th one to be formed by the
National Democratic Front.

The anti-Radescu campaign was prolonged and intensified by the
Communists who, through their control of the printer's union, were able
to silence the opposition press and thus enhance their own propaganda.
In February 1945, during a staged demonstration, the Communists provoked
an incident in which several participants were killed. Demands were made
for Radescu's arrest, and he was forced to seek asylum within a foreign
mission. Using this latest incident as a pretext, Soviet Deputy
Commissar for Foreign Affairs Andrei Vyshinsky, who arrived from Moscow
within two days of the event, forced King Michael to accept a National
Democratic Front government to be headed by Petru Groza, the leader of
the Plowman's Front and longtime communist sympathizer.

The government installed by Groza on March 6, 1945, was dominated by
Communists and fellow travelers and represented an effective seizure of
power by relatively peaceful means. Although a few dissident former
members of the Liberal and National Peasant parties were given posts to
maintain the facade of representative government, no leaders or
representative members of the historic political parties were included.

After recognition by the Soviet Union in August 1945 and by the United
States and Great Britain in February 1946, the Groza government held
rigged elections for the Grand National Assembly and emerged with 379 of
the 414 seats. Having thus achieved legislative as well as executive
control, the Communists proceeded methodically during the following year
to eliminate all political opposition. National Peasant and Liberal
leaders were arrested and tried, and these two major parties were
outlawed in June 1947. This action was followed in the spring of 1948 by
the fusion of the Social Democrats with the Communists into a new party
called the Romanian Workers' Party, which the Communists controlled. As
a final step the National Democratic Front was reorganized into the
People's Democratic Front, which then included the Romanian Workers'
Party, the Plowman's Front, and two new puppet organizations--the
National Popular Party and the Hungarian People's Union.

By the end of 1947 the only remaining link with the prewar system was
the monarchy. King Michael, in addition to being a popular ruler,
represented a national symbol around whom anticommunist opposition could
rally and, as such, was an unacceptable threat to th