King of Romania in the context of "Communist Party of Romania"

The Kingdom of Romania (Romanian: Regatul României) was a constitutional monarchy that existed from 25 March [O.S. 13 March] 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 with the abdication of King Michael I and the Romanian parliament's proclamation of the Romanian People's Republic.

From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two principalities: (Moldavia and Wallachia) called the Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia also known as "The Little Union" under a single prince to an autonomous principality with a Hohenzollern monarchy. The country gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War (known locally as the Romanian War of Independence), after which it was forced to cede the southern part of Bessarabia in exchange for Northern Dobruja. The kingdom's territory during the reign of King Carol I, between 13 (O.S.) / 25 March 1881 and 27 September (O.S.) / 10 October 1914 is sometimes referred to as the Romanian Old Kingdom, to distinguish it from "Greater Romania", which included the provinces that became part of the state after World War I (Bessarabia, Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania).

Carol I or Charles I of Romania (born Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; 20 April 1839 – 10 October [O.S. 27 September] 1914), nicknamed the King of Independence (Romanian: Regele Independenței), was the monarch of Romania from 1866 to his death in 1914, ruling as Prince (Domnitor) from 1866 to 1881, and as King from 1881 to 1914. He was elected Prince of the Romanian United Principalities on 20 April 1866 after the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup d'état. In May 1877, Romania was proclaimed an independent and sovereign nation. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire (1878) in the Russo-Turkish War secured Romanian independence, and he was proclaimed King on 26 March [O.S. 14 March] 1881. He was the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty, which ruled the country until the proclamation of a socialist republic in 1947.

During his reign, Carol I personally led Romanian troops during the Russo-Turkish War and assumed command of the Russo-Romanian army during the siege of Plevna. The country achieved internationally recognized independence via the Treaty of Berlin, 1878 and acquired Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in 1913. In 1883 the king entered a top-secret military alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, despite popular demands against Hungary. When World War I broke out he was unable to activate the alliance. Romania remained neutral and in 1916 joined the Allies.

The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania. The fate of the territories held by Romania after 1918 that were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 is treated separately in the article on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

During the Eastern Front offensive of 1944, the Soviet Army occupied the northwestern part of Moldavia as a result of armed combat that took place between the months of April and August of that year, while Romania was still an ally of Nazi Germany. The rest of the territory was occupied after Romania changed sides in World War II, as a result of the royal coup launched by King Michael I on August 23, 1944. On that date, the king announced that Romania had unilaterally ceased all military actions against the Allies, accepted the Allied armistice offer, and joined the war against the Axis powers. As no formal armistice offer had been extended yet, the Red Army occupied most of Romania as enemy territory prior to the signing of the Moscow Armistice of September 12, 1944.

Michael I (Romanian: Mihai I [miˈhaj]; 25 October 1921 – 5 December 2017) was the last king of Romania, reigning from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947.

Shortly after Michael's birth, his father, Crown Prince Carol, had become involved in a controversial relationship with Magda Lupescu. In 1925, Carol was pressured to renounce his rights (in favour of his son Michael) to the throne and moved to Paris in exile with Lupescu. In July 1927, following the death of his grandfather Ferdinand I, Michael ascended the throne at age five, the youngest crowned head in Europe. As Michael was still a minor, a regency council was instituted, composed of his uncle Prince Nicolas, Patriarch Miron Cristea and Chief Justice Gheorghe Buzdugan. The council proved to be ineffective and, in 1930, Carol returned to Romania and replaced his son as monarch, reigning as Carol II. As a result, Michael returned to being heir apparent to the throne and was given the additional title of Grand Voievod of Alba-Iulia.

The Socialist Republic of Romania (Romanian: Republica Socialistă România, RSR) was a communist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Republic (Republica Populară Romînă, RPR). The country was an Eastern Bloc state and a member of the Warsaw Pact with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. Geographically, RSR was bordered by the Black Sea to the east, the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian and Moldavian SSRs) to the north and east, Hungary and Yugoslavia (via SR Serbia) to the west, and Bulgaria to the south.

As World War II ended, Romania, a former Axis member which had overthrown their pro-Axis government, was occupied by the Soviet Union as the sole representative of the Allies. On 6 March 1945, after mass demonstrations by communist sympathizers and political pressure from the Soviet representative of the Allied Control Commission, a new pro-Soviet government that included members of the previously outlawed Romanian Workers' Party was installed. Gradually, more members of the Workers' Party and communist-aligned parties gained control of the administration and pre-war political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. In December 1947, King Michael I was forced to abdicate and the People's Republic of Romania was declared.

The Kingdom of Romania remained neutral throughout the first two years of World War I. They eventually entered the conflict on the side of the Entente from 27 August 1916 until insurmountable pressure from Central Powers - which had occupied two thirds of the country - led to an armistice being signed on 9 December 1917. Six months later, a crippling peace treaty was imposed on Romania, which the government ratified. King Ferdinand I refused to promulgate the treaty, hoping for an Allied victory on the Western Front. As the Central Power war efforts collapsed, Romania re-entered the war on 10 November 1918.

Romania was still a burgeoning state with great territorial ambitions at the onset of the war. It had achieved its independence following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, although millions of ethnic Romanians continued to reside outside the new nation's borders, particularly in Transylvania and Bessarabia, which were part of Austria-Hungary and Russia respectively. The Romanian monarchy, which was formed by members of the Hohenzollern dynasty, who were of Germanic origin, was sympathetic towards the cause of the Central Powers. The nation's political elite and the majority of the public favoured the Entente, as joining them would allow Romania to take Transylvania from Austria-Hungary, a region rich with natural resources and inhabited by a Romanian majority. Because of this social division and the general feeling that Romania still wasn't fully prepared for a war against a great power, the Romanians initially opted for neutrality.

The Romanian Communist Party (Romanian: Partidul Comunist Român [parˈtidul komuˈnist roˈmɨn]; PCR) was a communist party in Romania. Founded in 1921, the party assumed to the power of Romania in 1947 and became the founding and ruling party of the Socialist Republic of Romania, until its overthrow in the Romanian revolution in 1989. Ideologically committed to Marxism–Leninism, the party oversaw Romania's departure from the Soviet satellite status and incorporation of national communism.

The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave an ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that would replace the social system of the Kingdom of Romania. After being outlawed in 1924, the PCR remained a minor and illegal grouping for much of the interwar period and submitted to direct Comintern control. During the 1920s and the 1930s, most of its activists were imprisoned or took refuge in the Soviet Union, which led to the creation of competing factions that sometimes came into open conflict. That did not prevent the party from participating in the political life of the country through various front organizations, most notably the Peasant Workers' Bloc. In 1934–1936, PCR reformed itself in the mainland of Romania properly, with foreign observers predicting a possible communist takeover in Romania. The party emerged as a powerful actor on the Romanian political scene in August 1944, when it became involved in the royal coup that toppled the pro-Nazi government of Ion Antonescu. With support from Soviet occupational forces, the PCR pressured King Michael I into abdicating, and it established the Romanian People's Republic in December 1947.

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈɡe̯orɡe ɡe̯orˈɡi.u ˈdeʒ] 8 November [O.S. 26 October] 1901 – 19 March 1965) was a Romanian politician. He was the first communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party (ultimately "Romanian Workers' Party", PMR) from 1944 to 1954 and from 1955 to 1965, and as the first communist Prime Minister of Romania from 1952 to 1955.

Born in Bârlad (1901), Gheorghiu-Dej was involved in the communist movement's activities from the early 1930s. Upon the outbreak of World War II in Europe, he was imprisoned by Ion Antonescu's regime in the Târgu Jiu internment camp, and escaped only in August 1944. After the forces of King Michael ousted Antonescu and had him arrested for war crimes, Gheorghiu-Dej together with prime-minister Petru Groza pressured the King into abdicating in December 1947, marking the onset of out-and-out communist rule in Romania.