In 1944, the Fourth Moscow Conference was held in Moscow, where Churchill and Stalin shared their spheres of influence over Europe. Romania fell into Russia's control and in 1947 it became the "Romanian People's (Communist) Republic".

At the same time (during the 1944 offensive of the Eastern Front in World War II) Russia occupied the territory of Romania with armed troops, a situation that was maintained (without reason) until 1958).

In order to ensure control over the newly occupied territories, the Soviets set up the Department of State Security (commonly referred to as the ‘’Securitate’’). As an instrument of the Romanian Communist Party (and implicitly of Russia), whose directives it carried out, the ‘’Securitate’’ played a leading role in imposing Bolshevik, Stalinist and communist ideology. To this end, some ‘’Securitate’’ members resorted to actions that exceeded legal and moral norms, in many cases, to crimes and human rights violations.

The Securitate's equipment included arrests made during the middle of the night, beatings, torture and rape of detained girls and women. The communist regime controlled and subordinated to Russia begins its regime by confiscating land and businesses and imposing forced labour in Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CAP). The systematic robbery of Romania begins through SovRoms (Soviet companies established in Romania at the end of the Second World War that practically transferred resources and money from Romania to Russia) and a violent wave of violence and killings is started against the great statesmen, political and church figures of that time.

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Iuliu Maniu was among the first victims of this pogrom of intellectuals.

Born in Transylvania , then still part of Austria-Hungary , as a member of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church he attended primary school in Blaj and high school in Zalău. After studying law in Cluj-Napoca and Budapest and obtaining a doctorate in law in Vienna, he worked as a lawyer for the Uniate Archdiocese of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia in Blaj.

In 1896 he was elected to the presidium of the "National Party of the Romanians" (Partidul Național Român), which was active in the Hungarian half of the Danube Monarchy .

In 1906 he was elected to the Hungarian parliament for this party. There he quickly became the spokesman for the parliamentary arm of the Romanian national movement. After the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the demand for the annexation of Transylvania to Romania was realized. On December 2, 1918, he was elected President of the Council of Transylvania, Banat and the Romanian Provinces in Hungary in Sibiu. This position corresponded to that of a governor and also included the function of Minister of the Interior.

In 1926, the National Party of Romanians, of which Maniu had meanwhile become chairman, merged with the Peasants' Party originating from the Old Romanian Empire to form the National and Peasants' Party ( Partidul Național-Țărănesc ), which opposed the National Liberal Party internally and sought external alignment with France.

On December 12, 1928, the PNȚ party won a clear election victory, and Maniu became Prime Minister. One of the main focuses of his government was the dismantling of trade barriers, thereby promoting Romanian grain exports and thus his core peasant electorate, as well as foreign investment and thus the country's industrial development. The global economic crisis , however, largely thwarted these efforts. Iuliu Maniu spoke out in favor of the return of King Carol II , which took place on June 6, 1930. When, contrary to a promise to the government, the latter did not put his lover Magda Lupescu on trial but allowed her to escape abroad, Maniu resigned on October 6, 1930. In 1932 and 1933 he was Prime Minister again briefly. He then held ministerial posts several times for short periods up until the Second World War, but also led the opposition. Relations with Carol II remained strained by tensions.

Maniu protested bitterly against the Second Vienna Award , in which Romania, which had joined the Axis powers , ceded the northern part of Transylvania to Hungary. Maniu also opposed Romania's entry into the war on November 23, 1940, and the continuation of the fighting after the territories that the Soviet Union had annexed the previous year had been reconquered in 1941. He later took part in negotiations that were to lead to an armistice with the Allies.

In 1944, Maniu was involved in setting up a shadow government that took power after Ion Antonescu's fall on August 23, 1944. He resigned from his ministerial post in November of that year, as the Soviet Union was gaining increasing influence over the government. On March 6, 1945, his Peasants' Party was also excluded from the government, which meant that the Soviet Union finally gained political control over Romania. Until 1947, the former Prime Minister repeatedly published articles in Western media in which he criticized the violations of the law and electoral fraud committed by the Soviets and their allies in Romania. On July 19, 1947, his immunity as a member of parliament was lifted and he was arrested.

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His arrest happened on July 14, 1947, by the communist authorities and tried for "high treason" in the trial that began on October 29, 1947. By the sentence given on November 11, 1947, Iuliu Maniu was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was 74 years old and was sent to the Galati penitentiary, based on the arrest order 105.515/November 27, 1947. In August 1951 he was transferred, together with Ion Mihalache, Ilie Lazăr, Camil Demetrescu, Niculescu-Buzești, N. Carandino and others from the "Maniu squad", to Sighet. In the last months of his life, his cellmate was N. Carandino, in whose memoirs there are the accounts regarding the "political testament" and the "religious testament" of "Mr. President", as well as important details of Maniu's life, political activity, moral, religious, political thought. Iuliu Maniu died on February 5, 1953 in Sighet, at the age of 80, his body being thrown into a pit in the Cemetery of the Poor, on the outskirts of Sighet.