ousting Antonescu and aligning the country with the Allies, arguing that the PCR was supposed to await the Soviets' presence. Political leadership One year later, he became party secretary, and soon after the finance minister and the deputy premier in the Petru Groza cabinet which he had helped bring to power in February 1945 (with Pauker, he ensured the Allied Commission's support for Communists who were protesting against the Nicolae Rădescu executive). Luca became involved in all major conflicts between the PCR and the traditional opposition forces, the National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party: he gave inflammatory speeches on the issue of Northern Transylvania's return to Romania (journalist Victor Frunză later claimed Luca recommended its postponing), on projects regarding the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as on collectivization. At the Party Conference in October, when the balance set after General Secretary Ștefan Foriș' downfall came to be questioned, Luca made his voice heard in opposition to Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's "internal wing", and proposed that the latter be kept as nominal leader (with Pauker taking over the party executive); Gheorghiu-Dej, who managed to obtain Joseph Stalin's approval through the intervention of Emil Bodnăraș, became focused on maneuvering against the rival faction. In late 1945, the issue of collectivization brought Luca into a brief and intense conflict with the Ploughmen's Front (a group led by Petru Groza and allied with the Communists), which threatened to cease supporting the PCR if private property was not going to be guaranteed. His plans for rapid communization also rose opposition inside the party — Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu is known to have advised against them. With those of Pauker, Teohari Georgescu, and Gheorghiu-Dej, his name was one of the most prominent in propaganda, including the famous collective slogan Ana, Luca, Teo, Dej / Bagă spaima în burgheji — "Ana, Luca, Teo[hari], Dej / Scare the bourgeois". The group of leaders was active in suppression of various inner-party political factions, starting with that of Foriș, and continued with those of Remus Koffler and Pătrășcanu. He directed the forced transition to collective farming, and kept his ministerial office after the proclamation of the People's Republic. Inside the Secretariat, he, Pauker and Georgescu eventually became the main obstacle in the way of Gheorghiu-Dej's policies. An article published in 1948 in the Trotskyist journal New International described Luca as the "most sectarian member of the Stalinist ruling