Labor Party Partidul Muncei | |
|---|---|
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:Bell_symbol_of_the_Independent-Popular_List,_Romania,_1919.svg) Electoral symbol of the Independent-Popular List (1919) | |
| Leader | George Diamandy Nicolae L. Lupu |
| Founded | April 27/May 1, 1917 |
| Dissolved | 1921 |
| Split from | National Liberal Party |
| Merged into | People's League Peasants' Party |
| Headquarters | 40 de Sfinți Alley, Iași, Kingdom of Romania (1917) |
| Newspaper | Tribuna |
| Ideology | Reformism Agrarian socialism Poporanism Republicanism (minority) |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| National affiliation | Independent-Popular List (1919) Parliamentary Bloc (1920) |
| Colours | Red |
The Labor Party (Romanian: Partidul Muncei,[1][2][3] modernized Partidul Muncii, PM) was a minor left-wing political group in Romania. Based in the city of Iași, and founded by George Diamandy, in its inception it was a split from the National Liberal Party (PNL). The PM responded to the major social and political crisis sparked by World War I, with the southern regions of Romania having been invaded and occupied by Germany. It notably pushed for urgent land reform, universal suffrage, and labor rights, also wishing to replace the 1866 Constitution with a more democratic one, and advocating class collaboration. Through Diamandy, its roots were planted in the "generous youth" current of 19th-century reformism.
Co-chaired by Nicolae L. Lupu, the PM grouped disgruntled members of the PNL, old affiliates of homegrown Poporanism, and left-agarianists with republican leanings, inspired by the success of Russian Revolutionary Socialists (or "Esers"). It was perceived as a nuisance by the institutions of the Romanian Kingdom, but largely dismissed as shambolic, and reportedly criticized as "bourgeois" by Russian radicals. It campaigned independently during the June 1918 elections, but these registered a sweep for the Conservative Party; the PM only held one seat in Chamber, taken by Grigore Trancu-Iași.
Pushed into obscurity by the events of the war, which drove its other leaders into exile, the PM, relaunched under the leadership of landowner Numa Protopopescu, divided itself into factions. One of these continued to survive as a separate wing of the anti-PNL People's League. Lupu later reorganized the group as a component of the "Parliamentary Bloc", backing a government formed around the Romanian National Party in 1920. He and his supporters were also among those who established the Peasants' Party in 1921.
- ^ George Baiculescu, Georgeta Răduică, Neonila Onofrei, Publicațiile periodice românești (ziare, gazete, reviste). Vol. II: Catalog alfabetic 1907–1918. Supliment 1790–1906, p. 668. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1969
- ^ Gheorghe Biciușcă, "Vremuri mari, oameni mici", in Furnica, Vol. XIV, Issue 3, December 1918, p. 2
- ^ Tamara Teodorescu, Rodica Fochi, Florența Sădeanu, Liana Miclescu, Lucreția Angheluță, Bibliografia românească modernă (1831-1918). Vol. II: D–K, Editura științifică și enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1986, p.84. OCLC 462172635