Petru Groza in the context of "Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej"

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.

Gheorghe I. Tătărescu (also known as Guță Tătărescu, with a slightly antiquated pet form of his given name; 2 November 1886 – 28 March 1957) was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania (1934–1937; 1939–1940), three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs (interim in 1934 and 1938, appointed to the office in 1945-1947) and once as Minister of War (1934). Representing the "young liberals" faction inside the National Liberal Party (PNL), Tătărescu began his political career as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca, becoming noted for his anticommunism and, in time, for his conflicts with the PNL's leader Dinu Brătianu and the Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu. During his first time in office, he moved closer to King Carol II and led an ambivalent policy toward the fascist Iron Guard and ultimately becoming instrumental in establishing the authoritarian and corporatist regime around the National Renaissance Front. In 1940, he accepted the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and had to resign.

After the start of World War II, Gheorghe Tătărescu initiated a move to rally political forces in opposition to Ion Antonescu's dictatorship, and sought an alliance with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). He was twice expelled from the PNL, in 1938 and 1944, creating instead his own group, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, and representing it inside the communist-endorsed Petru Groza cabinet. In 1946-1947, he was also the President of the Romanian Delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris. Then, relations between Tătărescu and the PCR began to sour, and he was replaced from the leadership of both his own party and the Foreign Ministry when his name was implicated in the Tămădău Affair. Following the Communist takeover, he was arrested and held as a political prisoner while being called to testify in the trial of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. He died soon after his release from prison.

The Ploughmen's Front (Romanian: Frontul Plugarilor) was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.

The Tămădău affair (Romanian: Afacerea Tămădău, Înscenarea de la Tămădău – "the Tămădău frameup" – or Fuga de la Tămădău – "the Tămădău flight") was an incident that took place in Romania in July 1947. It was the source of a political scandal and show trial.

It was provoked when an important number of National Peasants' Party (PNȚ) leaders, including Party Vice-President Ion Mihalache, had been offered a chance to flee Romania, where the Communist Party (PCR), the main force in the Petru Groza government, already had a tight grip on power with backing from the Soviet Union (see Soviet occupation of Romania). The affair signalled some of the first official measures taken against opposition parties as a step leading to the proclamation of a people's republic at the end of that year (see Socialist Republic of Romania).