National Peasants' Party Partidul Național Țărănesc | |
|---|---|
 Logo of the PNȚ used in 1933, featuring a circle (the main electoral symbol) with an icon of a peasant and oxen ploughing a field | |
| President | Iuliu Maniu (1926–1931, 1932–1933, 1937–1947) Alexandru Vaida-Voevod (1933–1935) Ion Mihalache (1931–1932, 1935–1937) |
| Founded | 10 October 1926 |
| Dissolved | 29 July 1947 (formal; informal existence to December 1989) |
| Merger of | Romanian National Party Peasants' Party |
| Succeeded by | Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party |
| Headquarters | Clemenceau Street 6, Bucharest (1944–1946) |
| Newspaper | Dreptatea and eight others (1945) |
| Paramilitary wing | Peasant Guards |
| Youth wing | Tineretul Național Țărănesc (1926–1945) Organizația M (1945–1947) |
| Proletarian wing | PNȚ Workers' Organization |
| Membership | 2.12 million (1947 est.) |
| Ideology | Agrarianism
Majority positions: |
| Political position | Centre-left to centre-right (de jure) Syncretic (de facto) |
| National affiliation | Bloc of Democratic Parties (1944) |
| International affiliation | International Agrarian Bureau (1927–?) International Entente of Radical and Similar Democratic Parties (1929–1938) Romanian National Committee (1949–1975) Romanian National Council (1975–1989) Christian Democrat World Union (1987–1989) |
| Colours | Green Red |
| Anthem | Cântecul țăranilor |
| Party flag | |
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The National Peasants' Party (also known as the National Peasant Party or National Farmers' Party; Romanian: Partidul Național Țărănesc, or Partidul Național-Țărănist, PNȚ) was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party (PNR), a conservative-regionalist group centred on Transylvania, and the Peasants' Party (PȚ), 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 (PNL). 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 defence of Romanian nationalism and of the country's monarchic regime, 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.
With its attacks on the PNL establishment, the PNȚ came to endorse an authoritarian monarchy, mounting no resistance to a conspiracy which brought Carol II on the Romanian throne in 1930. Over the following five years, Carol manoeuvred against the PNȚ, which opposed his attempts to subvert liberal democracy. PNȚ governments were in power for most of the time between 1928 and 1933, with the leader Iuliu Maniu as its longest-serving Prime Minister. Supported by the Romanian Social Democrats, they expanded Romania's welfare state, but failed to tackle the Great Depression, and organized clampdowns against radicalized workers at Lupeni and Grivița. This issue brought Maniu into conflict with the outlawed Romanian Communist Party, though the PNȚ, and in particular its left, favored a Romanian popular front. From 1935, most of the centrist wing embraced anti-fascism, outvoting the PNȚ's far-right, which split of as a Romanian Front, under Alexandru Vaida-Voevod; in that interval, the PNȚ set up pro-democratic paramilitary units, or Peasant Guards. However, the party signed a temporary cooperation agreement with the fascist Iron Guard ahead of national elections in 1937, sparking much controversy among its own voters.
The PNȚ was banned under the National Renaissance Front (1938–1940), which also absorbed its centrists. Regrouped under Maniu, it remained active throughout World War II as an underground organization, tolerated by successive fascist regimes, but supportive of the Allied Powers; it also organized protests against the deportation of minorities and for the return of Northern Transylvania. Together with the PNL and the communists, it executed the Coup of August 1944, emerging as the most powerful party of the subsequent democratic interlude (1944–1946). In this final period, National Peasantists were repressed as instigators of anti-communist resistance. The PNȚ was registered as having lost the fraudulent elections in 1946, and was banned following the "Tămădău Affair" of 1947. The communist regime imprisoned its members in large numbers, though some on the pro-communist left were allowed to go free. Both Maniu and his more leftist deputy, Ion Mihalache, died in prison.
PNȚ cells were revived in the Romanian diaspora by youth leaders such as Ion Rațiu, and had representation within the Romanian National Committee. The release of political prisoners also allowed the PNȚ to claim existence inside Romania. Corneliu Coposu emerged as the underground leader of this tendency, which was admitted into the Christian Democrat World Union. Its legal successor, called Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party, was one of the first registered political groups after the December 1989 Revolution.