of the country. A list of some of the most important resistance groups and their location: Rather than a planned action, the resistance movement was a spontaneous reaction in response to the wave of terror initiated by the authorities after the seizure of power in early 1948. The spontaneous nature of the movement explains its marked fragmentation and the lack of coordination between the resistance groups. However, acting isolated and on a local basis conferred the groups a multiformity and flexibility which rendered the annihilation of the entire movement more difficult, and ensured a remarkable staying power for some groups. Furthermore, in some areas a notable reproducibility occurred, exterminated groups being replaced by new cores of resistance. A characteristic trait of the movement was its defensive nature. Indeed, few offensive actions such as sabotages or occupation of localities have been recorded. While the groups did not pose a major material threat to the authorities, their dangerousness for the regime resided in the symbol they represented: as long as the resisters remained free, they created a tangible challenge to the regime's claim of exercising total control over the country. Repression Adriana Georgescu Cosmovici was one of the first people to be arrested for belonging to the resistance movement. In July 1945, the 28-year-old woman was arrested in Bucharest, and severely beaten by the secret police investigators. In a statement made in Paris in 1949, she named three investigators as having threatened her with guns, one of them being Alexandru Nicolschi. According to a 1992 article for Cuvântul, Nicolschi ordered in July 1949 the murder of seven prisoners (allegedly the leaders of an anti-communist resistance movement) in transit from Gherla Prison. Elisabeta Rizea and her husband, two peasants opposed to the government's policy of forced collectivization, joined the guerrilla group "Haiducii Muscelului" led by Colonel Gheorghe Arsenescu, providing food and supplies. Caught in 1952, she served 12 years in prison, during which time she was subjected to torture. Historian Radu Ciuceanu joined the "National Resistance Movement" in 1946; centered in Craiova, the resistance group was led by general Ioan Carlaonț and colonels Gheorghe Cărăușu and . Arrested in 1948 and held in prison until 1963, Ciuceanu was subjected to a re-education program which involved severe beatings and harsh conditions of detention. By the late 1950s, the resistance movement was in shambles. Romanian counter-insurgency operations had almost completely destroyed the guerrilla insurgency. On