to resign by the Soviet Union's deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Andrei Y. Vishinsky. Under Groza's term as premier until 1952, Romania's King, Michael I, was forced to abdicate as the nation officially became a "People's Republic".