In early 1944, as the Red Army reached and crossed the Prut River during the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, the self-confidence and status gained by the PCdR made possible the creation of the Bloc, which was designed as the basis of a future anti-Axis government. Parallel contacts were established, through Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu and Emil Bodnăraș, between the PCdR, the Soviets, and King Michael. A seminal event also occurred during those months: Ștefan Foriș, who was still general secretary, was deposed by with Soviet approval by the rival ""prison faction""(at the time, it was headed by former inmates of Caransebeș prison); replaced with the troika formed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Constantin Pîrvulescu, and Iosif Rangheț, Foriș was discreetly assassinated in 1946. Several assessments view Foriș's dismissal as the complete rupture in historical continuity between the PCdR established in 1921 and what became the ruling party of Communist Romania.