page_title: National Peasants' Party
section_title: 1944 revival
hierarchical_section_title: National Peasants' Party / History / 1944 revival
caption_attribution_description: English: National Peasant's Party figure Gabriel Țepelea (middle) greeting foreign journalists outside Ardealul newspaper headquarters in Bucharest; also pictured is the newly unveiled bust of Iuliu Maniu, the party leader. Photograph was taken shortly after the King Michael's Coup, which allowed anti-fascist groups to organize in the open.
context_page_description: The National Peasants' Party was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party, a conservative-regionalist group centered on Transylvania, and the Peasants' Party, which had coalesced the left-leaning agrarian movement in the Old Kingdom and Bessarabia. The definitive PNR–PȚ merger came after a decade-long rapprochement, producing a credible contender to the dominant National Liberal Party. National Peasantists agreed on the concept of a "peasant state", which defended smallholding against state capitalism or state socialism, proposing voluntary cooperative farming as the basis for economic policy. Peasants were seen as the first defense of Romanian nationalism and of the country's monarchic system, sometimes within a system of social corporatism. Regionally, the party expressed sympathy for Balkan federalism and rallied with the International Agrarian Bureau; internally, it championed administrative decentralization and respect for minority rights, as well as, briefly, republicanism. It remained factionalized on mainly ideological grounds, leading to a series of defections.
context_section_description: In June 1944, the PNȚ and PNL agreed to form a Bloc of Democratic Parties (BPD) alongside the PCdR and Social Democrats, preparing for the "King Michael Coup" of August 23. By then, Coposu and Cezar Spineanu were stockpiling firearms in PNȚ buildings, preparing for a BPD confrontation with the authorities. The Bloc existed largely because Maniu believed he could obtain Soviet lenience toward Romania following an armistice, and "only stood to enhance [the communists'] position". The plot involved statistician Sabin Manuilă, who acted as a PNȚ representative; a disciple of Moldovan, he had been involved with Antonescu's project to persecute Jews and deport Romanies, but also protected some 5,000 Jewish specialists working under his watch. Shortly before the coup, Maniu clashed with PCdR envoy Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, who had wanted the BPD to be joined by Ralea and other FRN eminences. Though largely unaware about any conspiracy, the PNȚ's lower echelons organized a pro-Allied rally at Bellu cemetery on August 20. Meeting with its leaders, Maniu expressed the hope that Antonescu himself would take Romania out of the Axis.
  Dreptatea, which had been banned in 1938, reentered print on August 27, 1944. Openly active from September, the PNȚ moved office to Clemenceau Street 6, which would remain its headquarters until dissolution. Maniu was initially offered the premiership, but opted out, arguing that the position should go to a military man for the war's duration. Historian Vlad Georgescu singles this out as Maniu's "real mistake": "[It] deprived the country of the only leadership that could have been strong and popular, the only party that could have rallied the people around a truly democratic program. In refusing to take over in 1944, Maniu [...] caused a power vacuum into which the Communist Party moved." A military-civilian cabinet was formed by General Constantin Sănătescu. Since the National Peasantists and PCdR envoys could not agree on a list of ministers, these were recruited from Michael I's courtiers, with party men serving only as ministers without portfolio; Leucuția and Solomon were the PNȚ's representatives. The promotion of such comparatively minor figures was criticized by the party's youth, leaving Maniu to acknowledge the brain drain which had affected National Peasantism ever since Călinescu and Ralea's defections.
  As described by scholar Lucian Boia, from 1945 the PNȚ emerged from the coup "believing itself the country's great party", which made it adopt a policy of "political and moral intransigence". By 1947, it had 2.12 million card-carrying members; as noted by Georgescu, it ranked ahead of all other parties, albeit "neither numbers nor popularity could bring it to power." Maniu preserved regional influence in reconquered Northern Transylvania, organized from September 1944 under a Committee of the Liberated Regions. This was presided upon by Ionel Pop. Commissariat rule often veered into an antimagyarism that was only ever curbed by the Red Army after a "six-week killing spree". Various reports, including oral testimonies by Peasant Guard members and volunteers who answered calls printed in Ardealul, suggest that local Hungarians were victims of numerous lynchings, either tolerated of encouraged by the Commissariat.
  By then, the PCdR had sparked a government crisis over Maniu's rejection of its communization programs; in the aftermath, communists spuriously claimed that Maniu had personally masterminded the killing of Transylvanian Hungarians. Upon taking over at Internal Affairs, PNȚ-ist Nicolae Penescu found himself accused of stalling democratization, and was pushed into resigning. After Maniu was again offered the premiership, and again declined, power went to General Nicolae Rădescu. Maniu and his followers agreed with the PCdR on the need for "de-fascization" in Romania, overseeing a purge of Romania's police agencies and appointing Ghiță Pop as PNȚ representative on the Special Committee for the investigation of war crimes. However, as noted by Boia, "curious solidarities" continued to be formed 
caption: Gabriel Țepelea (middle) greeting foreign journalists outside Ardealul newspaper headquarters, September 1944; also pictured is a newly unveiled bust of Maniu
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