National Peasants' Party

Prominent political figures died in detention.

Iuliu Maniu, the former prime minister and leader of the National Peasant Party, whom we mentioned in part one, died at Sziget prison in 1953.

Ion Mihalache, another important democratic political leader, died after years of imprisonment in 1963.

At Siget alone, historical research records 53 deaths among approximately 180 prisoners held there during its period as a prison for political elites.

Political opponents were increasingly marginalized, arrested and removed.

One particularly important figure was Iuliu Maniu, leader of the National Peasant Party and one of Romania's leading democratic politicians.

The National Peasant Party was eventually suppressed and Maniu was imprisoned.

Step by step, organized political opposition was disappearing.

And here's where history becomes especially instructive.