 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 the same year ("see Communist Romania").The PCR victory in the 1946 general election, achieved through widespread electoral fraud, was followed by the first attempts at anti-Communist resistance (including the creation of a "military circle" led by Mihalache).As the main adversary of Stalinism and committed supporter of the Western Allies, the PNŢ was the main target for PCR hostility.