The entire structure of the government, from national down to local levels, is organized on a principle of centralized control by which all lower bodies are subject to the authority and control of the next higher unit, the ultimate power resting in the central government. The governmental system consists of nominally representative bodies at community, town, and county levels, which are hierarchically subordinated to the authority of the central government. Throughout the entire system the predominant influence of the party is evident, the key positions at each level being held by party members. THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM Constitutional Development Since coming under full communist control in December 1947, Romania has had three constitutions. The first, designating the country a "People's Republic," was adopted by the Grand National Assembly in April 1948, just four weeks after the assembly had been reorganized under new communist leadership. The second, officially adopted in September 1952, had first been made public the preceding July after Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej had assumed the post of prime minister in addition to his position as head of the party. A third constitution, incorporating the elements of Romania's changed social and ideological position, entered into force on August 20, 1965. In many ways similar to the initial constitutions of the other Soviet-dominated states of Eastern Europe, the 1948 Constitution was designed to mark Romania's entry into the first stage of the transition from capitalism to socialism. As a people's democracy, state power was said to derive from the people as expressed through the Grand National Assembly, nominally, the supreme organ of state power. A nineteen-member Presidium was elected by and from the membership of the assembly to provide continuity of legislative authority when the assembly itself was not in session. The highest executive and administrative organ was the Council of Ministers, which functioned under the direction of the prime minister. Although it was not mentioned in the constitution, the Communist Party functioned as the supreme decisionmaking authority over and above that of the government. The right of ownership of private property was guaranteed, although the constitution provided that privately held means of production, banks, and insurance companies could be nationalized when the "general interest" so required. Less than two months after the adoption of the constitution, the Grand National Assembly applied this "general interest" principle and nationalized all banking, industrial, insurance, mining, and transportation enterprises.