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Teacher Ion Mihalache, a major Romanian politician before 1945, represented the peasant middle class. He was a man of integrity, defender of conservative Romanian peasant values, but was also a militant for modernization and prosperity for all, especially the most disadvantaged. Ion Mihalache was born on March 3, 1882, in Topoloveni, a village 90 km northwest of Bucharest. He came from a peasant family, and loved education, so he became a teacher at19 years of age, in 1901. When Romania joined the war, in 1916, he volunteered as an officer commanding a company on the front lines. He took part in the military campaigns in 1916-1917, and was decorated with the Michael the Brave order for his abilities as a commander. In the tumultuous years after the war, he took part in organizing the referendum by which the Romanian population of Bessarabia voted to unite with Romania in 1918. After the war, he went into politics and was a founder of the National Peasant Party, to defend the