Petre Borilă

He subsequently endorsed the official policies, and played a part in ousting Gheorghiu-Dej's newly found rival, Iosif Chișinevschi, but was progressively marginalized after Nicolae Ceaușescu emerged as Romania's ruler in 1965.

[4] At the time, he also had close contacts with other prominent Romanian communist exiles, including Luca, Pauker, Leonte Răutu, and Valter Roman — this nucleus – "the Muscovite faction" – representing a distinct group inside the PCR, planned to take over the entire party upon their return to Romania.

According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu, Borilă had grown aware that support for his faction was fragile, and, in order to ensure his political survival, chose to always maintain close contacts with Gheorghiu-Dej.

[2] As the Luca-Pauker group ensured a main role in leading the reunited PCR (known for a while afterwards as the Romanian Workers' Party, or PMR), he himself rose to prominence: following the establishment of a Communist regime (1947), he was a member of the Central Committee (1948–1969) and of the Politburo (1952–1965).

[2] Reputedly, his relations with Pauker and Luca grew tense as early as 1950, when the former two began a campaign aimed at removing Spanish Civil War volunteers from the PMR leadership, in view of subjecting them to a show trial.

[2] In 1956, he was, alongside Gheorghiu-Dej, Miron Constantinescu, and Iosif Chișinevschi, one of Romania's delegates to the famous 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, where, to their surprise, Nikita Khrushchev condemned Joseph Stalin and announced a path to De-Stalinization.

[7] As a consequence of this move, Gheorghiu-Dej made a claim to have De-Stalinized the PCR years before Khrushchev, and linked Stalinism exclusively to the fallen Pauker-Luca faction: Petre Borilă played a significant part in this process, rallying with the Romanian leader as the latter purged the PMR of members who advocated increased liberalization.

[8] Later in the same year, together with Gheorghiu-Dej, Vincze, Constantin Pîrvulescu, and Alexandru Moghioroș, he engaged in talks with Pauker, who was by then released from detention and placed under close Securitate surveillance — they attempted to have her confess to political crimes, but she defiantly continued to deny the bulk of the charges.

[9] Despite the ideological conflict between the PCR and Khrushchev, Romania supported Soviet intervention against the 1956 Revolution in Hungary, and Gheorghiu-Dej agreed to have dissident Hungarian leader Imre Nagy kept under arrest in Snagov.