Antonescu's downfall in August 1944 allowed Jewish political life to resume a legal course. Re-founded, with Zissu as president, on September 18, the PER was still organizing itself a year later. Its new opponents by then were the governing and expansive PCR and its Jewish Democratic Committee (CDE), formed in June 1945 as part of the National Democratic Front. The CDE was a second attempt by the communists to control the Jewish community: also created in September 1944, the General Jewish Council fell apart before the end of the year, having explicitly rejected the notion that "all Jews are communists". While formally presided upon by painter M. H. Maxy, the CDE was informally supervised by PCR man Vasile Luca, who spoke at the Committee's founding congress to repudiate all forms of Zionism—though he also formally rejected any notion that the CDE was a communist front.