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This letter is part - The Introduction - of the book published in 1993 in Romanian, "Fenomenul legionar" (The Legionary Phe-nomenon) written by Mr. C. W. Forester.
To
Romanian Historical Studies
1029 Euclid Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139, USA
Dear Editor,
Your activity to dedicate strong efforts to make your readers to understand Romanian past, - among other facts and events -, the substance and role of the Legionary Movement (later mentioned as LM) is remarcable and meritorius. This activity could lead to a reconsideration of the official history of Romanians in the last six decades. According to the official history, the LM and the legionaires were a gang of violent, blood thirsty, scattered brained, illiterate individuals, who dared to challenge the existing benevolent social and statal structures. However, because you accept the attitude of the official history, some confusion would arise in the minds of the readers. There-fore, I believe that some accurate evaluation of facts, events and persons is necessary.
First of all, even for those who incline to show some admiration and respect for those who lost their lives fighting for the democratization and wellbeing of their nation, your publication explain the LM in a defensive manner, accepting some actions of legionaires but blaming them for some unspecified violence, particularly for the alleged 'rebellion' of January 1941 which, according to German war documents published long ago, was a coup d'etat against the LM staged by one of "Hitler puppet", General Ion Antonescu. The debate in Craiova, published in 'Gazeta de Vest" , illustrated this attitude. One representative of the "Institute of History N. Iorga" classified the LM 'a violent political movement'. No one of the participants challenged the assertion, and above all, no one told the representative that the assertion is hypocritical and cynical, particularly coming from the representative of an institute named after one who was totally responsible for the state of terror who disolved the LM and who was instrumental in thebutchering of Codreanu.
The analysis of the Romanian past must be done in the classical manner: to identify the subject matter, to collect facts and events, to analyze, to clarify and define, and above all to tackle the subject without idolizing or rejecting and blaming before hand. Therefore, at the start of your search you must abandon any influence of the approach of French political scientists who still use the division between 'wright" and 'left' parties, according to formulas set during the French revolution. The right approach should be different: which movement was popular and who were the leaders.
Secondly, the Romanian political setting between 1918-1938 - the years which witnessed profound changes in social and statal oligarchic structures - must be tackled with the eye of the contemporaries, those who challenged the oligarchy and those who defended it.
In 1918, officially the Romanian grassroots became free, with the right to be a part of the decision making process and owners of a part of the national wealth. Actually, the members of the grassroots had no political education and no means to make prosper their new lots or proper political decision.
However, they did everything to send their children in schools. The youth found quickly out that everything they learned according to their curriculum was an outright bunch of lies, and the history of their nation a deliberate manipulation of the truth. The constitutional structure, termed as 'parliamentarian democracy' was actually an autocratic oligarchy. The political and statal activity was ruled and controlled by a royal camarilla led by the main lover of the queen, Barbu Stirbey and his brother-in-law Ionel Bratianu. They have decided to start a process of industrialization that was paid by the grassroots, but which was disadvatageous for them whatsoever.
They learned that actually Romania had no independent foreign affairs stand because the nation was a French colony. At the end of the first world war Romania was integrated in a 'cordon sanitaire' against the SovietRussia, and later the status was changed and Romania was advised to become an ally of the Soviets, its eternal strongest enemy.
People aware of the unnatural condition of their nation looked to find leaders able to fight the famous 'forma fara fond' (form without substance) and to institutionalize a working democracy. Elder peasants and many urban people supported the new party of national peasants and finally carried them to power.
However, once at the helm of the state, the members of the peasants party raced frantically to integrate themselves in oligarchic structures. The gap between those detaining the power and the grassroots became abyssal. The older people started to desert the national peasants and joined their hands with their children, most of them followers of Corneliu Codreanu.
Corneliu Codreanu, a man with innate capabilities to feel the popular pains, dissatisfaction and grief, started to organize the public discontent into a mass movement, the strongest ever existed in Romania. Codreanu's activity was a watershed in Romanian political spectrum. On one side, was the traditional neo-phanariotism institutionalized in a oligarchic caste, topped by a hired foreign prince who was an official cover up method of falsehood. All foreign analysts - who did a clear investigation of Romanian political setting, even if their informer were exclusive members of the oligarchy and who never met a legionaire - have evaluated the oligarchy as corrupt, venal, alienated, abusive, oppressive, exploitative, using the state terror to achieve the total and absolute control of the nation. The members of the oligarchic caste acted only to preserve their privileges and prerogatives, disregarding the national goals and wellbeing. They enjoyed an easy life having secure jobs, access to lucrative professions and wealth. Once one member of the caste has been appointed in a public office, he milked the budget of the institution so much that when he ended his job, he lived afterward as a magnate, traveling to Paris or Nice. The statal apparatus supported exclusively the oligarchic caste which hired and promoted them. Surprisingly, all national minorities who in all Western nations have helped the democratic movements, in Romania they supported actively the oligarchy by any means.
On the other side, there were the numerous members of thegrassroots. After they graduated from colleges they attended living in the shabby 'camine' (student lodges), and eating in poorly provided 'cantine studentesti" (cantina for students), they found no opening for them in the statal structures or professions in banks or elsewhere in commerce or industry. They had to pay a high price if they accepted such jobs by forswearing their connections with the grassroots and working to enrich the oligarchy. They felt as foreigners in their own nation, losers in one of the God blessed land.
They became rebels contesting the social division and the neo-phanariot oligarchy. They looked for a leader and they found him in Codreanu.
Changed by his personal experience he had in the justified killing of a state official who tortured him, and by his learning travel in Western Europe, Codreanu decided to organize his political movement in a revolutionary one with definite goals and methods. Looking to modernize his movement, Codreanu, after a deep reflection, considered that the bloody rebellion of French and Russian nations did not solve the proper causes of their rebellions and he leaned toward the bloodless revolutions performed in England, which have produced long and stable institutions.
He acted accordingly - all his writings and speeches illustrate that line. Most of Codreanu's followers listened, approved and diffused the line behaving as true revolutionaries. The difference between the rebels and revolutionaries is fundamental. While the rebels rose against some injustice, without looking to consider and build the new institutions, the revolutionaries proceed in two stages: the first, the rebellion, and the second, to institutionalize the new structure and social relations.
As long as Codreanu lived, the cohesion of the movement was strictly observed with small exceptions. In the forced exile after Antonescu's coup d'etat, some individuals pretending to be legionaires, started a dissidence inside the exiled which fortunatelly fizzled out.
Codreanu, a deeply religious man, advised each member of the movement to practice a Christian behaviour. He insisted on the Christian set of values which could help the restoration of the true Romanian ethnic basis. At the same time, he asked the legionaires to reject the slavish social and statal status set out by the oligarchy for the grassroots and to revive the oldDaco-Roman set of values: human dignity, social equality, national brotherhood, work, and above all social justice.
Codreanu had a brilliant group of advisers he selected carefully on the basis of their credentials, education and political touching. Ion Mota, Ion Banea, Corneliu Georgescu, Ing. Gh. Clime, Mihail Polihroniade, Alexandru Cantacuzino, Vasile Cristescu, Ion Belgea, Vasile Marin, Horia Sima, Traian Herseni, Dumitru Groza, Nicolae Totu, Banica Dobre and many times, particularly, the hard tone on the advise of the members of the nest "Axa". Crisu Axente was one of them. Sometimes Codreanu consulted the regional leaders whose suggestions were analyzed and some of them included in the national outlook.
Codreanu's advisers were highly educated, highly motivated individuals, down to earth politicians and some of them, as Ion Mota, Ion Banea. Mihail Polihroniade, Ion Belgea and others have written or expressed ideas and solutions ranking them as statesmen. They were good Christians and behaved as such, but they were neither preacher, nor monks and their avowed reminder of Christianity was direct consequence of their general efforts to remoralize the nation. As mentioned, they were down to earth politicians, honest politicians fighting hard to redress the national indignity set upon the majority of the nation by the neo-phanariot regime. However, a proper analysis of the legionary phenomenon should stress not much the personalities of the movement, but the substance of the Legionary Movement, a mass movement, that is a popular one, as it was characterized by most of the foreign analysts. The popular masses are neither fascists, nor nazists nor communists, which are open expressions of different groups of special interests.
The mass movements strive to achieve the national destiny and its goals. The leaders of such movements enjoy the beneficial touching allowing them to become aware of the state of mind of the nation. Therefore, the critical analysis of several highly educated intelectuals as Nae Ionescu, Mircea E liade, M. Vulcanescu, C. Noica, Emil Cioran, who expressed some interests in the evolution of the Legionary Movement appears as futile. No one of the mentioned intelectuals were legionaires or ever participated in the basic education required for anyone wishing to become legionaire. The analysis ofthe support of such intellectuals is a proof of intellectuals contaminated by the marxism and sovietism, who consider that all political movements must be marked by some theories or some intellectual adhesion. That was the claim of marxism, to be a highly, infallible "scientific" foundation. Time and evolution of humane awareness led to the collapse of such beliefs, save the contemporary Romania where the contaminated marxists still dominate the political thinking and behaviour. Anyone trying to choose a non biased approach of the Western civilization, or to stress the Daco-Romanian origin of the Romanians is classified as a reactionary or a legionaire, a derogatory term.
A realistic investigation of the Romanian settings illustrates the fact that the Legionary Movement was the most substantiated, motivated and instrumental organization which challenged the anachronic olligarchic structures and which stirred the grassroots to participate in a movement of revival of old, traditional set of values, and to integrate the whole nation in an efficient infrastructure directed to lead the nation into progressive process of democratization and modernization. The main goal was to achieve national social justice in its dual objectives: the gradual release of the common man of his traditional slavish state of mind, molded by the oligarchy, and to restore the foundation of individual and national dignity, to achieve the old social equality by abolition of caste privileges and prerogatives and to open the acces to the national wealth to everyone, social mobility.
At the same time, the Romanians settled by fate in a land which traditionally was a passageway for peoples coming from far away have learned that most of the invaders left the land, but some remained and integrated within the nation. Some invaders have chosen a different way by rallying the oligarchic caste and oppressing the grassroots.
The Romanian contemporary setting is somewhat different from the period before 1944. In many ways, after 1944 Romania was ruled by acommunist oligarchy, which continued to ignore any need to integrate the nation in a democratic whole, and which crushed physically and spiritually the anti-oligarchic movement, that is the Legionary Movement and some isolated individuals who resented the soviet rule.
In the past, as in the present, the oligarchic structures are strong and unassailable. But the substance of the oligarchy has changed. The neo-phanariot oligarchy included alienated Romanians, Romanians with a visible foreign ancestry and all the national minorities. At the present time, the neo-communist oligarchy includes the old and new communists, genuine agents of the Russian empire, and some members of the relics of minorities to have left Romania during Gheorghiu-Dej rule.
In the past the political parties changed their status by the role they had in the government. Those who have the power, were the leaders and those vied for power represented the opposition. At the present time there is no opposition because those who claim to represent it, have no constituency. As a matter of fact, neither the government has a consituency.
The "opposition" represents one of the strangest and antiquated example of the survival of an oligarchic structure in an era when the process of democratization is prevalent across the planet. Another phenomenon unique in the world political spectrum is the revival of the old "monstruous coalition" which forced Cuza to abdicate and to hire a foreign prince to lead an autocratic monarchy.
The former political parties, at the present time real ghost parties, because their old constituencies do no more exist: the old peasant has changed in a salaried agricultural worker, the professional politicians and their urban supporters have vanished, and the social democrats never had a proper constituency. The ghost parties rallied under the umbrellla organization led by the last Hohenzollernian king, Mihai H., the last representant of the most corrupt and depraved monarchy in modern Europe. Within the umbrella a new party, a true neo-marxist organization, an alliance bewteen "intellectuals" and "workers", that is two social minorities, claim to have a predominant role, actually they do not deserve. Nobody is able to wonder how such a coalition could include masons and neo-communist dissidents, and all its members claim that Mihai H. must be recalled to revive the tragic Hohenzollernian activity.
The Legionary phenomenon is the only active political movement in Romania which could claim the right to achieve the national destiny. However, the constituency of the Legionary phenomenon, a phenomenon extending through several centuries and shaped by Tudor Vladimirescu, by thousands of anonymous fighters massacred during their upheavals, and climaxed by the Legionary Movement, has changed and many of its members are still frightened by the memories of terror used by the oligarchies and contaminated by the spurious marxism. In a way, they relive the experience of those who founded and shaped the Legionary Movement.
The young people should enter a powerfull, individual process of decontamination of marxism and to start to find the truth about their origin, evolution and destiny.
First of all, they must learn that they are authentic members of a nation issued from a melting pot of Dacians and Romans. They must start to find the truth about their origin as did the fabulous members of the "Scoala Ardeleana", who worked hard to revive the spirit of Romanian Latinic origin.
They must reject the idea that they must learn about Romania by going to France where the true basis of Latin could be found. It was and still is a falsification of thre truth. The French people, who produced one of the greatest civilization of the world, were not and still are not Latins. They were a collection of Germanic tribes who became Latinized later during the ninth century, when they started to read and write the Latin language. The Romanians spoke a Latin language during the evolution of the melting pot and still speak it. They practiced the set of Daco-Roman values which were very close each other. They lived in a social egalitarian society till they were overrun by the Turks, while the French people lived comfortably in an aristocratic social frame.
Besides, as remarked by Karl Popper, "Conjectures and Refutations", there is a basic difference between French and English intellectuals tackling of the problems of civilization. The French used the rationalism, exemplified by Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz, while the British philosophers considered that the ultimate basis of knowledge is the observation of men, facts andevents, while the continental school asserted that the basis of knowledge is the intellectual vision of clear and distinct ideas.
The young Romanian who want to find a proper manner to consider, define and solve the problems of their nation, must have a correct understanding of their origin, their set of values and the basic problems of changes surging at tremendous speed in our century. They should not reject their Latin origin, their Christianity, which was for centuries their sign of national identity and shield against invaders.
The study of Codreanu's life could help everyone, friend or enemy. Codreanu's creed and activity have been very empiric, looking to achieve the goals of the grassroots, but when they appeared as victorious, they were advised to use visionary approach and start a new life as dignified individuals, capable to face anyone and everything by working hard and fairly.
The Romanian youngs must start to learn that the world general life is changed and the leader of the changes were the people of the United States who have initiated a new concept of democracy as a process and not as a result of some papers called "Constitution", which actually confirmed the power of past institutions, mostly anti-Democratic.
However, each Romanian young, middleaged or old must have a clear image of Romanian history, which for long time was mistified by official historians, actually true chroniclers.
No Romanian history, unlike foreign analysts, classified the Romanian social and statal structures as "oligarchic", but as democracy, which it was not. All the kings and all politicians who promulgated constantly laws which consolidated the oligarchy, were classified as benefactors of the nation.
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King Carol II was a reputed killer, grafter who made state terror the usual method to eliminate those opposing the oligarchy. He was not satisfied to butcher his adversaries but he ordered their desecration.
His main helper was Iorga, the politician, who was his mainpropagandist for the use of state terror. Iorga villified and slandered the adversaries of the oligarchy with an unusual talent and permanent dishonesty. What is usually ignored was the fact that he was one of the greatest profiteer of the national budget. He received numerous salaries for his various functions and subsidies for his various schools he controlled in Romania, France and Italy. His plays were staged by different theaters but ignored by the public at large. Also what made him famous was his political life, which started as making the first anti-Semitic party, anti-monarhist and ended as the defender of the most example of royal corruption under Carol II.
Ion Mihalache was the first politician to denounce the oligarchy but when he was Minister of Interior, he disolved the Legionary Movement. In 1946 he started an offensive to build Romania as a peasant state, that is to seal the future condition of Romania as a slave state to foreign manufacturers.
George Bratianu, A.C.Cuza and all other politicians did not protest the use of state terror or the butchering of the legionaires. The most dramatic and sad analysis of a politician was the life and activity of Iuliu Maniu.
Leader of the reunion with Romania, but when he became the leader of the National Peasant Party, he was unable to prevent the integration of his party within the oligarchic social and statal structures. He approved the dissolution od the Legionary Movement ordered by Ion Mihalache, and never protested against the dissolution of the Legionary Movement by I.G.Duca. He never blamed Carol II for the way he milked the nation of the bones, nor the use of terror. He never protested against the butchering of Codreanu.
In 1944 he accepted the decision of King Mihai H. to give a mandate to Barbu Stirbey and his son in law, Niculescu Buzesti and Cretzianu, to negotiate a peace treaty. Strirbey, with the royal and all politicians devoted to oligarchy decided to sell the nation to the Soviet and to deliver those legionaires still alive to the Soviet. Maniu agreed with the decision.
Not-knowing the Russian-Romanian relations, he accepted to leave Bessarabia to Soviet (P. Quinlan, "Clash over Romania").
In 1946, in the last electoral campaign, his first slogan of hiscampaign was the "social justice". (Dreptatea sociala) which was always the main slogan of the Legionary Movement. Maniu never used this political slogan before in his almost 30 years of political life.
Ion Antonescu was a special case even in Romanian history, which was marked by honest rulers and vilain. He was a born killer, a vain and arrogant, merciless torturer.
He looked during all his mature life to become the ruler of Romania and to reach that objective he was ready to do everything. He believed that the leadership of the Legionary Movement would help him to reach his goal. Aware of the next butchering of Codreanu and other leaders of the Legionary Movement, he adopted a friendly behaviour to them, as did most of other professional politicians.
When he forced Carol II to leave the country, he accepted an alliance with Horia Sima, the head of the Legionary Movement, with the obvious intention to debark him from his position and assume the leadership of Legionary Movement. When he became aware that his intention has no chance, he opened official talk with Hitler to obtain his help to reach his plans. He undertook a strong campaign in two fronts:
1. To convince German authorities that the legionaires were actually "communists". To convince them consciously, he told them that the leader of Legionary Workers Group, Dumitru Groza, waz a famous communist. The Nazis, not too familiar with Romanian politics, were not aware that the real communist with the same name was Petre Groza, the lawyer and big land-owner, later president of communist Romania.
That was not enough for Hitler. He asked and Antonescu accepted to integrate Romania among the Nazi satelites in exchange for the help to terminate his alliance with the Legionary Movement.
He accepted to enter in the German-Soviet war, with an army not armed with modern weapons.He assumed the siege of Odessa, an useless war action, because the city was long time before far behind German lines. That siege was a costly one with 70.000 lives lost.
Dissatisfied with the fact that he still was considered a Nazi diktator, he continued his vendetta against the legionaires. Any known legionaire, or suspected, or even those who voted against him in thereferendum, were mobilized, sent to Sarata In Bessarabia, where those who had military ranks were degraded to the rank of soldier and sent in the front line where they were decimated by the thousands.
Following Hitler's order, he declared war to the United States, a condition that sealed the status of Romania as a Nazi ally. In the standard American dictionaries, Antonescu is classified as "Hitler's puppet", as did also the historian Quilan Paul, who wrote the book "Clash over Romania". quoting the Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
But that was not all. Antonescu staged a coup d'etat pursuing the termination of his alliance with the Legionaires. He was not satisfied with that and published a book of lies and distortions about the Legionary Movement. What is strange, is the fact that the book was and still is used against the Legionary Movement by all communists and members of succesive oligarchies.
Mihai H., annointed by the fossils of Carol II mafia and Masonry as king of Romania, delivered the nation to the Soviet. He was the partner of his father in the use of state terror against opposition. He is an outspoken defender of the oligarchy and enemy of any anti-oligarchic movement.
He declared publicly that he will open the nation to foreign investors, hoping to become a big wheeler dealer as his grand, grand father Carol I was.
Titulescu was an open agent of the French politicians and military staff, who wanted Romania to become allied with Soviet Russia. That is the reason why he is venerated in the contemporary Romania by the fossils of former oligarchy and communist frame.
The search of the past has an obvious, dispassionated character. Such approach irritates the marxists who launch a flow of lies, distortions and invectives. It would be a wasted time to enter a contest of invectives which would not settle the topics. Only quiet, sustained assertions help to find the truth.
February 1993
Sincerely yours,
C. W. Forester
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