Mihail Manoilescu | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 74thMinister of Foreign Affairs of Romania | |
| In office 4 July 1940 – 14 September 1940 | |
| Prime Minister | Ion Gigurtu |
| Preceded by | Constantin Argetoianu |
| Succeeded by | Mihail R. Sturdza |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1891-12-09)December 9, 1891 |
| Died | December 30, 1950(1950-12-30) (aged 59) |
| Political party | National Liberal Party People's Party Iron Guard |
| Alma mater | School of Bridges and Roads |
| Occupation | Engineer, economist, journalist |
| Employer(s) | National Bank of Romania Politehnica University of Bucharest |
Mihail Manoilescu (Romanian pronunciation:[mihaˈilmano.iˈlesku]; December 9, 1891 – December 30, 1950) was aRomanian journalist, engineer, economist, politician and memoirist, who served asForeign Minister of Romania during the summer of 1940. An active promoter of and contributor to fascist ideology and antisemitic sentiment,[1] he was a financial backer of theIron Guard in the late 1930s. Hiscorporatist ideas influenced economic policy in several countries during the 1930s, particularly inBrazil.
Born to a political family inTecuci, he was the nephew ofAlexandru Bădărău, twice a minister inConservative cabinets during the early 1900s, and a descendant of theMoldavianboyar known asLogofătul Tăutu [ro]; his grandfather was strong unionist, a supporter of the Union of Moldova with Wallachia, while his father was a member of theSocialist Party.[2] The Manoilescus moved toIași when Mihail was a child. Having been the recipient of theGazeta Matematică prize in 1910, he went on to study at the "Școala de Poduri și Șosele" (the School of Bridges and Roads) inBucharest, completing his training as avaledictorian in 1915.[3] Manoilescu was subsequently assigned to the Ministry of Public Works, and later moved to an artillery regiment inRoman.[4]
Upon Romania's entry intoWorld War I, he was assigned to the Directorate of Ammunitions (led byTancred Constantinescu), and designed an original type of 210mmhowitzer, which, after southern Romania was invaded by theCentral Powers (seeRomanian Campaign), was produced inNicolina [ro].[5] After the conflict, in 1919, he had a minor role in theNational Liberal Party (PNL) governments, assisting General Constantinescu as Head of the Industrial Recovery Directorate and later as General Director of Industry.[5]
Soon, Manoilescu joined thePeople's Party, apopulist force led by GeneralAlexandru Averescu, becoming undersecretary of state in the latter'sfirst cabinet.[6] He was responsible for measures such as organizing the Industrial Exhibition, carrying out industrial statistics, and unifying legislation related to the industry.[5] In 1921, he resigned his ministerial position, justifying it as an attempt to further his expertise and investigative range.[5]
During the period when the PNL returned to government, Manoilescu focused on his research, and contributed 18 individual works.[5] He also became influential as an orator, and was a frequent presence in conferences hosted by the sociologistDimitrie Gusti.[5] Manoilescu returned to high office with thesecond Averescu executive, and drafted innovative legislation concerningtariffs and salaryamortization.[5]
In 1926, while on a mission toItaly, where he was to negotiate a loan and pave the way for the friendship treaty signed between the two countries,[7] he met thefascist dictatorBenito Mussolini and became his admirer (calling theFascist regime "a truly constructive political revolution, one that can only compare itself with thegreat French revolution in scale and novelty").[8] Subsequently, he was active in collaboration with theComitati d'azione per l'universalità di Roma and other Italian-led projects of international cooperation.[9]
He was then an advocate of the crowning ofCarol Caraiman asKing of Romania (in the place of his underage sonMihai).[10] In the autumn of 1927, while distributing Carol's appeals to the leaders of various political parties and carrying his letter toQueen Marie, he was arrested (martial law was proclaimed by theIon I. C. Brătianu government in the incident's wake).[11] Manoilescu, who benefited from Averescu's vocal support, wasacquitted when tried by a court subordinated to the Council of War in late November.[12]
His own testimony was indicated byTime as arguing that Carol was alarmed by an alleged growth inrepublicanism and only wished to be part of theRegency.[13] He also stated:
"The Prince is too loyal and decent to think of dethroning his own son."[14]
While accusing the executive of having previously attempted to purchase his silence, Manoilescu stressed his belief thatKing Ferdinand had, just before his death, asked Brătianu for Carol to be allowed to return.[13] He also speculated that Ferdinand had endorsed a regency only for as long as Carol continued to behave irresponsibly, and had not wanted to exclude his son from the throne.[13] Averescu, who unsuccessfully called on both Carol and Brătianu to take the stand,[13] backed this version by mentioning his own experience as a mediator between Ferdinand and Carol, during which the latter had allegedly agreed to comply, while the former had eventually become more open to Carol's return.[15]
The acquittal came as a shock, given rumors that Premier Brătianu had instructed the court to find Manoilescu guilty.[16] In an unusual incident during the first day of trial, news correspondents from abroad were told that international phone connections had been severed—they resorted to crossing theDanube intoBulgaria atGiurgiu, using phones there to contact their employers, and repeated the trip several times over the following days.[16]
After Carol returned to rule asCarol II in mid-1930, Manoilescu was a very influential person in the king'scamarilla, being the Minister of Economy in theNational Peasants' Party (PNȚ) cabinets ofIuliu Maniu andGheorghe Mironescu (while he was a member of that party),[17] as well as underNicolae Iorga (1931-1932).[18] He was elected to theAssembly of Deputies for the PNȚ in 1930, representingCaraș County.[5] His political adversaries speculated that he had forged documents and played a hand in bringing Carol's mistress,Magda Lupescu, back into the country.[19]
In his memoirs, Manoilescu claimed that, at the time, he had played a hand in the release ofMihai Gheorghiu Bujor (imprisoned since 1918, due to hisBolshevik activism and designs for acommunist revolution);[20] Manoilescu authored a series of articles in his support, and allegedly intervened alongside King Carol[20] (it is generally accepted that the most decisive action in this respect was taken by Maniu, who spoke against imprisonment forpolitical crimes such as Bujor's).[20]
At the time, he became a staunch rival of his fellow PNȚ memberVirgil Madgearu. According toPetre Pandrea's hostile account, Manoilescu purchased from the writersSergiu Dan andIon Vinea an allegedly stolen text which appeared to be entirely written by Madgearu, but had been heavily forged by the two to include criticism of the king; Manoilescu attempted to use the document against its supposed author, but was exposed by Carol himself (who, according to Pandrea, was amused by the events).[21] The incident contributed to PNŢ inner-conflict that caused Manoilescu to leave the grouping.[21]
In 1931, Manoilescu was governor of theNational Bank of Romania[5] and began teachingpolitical economy at thePolytechnic Institute. As governor, he refused to salvage theMarmorosch Blank Bank with state funds, and clashed with Carol over the issue, being ultimately removed from office in November of the same year.[5]
He began editing a magazine,Lumea Nouă, which was to become the main platform for his ideas, and, in 1932, created his own party—Liga Național-Corporatistă (National-Corporatist League).[22] Between 1932 and 1937, he was assigned a seat in theSenate, representing theRomanian Chamber of Commerce.[5]
InParis in 1929, he published the first version of his fundamental work,The theory ofprotectionism and international exchanges at the Giard publishing house (as part of the "Bibliothèque Économique Internationale" collection).[5] His intense advocacy ofindustrialization formed the main theme of the bookThe role and destiny of Romania'sbourgeoisie (1942), which was one of the main works dealing with the development of a localmiddle class, alongside those written byŞtefan Zeletin andEugen Lovinescu (while sharing some perspectives with the essays ofEmil Cioran);[23] the topic blended with his support forauthoritarianism and theone-party system, as Manoilescu rejecteddemocracy (which, in his view, encouraged the majority-forming peasantry to decide on matters that did not concern it).[24]The role and destiny... criticized the course of Romanian social development:
"[...] an oversized bourgeoisie which mimicks theboyars of yesteryear and has anover-bourgeois way of living, oversized in comparison with its means, creates a certain social instability and features a high percentage of individual failures.
That is whythe Romanian bourgeoisie is not in fact a bourgeoisie in one of its most essential features; whereas theOccident focuses onaccumulation,security andthe future, our bourgeoisie will focus onspending,satisfaction andthe present. Whereas the Western bourgeois work for their children, the Romanian bourgeois will often only work for themselves."[25]
Among others, Manoilescu adopted some of thePoporanist ideas oncapital and its international circulation, as present in the works ofConstantin Stere[26] (in turn influenced by theMarxistWerner Sombart).[27] He argued that a national economy coulddevelop only if it minimized its contacts with theworld market and relied instead on cultivatinginternal demand for a local industry.[28]
At the same time, his magazine supported anationalist andracist approach, viewing corporatism as "the guarantee ofRomanianization",[29] and proclaiming that "the racial basis of Romania is the same as that ofAryan Europe".[30] Manoilescu himself welcomed theantisemitic policies of theAlexandru Vaida-Voevod government.[31]
Manoilescu's corporatist and protectionist ideas began to be applied inBrazil, as the basis of that country's industrial development during itsEstado Novo regime.[32] His opinion that the engagement ofproductive forces in industry, seen as always more productive thanagriculture and otherraw materials, is a welcomed process constituted an influence on bothCelso Furtado andRaúl Prebisch[26] (arguably, it also indirectly influenced theUnited Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean). Disputed by severalneoclassical theorists, Manoilescu's ideas were abandoned after the 1930s.[32] Manoilescu influenced not only business circles in Brazil, but his arguments were also referred to by theLewiatan Group inPoland.[33] Mihail Manoilescu, together with the French economistFrançois Perroux, prepared the way for the reception of corporatism in Brazil during the 1930s.[34] Establishing corporatism in Brazil was partly achieved by translating and publishing into Portuguese some of Manoilescu's works.[35] During theInterwar, Manoilescu's economic and political essays were published inSpain,Portugal, Brazil andChile. His works also had some influence inArgentina, although not as much as in Brazil and Chile.[36] On the other hand, Manoilescu's advocacy ofautarkic measures has been compared to the measures enforced by laterStalinist regimes, including that ofNicolae Ceaușescu in Romania,[37] who on at least one occasion described his works as a major contribution to the theory ofunderdevelopment.[38]
Despite the increasingly tense relations between Carol and the fascistIron Guard, Manoilescu was viewed with interest by the latter.[39] By the late 1930s, he was himself a supporter of the Guard (which he hoped to see turning into a corporatist movement—"an instrument to validate the goals of the [Guard's] national revolution"),[40] and donated part of his land to one of the latter's enterprises.[41] His new discourse was ridiculed by his former colleagues in the National Peasants' Party, as "desperate attempts to exit from the [old generation of politicians] and sit among the new men".[42] In February 1937, he began discreetly financing the Guard's newly created paper,Buna Vestire (he was exposed as the man behind it by virtually all political commentators of the time).[43]
In theelection of 1937, he ran for theSenate on theEverything for the Fatherland Party list (which served as a front for the Iron Guard).[19][44] According to his political adversaryConstantin Argetoianu, the party's unofficial leaderCorneliu Zelea Codreanu made similar proposals to philosopherNae Ionescu and GeneralGheorghe Moruzi: Ionescu denied the request because, as a self-proclaimed pillar of the Guard, he could not accept such a lowly position, while Moruzi called Manoilescu "a con artist" and alluded to his reported connection withMagda Lupescu.[19] Argetoianu sarcastically remarked, "the party of «moral regeneration» was left with one guest, with Manoilescu!"[19] During the period, Manoilescu also applied changes to his earlier vision on industry and self-sufficiency, calling for Romania to develop itself by supplying raw materials to the rising force that wasNazi Germany.[45]
In July 1940, at the moment of crisis whenBessarabia andNorthern Bukovina wereceded to the Soviet Union, Manoilescu was named foreign minister in the pro-fascist government headed byIon Gigurtu. The new executive was faced with eventually successful attempts byHungary, backed by Italy and Nazi Germany, to revise its border with Romania by theTreaty of Trianon, in reality a dictate. Manoilescu, who was a supporter of theAxis alliance,[46] attempted in vain to make use of his influence with Italian authorities.[5] In order to ensure less international adversity toward Romania, he also offered to cedeSouthern Dobruja toBulgaria (although Germany had not included this revision in its demands toward the Romanian executive), an approach eventually leading to theTreaty of Craiova.
As foreign minister of Romania convoked by the Axis, on August 30, he signed theSecond Vienna Award, which dividedTransylvania between Hungary and Romania (seeNorthern Transylvania).[47] WhileGerman Foreign Minister,Joachim von Ribbentrop, communicated the final decision, in the Gold Room of theBelvedere Palace, Manoilescu fainted, after seeing the map of the new borders, imposed by Germany and Italy, whilst the Hungarian side jubilated.[48]
In September, he was involved in negotiations withSoviet envoys regarding adétente between the two countries; at the time, examining the situation created by warm relations between the Axis and the Soviet Union (seeMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact), thefall of France and theUnited Kingdom's isolation (which had deprived Romania of diplomatic alternatives), Manoilescu argued that Romania looked "with respect" towardsMoscow,Berlin, andRome.[49] Asked by the Soviet delegation to account for alleged new border incidents, he stiffly denied that these had ever occurred.[50]
The responsibility for the Transylvanian compromise weighed heavily on him later in the following year, when the Iron Guard, revived by the leadership ofHoria Sima, came to government and proclaimed theNational Legionary State; it refused to appoint Manoilescu to any leadership position.[51] He did however continue to serve as Foreign Minister during the short-livedFirst Antonescu cabinet, bringing the overall duration of his 1940 term to 70 days (July 4 to September 14).[52] After theIron Guard's 1941 Rebellion, he remained present on the political stage as a supporter ofIon Antonescu's dictatorship (seeRomania during World War II).[53] In autumn 1940, he represented his country toRome, where he attempted to persuade Italian officials to look into information about Hungarian violence in Northern Transylvania, and, in July 1942, traveled to theIndependent State of Croatia to meet withOtto Franges, his collaborator on an overview ofSoutheast European economy.[5]
On October 12, 1944, as Romania signed an armistice with theUnited Nations, Manoilescu was jailed without trial for 14 months, during which time he was expelled from his position at the Polytechnic Institute.[5] Because of the bad sanitary conditions in prison, he became sick withendemic typhus, and sent to the hospital for contagious diseases inColentina.[54] Set free in December 1945, he resumed work on his unfinished writings, and became an advocate of harvestinggeothermal power in Romania (his innovations in the field were patented on the name of his son, Alexandru Manoilescu).[5] He was once again jailed byCommunist Romanian authorities on December 19, 1948, and was brought first toJilava Prison,[54] and then to the prison ofOcnele Mari. While being held there, Manoilescu became, together with the philosopherPetre Țuțea, a members of an "underground academy" organized by inmates.[55]
Manoilescu was ultimately brought toSighet Prison, where he died at the end of 1950.[56] Typhus had left him with heart problems, which were aggravated in detention; with no medical attention, this led to his death;[54] his body was buried in a common grave. In 1951, although deceased, he was brought to trial by a civil court for his journalistic activities. On April 12, 1952, he was sentencedin absentia to 15 years in prison, 10 years deprivation of civil rights, and confiscation of all property, a measure which is thought to be unprecedented.[57] His family was told of his death only in May 1958.[58]
In the world of economics, Manoilescu is primarily remembered for the "Manoilescu argument", which states that when the marginal productivity of labor in agriculture is lower than that in other sectors, surplus labor should be redirected to higher-productivity activities, such as manufacturing.[34]
On 14 April 2016, the National Bank of Romania issued a set of commemorative coins in honor of three former bank governors. Manoilescu, who led the bank for several months in 1931, was among them. Manoilescu's inclusion drew strong protests from the U.S. Embassy in Romania[59] and theWiesel Institute, on the grounds of Manoilescu's advocacy of Fascist ideology and antisemitism before World War II. In spite of the criticism, the Bank did not withdraw the coin.[60]
In the city ofPloiești, a high school bears his name,[61] while inTecuci a street is named after him.
Media related toMihail Manoilescu at Wikimedia Commons