Romanian political party
The
Ploughmen's Front
(
Romanian
:
Frontul Plugarilor
) was a
Romanian
left-wing
agrarian
-inspired political organisation of
ploughmen
, founded at
Deva
in 1933 and led by
Petru Groza
. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
Begun in
Hunedoara County
, it quickly spread into the
Banat
, and then into the other regions of Romania. Groza, who had been a minister in
Alexandru Averescu
's
People's Party
cabinet (1926),
[2]
aimed to improve the situation of the peasantry (which he believed had been betrayed by the main agrarian group, the
National Peasants' Party
),
[3]
calling for a
social security
program in the countryside and
tax reform
favourable to small holdings.
[4]
The group was also
republican
in ambitions, probably from the moment it was created (before 1940, Groza was recorded to have said "my last king was
Decebalus
, after whose death I became a republican").
[5]
In 1935, the organisation aligned itself with the outlawed
Romanian Communist Party
(PCR), an agreement inspired by the
Stalinist
Popular Front
doctrine and signed in
?ebea
(after negotiations overseen by
Scarlat Callimachi
).
[6]
During this period, the Ploughmen's Front never obtained more than 0.30% of the vote.
[7]
Outlawed together with all parties in 1938, through a law passed by the
authoritarian
regime of
King
Carol II
, it remained active in clandestinity during the dictatorial rule of
Ion Antonescu
(when Groza was detained in 1943?1944),
[8]
and surfaced after its fall in 1944 and the start of
Soviet
ascendancy and influence
(
see
Romania during World War II
).
[9]
In October of that year, it joined other the PCR-led
National Democratic Front
(FND), alongside the
Union of Patriots
, the
Union of Hungarian Workers
, the
Socialist Peasants' Party
, and the
Romanian Social Democratic Party
(the Ploughmen's Front absorbed the Socialist Peasants' Party one month later).
[10]
In February 1945, although represented inside the
Nicolae R?descu
cabinet (as it had been in the
Constantin S?n?tescu
one) it took part in violent incidents that led to its fall.
[11]
Groza, who was first considered for high political office in late 1944,
[12]
led the third cabinet after the fall of Antonescu (formed on March 6, 1945); while the government was maneuvered by the PCR, the Ploughmen's Front did hold the Ministry of Agriculture and Royal Domains, which was assigned to
Romulus Z?roni
,
[13]
and that of Culture and Arts, which was assigned to
Mihai Ralea
.
[14]
In late 1947,
Stanciu Stoian
became another one of the party's leading members to be presiding over a ministry ? that of Religious Affairs;
[15]
additionally,
Octav Liveazeanu
became head on the Information Ministry.
The party ran on a single platform with the PCR during the
1946 general election
, which the Groza cabinet won through large-scale
electoral fraud
,
[16]
and had PCR activists such as
Constantin Agiu
[17]
among its nominal members. It thus played an active part in the proceedings leading to the creation of
Communist Romania
.
At the time, PCR leaders began using Antonescu's 1943 crackdown on the Front as an instrument in intra-party fights: after
General Secretary
Gheorghiu-Dej had ordered his predecessor
?tefan Fori?
to be abducted and held in secrecy, it was alleged that Fori?' collaborator
Remus Koffler
had functioned as an agent for the former secret service (
Siguran?a Statului
), and that he had engineered Groza's arrest.
[18]
Nevertheless, relations between the Front and Communists were tested at times: after its first congress (July 1945), Groza's party called for the preservation of small, privately owned, agricultural plots and voluntary
cooperative farming
instead of the
collectivization
advocated by the PCR;
[19]
in the period known as the "Royal strike" (beginning in the autumn of 1945 and marked by
King
Mihai I
's refusal to sign his name to legislation advocated by the government), Groza, urged on by Z?roni and
Mihail Ghelmegeanu
, objected to Soviet pressures on the monarch and even threatened
Vasile Luca
that he would withdraw support for the PCR.
[20]
Eventually, the Front gave in to Communist demands
[21]
(as a politician whose career survived the group's demise, Groza continued to sporadically clash with the PCR).
[22]
In July 1947, the Front was joined by
Nicolae D. Corn??eanu
and other members of the defunct
National Union for Work and Reconstruction
(a small political grouping formed by
Constantin Argetoianu
),
[23]
and, in 1948, it absorbed the
National Peasants' Party?Alexandrescu
(a splinter group of the National Peasants' Party).
[24]
The Ploughmen's Front ceased to exist when it dissolved itself in 1953. According to the 1991 testimony of former PCR leader
Gheorghe Apostol
, the latter action was instigated by the main party; he also indicated that, in retrospect, Gheorghiu-Dej had found such measures taken against pluralism to be regrettable ("Dej himself said: ≪What a stupid thing we have done! We could at least have allowed the Ploughmen's Front to exist!≫).
[25]
Electoral history
[
edit
]
Legislative elections
[
edit
]
Election
|
Votes
|
%
|
Seats
|
+/?
|
Position
|
1933
|
7,970
|
0.3%
|
|
?
|
14th
|
1946
|
4,773,689
|
69.8%
|
|
70
|
1st
1
|
1948
|
6,959,936
|
93.2%
|
|
56
|
1st
2
|
1952
|
10,187,833
|
100%
|
|
302
|
1st
3
|
Notes
:
1
BDP
members:
PSDR
(81 deputies),
PNL-T?t?rescu
(75 deputies), Ploughmen's Front,
Romanian Communist Party
(68 deputies),
National Popular Party
(26 deputies),
PN?-Alexandrescu
(20 deputies), and 8
independents
.
2
FDP members in 1948:
Romanian Workers Party
and affiliates (190 deputies and 11 independent deputies affiliated to PMR group), Ploughmen's Front,
National Popular Party
(43 deputies),
Hungarian People's Union
(30 deputies), and
Jewish Democratic Committee
(5 deputies).
3
FDP members in 1952:
Romanian Workers Party
and
independent affiliates
, Ploughmen's Front,
Hungarian People's Union
, and
Jewish Democratic Committee
. The distribution of mandates is unclear.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
?tefan, p.10
- ^
Cioroianu, p.150, 151
- ^
Cioroianu, p.150, 151; Hitchins, p.390
- ^
Hitchins, p.390-391
- ^
Groza, in Cioroianu, p.165
- ^
Frunz?, p.115
- ^
Hitchins, p.391
- ^
Betea, "In umbra..."
- ^
Betea, "In umbra..."
- ^
Cioroianu, p.154
- ^
Cioroianu, p.159-162; Hitchins, p.507-508
- ^
Cioroianu, p.152-153
- ^
Cioroianu, p.161; Frunz?, p.116, 187
- ^
Cioroianu, p.154, 161
- ^
Cioroianu, p.159
- ^
Frunz?, p.287-292; Hitchins, p.517; ?tefan, p.9-10; Tism?neanu, p.288
- ^
Cioroianu, p.159; Frunz?, p.117
- ^
Betea, "In umbra..."
- ^
Cioroianu, p.162; Hitchins, p.511
- ^
Cioroianu, p.161-162
- ^
Cioroianu, p.162
- ^
Cioroianu, p.165-166
- ^
Otu
- ^
Videnie, p.46
- ^
Apostol, in Betea, "Engima..."
References
[
edit
]
- Lavinia Betea,
- Adrian Cioroianu
,
Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere in istoria comunismului romanesc
("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"),
Editura Curtea Veche
, Bucharest, 2005
- Victor Frunz?,
Istoria stalinismului in Romania
("The History of Stalinism in Romania"),
Humanitas
, Bucharest, 1990
- Keith Hitchins
,
Romania, 1866?1947
, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1998 (translation of the English-language edition
Rumania, 1866?1947
, Oxford University Press, USA, 1994)
- (in Romanian)
Petre Otu, "1946?1947. Se preg?te?te guvernul Argetoianu!" ("1946?1948. An Argetoianu Government Is Under Preparation!")
, in
Magazin Istoric
, May 2000
- M. ?tefan, "In umbra Cortinei de Fier" ("In the Shadow of the
Iron Curtain
"), in
Magazin Istoric
, November 1995
- Vladimir Tism?neanu
,
Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism
,
University of California Press
, 2003,
ISBN
0-520-23747-1
- Nicolae Videnie, "≪Alegerile≫ din martie 1948: epilogul listelor electorale alternative. Obsesia unanimit??ii ? primii pa?i" ("The ≪Elections≫ of March 1948: an Epilogue to Alternative Electoral Lists. Unanimity Obsession ? The First Steps Taken"), in
Dosarele Istoriei
, 11/V, 2000
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