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Pagina principale The History of the Legionary Movement
The History of the Legionary MovementHoria Sima
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Ji02?].9l SI9'vf.9l. . TJ-{'£ J{/S'I09(!Y O!F TJ-{'£ · L'EljI 09\[~ AfO'll'Elv('£9'['I. The History of the Legionary Movement: Horia Sima. Printed and published by the Legionary Press, England. ©1995. ISBN: 1-899627-01-4. ii When Comeliu Codreanu and thirteen of his legionary comrades were strangled in the forest of '.fancabesti, it left the impression upon many that somehow the story of the Captain and the Legionary Movement was not at an end, but rather that it would have a development in another time and in another place. . · The following years in the history of Romania, with the country plunging into its most gruesome and terrible repression, - so vividly described by Bacu in his book The Anti-Humans - tends to,make one believe that, perhaps, the bloody sacrifice had been pointless after all. Yet, as with so much else in human history, appearances proved to be deceiving. Following the seizure of power in post-war Romania by an alien-led Communist Party, there was an exodus of patriotic Romanians to the West, bringing with them their stories and their accounts of the exhilarating and tragic history of the Legion. It was to be this flow of refugees that preserved the legend of the Legion for future generations, and allowed the tran~mission of its essential and inspirational message to other nations and peoples. It was to be the radical and anti-Communist youth of Europe and of the Americas who were to be influenced by this epic of the Captain and his · movement, a movement that had thrown down a challenge that went beyond Romania and beyond its time. challenge could be summed up simply and succinctly in a few points: This 1. That it was not possible. to build a New Sociai Order without first building the New Man. 2. That it was possible to change the reality of the social situation within which you found yourself before acceding to the plenitude of national and State power. 3. . That there was absolutely no point in achieving State power if this was done so through the use of treachery and deceit. These are very simple points and yet they were and are thoroughly revolutionary in their significance and importance. The New Man was to be born, not on the drawing boards of materialist, political architects, but in the heat of battle, ill sacrifice and struggle, in the living of a new code of Honour I that claimed the parentage of medieval chivalry. Either the New Man is an Example or he is nothing,· either he has the love of his people in his eyes or he is afraud; either he is heart and soul in the struggle or he is best completely out of it. What did this mean in real life, in the life of a people and of a nation? It meant that if a dike had to be constructed in a given place, then 200 legionaries gathered at the appointed time to give of their time, of their labom, of themselves. In a word, ever-ready to sacrifice themselves in the service of a higher Cause. It meant that if the legionaries were to be beaten, to be tortured, to be murdered by the State police, they were not to be hidden away as if they were a source of shame: Rather they were to be visible in the sanctuary of the 'Green House' in Bucharest, a permanent warning to the underworld that governed and poisoned the life of the nation; a warning that proclaimed that there were still real men in the world. It meant that if a war was to erupt on the other side of Europe - as it did in far off Spain - that the Legion was obliged to send some of its finest sons to the anti-Bolshevik front; an obligation that saw two martyrs fall in the Satanic fury of the Spanish Civil War, two martyrs who made a pilgrimage of duty, so as to offer their all to God and to Europe. And it is in this way that the Legion came to be known, came to be revered, came to be honoured outside the .borders of suffering Romania. Moving it Stlrely is to read the testimony of Codreanu's wife, Elena, given to an Italianjoui.nal in late 1994, on the fearful perseeution of those times. It is the testimony of a·\voman who spent decades of her life in vile communist prisons merely for carrying the name Codreanu. Yet still she remembers those days, when weak and fragile, she was arrested by German ·troops on the Gennan border in late 1944. Upon hearing her name, a German officer tells her to follow him. She finds herself quickly afterwards in front of a platoon of Wehrmacht soldiers. "Atfy God", she thought, "they ar_e about to shoot me. The officer gave the platoon some order in German in a metallic voice. I closed my eyes and began to pray. When I opened them again, I was shocked. The soldiers were immobile and upright, and presenting arms to me! Here I was, a refugee and widow, being welcomed in Germany with . military honours". A pile of books and a mountain of words have been expended on the subject ofCodreanu's character, conscience and mission. They have spoken of his physical beauty, his 'distance' from the world ~d his simultaneous, if mysterious, closeness to his people. They have spoken of how he placed all his hopes in Saint Michael the Archangel, seen as the ultimate weapon in the struggle to awaken and revitalize the nation. It all speaks volumes of the greatness and transcendental nature of the Captain, and also of the unique 2 movement that he conceived, moulded and built into a revolutionary nationalist force. As was pointed out earlier, the ~egion did not believe in achieving power for power's sake; it did not seek to take power through treachery, through deceit, through respectability for one simple reason: compromise breeds compromise. If you weak.ell; or betray in the push to power, what guarantee is there that you will not act in like manner after the taking of power? Simple, logical, and yet almost unknown amongst men. Yet this lack of ultimate power does not generate frustration in the legionary camp. It moves, it acts, it inspires. It builds dams and dikes, houses, churches and schools. It comforts the poor peasant, 11).e exploited worker, the alien:;tted youth and builds an alternative economy of shops, work camps and restaurants . .·And upon the whole ediflce is built a chivalrous order. · Clearly, all of these elements are still relevant to our day, especially at a time when Liberalism and Democracy have shown by their history to be nothing but a fa~ade for oligarchy and slavery. Paradoxicilly more than Romania in the Thirties, Europe in the Nineties is a more fertile field of operation for these life-generating ideas. Already these ideas have· begun to .. bring forth new life, new hope. Revolutionary nationalist movements are now creating their alternative economy by taking over Ialtd, building houses, setting up shops and educational structures and a host of other things throughout Europe. But the influence of the Legion bides fair to go beyond the borders of today's legionary camp. How can the militants of a party like the Italian MSI - a party now dominated by a h'beral leadership - forget their past now that they have suddenly found themselves in the ambit of power? How can they forget those days in the Seventies when barricaded in their political offices around the country, they took the opportuhlty to read about the Legion in between successive waves of molotov cocktail attacks and outright assault? How can they forget that atmosphere which provided the background to the story of the Man on a White Horse in whose eyes cciuld be seen the entire history of Romania? . Has it all been forgotten? Perhaps, perhaps not. Did a new MSI mayor find it strange in comlption-r,idden Italy to be confronted by an old militant who asked for nojob, no .favour, but for one simple thing: "Please do not forget Codreanu ". How different is all of this from the contemporary politics of interest rates and the Dow Jones Index, and that world where Codreanu reaffirmed the old truth that there is an unbreakable chain between God, Country and Family. 3 Is it really the case that Modem Man is no longer raising his eyes towards the stars? How can he not feel that our life, our struggle, is a part of another war fought long ago in the heavens between Saint Michael and the minions of Evil? How can a man forget that just as Jesus Christ was crucified by those who warred against Codreanu and against humanity, it was nonetheless the condition of victory? When Christ uttered the final phrase: "It is ended", it was so but not in the way his enemies understood. It was the end of the 'reign of Darkness and Death, and the Resurrection was to herald the reign of Light and Life. The Temple of Mammon was rent apart, so that the Temple of the Holy of Holies might be built. In the same way, th~ enemies of Codreanu breathed a sigh of relief when they knew that he had been done to death in ignominious fashion. They had seen the last of this Man on the White Horse, or .so they thought. But the message of Codreanu was not for a time and a place, it was for all times and all plac_es as befits the follower of Christ. Now, it is for the crucifiers and murderers to quake as 'the dead' return to complete the victory! This history of the Legion is not the work of a detached academic, but of one .who was there and who saw the hatred of the enemy for Codreanu, and the.love of the Romanian people for he who was the Messenger of Saint Michael. It is, therefore, the best and richest kind of history. A book cannot change the world, but a book may change the heart and soul of one who can change the world. We believe that the future of the British Isles and of Europe lies in the unquestionable truths proclaimed and preserved by the Legionary Movement: that the man pure in heart, fighting justly and unceasingly, will save his soul and the land of his birth. The flag of the Legionary·Movement is not merely the flag of Romania, but the flag of all those who seek to tread the same path. This flag has been half-hidden in the· sombre darkness of the post-war world, but a New· Day beckons us to unfurl the ffug of Legionary Hope in the final push to Victory! THE LEGIONARY PRESS. 4 1. Romania After the First World War. Romania fought during the First World Wai on the side of the Western Powers. Thanks to her sacrifices and to the victory achieved by ,the Allies, the country doubled the size of its territory and of its population. Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bucovina, Romanian provinces hitherto under foreign domination, were rejoined to the Old Romanian Kingdom, creating a large and powerful State in the geo-political make up of Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the joy felt by the people over the achievement of national unity was overshadowed by the spectre of the Communist threat on the eastern border of Romania. After the fall of Russia into the hands of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of November 1917, the whole of Central Europe was eXposed to suffering the same fate. Tiris is why, duringthe suillmer of 1919, the Romanian Army had ·to· sustain fierce fighting on the River Tisa against the forces of the Communist dictator Bela Kuhn who governed Hungary, in order to save this country from the bloody tyranny imposed by the ferocious Marxist boss. A year later, Marshal Pilsudski. crushed, on the banks of the Vistula, the Bolshevik armies which'had invaded Poland. . At the close of these military ·campaigns, one to the south and one to the north of the Carpathian mountains, the access roads for the Bolshevik penetration of Central Europe were cut, and the Communist chiefs in Moscow had to put off until later their plans for the conquest of Europe, contenting themselves with the victory obtained in Russia. However, although military activities against the Bolsheviks caille to a close towards the end of 1919, for Romania the menace was not so much as pushed aside. From beyond the River Dniester came a constant flow of Communist agents, sent with the pmpo_se of provoking trouble within the country and leading the broad masse~ to revolutionary activity against the Romanian State. Benefiting from the confused situation to be found in all post-war periods, the Communists sought to push the country to civil war. Iassy, the capital of Moldavia, appeared to the Soviet chiefs to be the most promising region for the unleashing of a revolution. This city had suffered temoly during the war, and a large number of refugees had gathered there.. Furthermore, it had been the most exposed to~Communist propaganda because 5 across her had oozed in headlong flight .the Russian troops in Moldavia who recrossed the Dniester stricken by the Red fever. It was in exactly the same city, where Communism had infected all social classes, from workers to intellectuals, that a young, anti-Communist student appeared at the Mibaileana University: Comeliu Zelea Codreanu. 2. THE YOUNG ANTI-COMMUNIST FIGHTER. Comeliu Zelea Codreanu was born in Iassy on September 13th 1899. He spent his childhood in Hushi, a small provincial town, where his father, Ion . Zelea Codreanu, was a teacher at the local college. The Zelea Codreanu family were originally from Bucovina where the grandfather and great grandfather of the young man were forestry guards. Comeliu Zelea Codreanu had done most of his secondary studies at the military academy of Manastirea Dealului, near Targoviste, the former capital of Valachy. This college was well known throughout the country for the exceptional quality ofits teaching staff. The education that Comeliu Codreanu received in this elite college was to leave indelible marks upon his character: "Order, discipline,. a sense ofhierarchy" - he wrote much later - "ran in my blood at a young age alongside a belief in human dignity, and 'Al(Juld be the framework ofall my later activity. ''. Between August 15th ancl Av.gust 28th 1916, Romania enters the war against the Central Powers. Codreanu is taken by smprise by events in his father's house in Hushi where he is spending his holidays. Although he.was not yet 17 years old, he sets out immediately to find his father at the front. The regiment to which Professor Codreanli belongs has already crossed the D,lountains and finds itself engaged in Transylvania. The young Codreanu joins the regiment and takes part in the counter-offensive of the Romanian Army; however, when the battles become increasingly fierce, Colonel Piperesco, the head of the regiment, forces Professor Codreanu to send his son home. Comeliu Codreanu returns home and enters the Infantry Military School at Botosani from which he graduates as a Second Li~utenant. In the mean time the war nas come to an end.. In the spring of 1919, Comeliu Codreanu is feeling wonied by the rumours circulating throughout the co'untry which are predicting an imminent Bolshevik invasion in the region of the Dniester. So he brings together several college students and friends in a forest not far from the town of Dobrina, and asks them the following question: "What are· we going to do if the Bolsheviks invade?" Under the impulse of Comeliu Codreanu, these yoling men, aged from 16. to 18 years of age, take the decision that, in the event of a Red invasion of the· 6 country,· they would take to the mountains and fonn a focal point for resistance, an underground, · from where they would· harass the enemy incessantly so as to keep alive the.hope of freedom amongst the broad masses. The decision of this group of students never had a practical outcome. The flames of Co1llli1Unist revofo.tion came to a halt before the Dniester, and the young college men of Hushi did not have the· opportunity to prove their bravery. Nonetheless, the event in the forest of Dobrina has a profound meaning. This incident represents the point of departure, the seed from which would be born the Legionary Movement It is in this place and at this time that is revealed, for the first time and with dramatic intensity, the extraordinary character of Comeliu Codreanu, the founder o~ the Movement. At an age when other young men are still struggling with the uncertainties of adolescence, he feels himself responsible for th~ . fate of his people.. The torment which seizes his soul, whilst he is still a college student; will never leave him until the end of.his life. What will happen to Romania if Communism grows stronger in Russia? . Are not the Romanian people likely to be one of its first victims? This tragic vision of the future of his people detenirlned him to consecrate every fibre of his being to the struggle to defend his country so that it should never fall into Communist slavery. 3. THE GUJ\W) OF NATIONAL CONSCIENCE. In autumn 1919, Comeliu Codreanu leaves for lassy where he enrols in the Faculty of Law. A great disappointment awaits him there! Instead of finding a university youth mobilized against Communism, a youth thinking and feeling as he, he finds an atomistic mass, the large majority of whom have already · slipped to the Left. _ Marxist theories were the fashion, propagated even by the staff themselves. The intellectuals had already forgotten the hundreds of thousands of soldiers fallen on the field of .honour, and were openly consorting with the mortal enemy of the Romanian people. For these sick intellectuals, Marxist doctrine was the fast word in Science and Progress. Whosoever spoke of "Country'', "Church" or "King" was subject to derision, and regarded as backward and out of date~ The wmkers, driven to the brink of despair by poveriy, were easily manipulated by communist agents, and pushed into strikes and anti-patriotic demonstratio~. The authorities were present, wholly powerless, at the parades of revolutionary crowds who shouted "Down with the Army!", "Down with the King!", "Long live the Soviet Union!". Tile. situation was ~o better in the 7 capital or in the other great centres of the country. Romania was but a step from revolution. Comeliu Codreanu is shocked by the thoughtlessness which characterizes the student population. Although the whole atmosphere of the university is hostile to his beliefs, he does not hesitate for a moment to throw himself into the struggle, to try to check this evil tendency. The difficUlties of a such a task appeared insunnountable No obvious hope of support was to be found amongst the student mass. The university structures were in the hands of the Communists. Comeliu Codreanu had .to oppose single-handedly a general trend, and to force it to change direction completely. Anyone else would have been greatly discouraged merely by the thought of such a situation, The task was a superhuman one! Some weeks after his arrival in Iassy, he chanced to meet an extraordinary person, a real nationalist fighter, the worker, Constantin Panco. This man was the head of a working class .nationalist and Christian movement called the Guard of National Conscience. Panco wanted to tear away the workers from the influence of Communist chiefs and internationalist sleigans. Without being an intellectual, Panco, nonetheless, was extreinely conversant with the problems of the working class. In his harangues directed at the workers, he would show them that their legitimate grievances could be·met quite easily within the framework of the Nation; that they did not need to allow themselves to be lead astray by foreign ideologies. In a State led by men truly concerned for their .country, the workers would cease to be treated as the 'outcasts' of society. ' Constantin Panco becomes the main ally of Comeliu Codreanu in the struggle against the Communists. In the soul of this simple· man and in the framework of his organization, Codreanu finds that spiritrud element that reflects his own convictions. Thanks to the support of the young student, Panco's movement grows to an encouraging.size. From secret gatherings in a small room numbering barely 20 people, there stems public meetings of 10,000 people. Thanks to their combined wills, the Communist trend loses its impetus amongst thousands of workers, and ends up being reduced to an unimportant size in all the big firms in Iassy. Panco and Codreanu profit from the enthusiasm generated amongst the working masses by their political platform and their inspired speeches, to organize these workers into National Unions, the first in Romania wholly beyond Marxist influence. On February 9th 1920, they also form a political organization which they call National Christian Socialism In discussions undertaken with Panco to determine the political programme of the new party, Codreanu outlines his attitude to the problems of working folk in the following terms: 8 "We do not recognize the right of anyone to set up on the land of Romania any flag other than that of our national history. Whatever the rights of the working class, we do not grant it the right to turn against our country. Individual justice within the framework ofjustice for the people. That is our belief It is unacceptable that for your personal justice you tread underfoot the historic right ofthe nation to which you belong. Nor will we accept, under the cover of the flag, that a small and tyrannical class imposes itself on the backs of workers of all kinds and which literally skins them alive whilst ceasele.ssly repeating: COUNTRY - which it does not love; GOD - in which it does not believe; CHURCH - into which it never enters; ARMY.- which it sends to war empty-handed". Panco's movement reaches its high point in the .sp$g of 1920. Then it begins to lose its relevance and impetus, in direct proportion as the Communist menace itself declines. When General Averesco comes to. power in March ·1920, he takes vigorous measures against the Communists, removing the immediate danger of revolution. 4. THE CRUSHING OF COMMUNISM AT THE ·UNIVERSITY. After having curbed the Communist movement amongst the workers of Iassy, Comeliu Codreanu concentrates his efforts on the students. He succeeds in gathering around himself a handful of nationalist students and, with their help, he enters the university world dominated by Communists. The first clash of the small, nationalist group with the Red clique at the university takes place in the autumn of 1920 at the beginning of term. Since the foundation·ofthis university it w~ the custom to begin term with Mass, and at which would be present the staff, students and VIP's of the city. Now, for the first time in the history of the establishment, the· university authorities announced the .beginning of term Without the traditional religious ceremony. The 'progressive' lecturers of the period, who were the niajority of the University Senate, maintained that the invocation of the Holy Ghost within the framework of a cultural institution was a sign of "obscurantism" and -~'an affeont to science". After several meetings with the UniverSity Senate to try and get them to revoke this decision, Comeliu Codreanu decides to oppose himself actively to this new term withoutMass. The day of the great event, he arrives first at the university, blocks the doors of the main entrance and, at opemng time, tejJ.s all who have already gathered before the doorway that he will not allow anyone to enter who does not 9 promise him that the scholastic year should be blessed by a priest. He is greeted with insults and threats. Whilst speaking with a lecturer, and profiting from a moment's distraction, the crowd outside force open the doors and a wave of Communist students pour furiously into the building, knock over its sole defender, Codreanu, punch him and pin him to the wall. Nonetheless, the final victory rests with him. The University Senate, worried by the repercussions of the conflict of the university on the population and on the students, announces that the return to college will take place at a later date, and with the traditional Mass. During the course of the student year 1920 - 21 the number of clashes between the· small group· of nationalist students, numbering barely 40, and the great majority .of the oth~, dominated by Communist groups, grows. However, the struggle against Communist domination of the university is led with such bravery and such intelligence by Codreanu that by the end of the year the Communists no longer dare to demonstrate. It is then that the University Senate conies to the aid of the beaten Communists. Comeliu Codreanu, accused of being a trouble maker, is expelled from the university. But the decision cannot be enacted because the secretariat of the Faculty of Law is dominated by lecturers of .a nationalist hue, and put themselves into opposition to the Senate; Codreanu remains a member of the Faculty and is able to sit~- examinations. · At the beginning of the following Student year 1921 - 22, Codreanu is elected President of the Law Students Society The diverse and imaginative activities which issue henceforth from the aforementioned society draw to its ranks the majority of students from the other faculties. It is thus that the Iassy Students Centre, an official grouping already in the hands of the Communists, begins to lose its influence over the university community. This Centre finally disappears when, at the suggestion of Codreanu, on May 20th 1922 the Association of Christian Students is founded at the University of lassy. This Association replaces the old Students Centre. and, with its growth amongst the student community, eliminates Communist influence in the university. The example of the students at Iassy is followed in other universities. The dawn of Nation3Iism appears in all the universities. The mass of students, momentarily disorientated by the Russian revolutionary movement, .and by the subversive action of Communist agents, takes· on o~ce again its traditional ro~e of struggle for the most advanced theses of Romanian nationality. 10 5. THE STUDENT MOVEMENT. Comeliu Codreanu passes his Law Degree in June 1922. In the autumn of the same year, he leaves the country and goes to Germany where he. has the intention of completing his studies by talcing a course in Political Economy. He will remain there only a few months. Being in Gennany, he learns that some powerful student agitations have exploded in Romania. If,. during the previous years, the student movement had not gone beyond being a local affair (that is to say, Iassy with some ripple effects in Cemauti and Bucovina), this time round it is a generaliZed one, spreading like a hurricane in all the universities.. In Cluj, in Bucharest, in Iassy, in Cemauti, students leave their Studies and demonstrate in the streets. Clashes with the police and army are regular. The whole affair is all the more significant because. it is not the result of concerted organization. It is a spontaneous outburst. It is: " a massive, collective energization, without prior organization, without discussions for and against, without committee decisions being taken. " It i.s "a spasm of a sick nation" - as Ion Mota, another great Romanian of this generation, expressed it. Codreanu feels himself bowled over to the very core of his being by this awakening of the national conscience. He loses that peace so necessary to study. Rejecting his previous plans, he returns in haste to Romania. He feels that the uprising of the student population is a prqvidential sign, a phenomenon with real historical importance, and that he cannot afford not to be involved in the struggle. The student movement had always been essentially anti-Communist, but in the meantime it had acquired another characteristic: it had become anti-Jewish. The path from anti-Comm~sm to anti-Jewishness had come about by the most natural manner. The majority of the Communist chiefs in Romania and the majority of the agents sent from Russia were Jews. In fighting the· Communists in the universities, the students were everywhere coming up against Jews. It was the Jews who were agitating amongst the workers and students. It was the Jews inciting the broad masses to rebel against the Romanian State. It was the Jews who demanded the overthrow of the King and the transformation of Ro1il.filtj.a into a "Soviet Republic". It was the· Jews who were spreading atheism and attacking the clergy.. It was they who, by the Press they controlled, supported every anti-national cause, ridiculed the Nation, Tradition and Romania's past. Each of these Jewish demonstrations led the students to see in each Jew an enemy of their country, an element in the pay of those aiming to destroy the 11 barely reconstituted Romanian State. The anti-Communism of the new generation had inevitably led to anti-Jewishness. There also existed other causes of a social and economic nature, strictly related to the state of development of the country, and which explained the anti-Jewishness of the student community. A large number of Jew had entered the schools and universities after the First World War. In most colleges in Bucovina, in Bessarabia and in Moldavia, the number of Jews present was greater than that of Romanians; nor did this simply mean that they were ni.ore numerous in these regions than in other provinces. Certain faculties, especially Cemauti in Bucovina and Iassy in Moldavia, were literally overrun by Jews. In the Faculty of Medicine in Iassy, for example, there were in 1920, 556 Romanian students as against 831. Jewish ones. Nobody could deny that the proportion of registered Jews in these universities was in flagrant contradiction of the true ethnic makeup of the country! The Jews had a privileged position in Romania. Masters of the economy, they could send all their children into the higher institutes, whilst the mass of people, largely made up of peasantS, could in no way bear the burden of expense in these same schools for their children. The danger was obvio~! If the majority of pupils and students today were Jewish, then the ruling class tomorrow in the country was necessarily going to be mad~ up of the same ethnic proportions. Moreover, since Romanian Jewry was sympathetic to the Communist movement, it meant that each educated Jew was going to become tomorrow a factor in the break up of the Romanian nation ~d of loyalty to Soviet Russia. Aware of the condition of economic inferiority of the Romanian people of the period, anxious to prevent the take over of the Romanian ruling class, the students demanded the only political solution in face of grave situation: they demanded the Numerus Clausus - that is to say, limiting the number of Jews ~dmitted to university in direct proportion to the percentage of Jews and Romanians on national territory. The student demonstrations put the "Jewish Question" at the. centre of the national interest. In fact, this problem was not new. What was new was the virulence of the youth response. · In the political annals of modem Romania, anti-Jewishness is a tradition. Anti-Jewish agitation began in Romania in the first half of the· nineteenth century, provoked by the excessive number of Jews who had, at this time, entered Romanian principalities, coming from Galicia in Poland and Russia. Moldavia, in particular, had suffered greatly from this silent invasion. The most illustrious figures of national culture were anti-Jewish. It suffices merely to mention ·the world famous poet, Mihail Eminesco, the historians this 12 Hasdeu, Xenopol, Iorga, ~e philosopher Vasile Conta, the statesman, Mihail Kogalniceanu. It was these who raised the alarm about the Jewish menace and determinedly opposed the civil as~imilation of the Jews en bloc. Let us make clear at the same time that the anti-Jewishness of the Romanian people never had a religious or racial foundation. From the religious point of view, the Romanian people are the most tolerant in the world. There is no case whatsoever of religious persecution in Romania throughout its history: The cause of Romanian anti-Jewishness was social and economic. It had been provoked by the disproportionate number of Jews who had established themselves in Romania during the course of the nineteenth century and who, arrived at important economic positions, sought to dominate the collll.try. The tension between Romanians and Jews was exacerbated after the First World War because of the open and provocative participation of Jewish minorities in the agitation of the Communists. Before the First World War, there even existed a party which; among other points, had included in its programme "to take measures to defend the Romanian people against Jewish economic exploitation. "This party, called the Democratic Nationalist Parly was led by Professors Nicolae Iorga and AC. Cuza. At the time of the first elections which took place immediately after the war, in 1919, this Democratic Nationalist Party obtained 34 seats. But, soon after this striking success, it dissolved itself. Professor Iorga renollll.ced his anti-Jewish line and distanced himself from Cuza. AC. Cuza maintained his beliefs. Professor ·of Economics at the University of lassy, he fleshed out the anti-Jewish theses with such scientific rigour that even his enemies were not able to attack hitJJ.. The debate over this vital problem for the Romanian people drew to his lectures many students from other faculties . . One cannot deny the impact of 'Cuzist' ideas on the students, but it would be an exaggeration to pretend that the student movement was born of the doctrinal · teaching of the professor. The student reaction was not born of ideas heard in class, nor from ideas folllld in books, nor from philosophical speculations upon the Jewish Question. Student youth reacted when it came to realize, in the atmosphere in which it found itself, of its numerical inferiority in relation to the Jews crowding into the universities. The anti-Jewishness of the students had at its core a solid reality, a fact that was visible and easily to verify. 13 6. THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN DEFENCE LEAGUE. On his return from abroad, Comeliu Codreanu is met by the following situation: the student world is on strike and pursuing with detenirination the struggle to get the numerus. clausus adopted. The government, for its part, is equally determined to do nothing demanded by the students. Studying the opposing forces, Codreanu arrives at the conclusion that the student cause is fighting in a vacuum without any hope of success. Of course, the students were only a tiny fraction of the population.· Their strength, iri spite of the bravery with which they confronted government repression, and in spite of all the potential, partial victories, was insufficient to force the government to give way. fu order to gain victory for their demands, it was necessary for them to be diffused more widely into the national consciousness. Student activity had to break out of its university setting, from the limited field of action within which it had acted up until now, to become a mass movement, a political movement on a national scale. By this means, this movement, through legal means, and using the strong current of opinion created in its favour, would be able to force Parliament to enact the numerus c/ausus. Comeliu Codreanu demo~trates to the student leaders the necessity of creating a political organization under the leadership of Professor Cuza whose ideological probity was above all suspicion. Students had to form the avant garde of the new organization, whilst the older p!!ople would form the political framework properly speaking. This point of view was not accepted right away. The majority of the student leaders were of the opinion that the movement should not leave the university setting. After in depth discussions, they finally . rallied to Codreanu' s arguments and adopted his proposition. On March 4th 1923 the Founding Assembly of the new political grouping met in Iassy. Before more than 10,000 people, come from all comers of the country, were placed the fundamentals of the National Christian Defence League with Professor AC. Cuza nominated President. · The first act of the new President is to order the young barrister, Comeliu Codreanu, to organize the League throughout the length and breadth of the country; a task that corresponded to the post of Secretary General. 14 7.. THE STUDENTS CONSPIRACY. On the student front, the strike continues in conditions growing evermore painful, and where signs of disorientation and fatigue mount. With great difficulty, the leaders of the student masses succeed in preventing the beginning of lectures in June 1923 - an opening decided upon by government authorities - which had tempted students to sit their examinations on time and thus not lose an academic year. With this final effort, the students had come to the end of their tether. Ii is easy to imagine the sacrifices made by these students to continue the strike uninterruptedly for an entire year in the four universities of the country. After the war, the stuqent population had grown massively. At the University of Bucharest alone, there were more than 30,000 registered students. All these young people who refused to attend lectures could not sit their examinations, and thus they were forced to waste a year. Each of them made a painful sacrifice in order that the battle for the numerus c/ausus might be won. Moreover, it was not a matter of one person, or of a hundred or of a thousand, but of tens of thousands. The government, in order to force them to stop the strike, closed the canteens and dormitories. Lacking any resources, the majority of these students, sons of peasants, workers or low ranking civil servants, were forced to return home. There, awaited them the complaints of their parents who advised them to "stop this foolishness and get themselves back to work; there would be plenty of time for politics once their status was assured. " The students fought back, despite being hounded everywhere, without support, without encouragement from any quarter.~All the ~ajor forces were allied against them: government, lecturers, the Press, the parties and even their own parents. Between the 22nd and 25th August 1923, the student leaders from around the country held a conference to study the situation. The delegates of the Student Centres decide to oppose the opening of term for the new academic year and reaffirm their intention to -continue the strike; in addition, and which was extremely important for the victory of the nationalist trend, it was decided to grant the official support of the student population to the National Christian Defence League. However, the decision to continue the strike could not be maintained: The gieat majority of the students were tired and discouraged, The government, fully aware of this fact, was more than ever resolved not to give into their demand& and was awaiting their imnlinent surrender. It had even succeeded in enticing several leaders by the promise of good jobs once their studies were coIDP,lete, on condition that they worked to break the strike. 15 Ion Mota - President of the Student Centre of the University of Cluj - was appalled by the prospect of defeat. So much useless sacrifice presented him with a grave question of conscience. He racked his brains to find an honourable way out of the impasse facing the student movement. After lengthy reflection, he goes to find Comeliu Codreanu in order to outline his plan. The meeting takes place in the little town of Campulung in Bucovina where Codreanu had been participating in conference of the League. The two of them immediately go to Mount Rarau where, in the quiet of nature, in the middle of age-old trees, they would feel themselves free of any form of influence, in order to decide what plan to follow. Mota expresses to him his fears. The student community had come to the end of its ability to resist. The government and all the ariti-nationai" forces were triumphantly awaiting their impending capitulation. Mota was of the opinion that the students should be allowed to attend lectures, but he thought that the leaders could not give up the struggle without giving an example to future generations. At the risk of dying or of being imprisoned for life, they should strike mercilessly at all those responsible for the tragic situation of the students and for the sufferings of the entire nation. Comeliu Codreanu listens with profound emotion to Mata's plea. He too thinks thatthe final act of their struggle must be the punishment of the traitors. He too is ready ~o sacrifice his freedom and even his life, but it is necessary for . him first to deal severely with those responsible. They return to Iassy to share their decision with the other student leaders. Those responsible for the Sufferings of the people were far too numerous for them all to be eliminated, as it would have been the just thing to do; they settle their choice upon only a few people, those considered to be the most guilty: several Liberal Ministers, several Jewish bankers (these because they are financing the parliamentary parties and corrupting public life), those who would have to fall victim to the bullets of the student leaders. After having decided the part of each person in this historical act of punishment, the teain members will leave for Bucharest where the attacks would have to take place. ·Events do not come to final fruition because of a defection from amongst the team members. The student, Vemichesco, denounces them to the authorities. This student, it was later known, was an agent of the Security Services, who had wormed his way into the circle of student leaders. Whilst the whole group is gathered at the house of a friend in Bucharest to settle the last minute details of the plan and to agree a date, the house is surrounded by the police and everyone is arrested, Vemichesco included, so as to allay suspicion. Everyone thought that the arrest was the consequence of an indiscretion or a blunder until it was learnt that the police had also uncovered the place where the revolvers and the letters written by them for their family and friends, in a 16 which they explained their motives for the acti?n, had been left. They then knew that there was a traitor amongst them and later, after the statements made . at the Ministry of Justice, were able to identify him. · The arrested students were first sent to the Prefecture of Police where their first statements were taken down. The circumstantial evidence was fairly serious; nonetheless, with a certain agility of mind, it was possible for them to extricate themselves from the situation and avoid a sentence. When it is the turn of Codreanu to make his statement he is still haunted by. doubt. He does not know how to proceed. He cannot admit in his soul or his conscience to defend himself by a adopting a duplicitous attitude in court, denying his true beliefs and his actions. He asks for a moment to reflect, during which he takes the decision to tell the whole truth, and not merely to repeat it, but to affirin it vigorously, to insist upon it, to transform it into a weapon with which to strike the enemies of the nation orie last time before being condemned to life imprisonment (for this indeed is what awaits them in the event of a guilty verdict) The statement of Codreanu and the other students provokes unease in the government. It would have preferred that the trial had not taken this dramatic turn and confined itself to attacking the unworthy action of several hotheads. However, public opinion is profoundly ·shaken by the confessions of the sj:udents because the matter of the conspiracy was coming out at the same time as government sources were announcing emphatically that the students had given up demonstrating and had decided to return to their studies. . The discoveries of the police, and above all the statements of the accused, sow panic in government circles, because far from calming them, the student demonstrations take a worrying turn. An unleashed Jewish Press reproaches the government for its weakness in respect of the student agitators and demands a thorough· punishment of the "conspirators". What most worries the government and all of the political parties is the spiritual quality of these young people. On the Romanian nationalist scene a new type of student had appeared. Until then, the student movement had · contented itself with activities that were easily controlled by the authorities: . students refused to attend lectures? - It was they and their parents who really suffered. They· were demonstrating in the streets? - The forces of law and order were there to prevent them from doing so. They were breaking Jewish shop Windows? - Even if the police were not able to stop them, there was no loss because the State was paying compensation for damage done. But this time, these young people had adopted a different form of behaviour: they had turned their backs on street agitation and applieg themselves to conspiracy - they wanted to kill the leaders of the country! 17 At base, it is not so much the conspiracy in itse1f which frightens the governing class. Hotheads, fanatics are· found in every generation, ready to solve political problems with a gun. With age fanaticism mellows, its advocates take up jobs, start families and the dreams of youth fade away. What does alarm the government is the :firmness of decision of these young people, the clarity of their convictions, their belief in their cause. A new type of character had arisen: men with an integral. vision of the nationalist struggle and ones ready to give their lives for the victory of the Ideal. It was something new in the political history of Romania. . With the "Students Conspiracy" opens a new chapter in the relations between the governing and the governed in Romania. The new generation was no longer inclined to give way before illegalities and abuses. It had decided to tolerate no longer the s)rstem of governnrent in place, based as it was on the exploitation of the people by the ruling class in alliance with the Jews. The time for easy arrangements had come to an end. Facing usurpers and national traitors was an unmoving generation which was no longer caving in to threats, no longer being bought with flattery, with material benefits or with status. At the close of the initial hearing, only people remain implicated in the conspiracy: Comeliu Codreanu, Ion Mota, Comeliu Georgesco, Ilie Gameata, Tudose Popesco and Radu Mironovici. Until the day of the verdict they were kept in the famous prison of Vacaresti on the outskirts of Bucharest. This prison was formerly a monastery, though the chapei had been kept for the prisoners. It is .here, in this prison chapel, that the extraordinary spiritual' evolution which gives birth to the Legionary Movement begins. · Left of the altar, there was an icon of the Archangel Michael of remarkable beauty. When Comeliu Codreanu sees it, he is transfixed by it. Each time that the chapel is open he goes to pray before it, submerged, overwhelmed by its• intrechole power. The Archangel appears to him to be alive. From his numerous reflections before the icon, an idea emerges which fills his mind and soul: to lay the foundations, within the League, of a youth organization which would be called The Archangel Michael. This organization was to guide future generations, to prevent them from falling into the mire of corrupt political wheeler-dealing. The .youth intelligentzi~ instead of wasting itself in the old political structures and thereby losing its spiritual qualities as they had up until now, was going to join a movement that corresponded to its true beliefs. This new organization would have another aim: "political corruption'', no longer being fed by a constant streari:t of youth, was going to die a beautiful death; ~ plague of Romanian society was going to disappear by itself, by a natural process of dying. six 18 After his release, Comeliu Codreanu tried to put this idea into practice within the League, but faced with the lack of understanding of Professor Cuza, he had tO await his departure from the League to move to the implementation of his plans. The day before the trial, a drama explodes in the Vacaresti prison. Ion Mota fires several shots at Vemichesco, the traitor, and seriously wounds him. Mota's action did not stem from any desire for vengeance: rather it was an expression of a profound belief in national ethics. The strengths of our people had been, in a more or less permanent way, destroyed by traitors, All the great men of the nation had died due to treachery. In such conditio115, every effort to rejuvenate the nation was doomed to failure. This was a widespread conviction in nationalist circles as well as in the soul of all patriots. It was no longer possible to continue the student struggle and tolerate the treason of a Vemichesco; others would have followed his example and allowed themselves to be bought by the declared enemies of the Romanian nation, sure of going unpunished. Mota's action is all the more striking since it takes place on the eve of the Great Trial which is going to decide their fate. The punishment of V emichesco greatly _aggravates the p·osition of the group. However, Mota was no longer thinkillg of improving their. chances of acquittal by leaving the punishment of the traitor to a later date. He had seized the first real opportunity, without reflection on how opportune it was. The "Student Conspiracy" trial took place in Bucharest on March 29th 1924. The government was only able to bring its influence to bear indirectly. The fate of the six students lay in the hands of the jurors. Now, the jurors were subjected to two conflicting forces: on the one hand, the government, the political parties and the Jewish Press; on the other, the students from the capital to which was added numerous delegations from the other universities. The thousands of students gathered in Bucharest infests the capital with a constant coriim.otion and succeeds in winning over public opinion to their · cause. On the day of the trial, the Courthouse was heavily guarded by police cordons, these cordons tltemselves surrounded by thousands of men who sing patriotic songs and demand the acquittal of the students. The trial takes place against a background which results in the derailing of government circles. The roles of the players are reversed: it is no longer a question, of putting the students on trial, but of putting the ruling class in the dock. The accused students had become the accusers of the goveniment, the spokesmen of the National Conscience. Public opinion had identified .the truly guilty in the ranks of the government.· ~19 The strength of public opinion neutralized the government's powers of intimidation, as well as the Press controlled by the Jews. The jury returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' to the applause of all present. This verdict was, moreover, on the legal level perfectly justified: all the elements necessary to be able to call the students action a "conspiracy", as it was defined in Law, had not been present - the students had not fixed a date for their intended action, and this technical omission removed the legal basis of the indictment. Nevertheless, a great deal more important than the legal and formal aspect of the verdict was the political significance of the acquittal. The jurors had accepted that the reaction of these young people stemmed from a legitimate fear for the future of the country; this reaction expressed the indignation of the nation which was constantly outraged by the activities of the parties and the politicians. Their reaction was that of an entire people against the profiteers and the shirkers of the First World War who, raised to the leadership of the State, to positions of responsibility, were ransacking the country and exploiting the people. The jurors confirmed the feelings of the entire nation. The nationalist community had gained a massive victory over the parasitic class which was suffocating the country. When the huge crowd outside, who waited for hours on end for the end of the deliberations, hear the verdict, it explodes into unending applause. The capital witnesses an unforgettable moment of emotion. At the exit, the students are carried away shoulder high in triumph. Public opinion lines up with the jurors in confirming their action by condemning the ruling powers who, by their politics of undermining and of repression of Romanian identity, had pushed these young people to desperation. For some time the government and its sinister backers no longer show· themselves in public. Soon, however, the implacable enemies of the nationalist movement drew up new plans to destroy this movement which was really hampering their secret intrigues. 8. THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH - THE FIRST WORK CAMP. Upon his return to Iasi;y, Comeliu Codreanu takes up once again his work with the League, busying himself especially with the education of the youth in the manner· that he had conceived whilst in the prison of Vacaresti. Nevertheless, when he began his work he was confronted by a major obstacle: there was no place to hol<;l meetings. They were so poor that they didn't even have the wherewithal to hire a room. Furthermore, the conference rooms of the 20 University, as well as the Student Dormitories, were barred to them by the government authorities which had expelled them from it. Thus, Codreanu convenes a meeting of students and college pupils and suggests to them the idea of building, with their own hands, the hall that they need. This idea is received with shock and even a touch of coldness. Not only does this plan seem impossible of achievement to them, but it confronts the prevailing mentality. Romanian illtellectuals until then had scorned manual work! Yet Codreanu stresses it in his talk to students and pupils: "First of all it is vital that we break the mentality with which we have grown up, that mentality which makes the young intellectual ashamed, from the day he becomes a student, to be seen carrying even a parce( in the street. " The construction of the Hall by the students was; therefore, an educational task: it was the ennoblement of manual work. The youngsters who went through this experience were going to look at the workers in a new way, and become aware of a real solidarity between young intellectuals and the workers. Without money, without even the necessary tools, Codreanu, joined by 26 young men, leaves for Ungheni, a small village on the river Prut near Iassy, to go to a piece of land put at their disposition by a man who did understand, and there they begin to dig the foundations· and make bricks. It is a memorable date i~ the history of the New Romania: May 8th 1924, the first voluntary Work Camp in the country takes place. The peasants and workers of the area looked stunned at this team of students and pupils who trampled clay under their feet. They had never seen anything like it! A new generation prepares itself under the careful eye of Comeliu Codreanu; a generation which is not ashamed of the difficulties and work of the people and which shares. their pains and deprivations: THE BIR.TH OF CREATIVE ACTION. "Our first work camp" - says Comeliu Codreanu - "had a revolutionary impact on the prevailing pattern of thought. All the young people of the district - peasants, workers and intellectuals - gathered round us, full of curiosity, to see us. They were used to seeing students strolling down Lapusneanu Avenue, elegantly dressed, or bawling out popular songs around the tables of the coffee bars during their free time. Now, they saw them trample clay underfoot, covered in inud from head to foot, carrying buckets of water from the Prut, digging the earth in the summer sun. It was the collapse of a once all-powerful mentality: a mentality that considered it shameful for an intellectual to do manual work, especially labouring, which had once been the preserve of slaves or the lowest classes. " 21 In order to assist those who were working at the brick factory· of Ungheni, C::odreanu open8 a second work camp at lassy; it was a kitchen garden kindly put at their disposal by a woman admirer of the student movement. 9. THE POLICE TERROR AND ITS RESULTS. The work was undertaken quietly and fruitfully in the two voluntary work camps. It was possible to believe that even the authorities had found a little respect for this youth which, instead of entertaining itself or being preoccupied with banalities, was ·spending its holidays struggling on the banks of the Prut. What an illusion! TJ:le government w~ readying itself to strike a new blow against the student movement, proclaiming that all the work being done in the voluntary camps was subversive.· However, the students are no longer on strike, are no longer breaking Jewish shop windows, no longer clashing with the police. What they were now doing seemed a great deal more dangerous to the ·authorities: it was a new type of subversion and a contagious example. · Until this time, the young had been overwhelmed with a mountain of · criticism: they didn't work; they quit their studies; they were good for nothings and vagabonds. Now, they have not only returned to their books, but they are doing something else: they are building their Hall with their own hands. Scorning an easy life, they buckle down voluntarily to the hardest of jobs. They :work together, lead a,life of grim discipline, without being forced to do · so and without receiving anything in return. · Nothing like it had ever been seen in Romania where labouring had been left to the lowest classes. This man Codreanu was, according to the government, a dangerous man because he was unsettling youth, and pointing out a way of life wholly different from contemporary customs. In their opinion, he was creating a formidable trend that was upsetting the social, economic and ·political order of the day. It was vital to put an end to such an apparently innocuous influence, charged as it was with future perils for the security of the State. One day, whilst Codreanu is wprking in the kitchen garden with a group of 50 volunteers, armed police. burst into the garden and, threatening with rifles, throw them to the ground, kick them and hit them with rifle butts and coshes. Then the young men are handcuffed and led through the main streets of the city to Police Headquarters. There, the prisoners are once again beaten under the pretext of forcing out of them !'what Codreanu had told them", "the details . ofthe revolution they are brewing whilst working in the. kitchen garden.'.' Since these unfortunates have nothing to tell, the blows recommence; the soles· of · their feet are black with blood. ! 22 The torturers then lead Codreahu to the interrogation room in order to give him the same treatment. Just as. these animals are about to begin their vile work, a noise is heard in the corr:idor. It is the parents of the tortured students who, learning of the violence taking place in the .Headquarters, have. come to save their children. They had also requested the presence of.the chief QC, and were accompanied by the nationalist lecturers of the university, A.C. Cuza at their head. Caught in a flagrant abuse of power, the police chief, Manciu, is forced to free his victims.. . The city is boiling with indignation! The guilty policemen are but a step from receiving bloody retribution on the part of the public. The students parentS and the beaten pupils file a complaint against Manciu at the Ministry of Justice, demanding ·the sacking arid punishment of the aforementioned. The Ministry not only keeps Manciu in his position, but awards him a medal, wlii.1.st the officers who took .part in the brutality gain promotion. . Manciu had been named Chief of Police in Iassy with the clear intention of terrifying the youth and forcing them to give up the nationalist struggle. First of all, Manciu had attacked Comeliu Codreanu. He wanted to provoke him, make him lose patience, force him to hit back, to make an act of self-defence, which might give the government man a pretext for torturing him, putting him out of action or even kill him. The nationalist movement found itself before a cross-roads: either to let itself be intimidated by Manciu's violence and possibly disintegrate, in which case of all of their sacrifices until then, there would remain only a memory of an ineffective struggle; or not to give way, but to oppose the insults, beatings and violence which Manciu was committing under the cover that it was part of his job and in which he was immune fron;i. attack, in which case the youth themselves would be guilty- of violence. In the turbulent·history of the Legionary Movement, its leaders often found themselves in similar situations: to give way to blows and unjust attacks; or to reply to such attacks by hacking out a path, sword in hand, after having exhausted all other legal avenues for maintaining the struggle. Comeliu Codreanu remains troubled by this problem for a long tim~. After the humiliations and blows sustained, he appears to be another man, a desperate man. Something within has just caved in. He no longer has confidence in his abilities nor in the struggle to which he has .consecrated the best years of his life. He no longer feels capable· of anything. Even the work camps no longer interest him. He is an eagle with clipped wings, Spiritually overwhelmed, he withdraws to the silence of the· mountains. On the mountain of Rarau in Bucovina, two thousand feet up, he builds himself a . cabin, separates himself from the world for six weeks, and meditates on recent a 23 events. He tears himself apart without finding the answer. However, one thing does take shape in bis conscience: the unshakeable decision never to accept again the least humiliation; or the least blow, whatever its origin. If anyone dares to attack him, so much as brushes him, he will strike back even if it costs him bis life. In this state of mind, he returns to Iassy where he takes up again his usual routine in the brick factory and in the kitchen garden; moreover, registered as a barrister at the bar of Iassy, he divides bis time between bis civic work and the court. However, the police violence has not declined. From Iassy, taking Manciu as their example, the authorities spread their terror throughout Moldavia. Every policeman anxious for promotion or seeking to increase bis salary has a sure fire method before him: beat up a student. On October 25th 1·924, Codreanu is present before one of the courts of Iassy where he was to present the· case ·of a student against police chief Manciu for blows and injuries. The police .chief arrives at the meeting with all of bis officers and 25 armed police. Hardly have matters begun than Manciu, with bis group of police, and in front of the judge, rushes towards l=odreanu and the group of intended witnesses. Codreanu, seeing the number of attackers and the . aggressive intent of Manciu, believes he· has a· right to self defence. He takes out bis revolver and shoots. .Manciu falls, mortally wounded, whilst two officers are seriously injured; the other police disappear. The news of Manciu~s death spreads throughout the town like wildfire. The population breathes, relieved. A heavy weight appears to be dissipated. The torturer has received his }list rewards. The students leave their dormitories, take to the streets and express their joy in patriotic songs. 10. THE TRIAL. A warrant of arrest is issued against Codreanu who is locked up in the prison of Galata near Iassy where he is subjected to physical violence. He is put into an unheated cell with a plain piece of wood for a bed. Winter has come and the dungeon is so damp that water streams down the walls. He is given nothing with which to cover himself and he suffers terribly from the cold. By way of food he receives one black loaf of bread a day. It is thus that he spends the next 13 days. The government wanted at whatever cost to secure the conviction of Codreanu. However, the atmosphere in Iassy, not seeming sufficiently favourable to this, the Ministry of Justice orders the accused to be transferred to Focsani. As the trial was to take place in the Criminal Court it was of the utmost importat).ce that the social background from wliich the jury would be chosen was not affected by the nationalist tide. Focsani was considered a 24 fortress of the Liberal Party. Now, to the great sutprise of the government, from the moment Codreanu is taken to the city; a radical change of opinion reveals itself. The liberal fortress ~hanges into a nationalist fortress. The entire. population, irrespe~ve of political affiliation, is going to acclaim the hero of the youth. The leading families of the town worry about his fate and their children figure amongst his defenders. The trial is set for March 14th 1925. The accused has already been led into the courtroom and the jury chosen by ballot when it is announced that an adjournment of the trial has been ordered from Bucharest. The crowd which has flooded into Focsani to be present at the trial -300 alone came from Iassy demonstrate noisily with the local people against this adjournment and conde:rml the government's approach as an abuse. The government had been informed by the local administration that they could not count upon the jurors of the locality and that Codreanu's acquittal was a certainty. It.was vital to find quickly another town where there was no powerful Jewish presence, for its existence was automatically unleashing the nationalist feelings of Romanians. The Minister of Justice orders the trial to be transferred to Tumu Severin in the town of Oltenia in a purely Romanian region which appears to fit the bill of the government's hidden agenda. There are very few Jews and anti-Jewish activity is unknown. The locaI administration have guaranteed the government that Codreanu will be found gmlty there. However, the calculations of the government prove as unwarranted as the first time. The death of Manciu has taken on the proportions of a national event. The trend of sympathy towards Codreanu has spread throughout the cotJntry and the sentence everywhere was the same: acquittal. The more the government is bent on fixing the outcome of the trial, the more does popular anger grow. hi Tumu Severin the trial days are days of celebration. The prison where Codreanu is held has become a place of pilgrimage. The accused is wrapped in the warm affection of the people. Thousands of people from all comers of the country have sped there to demonstrate their support. The local administration is not only not capable of fulfilling their promises to the government, but is itself carried along by the general enthusiasm. The trial begins on May 20th 1925. The Chief Magistrate had received 19,300 written applications to appear for the defence of the young nationalist. In the court no one is listening to the reading of the charges; all exchanges appear to be a formality. The witnesses for the prosecution, the police officers from Iassy who had tortured the students, have trouble getting through the ugly crowd. 25 When the acquittal is read, an indescribable fervour engulfs the crowd. All eyes tum to the ymmg man, calm and proud in the dock. He is ·carried triumphantly into the streets of the town. . From Tumu Severin, Comeliu Codreanu, along with his defence team and the students come for the trial, leave by special train· for lassy. Along the whole route of the journey, thousands of men gather at the stations to salute him. In Bucharest at the .Gare du Nord,· 50,000 people are awaiting the arrival of the train. A mysterious force led the crowds ~o the station that day as Codreanu explains: · "Come to the station because amongst the trains which are passing there is one which is today rolling on. the tracks of the Romanian future. Other trains are travelling for the benefit of their passengers; but _this one is travelling along the tracks ofthe nation, for the nation." 11. THE VICTORY AND COLLAPSE OF THE LEAGUE. The mood evoked by the trial .in the country is pregnant. It rebounds favourably on the political organization of which the hero is a member: the National Christian Defence League.· · Unfortunately, Professor Cuza, President of the League, does not know how to draw advantage from this precious .Political moment; he lets the popular enthusiasm die away. Fdr his part, Codreanu insists that they launch . themselves immediately into a campaign to channel this potential, by creating structures where they are lacking, by consolidating that whicJ:i already exists. From this difference of viewpoints is ·born the first· misunderstanding between the.Professor and Codreanu. The President of the League is convinced that the party is going to win without ·problems, carried to power by an irresistible surge. of the masses, whilst· Codreanu, more aware of the weaknesses of human nature, puts the accent on the need to organize. In order to avoid aggravating the differences between the professor and himself on the matter of League organization, and also feeling the need to round off his studies, Codreanu decides to go abroad, choosing France this time. In the autumn of 1925, he leaves the country and settles hi Grenoble where he takes· a doctorate course in Political Economy. · In March 1926, General Averesco comes to power. In May of the same year, new elections are called and the League stands for the first time. At the · insistence of leading figures in the League, Professor Cud accepts that Codreanu should be the candidate in Focsani. Codreanu breaks off his studies and returns to the country to take part in the electoral campaign. 26 fu the department of Putna, of which Focsani is ihe capital, the League is systematically prevented from making contact with the population. A "state of siege" had been declared and to go there to propagandize, it is necessary to obtafu a safe conduct. Although· Codreanu has this document on him, and although he is the candidate, the police want to prevent him from leaving the city.· He refuses to submit to this illegal act and passes by them. The police fire, and the car leaves with two bullets in the bodywork. By a miracle neither Codreanu nor his companion5 are hurt. · Following this incident, Codreanu returns to Bucharest to make a complaint to the Minister of Justice, Octavian Goga, from whom it appears the order came to stop him. After a discussion with Goga, he obtains a pennit to move freely during bis electoral campaign; but there are only two more days. to the election and he is authorized only to speak in each village for one minute. On election day the officers of the League are misled and are unable to go to the voting booths. Entire villages are unable to vote. The result was. a foregone conclusion: Codreanu is not elected despite his enormous popularity in this department. All the same, the young candidate is happy with the result obtained. The League had gained a fairly good result, in· spite of government tactics: throughout the country it received 120,000 votes and gained. 10 seats in Parliament. Professor Cuza, with an excellent group of people, enters Parliament. The League sees before it the possibility of becoming the major political force in the country within.a few years if this first small group can carry through successfully proof of action and give assurances of its loyalfy to the nationalist credo. All the eyes and all the hopes of the nation were set upon this group of 10 League MPs. Upon their eneigy, upon their courage, and upon their devotion is fixed the future of Romanian nationalism. Codreanu sets out again for Grenoble to continue his studies. At the beginning of May 1927, disconcerting news comes to him from the country: the National· Christian Defence League has split in two. Despairing letters from Ion Mota amongst others - beg him to return to Romania to try and save the League. Bowled over by this sad event, he asks the lecturers to allow him to sit his examinations early and, after having passed them, he returns to his country. The situation he findS is far worse than he had thought. Professor Cuza had expelled from the League the majority of its leadership, including eight out of her ten MPs. To the immense satisfaction of the other political parties, the League, the organization upon which the Ro~an people had put so many hopes, b.ad collapsed, undennined by internal dissension. The great nationalist movement, the fruit of so many battles and sa many satrifices, which, after the 27 hopes of the beginning, should have gained power in several years, was reduced to nought, broken and powerless. The main cause of this state of affairs was none other than the President himself,. Professor Cuza. He was not of leadership calibre; neither was he an organizer or driving force. Rather he was a man of science and an ideologue. Extremely well qualifie.d for matters pertaining to theory, he was ineffective and clumsy when he came into contact with reality. Codreanu sincereiy admitted that part of the guilt for this reverse also fell on him and on the group of young people who had pushed and cajoled the professor into accepting a position for which he was not suited. After a desperate attempt to rally the League, an attempt which_ merely confirms that any reconciliation is out of the question, Codreanu decides to support neither of the two factions. Faced by this disaster, he is going to do his best to set up before his adversaries a new line of resistance, made up solely of nationalist youth. The university movement had to be sheltered from the disintegrating effects of the split in the ranks of "the old". With the youth intact, it was necessary to begin something anew. 12. THE POLITICIANS. In the last analysis, to a people established in a country for only a couple of decades and which, throughout its long history of dispersion, has never undertaken truly productive work contenting itself with speculation upon the productive wealth of others; to a people which had never shown any attachment or. feeling of gratitude to the people which had welcomed them, one cannot ask such a group to change its habits from one day to the next and to work sincerely with the people who welcome it! It was for the Romanian .politicians, for the parties, the Statesmen of the differing governments to which they belonged to make their act of loyalty. It was for these people to make sure that the Romanian people did not become the victim of the aggressive instincts of the Jewish minority. It was these who should have made sure that the nation's talents develop freely and in generous conditions of competition with the Jew and otherforeigners in the country. · Thus, there was no need even for a political anti-Jewishness, properly speaking. Worthy politicals w~s enough. By balanced laws rigorously applied, by efficient administration and a healthy economic programme whose objective was the improvement of the lot of the masses, especially the peasantry, the Jewish threat could have been greatly diminished and the postwar turbulence would not have occurred. , In the. course of these nine years of battles and sufferings, Codreanu discovers that there is an evil as great as" "Communism" and the "Jewish Question",- an evil which gnaws away at the vitality of the people: the curse of dirty politics. By this Codreanu ineans that spirit, that mentality, that formation found in all the political parties and bred into those elements that formed the ruling class of the country: Future Members of Parliament,. Lords, Civil Servants, Ministers, far from being formed by the values of goodness and patriotism, far from being conscious of their duties towards the people and the State, were accustomed to think only of their own personal interests or of that group to which they belonged, to detest an upright bearing as an impediment to a political career, to use any means whatever to hack out for themselves a place in public life; then, once they achieved power, it only remained for them to enrich themselves by working with their ilk at the task of ransacking the State revenue· and the resources of the country. In all of the old political parties, the up and coming generations were taught cowardice, treason, perjury and immorality. For Comeliu Codreanu at that time, dirty politics was an infinitely greater danger than Communism, than the piling up of wealth by Jews, than all of the suffering of the people taken collectively, for it undermined the moral integrity of the nation, weakened its ability to respond to the danger, even destroying the possibility of rejuvenating the country. lit this respect he said: 29 "The greatest danger to the nation is found in the fact that our Daco-Roman racial background has become deformed and disfigured, giving birth to this type of man, creating this human wreck, this moral caricature: the politician, who no longer possesses the nobility of our race, who shames us and destroys ,, us. The politician was found in all the parties. Everyone of them without exception was rotten to the core. No healthy reform, beneficial. to the Romaman people, could take place whilst this evil type was controlling the fate of the country, and the Nationalist Movement could only win by overthrowing the domination of this type once and for all. In the struggles undergone up until then, Codreanu had constantly opposed himself to this enemy which.was defending his privileges with grimness and cruelty, and by allying himself with the Jews in the exploitation of the p~ople. It is the politician who opposed the just demands of the stUdent movement, who encouraged the police to beat the youth; it was likewise he who provoked and excused the excesses of Manciu, he who left the working class in poverty and abandoned· to Communist agitators; and finally, he yet again, who, falsifying the whole of political life, tamed democracy into a vulgar and tragic farce. Comeliu Codreanu had one further sad political. experience in the elections of .1926. Here is what he says about how the government were respecting the articles of the Constitution: ''Alas! for Justice and Law in this country? I I am given the right to vote; I am invited to go and vote; if I do not go, I am fined; if I do go, I am manhandled. Romanian politicians, whether they are liberals, or supporters of Averesco, or national peasants, are only a band of tyrants who, under the slogans of "legality", ''freedom" and the "rights of man", are trampling· the country underfoot with ali their laws, with all their freedoms, and with all their rights. For the future, therefore, what way lies open to us?" . "How will we be able to vanquish if every government is born of similar elections, using corruption, treachery and physical force against the national will?" 30 THE CAPTAIN. TAKING THE SALUTE. 31 Jn the history of a nation, all revolutionary movements, all events which transform its life fundamentally, are the result of two factors: an aggregate of circumstances which prepares its appearance, and the man who clears the way, launching it onto the world as a nc;lw political and spiritual ideal. Jn the case of the legionary revolution, the synthesis of these two factors appears with startling clarity. After having achieved national unity, the Romanian people were looking for a new way to express their destiny. All of the political and .cultural manifestations of the post-war period expressed the same worry, the same desire for a new conception of life. Codreanu made his appearance at the most propitious moment in Romanian history in which to accomplisli. his task, that is to say, at the same time as the great wind of change was blowing over the Romanian people. A decade earlier his appeal would not have had the same resonance within the nation. Jn addition, it is important to recognize that without the fact of his extraordinary personality, the .Movement would not have been foni:i.ed with its distinctive style. Jn all probability, without the providential arrival of Comeliu Codreanu, . the already extant, loosely formed nationalist movement, would not have survived the phase of political immaturity, or, at best, it would not have risen above the level of the old parties as with Cuza' s League. 1. THE MAN. From the first moment of meeting Comeliu Codreanu, the thing that was the most striking was his physical presence. No one would have been able to be . near him without noticing it, without feeling himself attracted by it, and without asking who he was. His mere appearance in public excit~ curiosity. This young man seemed like a god come amongst mere mortals. He was tall and possessed of a larger than average head, without being, however,' a giant of a man who could make others feeJ ill at ease. His development stopped exactly where it was necessary in order to endow him 32 naturally with an air of distinction. Well proportioned, slim and stlpple, he was but muscle, resonance and style. If one examined the perfectly i;ounded features of his face, the admiration increased. No false note disrupted the harmony of the whole. His face was . round, his complexion pale; his forehead upright with the eye arches slightly raised; his dense chestnut coloured hair was sharply delineated from his skin; his same coloured eyebrows neatly CUIVed. Between his eyes two parallel folds highlighted his interior powers of concentration. His eyes were wide and green, a limpid green, warm and soothing; the nose straight and regular; the mouth beautifully drawn. A baritone voice, melodious and deep; long, fine hands that would have been the envy of any pianist; a regal bearing. · If we wanted to define him according to the artistic canons of our civilization, we would have to say that he was the synthesis of Nordic beauty with that ideal beauty of Ancient Greece. Even the Tharaud brothers in· their book, The Messenger of the Archangei, and without a good word for the Captain, had conimented'upon "his classical features". Looking at him one felt overwhelmed, bewitched. His face exuded an irresistible fascination. He was "a living manifesto" as the legionaries used to say. He was the leader without peer, the one who carries the day whatever the gathering, whatever the situation. In his presence, everyone else naturally took second place, and it was he alone who always remained the subject of general interest. Without doubt there is in this world a host of individuals with some special feature, but who are empty within, who are not aware of any moral or spiritual impulse that corresponds to the physical gifts that nature has bestowed upon them. With· Comeliu Codreanu, to this physical magnificence was attached an extraordinary interior richness. The acclamations of the crowd left him wholly untouched. The praise of him made him angry. He possessed only the pride of the fighter and the ambitions of the great reformers. The common sense of the Captain was proverl>ial. In human relations he was possessed of a rare humility and a perfect tact. He· was wholly incapable of being Un.just to no matter whom, to do the least evil consciously. From this spiritual body comes, moreover, one of his great teachings: always act correctly .and politely, even with your enemies; only use moral weapons in the struggle. A Victory gained through treachery was vitiated at core and could_ not last. Yet at the same time, when the situation required it, this same gentle soul would bubble with volcanic energy. His gestures, normally calm and precise, cut the air like a blade of steel. His tranquil features hardened and his eyes emitted flashes of lightning. 33 The main characteristic of his soul was kindness.·If someone wanted to know the main reason why Comeliu Codreanu threw himself into such a difficult, almost impossible, struggle, the only true reply is that he had pity for the suffering of the people. His heart bled from a thousand wounds seeing the misery in which the Romanian peasants and workers were struggling. His love for his people had no limits! He was sensitive to every suffering afflicting the toiling masses. He had a reverence for the poor and gave over infinite. attention to their dreams and hopes. The least complaint, the least request, was studied with the same seriousness as that accorded to grave political problems. It is this immense love for the people which gives birth to and which propels the Legionary Movement. Into its foundations, he put the whole of his feelings and sacrifice. He joined his people with pride and devotion on its road of endless sufferings until the torturers took away his life. His death was a crime, not merely against the Romanian nation and the Legionary Movement, but against all the moral and spiritual principles of mankind that he defended and incarnated like all true martyrs. The future will surely be more gracious to him than was his own period. · Nevertheless, his sacrifice was not in vain! From beneath the rubble of a holocaust that should have marked the end of all hope, the tree of life of legionary doctrine pushes forth unendingly the immortal ideas of the Captain, The central role of the Captain in the construction of the new Romanian conscience and of the Legionary Movement, at least in the political expression of this conscience, has been admirably described by Dr. Ion Banea. This comrade of the first hour, one of the most loved of his colleagues, and who, like him, died ~martyr, characterized his leader thus: "The Captain! A steadfast marker, a frontier. A sword held between two worlds. An old worla which he valiantly strives to overthrow; a new world that he creates, to which he gives life, which he calls into the light. His figure m the ensemble of the nationalist movement since the war lo.oms like a wall of fire about which all important events turn. He has been its inspiration, its motivator. Forever at the front-line of the struggle, full of faith and resolve, never hesitating or seeking to avoid responsibility. His life is interlaced with the struggle and with the nationalist movement to the point that there is no longer any room for a private life, everything within him constantly melting into one great gesture at the service of the national interest. .Predestined to sacrifice, he led a life vivid and tormented. His life was full to the brim with action and .threatened by all kinds of danger. He raised himself to breathtaking heights and sank into the abyss.from . 34 I which God alone, in whom he believed so strongly, could save him. Defj;ing the view of a life of forced labour, he only wanted to see the greatness of Romanian national solidarity. . The terrible days of prison gnawed at his health, but he knew too the exhilaration of the most poignant moments, when tens of thousands of young people surrounded him and looked up to him. He walked in step with his times, greeting with a smile on his lips, the sarcasm and the praise. Truly comprehending courage, he dedicated his life to the struggle. He gave himselfentirely to the Movement, asking nothing for himself. His enemies wished for his death, but it only raised him ,ever higher. The Captain! Thought; Decision, Action, Bravery, Life!" Even today, we may join with Ion Banea and say, although 30 years have passed since his infamous murder, that in spite of the wish of his enemies to· see him crushed, Comeliu Codreanu has risen irresistibly in the coriscience of the Romanian people becoming the spiritual home of the resistance to the invader from the East. 2. THE BACKGROUND. we understand by this word all that went before, all the efforts of the nation see~g a better life which, even if they did not achieve positive results, cleared the path for the appearance of the Legionary Movement. The Movement did'not emerge from the head of a single man and nor was it the expression of some~g ephemeral. It was born of the deep worries that distmbed eVety social class. After the close. of the First World War and the bringing together of ~l Romanian provinces into a unitary state, public opinion was looking for compensation for the sacrifices sustained at the front, desiring a life that was better and juster in every respect. The general trend of the time was to demand from the political leadership, structural reforms in every facet of national life. We will recapitulate here briefly the political life of Romania between 19191930 in order to explain the causes for the loss of confidence in the old parties, as well as those founded immediately after the war, on the part of the masses, and their placing their last hopes on the legionary youth. . . The generation of former combatants - officers and men who had forged the. Greater Romania at incredible cost - r~tumed from the. trenches, its soul in rebellion against the old political leaders. During the course of this war all of the evils from which the Romanian State would suffer are exposed: the Anny had been sent to war badly armed and badly prepared, the administration had demonstrated its uselessnessf and, behiild the lines, indecently· flaunted its 35 favouritism and wheeler-dealing. The former combatants wanted, therefore, new men at the head of the country and a thorough cleansing of public life from the foundations upward. The oldparties had become detested. Before the war two parties governed the country alternately: the Conseivative Party and the Lib~ral Party. After the war the Conservative Party quickly disappeared, being unable to survive the changes occasioned by the war in the political, economic and social life of Romania. The Liberal Party would have suffered the Sa.me fate if it had not been saved by another force. Deprived of popular support, this party prolonged its existence artificially, thanks only to the complicity of the Crown. King Ferdinand I brought the liberals to power .each time that John Bratianu, the leader of the party, thought it opportune, thereby regularly violating the will of the nation. When General Averesco, one of the military chiefs who had won himself glory during the war, entered political life and founded the People's Party, the . Trenches Generation ranged itself immediately under his bann¥T. He appeared to be the man predestined to lead the nation to a better future. But the People's Party, after a brilliant electoral victory, and a· period of most fruitful government, lost itself in the swamps of dirty politics becoming, in the end, an electoral pawn in the subtle strategy of the Liberal Party. The political star of General Averesco goes out during his second period of government between 1926 - 27. Again, as much a dynamic expression of the new tendencies to cleanse public life after the First World War, arises another party: the Peasant-Party under the leadership of Jbhn Mihalache. . This party, unlike the others, possessed a class background. It was based upon the peasantry. that it wanted to elevate politically and economically. Unacceptable to King Ferdinand - who rarely rejected the _advice of John Bratianu, the Liberal Party boss - the Peasant Party was artificially kept out of power despite the great popularity which it enjoyed. All these parties had their origin and base in the Old Kingdom. Yet the picture of post-,war political life in Romania has to be completed by the political contn"bution, no less enthusiastic~ of the new provinces: Transylvania, Bessarabia, Bucovina, all returned to the Mother-country. · In Transylvania, in faci, there existed the Romanian National Party under which flag .the Romanians of this region had struggled against Hungarian domination. Under the leaderShip of Jules Maniu, this party began to expand throughout the Old Kingdom as well, hoping to gain power by itself. It didn't get there for the same reasons that had prevented the Peasant Party. The Crown, dominated by the Liberal Party, barred ~e way to it for a long time. In 1926 the two ostracized parties - the Peasant Party and the Romanian National Party - join together as· one bloc against the traditional Liberal· Party, 36 which intended to remain in power for good, be it directly or through those it nominated. In the atmosphere of the time, the Romanian people saw Jules Maniu. as a saviour. When, after being in opposition for nearly 10 years, the National Peasants :finally came to power in 1928, neither the President nor the Party itself represented any longer the hopes of the nation. Instead of bringing in a new spirit of honesty into the structures of the State, the political cadres from Transylvania (which made up the elite of the new party) adapted themselves to the corrupt habits of the ruling class of the Old Kingdom, resulting thereby in a new deception of the broad masses. Up until 1928, the year of their rise to power, the National Peasants had constituted a political unknown, full of promises. However, after their disastrous government of nearly three years (1928 - .1930), their party rapidly loses support. As far as the politicals of Bessarabia and Bucovina are concerned, these, with a handful of exceptions, joined the extant political organizations in the country and shared the fate of these groups. What the people had hoped for, that is to say the rejuvenation of the political life of the entire country, under the impulse of the politicals come from the liberated provinces, faded away after only a· couple of years of demagogic co-existence under the roof of a united Romania! The third mass trend which sought to change the political landscape of the post-war country had been the nationalist movement. We have spoken at length of the origins of this movement and we have seen how it came to be transformed into a political structure: the Nationa1 Christian Defence League. It has to be noted that the nationalist current had become so powerful by . 1926 that, if the League had not split in two, it would have been able to become the strongest party in the country. Due to its structural weaknesses, not only did it not realize this cherished dream of every Romanian, but it even lost the place it had hitherto gained iii political life. Whilst in the 1926 elections the League had won 10 seats in Parliament, in the elections of the following year, neither of the two nationalist factions succeeded in sending a single Member to Parliament. The nationalist movement itself had equally deceived the nation. After these three abortive revolutions, the Romanian people slipped back once again into resignation and indifference, its usual weapons of defence before the vicissitudes of history. The people· supported the party domination as they supported natural calamity. ·But the great national problems, those which had pushed the masses to put their hope in, one after the other, General Averesco, Professor Cuza and Jules Maniu, still hadn't been resolved by any of them. The outrageous exploitation of the ma8ses did not diminish even when 37 the so-called party "of the peasants" came to power. This wa~ the last surge of popularity that the traditional party set up was to know. Due to their deficiencies, all the political ideals which had carried along the Trenches Generation, had collapsed. From 1930 on, the landscape is open to the work of the Legionary Movement. The Legionary Movement is going to fill a void in the national conscience. It is towards Corneliu Codreanu that the popular masses are going to go henceforth, searching for Social Justice and National Pride. Frustrated hopes will come to life once again when, across the towns and villages of Romania, legionary songs will resound. 3. THEACT. Friday, June 24th 1927 Corneliu Codreanu writes in a register, 'Order of the Day, 'item number 1: Today, Friday, June 24th 1927 (Feast of St John the.Baptist) at 10.00pm the Legion of Saint .Michael the Archangel is founded under my leadership. Whosoever comes into its ranks let him believe totally. Whosoever stays . without, let him have doubts. I appoint Radu Mrronovici as the. Guardian of the Icon." CORNELIUCODREANU. Such is the birth of !Ile Legionary Movement. Sev~ral lines.· An order. given on the field of battle at the same moment that nationalist forces are falling into disarray. An army chief takes on responsibility for the situation just as one does in the case of a_ disaster. It is only after having written this order, which represents the creation of the l\4ovement, that Codreanu appeals to his comrades in arms, those from the student movement days, to read this order and to ask them if they can accept it or not. No political group. was created in Romania or elsewhere by Such simple means: one man makes a decision in the name of a generation; the others have the choice of following him or of remaining slaves for life. The whole · human drama is contained in_ this freedom of choice. Comeliu Codreanu, visionary and psychologist, fully appreciated this moment of .sincerify of the man.towards himself. Even his closest friends, those with whom he shared so much suffering and prison, ai:e asked to choose. In creating the Legionary Movement without any prior consultation with the broad masses or with his own comrades, did Codreanu act arbitrarily? Hardly! Arbitrary means that someone does something according to his own good pleasure, without any other reason than mere whim. Now Codreanu wasn't 38 acting in his own personal interests nor satisfying some kind of undeclared ambition: he :was reading destiny, he was giving expression to a spiritual state. Who could ltave helped him in this task, when he alone understood the full political, social, historical and human meaning! It was a matter above all propelled by the undying vision of a country· and nation, threatened by moral disintegration. It was not a new party that was founded;· rather a tool had been forged for the regeneration and renaissance of Romania's destiny in the world. Against the itb.placable enemies of Romania, it was necessary to open up a new front without 'delay, at a time when the old front was collapsing due to their intrigues and to their applause. Comeliu Codreanu did not wish to dialogue with individuals or groups dug in behind their privileges or dangerously steeped in their demands; he directly felt the soul of the nation which he· wanted to interpret and put into action its orders. He alone understood at this moment of history the searing cries of a country humiliated and outraged. It is in his mind alone that is reflected the full horror of the Romanian tragedy, threatened even in its physical existence. Codreanu, addressing himself to the young people of his generation, said to them: " This is my way. I did not choose it myself. It was vouchsaf~d to me by a higher power. You, ifyou ha\Je the courage, and if the spirit of sacrifice for a higher cause has not gone out in you, follow me on this difficult path which, at every turn, has a danger lying in wait for you. If the joys of life are more precious t~ you, do not throw yourself into this struggle which dema~ds that the individual break with all human pleasures. " 4. THE CAPTAIN. When legionaries addressed thems~lves to their chief or wrote to him, they used the expression "Captain", unless they were amongst the longest standing comrades, with whom he had shared his earliest struggles and prison sentences, in which case they called him 4uite simply: Corneliu. The title "Captain" arose ve:& early in the relations between legionaries and chief, more or less from the o~tset of the movement. It wasn't Codreanu who chose it. The title appeared quite spontaneously on the lips of the}egionaries, and it remained a natural expression of respect towards. the Founder of the Legion. This title bears no relation to the corresponding military rank. With Romanians, "the Captain" is an idea that one meets frequently in the history of the nation. Before Co_meliu Codreanu, -there were other historical figures honoured by their contemporaries with the tj.~e of "Captain". There were, for example, the fanious "capitani de oaste" -,army captainsi- of the Romanian 39 princes - like the famous Bab Novae of Prince Michael the Brave - who were important military officers of the Principalities. · In the eighteenth century there appeared the no less celebratei:l "capitani de haiduci ", the leaders of the Romanian insurrections against phanariot domination. They lived hidden in the mountains and forests, and from there attacked government officials who were oppressirig the people. However, the real "capitani" of the Romanian people, to whom Codreanu was joined by the legionaries, were the great revolutionary figures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Hori.a,. Tudor Vladimiresco ·and Avram Ianco. These were not commanders of military groups of greater or lesser importance, nor of patriotic .:fighting groups numbered by the dozen. These "Capitani" gathered round them the entire population of the region or province from which they hailed. Under their leadership tens of thousands of men were brought together, and they exercised considerable power throughout a large part of the country. During the course of our history "Captains", in the revolutionary sense of the word, arose when the legitimate rulers - princes and the like - had ceased to be the defenders of the people, be it due to death in the wars, be it due to the fact that they separated themselves from the nation through collaborating with the enemy in order to conserve their class privileges. During these periods, when there was no longer any one from the ruling class to defend it from foreign oppression, the people took their destiny into their own hand$. From its breast burst forth a new impetus that no longer wanted anything to do with the•deposed class. It is then that the "capitani" appeared, valiant men come from the ranks of the people, intent on defending them until death against the abuses that were crushing them. These captains, educated or not, were peasants or the sons of peasants. They always appeared wh1<n the Romanian people despaired, when the suffering caused by foreign domination had become unbearable. Ready to sacrifice themselves, to open up a new path in the history of the nation, the "capitani" were determined characters, real powers, able with a word or a gesture to raise up the pi;:rsecuted masses. Never an