Stranded in Soviet territory following the occupation of Bessarabia, Cecan was imprisoned by the NKVD. He was shot by his captors during the Soviet retreat of 1941. In late 1940, Carol II had been pushed to abdicate, upon which the Iron Guard set up a "National Legionary State". This lasted to the civil war of 1941, when Ion Antonescu became the unchallenged dictator, or "Conducător". Antonescu sealed Romania's alliance with the Axis Powers, but was under pressure from Berlin to form a new version of the Iron Guard; as an alternative, Romanian government officials proposed to set up a new National Socialist Party. This project was never put into practice, "but not for lack of adherents." According to one later report, the sociologist Mihai Ralea was one of the people advocating a PNSR under Antonescu's presidency. By that moment, Ștefan Tătărescu had retired from national politics, managing the cooperatives in Vâlcea County. Reportedly, his penchant for corruption angered Antonescu, who ordered his extrajudicial arrest in an internment camp.