TOTALITARIANISM IN ROMANIA

II. THE NATIONAL IRON-GUARDIST STATE

• General Ion Antonescu would have wanted to co-operate with "historic" parties but both the tsaranists and the liberals, faithful to democratic principles, refused to join a dictatorial regime, convinced of the final victory of England. Under such circumstances Ion Antonescu brought the Iron Guard Legion into government, proclaiming Romania a "national Iron-Guardist state". Hori Sima became vice prime-Minister, while other representatives of the Iron Guard took over the Ministries of External Affairs, National Education, the Ministry of Labour, the Cults. The other portfolios were assigned to military men and some technicians.
  
  
• The disagreement between Antonescu and the Iron-Guardists appeared very quickly over the aim of increasing their sphere of power and influence in the state. In fact there was a clash between two ideologies and two different policies.
  
  
• Horia Sima was of the opinion that in economy also "the accent had to fall upon the political element", that not technocrats but the "new man" could build the society of the future. The Legion thought that Antonescu was too tolerant of the old structures, that he didn't destroy them and that he did not establish a really totalitarian regime but one of political dictatorship.
  
  
• The relationships between the two forces continuously deteriorated, especially after the assassination in 1940 0f 64 prisoners, ex-officials, officers and non-coms, for their involvement in the assassination of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. The historian Nicolae Iorga and the economist Virgil Madgearu were assassinated in November too. These crimes considerably contributed to criticism of the iron-guardist movement.
  
  
• The iron-guardist movement in Romania set up not only the cult of death but also the cult of personality. Horia Sima was presented as "the one chosen by God…appointed for ever to take our destiny in his hands and reinstate it in the history". His portraits have mythical accents: "he has the appearance of an angel and the sword of an archangel."
  
  
• Antonescu had called on German troops on 10th October and adhered to the tripartite pact of 23rd of November after short visits paid to Mussolini and Hitler. The Führer appreciated the aggressive sharp personality of the leader more than that of his uncertain iron-guardist rival. The abuses of the Iron-Guard made the Führer view with an unfriendly eye its coming full power in a country where for strategic and economic reasons he wanted stability. Being pragmatic, the Nazis sacrificed their ideological comrades in the end, preferring to put confidence in the army.
  
  
• On 14th January 1941 Antonescu visited Hitler again and the latter gave him free scope to liquidate his iron-guardist rivals. As soon is Antonescu returned to Bucharest, he took a series of anti iron-guardist measures such as:
  
  
  • To dissolve the commission for romanianasation of the enterprises (19-th of January)
    
    
  • To replace the iron-guardist Minister of Internal Affairs
    
    
  • To replace the iron-guardist director of the police
    
    
  • To replace all the iron-guardist prefects with military men (20th - 21st of January)
    

   

  This was the beginning of an action to remove the Iron-Guard from power, to which the iron-guardists reacted with street demonstrations and demands to form a purely iron-guardist government. Sure of victory, the iron-guardists started the "rebelion" in Bucharest on the morning of 21st of January and barricaded themselves in the public buildings which were under their control. They got involved in street fights with the army, naturally devastating the Jewish district.
  

• The rebellion had already been defeated by the time the Germans intervened and Horia Sima asked all the iron-guardists to put an end to their opposition. Secretly the German army transported about 700 iron-guardists to Germany. On 27th January a new government was instituted, made up of almost only generals, and on 14th February "the national iron-guardist state" was officially abrogated.