Iron Guard Romania. Iron Guard. Fate of the Iron Guard

Europe in the 1920s and 1930s was simply a breeding ground for fascism. In a good half of European countries, the fascists came to power. The remaining half almost didn't come. At least they played a serious role in political history. One of these countries was Romania. Even now Romania does not shine with stability and prosperity, let alone the first half of the 20th century! The majority of the people live in poverty. Royal power (and then Romania was a kingdom) is still - by tradition - respected. But not too much anymore.

As a result, a favorable environment has developed for various kinds of extremist, radical parties and movements. Very soon, the far-right “Legion of Michael the Archangel” (founded in 1927) began to enjoy the greatest influence among these marginal parties. Members of this fascist party were called "legionnaires". In addition, the Romanian fascists gave their “Legion” a second (unofficial) name, which very quickly replaced the official name, namely “Iron Guard”.

What did these Romanian fascists want? Yes, the same thing as all the other European fascists of those years: “cleansing” the state of Jews and communists, the power of a “firm hand,” pursuing great power policies, etc.

But there was also a significant difference. If the fascists of Italy, Germany and other European countries were in some opposition to religion (not as harsh as the Bolsheviks, but still), then the fascists of Romania relied on religion! Nationalism in their understanding was tightly connected with religion, in the atmosphere of which a person should be brought up from childhood.

The founder of the Iron Guard, Corneliu Codreanu, was a deeply religious parishioner of the Romanian Orthodox Church. He declared his goal to be “revival
Orthodox spirit among the Romanians."

"Theater of the Absurd" of a fascist scribbler

Many Romanian aristocrats and intellectuals of that time experienced a peculiar period of fascination with “Orthodox fascism.” For many this will sound shocking, but the later famous Romanian writer (founder of the “theater of the absurd”), Eugene Ionesco, was also a fascist in his youth! The "Iron Guard" was also a prominent
Romanian philosopher and religious scholar Mircea Eliade (he is also quite famous outside of Romania proper).

And the author of the “Iron Guard” anthem, composer Ion Manzatu, after the war “moved” to Italy, where he began composing dance hits under the pseudonym Nello Manzatti. That is, the bacillus of fascism greatly affected Romanian society in those years. Including the top of this society.

And by the end of the 1930s this began to happen in Romania! The Iron Guard is gaining strength every year. The strengthening of local fascists worries the royal power. Undoubtedly, the King of Romania himself (Karol II) and the magnates behind him sympathized with many of the tenets of the fascist program (primarily such as the fight against the “Bolshevik common sense” and, in general, against the entire labor or trade union movement). But nevertheless, they did not want to share power with the “legionnaires”. But the fascists just needed it - power!

And unrest begins in Romania. The government is trying to “restrain” the presumptuous “legionnaires” (to rein in the most active figures by “imprisoning”). In response, the fascists begin a policy of terror against the authorities.

Thugs are killing the prime minister

In 1933, three frostbitten “legionnaires” on the station platform in the resort town of Sinaia riddled Romanian Prime Minister Ion Duca. Officials of lower rank also fired back. The Romanian king endured the atrocities of the fascists for a long time (the cowardly monarch was afraid to touch the leaders of this extremist gang, which had already become a serious political force), but in the end he made up his mind. The founder of the Legion, Corneliu Codreanu, was put in prison, and soon (in the same prison) he was shot along with 13 more of his militants.

Official version: while trying to escape. But the official version could not deceive anyone. It was clear to everyone that the main “legionnaire” No. 1 was simply killed on the orders of the king.

But the secret murder did not save the cowardly monarch. His days were numbered. The new leader of the Iron Guard, Horiya Sima, entered into an agreement with an influential Romanian general
Ion Antonescu. In September 1940, the alliance between the fascists and the generals bore fruit. Under pressure from the military and “legionnaires,” King Carol II was forced to abdicate the throne. All actual power passed to General Antonescu (formally, the new King Mihai I was considered the head of the country - but this is only formal).

However, the “honeymoon” of the alliance between the military and the Iron Guards was short-lived. In principle, this is understandable. As the ancient eastern proverb says: “there cannot be two suns in the sky and two khans on earth.” So in Romania, the dual power (fascists and military) could not last long. There had to be someone left alone. In addition, the atrocities of the fascist thugs (primarily from among the terrifying “death squads” - but not only) began to worry, in general, ordinary respectable putschists - the Romanian military.

Antonescu and Co. were not humanists - they could be cruel when necessary. Key word: “when needed.” And the “legionnaires” from the “Iron Guard” - they
They were just maniacs! They “knocked down” people for no good reason!

Slaughter in the slammer

During the several months of their participation in power (September 1940 - January 1941), the “Iron Guards” drenched all of unfortunate Romania in blood. Fascist militants killed Jews, communists, liberal intellectuals, as well as officials and military personnel who at one time had the misfortune of crossing the path of the “legionnaires.” The apotheosis of the bloody bacchanalia was the so-called massacre in the Zhilava prison (near Bucharest).

Then, on the night of November 26-27, 1940, gangs of fascist thugs broke into the prison and killed 64 political prisoners (communists and “leftists”). At the same time, 46 prison guards were also killed, who, honestly fulfilling their duty, tried to prevent a pogrom.

It became clear to Antonescu and his generals that it was time to put an end to these “lawless men.” With such inadequate people you cannot build a normal, even authoritarian state. The “legionnaires,” in turn, were becoming more and more angry every day at the moderation of their “faithful ally,” Antonescu. Both “allies” began to prepare for the final battle.

The Iron Guard surrenders

The Iron Guards were the first to fail. On January 19, 1941, they began, as usual, the next Jewish pogroms - in Bucharest and the provinces. Just two days later, on September 21, the pogrom in Bucharest gradually developed into an uprising against Antonescu. However, opposing the regular, albeit Romanian, army was clearly a mistaken idea on the part of the nationalists. In addition, Antonescu enlisted the support of Hitler. Romanian troops (with the support of parts of the German Wehrmacht) easily suppressed the rebellion. The massacre began.

The Legion of Michael the Archangel (aka the Iron Guard) was disbanded. Its leader (Horiya Shima) managed to flee abroad. 9 thousand “legionnaires” were imprisoned. The rest were asked to “repaint” (to renounce their “legionary past” and go into the service of the Antonescu regime).

Of course, ordinary “Iron Guards” wisely cooperated with the winning side. They became the faithful servants of General Antonescu, who immediately after the defeat of the Iron Guard officially declared himself the “conductor” (leader) of the Romanian people. The Romanian word "conducator" is similar to the Italian "duce" (as another prominent European fascist, Mussolini, was called).

But in this life nothing is given for nothing. For the assistance provided to the Romanian military in the fight against the Iron Guard, the possessed Fuhrer Adolf Hitler demanded payment - participation in the war against the USSR. Antonescu had to agree. In June 1941, Romanian troops, in alliance with Hitler, invaded the territory of our country...

On September 13, 1999, all conservative-revolutionary humanity celebrated the centenary of the birth of the iron captain of the Romanian Guard, Corneliu Zel Codreanu. This name is unfamiliar to the vast majority of domestic “intellectuals,” including historians. Well, universities teaching under the programs of some foundation of some open society have no need to study the fate of heroes and revolutionaries, the English language is enough - asking for handouts...

Meanwhile, it was in Romania that there existed a movement that was closest in its ideology to the pure archetype of the Conservative Revolution, not clouded by primitive pathological racism like German Hitlerism, or the mania of statism like Italian fascism, or stupid barracks like Spanish Francoism. A movement, from the first to the last breath, faithful to revolutionary principles, heroic pathos and the idea of ​​overcoming man.

The First World War ended extremely successfully for Romania. Having mediocrely capitulated to Austria-Hungary a few months after entering the war, Romania appeared at Versailles as a victorious country. The Paris and Versailles agreements generally had a strange connotation. Ultimately, from the point of view of many experts, the Second World War was largely due to the nature of these agreements (let us note in parentheses a detail that well illustrates the degree of fairness of the decisions made then, in euphoria - representatives of the armed forces of Monaco proudly walked at the victory parade in Paris, but there was not a single Russian soldier).

The territory of Romania, as a faithful ally of the victorious countries, almost tripled as a result of the annexation of the former territories of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires.

However, by the end of the 20s the country was in a deplorable state. The global economic crisis hit the country hard, especially on “ordinary people” - workers and peasants. The wages of a railroad worker, for example, were only $7, and in agriculture the situation was even worse. The situation in the field of medical care was catastrophic (on average in Romania there were 4 doctors per 10,000 people, and in rural areas - 1, this is tens of times less than at the same time in England or France).

As one researcher put it: “Economically, liberalism was dead, and the inevitable death of political liberalism could not be postponed” (P. Pavel, “Why Rumania failed”).

The leapfrog of political parties in parliament and government, engaged exclusively in demagoguery and intrigue, and clearly unable to change the situation for the better, could not but arouse disgust among the broad masses for the democratic system of government. Similar sentiments were in the air in aristocratic circles. As the left-wing newspaper Skynteja wrote in 1935: “The bourgeois-landowner elite cannot agree only on the question of who should establish a fascist dictatorship and how.”

However, this situation was typical not only for Romania. In fact, all European countries were faced with a dilemma - either the predatory tyranny of international capital in the economy and the farce of cheap liberal politicians in politics, or the cleansing fire of the national revolution, bringing order and social protection. Most European powers chose the second. The peculiarity of this process in Romania was that attempts to “fascistize” the country were made both from above (first through the introduction of the royal dictatorship of Carol II, then under the authoritarian rule of General Antonescu) and from below (we are talking, first of all, about the movement “Garda de fier" by C. Codreanu). The first wanted to strengthen the power of the financial-aristocratic oligarchy, suppressing as harshly as possible the social protests of dissatisfied sections of the population (and almost everyone was dissatisfied, as evidenced by numerous workers, peasants and soldiers' revolts) with the terror of the siguranza (political police). The second is the revolutionary national revival of Greater Romania, national unity and social justice. The first were absolutely empty from the point of view of ideology and clung only to power, the second had no power, but had moral and religious convictions (the sincere mystical Orthodoxy of Codreanu, the traditionalism of the then young Mircea Eliade, the philosophical-Nietzschean doctrines of Nae Ionescu, Emil Cioran and E. Bernya, the national-revolutionary pathos of Michael Polychroniade) and the support of the people.

The need for popular support pushed the ruling oligarchy to cooperate with the Iron Guard, but all the proposals of the king and later Antonescu were either rejected by the uncompromising Iron Guards (during Codreanu’s lifetime) or used to build up forces before confrontation (after his death, when the movement was led by Horia Sima). The entire history of the relationship between the Iron Guard and the authorities is a history of insincere alliances and open armed clashes, and the authorities did not disdain treacherous murders and public executions (the murder of Codreanu himself and the entire leadership of the movement on the night of November 30, 1938 and the execution of 3 guardsmen in each district in September 1939), and the Iron Guards - terrorism (the murder of Prime Minister I. Ducu, who banned the Iron Guard, in December 1933, the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs Calinescu after the reprisal of Codreanu). The apogee of this struggle was the “little civil war” of January 19-23, 1941.

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was born on September 13, 1899. He graduated from a secondary military school (hence “Captain” and “Iron Captain”), after which he studied law at the university in Iasi. Having barely celebrated his twentieth birthday, in October 1919, he joined the Guard of National Consciousness, headed by the worker Constantin Panciu. In fact, from the very beginning, from March 4, 1923, Codreanu actively participated in the activities of the National Christian Defense League (the leader of which was the lawyer, Malthusian Alexandru Cuza). However, none of the organizations satisfies the young and uncompromising warrior of Faith and Fatherland with their conformism. With his comrades, he is developing a series of terrorist acts that should take the lives of the most anti-national politicians and escalate the situation in the country, making a national revolution inevitable. Also in 1923, Codreanu acted as a lawyer in the trial of Jon Motsa, the leader of a student terrorist organization who killed an apostate. Mota is acquitted - Codreanu convinced the jury that killing traitors was necessary to cleanse society. Mota was with Codreanu now until the end.

Codreanu himself was arrested for the first time for no reason in May 1924 on the orders of the prefect of police. After his release, Codreanu came to the tyrant and shot him in his own office. The court acquitted the young terrorist - the prefect was responsible for many unjustified atrocities. But that's all Nigredo...

His wedding became his “triumph of the spirit” - according to some sources, up to ten thousand young people celebrated with him. The Captain's wife, having lost her loved one twelve years later, was faithful to him and his ideas until her death - very recent, by the way (she died in 1995). The young man's popularity became so great that Cuza expelled him from the National Christian Defense League. However, the latter no longer satisfied the captain with her conformism.

Captain and Elena

The Legion of Michael the Archangel was created through the efforts of Corneliu Codreanu, Jon Motz, Ilie Garneata, Corneliu Georgesco and Radu Mironovich on June 24, 1927. “The Legion,” Codreanu wrote, “is much more a school and an army than a political party. All the noblest, the purest, the most industrious and the bravest that our race has been able to produce, the most beautiful soul that our consciousness can imagine - here what a legionnaire must create."

The movement grew like a snowball, attracting, on the one hand, uncompromising and fearless fighters, and on the other hand, young intellectuals (Mircea Eliade, Virgil Georgiou, Emil Cioran). On August 1, 1927, the first issue of the theoretical journal of legionnaires, “Land of Ancestors,” was published. M. Eliade, who was nominated for the elections on the list of Codreanu’s party, wrote then: “Today the whole world is under the sign of revolution, but while other nations carry out these revolutions in the name of class struggle and the primacy of the economy (communism), under the sign of the state ( fascism) or race (Hitlerism), the legionary movement was born under the sign of the Archangel Michael and wins victories by the will of the Lord. The ultimate goal of the legionary revolution is the redemption of people."

Organizationally, the movement has been growing at an astonishing rate since October 1, 1927, when the Legion's first "nest" was created in Bucharest. The first congress of Legion cells was held in January 1929.

On June 20, 1930, Codreanu established the Iron Guard military organization. A distinctive feature of the guards uniform was the green shirt (by the way, very aesthetically pleasing).

The National Liberal government was not going to tolerate nonconformist revolutionaries for long. On January 11, 1931, the Iron Guard was dispersed and many activists were arrested.

In March 1932, a second wave of repression hits the Guard, but in the next elections it receives 70,000 votes and five seats in parliament.

In 1933, the government began to act more decisively. The reason for the repression was a gathering of legionnaires at a summer camp, in which the Minister of Internal Affairs Calinescu saw preparations for a coup (it is possible, not without reason). The first action of the new Prime Minister J. Duca was to ban the Guard (December 10, 1933). Up to 20,000 members of the Guard are imprisoned, 16 were killed, among them - assistant Captain Stylescu (although in his letter of testament from prison he renounced Codreanu, possibly under pressure from the Sigurans). In response, on the night of December 29-30, the legionnaires, three students, kill Minister Dooku (there is reason to believe that not without the king’s sanction). The terrorists faced execution, but “the legionnaire loves death, for his blood will serve as the cement of legionary Romania” (Captain). “We all live with an inner longing for death” (E. Cioran).

Emil Cioran

On March 20, 1935, the guard rises again, like a Phoenix from the ashes, this time under the name “Party - Everything for the Motherland!” Officially, Prince Cantacuzino-Graniceru became the head of the party.

On October 25, working units were created within the party under the leadership of engineer Georg Klime. The official doctrine of the movement is proclaimed “legionary socialism.” Numerous workshops and military labor camps were created. Communication with the Orthodox Church is being established, the majority of the clergy supported the Guard (this was a special point of pride for Codreanu: “for the first time, a political movement was united with a religious structure”).

In April 1936, a congress of legionnaires was held in Tyru-Murenia. The king provided a special train for delegates - Carol II, who was already thinking about introducing his own dictatorship, looked closely at the young movement and considered the chances of taming it. However, the Legion consisted of young, uncompromising fighters - and they could not accept the help of a king looking at France. Codreanu was despised by the “upper class,” which was degraded and alien to the people (power should be transferred “from the weak, shaking hands of asthmatics to the hands of the younger generation, fertilized by the principles of Nietzsche,” he wrote). Ordinary legionnaires had another reason not to trust the king - his Jewish mistress (Elena Lupescu, surname - romanized Ashkenazi "Wolf"). As the train progresses, legionnaires at all stations smash and damage statues and portraits of the king. There were riots at the Sinaia station, not far from which was the king's residence. The proposal for cooperation was rejected - a new round of confrontation is approaching.

A little later, another impressive demonstration of the popularity of legionnaires in the country took place. A number of guardsmen fought in Spain, two, including one of the founders of the Guard Moza, died. The train on which Motsa's body was transported across Romania stopped at every station where a funeral meeting was held. In Bucharest, Patriarch Miron Cristea and 400 (four hundred!!!) priests served a prayer service.

1937 was declared by Codreanu “the year of struggle and sacrifice.” That's what he was.

In February, the leader of the national liberal youth, the rector of the University of Iasi, was wounded by legionnaires for anti-national propaganda. In April, the guards entered into an agreement with the brother of Carol II, Prince Nicolae (inspector general of the Romanian army). The plot was discovered and Nicolae was taken into custody. A group of legionnaires attempted to free a high-ranking ally, but retreated after an armed clash with an army unit. The king's department ordered the repression and arrest of Codreanu. The Iron Captain comes to Lupescu’s villa and calmly says: “You understand that if I am arrested, you will be the first to be killed.” The mistress understands that this is not bravado, and during the searches and raids she hides Codreanu in the villa and arranges for him to meet with the king. Karol again invites Codreanu to organize mass support for the royal dictatorship, but the captain refuses. The Guard was legalized, but the tension between the authorities and the movement grew, especially since the latter was increasingly gaining popularity. In elections in the province of Neamts (now Moldavia), legionnaires receive an overwhelming majority of votes. Codreanu becomes a deputy. At this time he wrote the book “Thoughts of a Legionnaire”, which becomes the Bible of Guardism. This book differs from the graphomaniac "Mein Kampf" no less than the strict and fit Captain from the disheveled and half-insane corporal.

On December 20, 1937, the Guards, under a new name, won 17% of the votes in the elections, which means 66 deputies (the third result of all Romanian parties). Among the deputies is Mircea Eliade.

The Legion is the most powerful political movement in Romania. In January 1938, Codreanu negotiated with Antonescu, an army officer, about a joint putsch. The idea is on hold for now. Hitler puts pressure on Karol, urging him not to oppose Codrian. “If he had his head, I would not hesitate to invite him to the government,” answered the Romanian monarch. (The attitude of the Guard towards Hitler was formulated by J. Motsa: “Yes, we openly applaud the German Chancellor, but this in no way means capitulation to his possible hostility.”) Codreanu’s fate is sealed - he is too nonconformist, he is too concerned about the idea, not the conciliatory system in the world. The king decides to create a movement “for himself” - the National Revival Front - and remove the Guard from the road.

In 1938 the king introduces his own dictatorship. The election results are canceled (Eliade will never enter the meeting room). In the spring, Codreanu announces: “Our victory is just around the corner. Wait for the order to march to Bucharest.” The situation is heating up. On April 17, 1938, Codreanu was arrested. On April 19, he was sentenced to 6 months for insulting the Minister Professor N. Yorga. But on May 27, the sentence changed: 10 years of forced labor for “conspiracy against public order through connections with foreign countries to commit a revolution.” But the plans of the corrupt “law enforcement officers” are even more vile: Codreanu should not live...

In November, active protests began by the Guard, who wanted to achieve the release of the leader. The “Save the Captain” campaign was clearly anti-Jewish in nature (Hitler’s agents did their best). On November 2nd, riots swept through Beium; 4th - according to Kiut. On November 10, workers stopped production in Resnitsa to raid the synagogue; on November 12, the textile factory in Lugozh stopped working. On the 17th, workers clashed with the police in Kamnulung, Radautsi, and Severnie. On the 26th, an explosion occurred in the building of the National Theater in Timisoara.

On November 30, 1939, at five in the morning, in a truck on the way to Bucharest from a provincial prison, from where a convoy had taken Codreanu and thirteen other Legion activists at ten the evening before, a crime was committed. By order of Major Dinulescu, all prisoners sitting with their hands tied were strangled with shoelaces by the hands of the guards, who received 20 thousand dinars for their meanness. When the truck entered the courtyard of the Bucharest prison, control bullets were inserted into the bodies of the guards, after which they were buried in a pre-prepared hole. A few days later, the bodies were dug up and transported to another, more secluded place, doused with sulfuric acid and concreted on top. The official newspaper report about this crime read: “On the morning of November 30, in the vicinity of Bucharest, a car convoy transporting prisoners was attacked; in the confusion, the prisoners tried to escape. The police were forced to use weapons; among those killed was Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, sentenced to ten years of hard labor ".

From this moment on, a bloody confrontation between the government and the unsold legionnaires begins. On September 21, 1938, eight heroes led by Miti Dimitresco assassinate the Prime Minister of Romania Calinesco. After this, they storm the radio station and announce to the whole country: “We have fulfilled our sacred duty: we have punished the executioner.” The corpses of these heroes, shot immediately after the radio address, lie untouched for eight days - as a warning to others...

Hundreds of legionnaires were killed and many thousands were thrown into concentration camps. In each district, three guardsmen were exemplarily executed. The Iron Guards did not give up without a fight... Some, including the future leader of the Guard, H. Sima, are hiding in Germany. But - “this is not the end, my wonderful friend - this is the beginning of a wonderful struggle.” There will still be ups and downs ahead for the Iron Guard, but without the Captain. “Whoever fears death will not receive resurrection” is one of the slogans proclaimed by Codreanu. And one more thing - “don’t kill the hero in you.”

Horia Sima

Codreanu's successor was Horia Sima, a controversial personality, clearly pro-German and not as ardently Orthodox as Codreanu. By the way, modern Romanian neo-guardists are split - some focus on the Captain and consider Sima a compromiser and a traitor, others focus more on Sima, and consider Codreanu a “fanatic” and a “madman”.

In any case, the new leader of the Guard managed to bring the movement out of the underground again - at the cost of conformity (for some time). The Guard outwardly joins the pro-royal Front and adopts its attributes - a right-hand greeting with the exclamation “Sanatate!” ("Glory!"). However, already in July 1940, Sima resumed secret negotiations with the ambitious officer Antonescu. At the end of August, armed uprisings of legionnaires began (associated with the shame of the king - the transfer of Bessarabia to the USSR), reaching their climax by September 3. There is real fighting going on on the streets of Bucharest. The longtime enemy of the Guard, V. Madjaru (leader of the National Tsarantist Party), was killed, whose death sentence was handed down back in August 1936; N. Iorga was killed (the same one for whose insult the Captain was convicted - the legionnaires remembered everything and forgave nothing).

As a result, Antonescu comes to power on September 5, officially becoming the “conductator” (dictator) of Romania. The government he formed included Horia Sima (Deputy Prime Minister), M. Strudza (Minister of Foreign Affairs), K. Petrovicscu (Minister of Internal Affairs), Ghika (Prefect of Police). Semi-official squads of legionary police are formed from the Guard. This period is the apogee of the movement. Already in October, the cunning fox Antonescu begins to feel that “two conductors cannot control an orchestra at the same time.” The legionnaires "challenge my sole right to rule the country." This means the dissolution of the legionary police (November).

Struz was removed from the ministerial portfolio.

The legionnaires understand that, in essence, the conductor is no better than the king - the same lies and ambitions. This means a new collision is close. On November 28, 1940, at a meeting of the generals, the frightened “Marshal” Antonescu said: “When you feel the need, call the army.”

By early January 1941, tensions were becoming unbearable. At the beginning of the month, Ghica orders his police officers, who have not actually been disbanded, not to obey Antonescu's orders. January 14, the conductor meets with Hitler. Marshal at the price of the North. Bukovina (which Hitler orders to be given to Horthy Hungary), at the cost of agreeing to enter the war, begs for the chancellor’s support against the legionnaires. The Legion is doomed. Events are growing like a snowball. The next day, January 15, Antonescu presents Sima with an ultimatum. The Guard leader rejects him. In search of support, Sima turns to the German military mission - but they already know the order to “surrender” the legionnaires. The legionnaires respond to betrayal as they are accustomed to - on the night of January 19, they killed mission officer Major Dering. During the day, legionnaires consecrate provincial leaders. The die is cast - a rebellion of the doomed. Antonescu removes all legionnaires from the government.

The next day, January 20, most administrative institutions and a number of barracks were captured by legionnaires (there are only 3000 of them!). Sima, in turn, puts forward an ultimatum to Antonescu. The marshal is silent.

For two days Bucharest is in the hands of the rebels. Synagogues are burning, shops are being destroyed, there are shootouts on the outskirts. January 22 Antonescu re-contacts Hitler. The Chancellor appoints General Hansen as head of the military mission in Romania. The general was well-established in the circles of legionnaires and was aware of all their plans. Sima spoke to him about the rebellion several hours before the start of the performance. The easier it was for the Romanian troops, under the coordination of Hansen, to defeat the rebels (albeit with heavy losses). On January 23, the coup was suppressed.

Actually, the Guard's symphony ended with this dramatic chord. Some of the surviving legionnaires went underground (by the way, after the end of the war, the Guard partisans fought the communists until 1947), some fled abroad (like Eliade), some ran to Antonescu. As such, the Iron Guard ceased to exist.

The Legion offered its members personal rather than social transformation. Hence the lack of political flexibility and the tactics of terror. "The Legion is not a political party." The terrorists were not afraid of death and received their resurrection.

Sanatate, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a man who did not kill the hero in himself.

Bust of Codreanu

Emergence

In the 1920s, there was an anti-Semitic student movement in Romania, which was funded by the Ministry of the Interior. The leader of the movement, C. Z. Codreanu, was also the secretary of the pro-fascist National Christian Defense League.

In 1927, C. Z. Codreanu founded and headed the Union of Michael the Archangel (since 1929 - the Iron Guard), which became the main fascist organization in Romania.

On December 9, 1927, student members of the Union of Michael the Archangel, holding their congress in the city of Oradea Mare in Transylvania, staged a pogrom, during which five synagogues were burned; following this, anti-Jewish riots broke out throughout the country.

At the beginning of December 1933, Prime Minister J. Duca banned the Iron Guard (for which he was killed on December 29 by its supporters), but in 1935 it resumed its activities under the guise of the "Everything for the Country" party ("Totul Pentru Tara" ) and strengthened ties with the German National Socialists. It became the country's third largest party.

Close cooperation was established between the Iron Guard and some church leaders, such as Metropolitan Vissarion Piu. The Iron Guard practiced church rituals: obligatory prayer services before meetings, veneration of relics, etc.

The Iron Guard's press organ, Buna Vestire (The Annunciation), and its influenced newspaper, Porunca Vremii (The Command of Our Time), stirred up anti-Semitism in the spirit of Der Stürmer.

The Iron Guard held conferences and student rallies, which were often accompanied by pogroms against Jews, with the destruction of synagogues, Jewish newspapers and shops, as in Timisoara in 1938.

Rise to power

The strengthening of the Iron Guard caused concern among the King of Romania, Carol II, and in order to create a counterbalance to it, he supported other right-wing anti-Semitic parties. In 1938, the king dissolved the Totul Pentru Tara party.

During the Second World War

In 1939, after establishing a course towards an alliance with Nazi Germany, a government was formed with the participation of the Iron Guard. It immediately deprived Jews of Romanian citizenship. Widespread pogroms and repressions against Jews began, especially in Moldova (June-September 1940).

On September 6, 1940, Marshal J. Antonescu became the de facto dictator of Romania, heading a government that consisted mainly of members of the Iron Guard. Romania was proclaimed a state of national legionnaires. Laws were passed eliminating Jews from all areas of public life.

Under pressure from Germany and the Iron Guard in September 1940, Carol II was forced to abdicate.

On November 8, 1940, two days after Marshal J. Antonescu officially came to power, Iasi was declared “the capital of the Iron Guard.” Immediately after this, the persecution of the Jewish population intensified. The city's community leaders managed to conclude an agreement with the leadership of the Iron Guard, according to which the Jewish community paid the fascists six million lei in exchange for an end to the repressions. Therefore, during the pogrom that members of the Iron Guard organized in Bucharest, there were no attacks on Jews in Iaşi.

The Iron Guard insisted that the Romanian government make a decision to close 600 synagogues and transfer their buildings to the Romanian Orthodox Church, but it was canceled three days later, after the head of the Jewish community, V. Filderman, secured a meeting with J. Antonescu and told him about the damage, damage to the country's economy, about illegal arrests and other manifestations of the tyranny of the Iron Guard.

The dictator used this information in the fight against the Iron Guard, which in response arrested a number of Jewish leaders, and on January 21, 1941, attempted a coup. While some units of the Iron Guard fought with parts of the Romanian army for control of Bucharest, others attacked the Jews of the capital. About 120 Jews were killed in Bucharest and 30 in the provinces (especially in Ploiesti and Constanta), and several synagogues were destroyed, including the Great Sephardic Synagogue.

The uprising was suppressed by Antonescu; Horiya Sima and other leaders of the uprising fled the country.

After the outbreak of war against the Soviet Union (June 1941), German troops and Antonescu's police, joined by elements of the Iron Guard, undertook anti-Jewish actions, including the Iasi pogrom (29 June 1941) and the "death train", among others similar attacks in Moldova with thousands of victims.

After World War II

After the anti-Nazi revolution of 1944, the Iron Guard was dispersed and its members were imprisoned. The Nazis established a “Romanian government in exile” in Vienna in 1944, headed by Sim, which lasted until the end of the war.

In 1964, a general amnesty was declared in Romania and all fascists were released.

The official literary magazines of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education endorsed the official speeches of the Romanian Nazis in the 1930s. For example, in the magazine “Ramur” in December 1967, an article appeared positively assessing the organ of the Iron Guards “Sfarma Piatra”.

In the 1970s, there were exile Iron Guard groups in various Western countries.

After the 1990 revolution that overthrew the communist regime in Romania, the Iron Guard was among the revived pre-war political parties.

Bibliography

• E. Weber, "The Man of the Archangel," in: G.L. Mosse (ed.), International Fascism (1979); * Z. Barbu, in: S.J. Woolf (ed.), Fascism in Europe (1981);
• A.Heinen, Die Legion "Erzengel Michael" in Rumänien (1986);
• F. Veiga, La mistica del ultranacionalismo. Historia de la Guardia de Hierro (1989);
• R. Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel: Fascist Ideology in Romania (1990);
• L. Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism (1991).

As a member of the Little Entente and an ally of France and Poland, Romania was an important political factor in South-Eastern Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s.

But this visible power put it in a very dangerous foreign policy position. Romania was surrounded by states that, with the exception of Poland, did not agree with its new borders and made certain territorial claims against it. This concerned primarily the Soviet Union and Hungary. Hungary, justifying its revanchist policy, pointed to the presence of a significant Hungarian minority in Transylvania, amounting, according to Romanian (probably understated) estimates, to 1.42 million and 7.9% of the total population. The German minority, also predominantly inhabiting Transylvania, numbered 750,000 people, i.e. 4.1% of Romanian citizens. In relation to these minorities, the Romanian state, with its centralized administration, pursued a strongly nationalistic policy. The most hostile attitude of the governments, and especially of a significant part of the Romanian people, was towards the Jewish minority.

Romanian Jews, who constituted an estimated 5% of the total population, occupied, however, something of a monopoly position in the poorly developed activities of trade and industry, and, moreover, in the indigenous Romanian part of the country. While Jewish traders and artisans in villages and small towns, mostly unassimilated, aroused the hatred and contempt of the peasant population, who considered them exploiters, Romanian teachers and students feared the competition of their Jewish colleagues, who made up almost half of the Romanian student body. Anti-Semitism, which had already led to pogroms in the 19th century, prompting repeated protests and intervention by the great powers, was widespread among the Romanian population. Along with religious and social components, it also contained a national one, since Romanian nationalists saw the Jewish minority, largely unassimilated and supported from abroad, as a foreign body that violated the national and social integrity of the Romanian people. This situation could be exploited by movements founded already in the 19th century by Konstantin Stere and A.K. Cuza, who put forward clearly nationalistic, anti-Semitic and social-revolutionary populist goals; these movements increasingly influenced students and peasants. In political-ideological and even personal terms, these populist-anti-Semitic organizations were the direct predecessors of Romanian fascism.

However, the Romanian fascists could use for their own purposes not only the issue of minorities and the Jewish question, but also economic, social, political problems and crisis phenomena. Interwar Romania was in many respects an underdeveloped country, and also heavily dependent on foreign capital. In 1930, 80% of the total population still lived in villages. Only 7.2% were employed in industry, often owned by foreign entrepreneurs. This primarily applied to oil fields, which were more than 90% in foreign hands. Despite the efforts of the Romanian governments, they failed to cope in any way with the backwardness of industry and eliminate the dependence of the economy on foreign (especially English, French and German) capital. The land reform carried out in 1921 also did not bring the desired results. It affected primarily large landowners of non-Romanian nationality, while the Romanian boyars, who owned 60% of the land in indigenous Romanian areas, although they constituted only 5% of all landowners, were little affected by this measure. Yet ultimately almost 6 million hectares of land were divided among 1.4 million peasants. However, the newly emerged peasant households were often too small and not strong enough in monetary terms to increase yields through the use of machinery and artificial fertilizers. For the most part, their productivity only covered their own needs. Due to the high birth rate and lack of jobs in industry, it was also not possible to solve the problem of overpopulation in the countryside. In an agricultural country like Romania, where the impact of the global economic crisis was particularly felt, in the thirties there was an additional aggravation of structural economic and social problems, which led to a crisis and, ultimately, to the destruction of a system of government that already represented only the appearance of parliamentarism .

According to the 1923 constitution, Romania was a parliamentary monarchy. At the same time, the king could not only use, but also expand the rights granted to him by the constitution. Since he could dissolve parliament at any time, the formation of the government was effectively in his hands. Moreover, it was not the elections that determined the government, but, on the contrary, the outcome of the elections depended on what kind of government it was. This was explained, on the one hand, by illegal falsifications, and on the other, by a constitutional law, according to which the party that received over 40% of the votes cast would get more than 50% of the seats in parliament, and this parliament, consisting of 380 members, was elected indirectly. This arrangement, unique in Europe at that time, resulted in the winning party usually having 70% of the seats, which turned the entire parliamentary system into a farce. It turned out that once a party came to power, it predictably won elections, and then, when the king dissolved parliament and appointed a new government, it lost them just as predictably. As a result, parties were replaced in power, hardly differing from each other either in social composition or even in programs. The exceptions in this regard were parties of national minorities and socialists - the Communist Party was banned in 1924 and driven underground for 20 years. But these parties remained extremely weak and could not influence the pseudo-parliamentary procedure. Thus, the Liberal Party of Ion Bratianu was replaced in government by the National Peasant Party, which arose from the merger of the National Party of Iuliu Maniu and the Mihalache Peasant Party, and this, in turn, was replaced by the National People's Party of Iorgi and Averescu. After 1931, the Liberal and National Peasant Parties split repeatedly, making the Romanian parliamentary system even more fractious. At the same time, the already small influence of parliament was further limited by King Carol II, who returned in June 1930 from exile caused by his second marriage to a woman of improper class status. Beginning with the elections of December 20, 1937, he appointed only those prime ministers who had weak popular support and were therefore completely dependent on him. Then in February 1938, he abolished the previous constitution, further strengthening the king's position. The voting age was raised to 30, and civil rights were further limited. After the “referendum”, which ended with a predictable almost one hundred percent result, on March 30, 1938, all political parties were dissolved. The introduction of this absolute monarchy, which contemporaries called the “royal dictatorship,” was not a reaction to the actions of liberal or leftist forces. The activities of the illegal communist party were limited to organizing individual strikes and demonstrations of a local nature. The royal dictatorship was quite clearly directed against the rise of Codreanu's fascist Iron Guard.

Codreanu was born in 1899. He was the son of a Romanian nationalist who came from Bukovina, who changed his real surname Zelinsky into the Romanian way into Zelya and added the nickname “Codreanu” to it. Young Codreanu initially joined, like his father, the already mentioned anti-Semitic-nationalist organization Cuza, which he, however, left in 1926, since it seemed to him insufficiently militant and disciplined. In 1927, he and other students founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael, later called the Iron Guard.

The religious name associated with the Archangel Michael, unusual for a political movement, was not accidental. In fact, the extremely nationalistic, anti-communist and, above all, anti-Semitic goals of this party were accompanied by elements of vague mysticism, which, however, in no way hampered its aggressiveness. It was this imitation of certain religious symbols and patterns that gave the legionnaires, who often also called themselves “crusaders,” an attractive force in the eyes of the rural population. The active core of the Iron Guard, consisting of students, teachers and a small number of workers, carried out intensive propaganda among the peasants, which brought this party closer to the Russian populists. But in their methods of struggle they were more like anarchists. And in fact, many who decided to block the way for the legionnaires became victims of the terror of the Iron Guard. These violent acts, which went largely unprosecuted, apparently aroused sympathy rather than repulsion among many Romanians. In any case, the number of supporters of the Iron Guard increased sharply, and legionnaires carried out their propaganda activities and committed political assassinations throughout the country.

After some small right-wing radical and fascist groups joined the Iron Guard, it won 5 seats in parliament in the 1932 elections, and in December 1937 16% of the vote and 66 seats out of a total of 390. This success was, in any case, one of reasons for the dictatorial course adopted from then on by King Carol II. These included raising the voting age to 30, since legionnaires - like members of all fascist parties in their initial stages - were very young, and especially the banning of the Iron Guard, even before the general dissolution of all parties. On April 19, 1938, Codreanu, along with other leaders of the Iron Guard, was arrested and sentenced to ten years of forced labor. On November 30, he was shot “while trying to escape.” But this political assassination could not delay the further rise of the Iron Guard, now led by Horia Sima. At the same time, she received the support of the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy, with which Codreanu had previously maintained close ties. At first, the banned, but not at all defeated, “Iron Guard” could benefit from its adherence to fascist models, which was repeatedly emphasized in Codreanu’s speeches. This was explained by the foreign policy situation, which was becoming increasingly unfavorable for Romania, since it was linked by alliance relations with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and France.

Romania not only had to come to terms with the annexation of the Sudetenland, but also did not come to the aid of Poland when it was attacked by Germany and the Soviet Union, although it was obliged to do so by treaty. On May 27, 1940, the so-called “oil pact” was signed with Germany, according to which Romania pledged to supply Germany with all the oil it produced. However, this rapprochement with Germany did not prevent the Soviet Union, by agreement with the Germans, from occupying Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. But when King Carol II, according to the Second Vienna Arbitration on August 30, 1940, submitted to Hitler’s decision, according to which a significant part of Transylvania, acquired by Romania under the Paris Peace Treaty, was returned to Hungary, this caused such a storm of indignation among the people that Carol II was forced to abdicate the throne in in favor of his son and go into exile.

This ended the period of royal dictatorship, since from that time on the country was ruled not by the new King Mihai, but by General Ion Antonescu, who, in alliance with the Iron Guard, established a terrorist regime, the victims of which were many communists, and especially Jews. In mid-January 1941, a direct power struggle arose between Antonescu and the legionnaires led by Horia Sima, whose uprising was brutally suppressed. Horia Sima and other leaders of the Iron Guard hoped in vain for the support of Hitler, who, for political reasons, sided with Antonescu, considering him a more reliable ally than the radical legionnaires. Horia Sima, along with other leaders of the Iron Guard, managed to escape to Germany with the help of the SD, where they were interned. Thus the fate of the Iron Guard was decided. Its members who remained in the country were subjected to persecution and arrest. After a bloody war with the Soviet Union, in which Romania participated on the side of Germany, Antonescu was overthrown on August 26, 1944. Only after this Horia Sima was released from the Buchenwald concentration camp and appointed by Hitler as head of the Romanian exile government. But this decision no longer had political significance, since Romania was soon occupied by the Red Army.

Although the Iron Guard originated in an underdeveloped agrarian country where there were few industrial workers and where the leftist movement was almost irrelevant, the party belongs to the group of fascist movements. In fact, it was guided politically and organizationally by fascist models and set itself nationalist, extremely anti-Semitic, anti-communist and social revolutionary goals and at the same time was distinguished by a radical desire for destruction. After gaining a mass base, it was persecuted and banned by the royal dictatorship of Carol II, then brought into the Antonescu government and finally crushed by his dictatorial power. But unlike most other fascist movements, the Iron Guard did not arise in a situation of crisis in the parliamentary system, since such a system had not yet been formed in Romania. The significant backwardness of the country also explains the fact that the members of the Iron Guard, with the exception of students, teachers, officers and a few workers, were mainly from the lower strata of the rural population. This circumstance, as well as its utopian reactionary program, which produces a certain social revolutionary impression, gives it a specific character. But if in these moments the “Iron Guard” differs significantly from Italian fascism and German National Socialism, then, on the other hand, it reveals great similarities with the Croatian Ustasha party.

The anti-Soviet insurgency in Moldova rarely attracted the attention of Soviet and Russian historians. This was explained by many reasons. For example, it was not as large-scale and bloody as in Western Ukraine and the Baltic states. This is not only the merit of the security officers, who managed to defeat the “fifth column” in a timely manner, but also the weakness of the Romanian intelligence service, which never created a powerful intelligence and sabotage network. You also need to take into account the loyal or at least neutral attitude of the majority of local residents towards Moscow.

On June 27-28, 1940, the Red Army crossed the Dniester River. Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were included in the USSR. But this was not the result of the annexation of new territories that had been part of bourgeois Romania since 1918. In 1940, the unification of right-bank and left-bank Moldova took place, the artificial division of the country into two parts was eliminated, and the state unity of Moldova was restored, which became a union republic within the USSR. This is how the Moldavian SSR appeared on the political map of the Soviet Union.

Although not all residents of the new republic greeted the Soviet government with flowers and smiles. There were also those dissatisfied with the political changes that had taken place. First of all, these are members of the radical nationalist fascist organization "Iron Guard", the National Christian Party and the Tsaranist Peasant Party, as well as members of the White Guard organizations.

The Romanian Iron Guard (Garda de fier) ​​was created in 1931 by Cornelio Codreanu. Unlike the German National Socialists and Italian Fascists, who distanced their movements from religion, the leader of the Iron Guard actively used elements of radical Christianity.

The leadership of the National Christian Party also sympathized with the Third Reich. Suffice it to say that in 1935 it was headed by the Romanian politician and playwright Octavian Goga, who from 1937 to 1938 served as Chairman of the Government of Romania and pursued a pro-German course in foreign policy.

The Tzaranist Peasant Party took shape through the merger of the National Party (created in Transylvania in 1881) and the Tzaranist (“Peasant” Party, founded in 1918). She represented the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie associated with foreign capital and large landowners. From November 1928 to November 1933 she was in power (with a break in April 1931 - May 1932). The party leaders contributed to the rise of Romanian fascism to power and the country's involvement in the war against the USSR.

The security officers rightly believed that members of the three parties, especially famous for their radicalism and terrorist methods of conducting political struggle, the Iron Guard, would declare war on Soviet power. Therefore, high-ranking functionaries of these political movements had to be isolated first.

We must not forget about the local economic and political elite, who within a few days lost their privileged position - high-ranking officials, landowners, entrepreneurs and other persons. It is not by chance that we mentioned major officials. Pre-war Romania was famous for the corruption of its state apparatus. And under the new government, officials were deprived of a powerful source of income.

The number of potential members of the “fifth column” can be judged from the data given in the Report of the NKGB of the MSSR “On the results of the seizure of anti-Soviet elements on the territory of the Moldavian SSR.”

As subsequent events showed, the security officers were able to completely defeat the “fifth column” on the territory of the Moldavian SSR. When the Great Patriotic War began and the Red Army hastily retreated, no one shot it in the back, as was the case in the Baltic states. In addition, before the war there were no recorded anti-Soviet protests, as happened in areas densely populated by Romanians on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. For example, on March 28 and April 1, two rallies were held in the border areas of the Chernivtsi region. Over a thousand peasants took part in one of them. The demand of those gathered was one: “send them to Romania.” During the investigation, it turned out that the instigators were local kulaks and Iron Guard activists. The instigators were arrested.

During the war years

Unlike the Baltic states and Western Ukraine, mobilization into the Red Army in Moldova took place without incident. Many volunteered for the front. Not everyone returned home. For example, from the village of Flora, Krasnooknyansky district, 400 men went to the front, and only 50 returned alive. 300 people left Malaeshti, Grigoriopol region, to fight, and about 200 people died. Also during the German-Romanian occupation, sixty Soviet partisan detachments operated on the territory of Moldova. Of course, there were also collaborators from among local residents, but they did not leave a noticeable mark on the history of the Second World War.

Military legacy

In the first post-war years, security officers liquidated 30 anti-Soviet organizations and “many hostile church-sectarian groups (“Union of Nationalists of Bessarabia”, “Freedom Party”, “Saber of Truth” and others). For example, as a result of undercover and operational activities in the undercover case “Les”, the anti-Soviet activities of the underground organization “Freedom Party” were revealed and exposed. It was created in 1949 by former kulaks and those under their influence. It had its own charter, its members collected weapons and prepared terrorist acts against Soviet and party activists, and engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda. 33 people were brought to justice in the Freedom Party case.

In February 1946, peasant unrest occurred in the republic. It was attended by 100-300 people who plundered the Zagozerno warehouse.

According to the security officers, by the summer of 1946 on the territory of Moldova there were:

“...146 active members of anti-Soviet political parties, more than 1000 accomplices of the Romanian-German occupiers, a large number of kulak and anti-Soviet elements and a large number of repatriates. As of April 1, 1946, there were 1,096 foreign intelligence agents, 353 members of anti-Soviet nationalist parties, 130 churchmen and sectarians on operational records and in development, and a total of 2,026 people were registered.”

The crime situation in the republic in the second half of 1946 can be judged from the following data:

Also from September to December 1946, the following were “identified and seized: 1 machine guns, 26 machine guns, 233 rifles and sawn-off shotguns, 70 revolvers and pistols, 16 grenades, 12 hunting weapons, 3045 cartridges.”

In December 1946, there were “20 bandit and robbery groups, consisting of 68 people”, as well as “lone gangs and other criminal elements - 25 people”, “accomplices and harborers of bandits - 4 people” operating on the territory of the republic. 99 gang members and individuals were arrested, and another bandit died during his arrest. As an example, we can name the bandit group of Mikhail Shestakovsky, numbering ten people. It was liquidated on December 19, 1946. All gang members had criminal records. 7 rifles, three pistols, three hand grenades, 150 rounds of ammunition and a large number of stolen items were recovered from them.

If we talk about the total number of weapons and ammunition seized from criminals in December 1946, the figures are impressive, considering that the number of bandits did not exceed a hundred people. But they were armed: 1 machine gun, 13 machine guns, 95 rifles, 19 sawn-off shotguns, 23 revolvers and pistols, 21 grenades, over 2000 cartridges, 16 hunting and bladed weapons.

Notes:

Request from the authorized representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. May 31, 1941. // Pasat V.I. Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. pp. 146-148.

Report of the NKGB of the MSSR on the results of the operation to seize anti-Soviet elements on the territory of the Moldavian SSR. June 19, 1941. // Pasat V.I. Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. S. 166-167.

Exchange of coded telegrams between N. S. Khrushchev and I. S. Stalin about unrest in the areas bordering Romania. April 2-3, 1941. // Quote. on Lubyanka. Stalin and the NKVD-NKGB-GUKR "Smersh". 1939 - March 1946. M., 2006. P. 246-247.

. History of Soviet state security agencies. M., 1977. P. 483.

From speeches at a meeting of the heads of the MTB-Ministry of Internal Affairs of the MSSR. June 4, 1946. // Pasat V.I. Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. P. 232.

From speeches at a meeting of the heads of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the MSSR. June 4, 1946. // Pasat V. And Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. P. 231.

A memorandum to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on the operational situation and the organization of intelligence and operational work to combat banditry on the territory of the Moldavian SSR. January 17, 1947. // Pasat V.I. Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. S. 252-254.

A memorandum on the results of implementing the instructions of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs on improving the work of the agencies in the fight against banditry. January 12, 1947. // Pasat V.I. Difficult pages of the history of Moldova. 1940-1950s M., 1994. S. 248-251.

A. Sever, Stalin against the “degenerates of Arbat”, Moscow, 2011, pp. 208-213.