1. Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the first Communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1944 to 1954 and from 1955 to 1965, and as the first Communist Prime Minister of Romania from 1952 to 1955.
Under his rule, Romania was considered one of the Soviet Union's most loyal satellite states, though Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was partially unnerved by the rapid de-Stalinization policy initiated by Nikita Khrushchev at the end of the 1950s.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej stepped up measures that greatly increased trade relations between Romania and the Western countries.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the son of a poor worker from Barlad, his father was Tanase Gheorghiu and his mother, Ana.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was later hired by the Romanian Railways workshops in Galati.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was assigned to organize agitation in the Romanian Railways workshops in Moldavia.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was briefly arrested again on 3 October 1932, at the end of a workers' meeting in Iasi, after he urged the workers to "unite for the fight against the capitalist class", on alleged charges of having hit a police commissioner.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was freed as the charges were found to be false.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was sentenced to prison in the same year by a military court, serving time in Doftana and in other facilities.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej became general secretary in 1944 after the Soviet occupation, but did not consolidate his power until 1952, after he purged Ana Pauker and her Muscovite faction comrades from power.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej taught Ceausescu in prison Marxist-Leninist theories and principles, and kept him close as Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej steadily gained power after their release from prison in 1944.
Years later, Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha alleged that Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej personally pulled a gun on the King and threatened to kill him unless he gave up the throne.
From this moment onward, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the de facto most powerful man in Romania.
Soviet influence in Romania under Joseph Stalin favoured Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, largely seen as a local leader with strong Marxist-Leninist principles.
Up until Stalin's death and even afterwards, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej did not amend repressive policies, such as the works employing penal labour on the Danube-Black Sea Canal.
On orders from Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Romania implemented the massive forced collectivization of land in the rural areas.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej became the architect of a new semi-autonomous foreign and economic policy under the Warsaw Pact and CAER at the end of the sixth decade.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej decided to create a heavy industry, an initiative that contradicted the Muscovite plans that had reserved for Romania the role of granary of the communist bloc.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded him, becoming the first Communist to hold the post.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej thus combined the two most powerful posts in Romania in his own hands, with full Soviet approval.
Gheorghiu-Dej briefly gave up the first secretaryship of the Communist Party in 1954 to Gheorghe Apostol, retaining the premiership.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was at first unsettled by Nikita Khrushchev's reforms in the new process of De-Stalinization.
Ironically, Romania under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was once considered one of the most loyal among the Soviet satellites, and thus there is a tendency to forget "who first established the pattern of foreign policy openness and 'liberalness' coupled with domestic repression".
An article from The Times of 29 August 1953 wrote: "[Romania] could, for instance, it is thought, obtain higher prices on the world market for much of what she is forced to export to Russia, foodstuffs included, in return for machinery and aid", As Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej realized, if Romania were able to trade with the West the standard of living would likely rise.
Still, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej continued to strengthen the independence from the Soviet Union.
Additionally, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej had successfully begun a strong shift in trade towards the West, further separating it from the Soviet Union; Romania imported much of its industrial equipment from West Germany, Great Britain, and France.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's policies set the stage for his successor, Nicolae Ceausescu, to carry Romania's new course even further.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej died of lung cancer in Bucharest on 19 March 1965.
Gheorghe Apostol has claimed that Gheorghiu-Dej himself designated him party leader in waiting; in any case many perceived him as such in 1965.
Securitate general Ion Mihai Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, wrote that Ceausescu had allegedly told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill"; Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was among them.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was buried in a mausoleum in Liberty Park in Bucharest.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was married to Maria Alexe and they had two daughters, Vasilica and Constantina.