Soviet occupation of Romania in the context of "Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina"

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a mainly continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km (92,046 sq mi) with a population of 19 million people. Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Europe's second-longest river, the Danube, empties into the Danube Delta in the southeast of the country. The Carpathian Mountains cross Romania from the north to the southwest and include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m (8,346 ft). Bucharest is the country's capital, largest urban area, and financial centre. Other major urban areas include Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța and Brașov.

Settlement in the territory of modern Romania began in the Lower Paleolithic, later becoming the Dacian Kingdom before Roman conquest and Romanisation. The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 with the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza, becoming the Kingdom of Romania in 1881 under Carol I of Romania. Romania gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, formalised by the Treaty of Berlin. After World War I, Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina, and Bessarabia joined the Old Kingdom, forming Greater Romania, which reached its largest territorial extent. In 1940, under Axis pressure, Romania lost territories to Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. Following the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, Romania switched sides to join the Allies. After World War II, it regained Northern Transylvania through the Paris Peace Treaties. Under Soviet occupation, King Michael I was forced to abdicate, and Romania became a socialist republic and Warsaw Pact member. After the uniquely violent Romanian revolution in December 1989, Romania began a transition to liberal democracy and a market economy.

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.

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.

Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov (Russian: Владислав Петрович Виноградов; 29 August 1899 in Kuznetsovo, Kazan Governorate – 13 April 1962) was a Soviet military leader. He fought in the First World War, Russian Civil War and Second World War and ended his military career Lieutenant General of the Quartermaster Corps.

During the occupation of Romania he represented Rodion Malinovsky, nominal head of the Red Army-dominated Allied Commission for Romania.

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).