After World War II, socialist realism, like in the Soviet Union, was adopted by a number of new communist states in Eastern Europe, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organizational moves, such as the incarceration of numerous poets linked to the fascist paramilitary organization, the Iron Guard. Between 1948 and 1956, Romania's pre-existing system of values and corresponding cultural institutions were restructured in an attempt to create a "new socialist man". As in the political and economic spheres, cultural reforms were sometimes forcibly imposed, intellectuals' links with the West were severed, and the Romanian Academy and long-standing professional organizations such as the Society of Romanian Writers or the Society of Romanian Composers were dissolved and replace