page_title: National Peasants' Party
section_title: PNȚ symbols
hierarchical_section_title: National Peasants' Party / PNȚ symbols
context_page_description: The National Peasants' Party was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party, a conservative-regionalist group centered on Transylvania, and the Peasants' Party, which had coalesced the left-leaning agrarian movement in the Old Kingdom and Bessarabia. The definitive PNR–PȚ merger came after a decade-long rapprochement, producing a credible contender to the dominant National Liberal Party. National Peasantists agreed on the concept of a "peasant state", which defended smallholding against state capitalism or state socialism, proposing voluntary cooperative farming as the basis for economic policy. Peasants were seen as the first defense of Romanian nationalism and of the country's monarchic system, sometimes within a system of social corporatism. Regionally, the party expressed sympathy for Balkan federalism and rallied with the International Agrarian Bureau; internally, it championed administrative decentralization and respect for minority rights, as well as, briefly, republicanism. It remained factionalized on mainly ideological grounds, leading to a series of defections.
context_section_description: Before 1938, the PNȚ used as its electoral symbol a plain circle—which party propaganda also described as a "ring", "wheel", or "sun". Originally used by the Progressive Conservative Party, and then, briefly, by Mihalache's PȚ, it was imposed on the PNR by its allies during the formation of the National–Peasant Bloc in 1926. Coincidentally or not, most of the PNȚ's rivals on the interwar agrarian scene, from the National Agrarian Party and the Romanian Front to the Radical Peasants' Party and the Lupists, used circular icons as their logos. The similarities had various results: while the Front claimed to have lost votes in the resulting confusion, the PȚD-L "would have reportedly taken no mandates had it not used for a sign two overlaid wheels".
  The PNȚ made a point of not using any political color. According to a 1936 communique jibing at the rise of fascism, the Peasant Guards could only wear badges showing the Romanian tricolor—"and not signs borrowed from our [country's] centuries-old enemies." Colored symbols were unofficial, but attested from 1928, when PNȚ organizations in Bihor had tens of flags of unspecified shades. Formed the following year, Voinici groups also carried such symbols, and had a hierarchy which included "flag-bearers". Accounts of the period suggest that these carried the Romanian tricolor, or flags inscribed with the party name. Additionally, Voinici appropriated the Roman salute, which became their official greeting.
  In 1930, peasant voters from the Bessarabian town of Vaisal are known to have rallied under a red flag with a circle. Months after, the party newspaper Țara de Mâine informed its readers that "the symbolic color of peasant (or agrarian, agricultural etc.) parties is green." This custom was also observed at 1936 marches, during which National Peasantist youths flew a green flag, described in one account as bearing a golden clover. Reports of these rallies also suggest that PNȚ cadres used both the Roman salute, of alleged fascist inspiration, and the raised fist, which had leftist connotations. Unlike Vaida's Front, the PNȚ was not affected by Tătărescu's ordinance of March 1937, which outlawed party colors and political uniforms.
  Standardized electoral symbols were themselves outlawed in 1938; during the abortive electoral campaign of that year, parties ran under a "numbered dots" system, which reflected their order of registration. A controversy erupted when the PNȚ was assigned five dots, despite registering third. Maniu fought against the measure and obtained a three-dot symbol. For the ill-fated elections of 1946, the PNȚ used a depiction of the human eye as its logo. In his speeches, Maniu associated this symbol with the need for lucidity, as in: to keep one's eyes wide open. Where the PNȚ was discouraged from participating, hand-painted images of the eye became signals of popular discontent. Following the 1947 clampdown, the symbol was also prohibited, leading overzealous officials in Gorj County to demand that church murals featuring the Eye of Providence (which they read as "Maniu's Eye") be painted over.
caption: PNȚ eye logo, as used in the elections of 1946