Abstract

This paper addresses the importance of work camps as mobilisation strategies employed by the ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’, Romania’s interwar fascist movement. It argues that the success of the legionary constructive work projects, practically taking the form of voluntary work camps and smaller ‘construction sites’ (şantiere) – the latter developed according to similar principles, yet more limited in size – contributed significantly to the increase in popularity of the movement, in spite of (and perhaps even aided by) sustained opposition from the state authorities. As such, the case study of the legionary work camps is employed in an attempt to show how grassroots mobilisation strategies, emphasising activism and voluntarism, as well as cross-class solidarity among members of the movement, added considerable credibility to a populist palingenetic project, circumventing a shortage of material resources that prevented the use of more elaborate propaganda methods. Such strategies rendered the legionary movement distinct from all the other political parties in interwar Romania, and their positive reception, especially among the rural population, gave credence to the legionary criticism of the democratic parties and, implicitly, to the movement’s challenge to parliamentary democracy.

Highlights

  • This paper addresses the importance of work camps as mobilisation strategies ­employed by the ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’, Romania’s interwar fascist movement

  • It is along these lines that an exploration of the nexus of ideology and propaganda in the case of the ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’ or Iron Guard, Romania’s interwar fascist movement, might shed some light on the spectacular growth in popularity of an organisation that developed in the space of a decade from a group of five students to the only lasting mass movement in Romania’s history and the third

  • The present paper aims to combine the different approaches that have been applied so far to the case study of legionary work camps, returning to a focus on their propaganda value while paying close attention to their perception by legionaries, as practical expressions of a palingenetic project aimed at a radical transformation of Romanian society

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Summary

Introduction

The work is carried out by them’.73 According to the author of this article, the involvement of peasants in these projects challenged the common perception of the rural population as ‘lacking even the most elementary sense of initiative’ and demonstrated instead that it can show commitment to the public good, despite the lack of any encouragement from the authorities to this regard.[74] This intensified interest in the rural environment, understandable in the context of a country where more than 70% of the population was involved in agriculture,[75] renders the legionary movement’s project of modernisation distinct both from the one undertaken by the interwar Romanian state, which was aimed at an accelerated urbanisation that would align Romania with Western Europe, and from other fascist regimes, as the Italian or German ones, where even the celebration of rural values was integrated into a vision that was manifestly that of an urban modernity.[76] As such, even if the Legion was by no means either a ‘peasant movement’ or a political organisation with a conservative agenda, and its own modernist drive is clearly distinguishable both in the ideology and activities of the movement, the specific vision it put forth was emphatically that of a rural modernity, adapted to the realities of Romania in an attempt to remain true to what legionaries perceived as the ‘authenticity’ of the (predominantly rural) ‘people’ they claimed to represent.

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