The family was in Bucharest in 1940, when the loss of Northern Transylvania plunged Romania into a political crisis. Smochină deeply admired "Conducător" Ion Antonescu, who was Romania's dictatorial ruler from 1941 to 1944. The Transnistrian ethnographer preserved Antonescu's image as a "great lover of the nation" and an "honest man", particularly since Antonescu promised to revisit the Bessarabian-Transnistrian issue "with an axe". According to his memoirs, Smochină accompanied the "Conducător" on all of his visits to Nazi Germany, where Antonescu reportedly imposed respect on German dictator Adolf Hitler. At that time, Romania formalized its alliance with the Axis Powers and, in summer 1941, joined Germany's sudden attack on the Soviet Union. During the early stages of war, the Romanian leader appointed Smochină his personal adviser on the issue of Transnistria. His work for that year included the brochure "Masacrele de la Nistru" ("Massacres on the Dniester"), which accused the Soviets of committing various crimes against the Romanian populace.