It was the fusion of two groups that has previously existed in the Moldavian Democratic Republic. Many cadres, including Pantelimon Halippa, Ion Pelivan and Daniel Ciugureanu, had belonged to the "Moldavian Bloc", which represented Romanian nationalism faction within "Sfatul Țării", the republican legislature. The Bloc itself was a relic of the National Moldavian Party (PNM), which had existed after the February Revolution—when Bessarabia was still part of the Russian Republic. According to historian Andrei Cemârtan: "The [PȚB] members themselves made no effort to conceal that only the name had changed, meaning more precisely that the National Moldavian Party had become the Peasants' Party, as circumstances had changed." On its left, the PȚB also incorporated ethnic Romanians who had caucused with "Sfatul Țării"s "Peasant Faction" ("Fracția Țărănească"). The latter's notable members were Ion Inculeț (its nominal leader), Pantelimon Erhan and Vladimir Tsyganko. References to a "Bessarabian Peasants' Party" date back to the era before World War I. A faction of that name existed in the Russian State Duma after the 1907 election. Centered on Dionisy Gulikin, it campaigned for the recognition of Romanian as a state language of Russia. The same title was later used in common parlance for the Peasants' Faction of "Sfatul Țării". Various Peasant Faction affiliates, like other future PȚB cadres, had belonged to left-wing parties in Russia. Ion Inculeț and Daniel Ciugureanu had been Esers, and had for long maintained links with the Russian Provisional Government. More to the left, Ion Buzdugan and Gherman Pântea had caucused with the Bolsheviks. In November 1917, almost a year before the PȚB's formal registration, a party of the same name had participated in the ill-fated election for the Constituent Assembly. Its list included, among others, Ion Inculeț, Gherman Pântea and Pantelimon Halippa. While the election results "were never fully tabulated", later counts indicated the Peasants' Soviet as one of the most important political players, winning between 35% and 37% of the accounted votes, with strong support from the Romanian-speaking rural population.