Petru Groza (7 December 1884 – 7 January 1958) 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 (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 (PNR), 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 (Frontul Plugarilor). 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."Petru Groza of Rumania Dies; Chief of State of Red Regime, 72", in The New York Times, 8 January 1958; ProQuest Historical Newspapers – The New York Times (1851–2002), p. 47 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.
Early life and studies (1884–1907) Born as one of the three sons of a wealthy couple in Bácsi (now called Băcia), a village near Déva (today Deva) in Transylvania (part of Austria-Hungary at the time), his father Adam was a priest. Groza was afforded a variety of opportunities in his youth and early career to establish connections and a degree of notoriety, which would later prove essential in his political career.Cioroianu, 6.1.1 (pp. 149–150)Ioan Scurtu (2003) Structuri politice în Europa centrală și de sud-est (1918-2001): România, Editura Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest, , p. 280. He attended primary school in his native village, then in Kastély (now Coștei) and Lugos (now Lugoj) in the Banat. In 1903, he graduated from the Hungarian Reformed high school (now the Aurel Vlaicu High School) in Szászváros (now Orăștie). That autumn, he began his law and economics training in Hungary, studying at the University of Budapest. In 1905, he took courses at the University of Berlin, heading to Leipzig University in 1906. He obtained a doctorate from the latter institution in 1907.
Early career (1907–1928) After completing his studies, Groza returned to Deva to work as a lawyer. During World War I he served as a soldier in the 8th Honvéd Regiment. In 1918, at the war's end, he emerged on the political scene as a member of the Romanian National Party (PNR) and obtained a position on the Directory Council of Transylvania, convened by ethnic Romanian politicians who had voted in favour of union with Romania; he maintained his office over the course of the following two years.
Throughout this period of his life, Groza established a variety of political connections, working in various Transylvanian political and religious organizations. From 1919 to 1927, for example, Groza obtained a position as a deputy in the Synod and Congress of the Romanian Orthodox Church. In the mid-1920s, Groza, who had left the PNR after a conflict with Iuliu Maniu and had joined the People's Party, served as the Minister for Transylvania and Minister of Public Works and Communications in the Third Averescu cabinet.
During this period in his life, Groza was able to amass a personal fortune as a wealthy landownerCioroianu, 6.1.2 (pp. 150–152) and establish a notable reputation as a prominent layman within the Romanian Orthodox Church, a position which would later make him invaluable to a Romanian Communist Party (PCR) that was campaigning to attract the support of Eastern Orthodox Christians who constituted the nation's most numerous religious group in 1945.
Rise to power (1933–1945)
Despite having briefly retired from public life in 1928 after holding a series of political posts, Groza reemerged on the political scene in 1933, founding a peasant-based political organization, the Ploughmen's Front. The Front was funded by Red Aid.
Although the movement originally began in order to oppose the increasing burden of debt carried by Romania's peasants during the Great Depression and because the National Peasants' Party could not help the poorest peasants, by 1944 the organization was essentially under Communist control. The Communist Party wished to seize power but was too weak to seize it alone – post-communist historiography would later claim that in 1944 it only had about a thousand members. Accordingly, the Romanian communist leaders decided to create a broad coalition of political organizations.
This coalition was composed of four major front organizations: the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union, the Union of Patriots, the Patriotic Defense, and, by far the most widely backed by the Romanian populace, Groza's Ploughmen's Front. Being a chief political actor in the largest of the Communist front organizations, Groza was able to assert himself in a position of eminence within the Romanian political sphere as the Ploughmen's Front joined the Communist Party to create the National Democratic Front in October 1944.Cioroianu, 6.1.3, pp. 152–159.Crampton, Richard J. (1997). Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After. Routledge, New York City, pp. 229, 231, . It also included the Social Democrats, Mihai Ralea's Socialist Peasants' Party and the Hungarian People's Union, as well as other minor groups). Groza was first considered by the Communist Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu for the post of premier in October 1944.
Groza's prominent status within the National Democratic Front afforded him the opportunity to succeed General Nicolae Rădescu as premier when, in January 1945, top Romanian communist leaders, namely Ana Pauker and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, rebuked Rădescu for allegedly failing to combat "fascist sympathizers". With the help of Soviet authorities, the Communists soon mobilized workers to hold a series of demonstrations against Rădescu, and by February many had died because the demonstrations often led to violence. While the communists claimed that the Romanian Army was responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, Rădescu weakened his own popular support by stating that the communists were "godless foreigners with no homeland". In response, Andrey Vyshinsky, the Soviet vice commissar of foreign affairs, traveled to Bucharest and allegedly gave King Michael an ultimatum—unless he sacked Rădescu and replaced him with Groza, Romania's independence would be at risk. The king had hoped that General Gheorghe Avramescu, who commanded the Romanian 4th Army in the fight to liberate Transylvania and Hungary, would be designated the next prime minister, but, while Michael was waiting on 2 March for Avramescu to return from the front to Bucharest, the NKVD arrested Avramescu in Slovakia, and he died the next day. Faced with mounting Soviet pressure, Michael complied, and Groza became prime minister on 6 March 1945.
The Groza cabinets (1945-1952) First Groza cabinet (6 March 1945 - 30 November 1946) Second Groza cabinet (1 December 1946 - 30 December 1947), the last of the Kingdom of Romania Third Groza cabinet (30 December 1947 - 14 April 1948), the first of the Socialist Republic of Romania Fourth Groza cabinet (15 April 1948 - 2 June 1952)
Groza headed four cabinets between 1945 and 1952, the first two in the frame of the constitutional monarchy, and the latter two after playing a major role in forcing King Michael I to abdicate on 30 December 1947 and the ensuing declaration of the People's Republic.
Political crisis: Western opposition and royal strike On 18 August 1945, Roy Melbourne presented to Foreign Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu a verbal note showing that the American government "wants the establishment of a representative regime made up of all democratic groups in this country". Consequently, the United States will only sign a final peace treaty with a fully recognized democratic government. Both Groza and Tătărescu rejected the note, declaring it null and void. They argued that the US could not address a government it did not recognize. British diplomats also sent such a note, but the government had the same attitude.
Faced with Groza's refusal to resign, King Michael instituted, on 21 August, the royal strike (21 August 1945 – 7 January 1946) and no longer agreed to countersign the government's documents. At the December 1945 Conference, it was decided that the situation should be resolved by appointing one PNL and PNȚ member each to the government, after which free elections would be organized and freedom of "press, speech, religion and association" would be ensured. Maniu warned that without the neutrality of the Ministries of Interior and Justice, free elections could not take place in Romania, but the decision had to be followed. On 7 January 1946, Emil Hațieganu, from PNȚ, and , from PNL took the oath as ministers. Basically, the decisions in Moscow represented the victory of the Soviet point of view, the government of Petru Groza being recognized by the USA and Great Britain on 5 February 1946.
During his term as premier, Groza also clashed with the nation's remaining monarchist forces under King Michael I. Although his powers were minimal within Groza's regime, King Michael symbolized the remnants of the traditional Romanian monarchy and, in late 1945, the King urged Groza to resign. The King maintained that Romania must abide by the Yalta accords, allowing the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to each have a hand in post-war government reconstruction and the incorporation of a broader coalition force he had already organized. Groza flatly rejected the request, and relations between the two figures remained tense over the next few years, with Groza and the King differing on the prosecution of war criminals and in the awarding of honorary Romanian citizenship to Stalin in August 1947.Lawrence, W. H. (24 August 1947). "Chamber Ratifies Rumanian Treaty", in The New York Times; ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The New York Times (1851–2002), p. 43.
First Groza cabinet (6 March 1945 - 30 November 1946) Groza gave key portfolios such as defence, justice, and the interior to the Communists. It nominally included ministers from the National Liberals and National Peasants as well, but the ministers using those labels were fellow travellers like Groza, and had been handpicked by the Communists.Charles Sudetic. Petru Groza's Premiership. Romania: Country Studies.: "The government included no legitimate members of the National Peasants' Party or National Liberal Party; rather, the Communists drafted opportunistic dissidents from these parties, heralded them as the parties' legitimate representatives, and ignored or harassed genuine party leaders."