 In July 1947, the Front was joined by Nicolae D. Cornăţeanu and other members of the defunct "National Union for Work and Reconstruction" (a small political grouping formed by Constantin Argetoianu), and, in 1948, it absorbed the National Peasants' Party–Alexandrescu (a splinter group of the National Peasants' Party).The Ploughmen's Front ceased to exist when it dissolved itself in 1953.According to the 1991 testimony of former PCR leader Gheorghe Apostol, the latter action was instigated by the main party; he also indicated that, in retrospect, Gheorghiu-Dej had found such measures taken against pluralism to be regrettable ("Dej himself said