predecessor successor death_date birth_place death_place party office primeminister birth_date term_start image article_title term_end name
gheorghe gheorghiu-dej gheorghe gheorghiu-dej nicolae '' ion gheorghe maurer ceaușescu '' -lrb- as president of romania -rrb- 18 february 1975 smeeni , romania bucharest , romania communist party president of the state council prime minister of romania ion gheorghe maurer 8 august 1908 24 march 1965 21 october 1955 chivu stoica 1957.jpg chivu stoica
 9 december 1967 21 march 1961 chivu stoica
chivu stoica

chivu stoica -lrb- the family name being chivu ; 8 august 1908 -- 18 february 1975 -rrb- was a leading romanian communist politician .
stoica was born in smeeni , buzău county , the sixth child of a ploughman .
at age 12 he left home , and started working as an apprentice at căile ferate române , the state railway corporation .
in 1921 , he moved to bucharest , where he worked as a boilermaker at the vulcan , lemaitre , and malaxa companies .
there he met gheorghe vasilichi , who recruited him into the communist party .
in spring 1931 , stoica started working for the grivița railway yards , where he met gheorghe gheorghiu-dej , vasile luca , and constantin doncea ; together , they started organizing a strike .
on august 20 , 1934 , he was sentenced to 15 years of prison for his role in the grivița strike of 1933 .
at târgu jiu prison , he was close to gheorghiu-dej , who may have wanted stoica to be his successor as general secretary .
he was a member of the central committee of the romanian worker 's party from 1945 to 1975 , and of the politburo .
he served as prime minister of romania between 1955 and 1961 and as president of the state council of romania -lrb- de facto head of state -rrb- from 1965 until 1967 .
in his later years , he fell out of favour with nicolae ceaușescu and his wife elena .
his death , by a hunting rifle bullet to the head , was ruled a suicide .
his first wife was ecaterina -lrb- b. klein -rrb- , and his second one was maria -lrb- b. manolescu -rrb- , an engineer , with whom he had a daughter .
