Constantin Argetoianu | |
|---|---|
 Argetoianu in 1933 | |
| 41stPrime Minister of Romania | |
| In office 28 September 1939 – 23 November 1939 | |
| Monarch | Carol II |
| Preceded by | Gheorghe Argeșanu |
| Succeeded by | Gheorghe Tătărescu |
| 35thPresident of the Senate of Romania | |
| In office 15 June 1939 – 5 September 1940 | |
| Preceded by | Nicolae Iorga |
| Succeeded by | None (Senate suspended in September 1940 and abolished on 15 July 1946) |
| Minister of Internal Affairs | |
| In office 13 June 1920 – 13 December 1921 | |
| Prime Minister | Alexandru Averescu |
| Preceded by | Alexandru Averescu |
| Succeeded by | Ion Cămărășescu |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania | |
| In office 28 June 1940 – 4 July 1940 | |
| Prime Minister | Gheorghe Tătărescu |
| Preceded by | Ion Gigurtu |
| Succeeded by | Mihail Manoilescu |
| In office 18 April 1931 – 26 April 1932 | |
| Prime Minister | Nicolae Iorga |
| Preceded by | Ion Mihalache |
| Succeeded by | Dimitrie I. G. Ghica |
| Minister of Industry and Commerce | |
| In office 10 February 1938 – 31 March 1938 | |
| Prime Minister | Miron Cristea |
| Preceded by | Ion Gigurtu |
| Succeeded by | Mitiță Constantinescu |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1871-03-15)15 March 1871 Craiova, Romania |
| Died | (1955-02-06)6 February 1955 Sighet Prison, Romania |
| Political party |
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| Spouses | |
| Children | Marie-Jeanne Argetoianu |
| Profession | Businessman, physician, jurist |
Constantin Argetoianu (15 March [O.S. 3 March] 1871 – 6 February 1955) was a Romanian politician, one of the best-known personalities of interwarGreater Romania, who served as thePrime Minister between 28 September and 23 November 1939. His memoirs,Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri (Memoirs. For those of tomorrow. Recollections of yesterday's world) — a cross section of Romanian society, were made known for the sharp critique of several major figures in Romanian politics (using a sarcastic tone which had made his previous political speeches notorious).[2]
Born inCraiova as the son ofArmy generalIoan Argetoianu [ro], he trained inLaw, Medicine, and Letters at theUniversity of Paris, and later entered the diplomatic service (1897).[3]
He was an exceptionally prosperous man (a notedStock Exchange player and landowner inBreasta,Dolj County), and his frequent change in political allegiances was attributed by some of his contemporaries to his financial independence.[4] In 1913 he served as acombat medic with the rank of captain in theSecond Balkan War, where he faced acholera epidemic.[5][6]
AFreemason,[7] Argetoianu was first elected to theSenate in 1914 as aConservative Party representative,[4] where he oscillated between the mainstream Conservatives ofPetre P. Carp and the dissident group aroundTake Ionescu (the latter was welcoming Romania's entry intoWorld War I on the side of theEntente Powers, which Argetoianu also proposed).[8]
Throughout 1918, during the final stages of theRomanian Campaign, Argetoianu was Justice Minister, sitting on the firstAverescu cabinet (at the time when authorities had retreated toIași, once the southern half of the country was occupied byImperial German,Austro-Hungarian andBulgarian troops).[3] He was also head of the Romanian delegation at thePeace preliminaries ofBuftea, in 1918. The talks resulted in the punitiveTreaty of Bucharest of May, which consecrated Romania's defeat by theCentral Powers. His actions at the time were later the subject of an epigram byCincinat Pavelescu (Pavelescu expressed his belief that the treaty and Argetoianu's views on fiscal policies were to be the subject of scorn for future generations):[9]
Argetoiene, răutatea
Noi ți-o iertăm, căci ne iubești,
Dar ce va ști posteritatea?
Că-ți datorăm fiscalitatea
Și pacea de la București.
Argetoianu, we can forgive your evil
Because you deeply love our nation,
But how shall we remember you as people?
By the excessive taxation
And the Bucharest Treaty's negotiation.[10]
Argetoianu followed Averescu into opposition to theIon I. C. Brătianu'sNational Liberal Party (PNL) cabinet, and joined thePeople's Party (PP) created by the former. He later documented the populist message of the movement, and left testimonies of Averescu's spontaneous adulation by the crowds of peasants.[11]
Argetoianu was Finance Minister and laterInterior Minister in the second Averescu government of 1920.[12] In March 1921, it was uncovered that an associate of his named Aron Schuller had attempted to contract a 20 millionlire loan with a bank in Italy, using ascollateral Romanianwar bonds that he had illegally obtained from the Finance Ministry reserve.[13] Argetoianu, who was still in charge at the time, became the target of attacks from the opposition group formed by theRomanian National Party and thePeasants' Party, being pressed byVirgil Madgearu andGrigore Iunian to explain himself (Iunian proposed amotion of no confidence, but the PNL continued to show its support for the PP).[14]
Argetoianu soon became noted for his anti-communist stance: he carried out arrests of thoseSocialist Party members who, during their party's congress in May 1921, supported amaximalist platform and voted in favor of aligning their Socialist-Communist faction (futureCommunist Party of Romania) with theComintern, citing the latter's condemnation ofGreater Romania; all those arrested were prosecuted in theDealul Spirii Trial.[15] Argetoianu later stated that the arrest lacked legal grounds, and indicated that he purposely gave the SocialistGheorghe Cristescu approval to hold the congress as a means to incriminate the faction.[16] Faced with mixed reactions inside the cabinet (Averescu hesitated, while the Minister of JusticeGrigore Trancu-Iași refused to give him support), he ordered the move without his fellow ministers' prior knowledge, and thus faced them with afait accompli.[16]
The standoff between Averescu and the parliamentary opposition eventually witnessed a decisive incident: during a prolonged debate over Averescu's proposal to nationalize enterprises inReșița, Argetoianu addressed a mumbled insult to Madgearu; the PNL, seeing an opportunity for a return to power, expressed sympathy, and all opposition groups appealed to KingFerdinand, asking for Averescu's recall (14 July 1921).[17]
Despite Averescu's eventual defeat in December 1921, Argetoianu was kept in office by theTake Ionescu and Brătianu cabinets. During the spring of 1922, he ordered the killing of several Communist activists who were held in prison custody, includingLeonte Filipescu, staging their attempts to flee from under escort as a pretext.[18] Nevertheless, pressures on the revolutionary grouping were relaxed in summer, when King Ferdinand approved anamnesty and Argetoianu officially declared that "communism is over in Romania".[19]
In 1923, after Brătianu again assumed power, he clashed with Averescu and proclaimed himself leader of the PP, being eventually expelled.[17] Having joinedNicolae Iorga'sDemocratic Nationalist Party (PND), he soon vehemently protested against the latter's alliance with the Romanian National Party, and moved to the PNL.[3]
Following the sudden death of Ion I. C. Brătianu in 1927, and choosing, in contrast to the policies ofDinu Brătianu, to support the new KingCarol II in 1930, Argetoianu left the party and subsequently defined himself as an independent.[3] In effect, he moved into the camp of politicians approving of anauthoritarian regime around Carol.[20] As the monarch's relations with the traditional political class were souring, Argetoianu allegedly engaged in a campaign to draw new allegiances from other environments, aiding to establish a Romaniancamarilla — it was even reported that, using the official commitment to neutraltechnocracy as a means to appoint his choice of people to positions of influence, he had recruited his fellowJockey Club of Bucharest members.[20] Among his most vocal supporters at the time was the far-right philosopherNae Ionescu.[21]
He was again in charge of Internal Affairs and Finance from 1931 to 1932, during the Iorga government,[22] when he took a harsh stance against the fascistIron Guard, outlawing it and arresting some of its members (which led to a string of violent confrontations).[23] Argetoianu was hotly contested as Finance Minister: faced with the widespread insolvency of small agricultural holdings in front of theGreat Depression, he proposed a form of liquidation that was considered in breach of the1923 Constitution.[24] Various other issues forced Argetoianu to cease payments of salaries forcivil servants at certain intervals, causing far-reaching problems.[25]
The government was voted out of office in the elections of 1932, when Iorga was replaced byAlexandru Vaida-Voevod, a member of theNational Peasants' Party (PNŢ) who was himself challenged with solving the agrarian issue;[26] Argetoianu subsequently founded the minorAgrarian Union Party, which, after the National Liberals returned to power withIon G. Duca, remained a close associate of the king in his competition with traditional forces; when Duca was assassinated by the Iron Guard in the final days of 1933, Argetoianu, together with his former adversary, PNŢ dissidentGrigore Iunian, and theNational Agrarian Party'sOctavian Goga, was probably one of the king's main options in his attempt to create an altogether new political establishment around thecamarilla, relying on a compromise withCorneliu Zelea Codreanu (leader of the Iron Guard).[27] Codreanu refused to accept negotiation, but Carol successfully approached the PNL's "young liberals" faction, which came to power withGheorghe Tătărescu (January 1934).[28]
The frequent target of attacks in the Iron Guard press,[29] Argetoianu led his grouping until 1938, when, faced with the unstoppable rise of the Iron Guard, Carol banned all parties and established hisNational Renaissance Front (FRN).[30]
His own short-lived FRN cabinet, established after that date, was, afterGheorghe Argeşanu's the second in quick succession to the violent clash between the Guard and monarch (after the murder ofArmand Călinescu by the former). The Argetoianu government was replaced by that of Tătărescu, who had to deal with theSoviet Union'soccupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and was in turn replaced withIon Gigurtu[31] (Argetoianu, who remained influential throughout the period, began calling for a rapprochement between Romania and the Soviets).[32]
Carol's regime crumbled after theSecond Vienna Award, when Romania had to cedeNorthern Transylvania toHungary; it was replaced by the Iron Guard'sNational Legionary State, which, itself repressed during the previous years, began a campaign of retaliation — like Tătărescu and several others, Argetoianu was kidnapped on 27 November 1940 in the wake of theJilava massacre, and faced assassination until being rescued by the intervention ofRomanian Army officials.[33]
Retreating from public life duringWorld War II and theIon Antonescu dictatorship (seeRomania in World War II), Argetoianu left the country in the spring of 1944, settling inSwitzerland.[32] Romania's withdrawal from theAxis in August and the start ofSoviet occupation caused him to return in November, seeing an opportunity in the apparent decrease in the appeal of traditional parties and expanding on his vision of Romanian-Soviet cooperation.[32] He was the subject of derision in theNational Peasants' Party press (Dreptatea wrote of him: "leading the intrigue in favor of a private property–based communism, a capitalist-basedsocialism, a mass-free democracy... The country is trustingly placing itself at your disposal. Here are your strings: pull them! Here are your back rooms: maneuver them! Here is your «people»: take it away!").[34]
Attempting in vain to mediate between the Communists and the PNȚ, Argetoianu was rejected by both sides, and, in January 1947, formed his own grouping — the "National Union for Work and Reconstruction" (Uniunea Națională Muncă și Refacere, UNMR) —, alongsideNicolae Ottescu,Nicolae D. Cornățeanu,Zamfir Brătescu and others.[32] It was kept under surveillance by the Communist-controlledPetru Groza government, and was infiltrated by the pro-Communist "National-Agrarian Action" (Acțiunea Național-Agrară, ANA).[32] The UNMR disbanded over worries that Argetoianu was losing credibility with Soviet authorities—the group around Cornățeanu joined Premier Groza'sPloughmen's Front, while others entered theUnion of Patriots.[32]
Argetoianu, who was ill at the time and had just undergone surgery on his prostate, withdrew from public life for a second time.[32] Referring to the commonly-held belief at the time that an American-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet-backedcommunist government (Vin americanii!), he exclaimed in April 1950, "Even if they came with a wheelbarrow, they would have arrived by now."[35] On the morning of 6 May 1950, he was arrested by theSecuritate; while being taken away, he was heard saying: "Man, you sure are tough, you communists, if you are afraid of a flatulent old man such as myself".[36][35] He died in the infamousSighet prison five years later,[37][38] never having been put on trial.
In 1999, attorney and civil rights activistMonica Macovei, representing Argetoianu's two granddaughters – Yvonne Oroveanu Niculescu and Constantina "Dina" Oroveanu – before court cleared Argetoianu of all charges, with prosecutor Mihai Carp admitting that Argetoianu's detention had been an abuse.[39]
A street in his native city,Craiova, is named after him, and so is a school inArgetoaia, Dolj County.
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