Table Of ContentGiornale di
Storia
costituzionale
n. 42 / II semestre 2021
eum > edizioni università di macerata
Corporatism in Interwar Romania: Overlapping
Sources and Competing Varieties
victor rizescu
Originally shaped as an alternative to the 1. Romanian Corporatism: Uncovering the
syndical model for the representation of Double-sidedness of the Design
professional interests – and resting on the
qualified rejuvenation of the guild tradition The memory of the Romanian engagement
within the frame of modern social life –, the with the corporatist model suffers from
corporatist design was later appropriated the association of the issues of social policy
by various streams of the Right as an all- and professional representation with the
encompassing political project, meant to syndical model alone. It is moreover basically
contain the class-based divisiveness of confined to recording the theoretical
society on the basis of vertically-branded pronouncements in the field delivered by M.
occupational categories, thus allowing the Manoilescu, an internationally renowned
enhanced mobilization of national energies local promoter of the creed, pleading for
for the sake of modernizing breakthroughs its wholesale implementation1 (and staying
and/or expansionist endeavors. Already close to the fascist Iron Guard in the late
well-entrenched in the interwar period, 1930’s after starting his ideological journey,
the double-edge nature of the phenomenon in the early 1920’s, by taking part in the
has survived in the various contexts of debates regarding the necessary adaptations
post-war neo-corporatist experimentation of liberalism according to the conditions
(itself taking place both within the horizon of delayed development), together with
of peripheral delayed development and in the ideological advocacy promoted by
the milieu of affluent western democracies Manoilescu’s National-Corporatist League –
in search for elaborating more effective founded in November 1933 and functioning
welfare arrangements). as a rather marginal embodiment of right-
wing politics in the national context of the
giornale di storia costituzionale / journal of constitutional history 42 / II 2021, pp. 117-131 117
issn 1593-0793 / isbn 978-88-6056-766-6 / © eum 2021
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time – and with the unaccomplished efforts be related to the grass-roots associational
targeted at the implementation of the vision movements of the professional groups and
deployed under the Carolist regime of 1938- to the various strands of the politics of in-
19402. terest representation in the field, involving
This comes from the fact that, as forged a move away from the (belatedly interrupt-
primarily under communism, the patterns ed) traditional structures of guild organ-
of the Romanian scholarship on the devel- ization towards embracing the tenets of
opment of labor legislation and welfare in- syndical freedom and horizontally branded
stitutions in the country present the process syndicalist activism, followed by the at-
as entirely predicated on the pressures ex- tempt of curbing the divisive implications
erted by socialist and communist politics – of these latter phenomena by the means of
together with those of worker trade-union- the modern corporatist design. In fact, the
ism harnessed to the same political forces two stages of the process overlapped very
– against the defining attitude of staunch deeply in the Romanian context. Indeed,
opposition alternating with piecemeal and the efforts of implementing the principles
reluctant concessions displayed by the of professional individualism and associa-
mainstream parties and by the representa- tional freedom – first in the 1860’s and the
tives of big capital3. After communism, the 1870’s, and then again in the 1920’s – re-
legacies of such interpretative views have corded only truncated results, but not in a
got conjoined with the very sparseness of different fashion than those of uprooting
the approaches to the topic such as to pre- such accomplishments and turning the way
vent a clarification of the interplay between back to the corporatist model of state-su-
the syndical and the corporatist under- pervised and (half-)mandatory profession-
standings of professional representation in al representation (first at the turn of the
the context4. century and then again starting with 1938).
An approach predicated on observ- When saying this, one should always
ing the essential double-sidedness of the think at the fact that, remembered as he is
corporatist design easily leads, however, in the country almost entirely as a politi-
to uncovering a large welter of Romanian cian and an ideological voice of the Right5,
engagements with the doctrine in ques- the author of the book Le siècle du corpora-
tion – themselves deeply intertwined with tisme has instead been entrenched interna-
the dynamics of contemporary institutional tionally as a central reference of the theo-
forms, social structures and legal provi- rizing targeted at conceptualizing welfare
sions –, thus allowing the meaningful con- policies in post-war democracies. Indeed,
textualization of the theories hitherto treat- the surveys of such kind of intellectual ef-
ed as isolated utterances performing a role forts repeatedly highlighted as a watershed
of limited importance as part of the general in the field – even of a «before and after»
unfolding of right-wing discourses during magnitude6 – a 1974 article by the politi-
the interwar period. Alongside ideological cal scientist P. C. Schmitter, entitled «Still
imports from the contemporary European the Century of Corporatism?» and itself
culture of the Right, the body of corporat- framed by privileged reference to the work
ist theorizing and experimentation has to of Manoilescu mentioned above7.
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Rizescu
King Carol II signing the Constitution on February 27, 1938
Resting on the distinction between the demands of liberal democratic life. Never-
«statist» version of the phenomenon – theless, it credited Manoilescu for percep-
paradigmatically traced back to the Roma- tively envisioning the long-term entrench-
nian theorist specifically and to the inter- ment of peculiar arrangements of «interest
war fascist politics and ideology generally, representation», that had to be placed in
but also shown as later rejuvenated in vari- a different category than those pertain-
ous authoritarian guises in national frame- ing to the «pluralist» model, in so far as
works of the context of peripheral develop- they promoted the compression of interest
ment – and the «societal» one – discovered groups into «a fixed set of verticalized cate-
as adumbrated most characteristically in gories each representing the interdepend-
the 1920’s by J. M. Keynes8, in order to get ent functions of an organic whole», further
embodied in the structures enabling an ef- advocating the «controlled emergence,
fective negotiation between capital, labor quantitative limitation, vertical stratifi-
and the state obtained in postwar developed cation and complementary interdepend-
societies –, the revolutionary piece was cer- ence» of such entities. It is to note that, in
tainly most concerned with the realities of a companion piece, Schmitter implies that
the second sort, rapidly consecrated in its the central place that Manoilescu is entitled
footsteps as constituting a brand of cor- to occupy in the enterprise of reconsidering
poratist politics compatible with the basic the relevance of the corporatist model does
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not entail any detailed consideration of the ed and overlapping distinctions between
interwar Romanian context. This is because the «western» and the «peripheral», the
the ideologist targeted only took over and «liberal» and the «authoritarian», the
refashioned a welter of ideas «stemming pre-1945 and post-1945 embodiments of
from Europe as a whole and not Romania in the phenomenon, marking the relevant do-
particular», thus serving «more as a con- main in the field of historical understand-
duit for this Zeitgeist toward his homeland ing12, are certainly expected to emerge as
and elsewhere in the Southern Europe and relativized by the same token. For sure, the
Latin American periphery, where his works entire endeavor is targeted at better com-
circulated extensively during the 1930’s, prehending the larger history of the politics
than as an important and original observ- and discourses of professional representa-
er-analyst of Romania»9. tion in changing social and political con-
The story of the corporatist idea in Ro- stellations.
mania to which Manoilescu belongs was
certainly nourished by the overall drive to
the Right marking the society and the po-
litical system over the interwar period. We 2. The Corporatist Drive: Guild Legacies and
must refrain, however, from approaching it Ideological Departures
as nothing else but an integral part of this
last development. Its connections outside Corporatist structures set in continuity to
the ideological camp in question have to those of the old regime society scored three
be disclosed. The «statist» and authori- successive deaths in Romania. The first one
tarian conception advanced by Manoiles- came with the formal abolition of the tradi-
cu regarding the envisioned conversion of tional guilds by virtue of a government de-
liberal parliamentarianism into corporatist cree of June 1873, at the end of a long and
politics against the background of capital- protracted process of decay13. The notion
ist survival – most elaborately exposed in of the freedom of association was inscribed
his book Le parti unique of 193710 – coexist- in Article 27 of the 1866 Constitution, but
ed with inquiries sustained by the mood of the adoption of ordinary legislation meant
political moderation and meant to discover to set forth the actual conditions for the de-
sensible ways of accommodating the de- parture of associational life was much de-
mand for a better representation of profes- layed. This only came when the principle of
sional interests within the space of liberal syndical freedom was entrenched by a law
constitutionalism and of harmonizing the of May 192114, itself following soon after the
competing claims of capital and labor. establishment of the Ministry of Labor and
This amounts to saying that manifesta- Social Care in March 1920. Set firmly in the
tions that have to be placed under the rubric paradigm of the French Waldeck-Rousseau
of «societal» corporatism were present in Law of 1884 for the creation of professional
the Romanian pre-communist setting, associations and of its offshoot of 1901 giv-
something that somehow blurs the distinc- ing a reglementation for the freedom of as-
tion between the two models of Schimt- sociation in general terms15, the local piece
ter’s typology11. The less formalized, relat- of legislation laying down the conditions
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Rizescu
for the creation of employer, employee and Austrian and Hungarian policies and leg-
mixed syndicates – whose provisions were islation21 – first on the basis of the 1902
to be qualified by the law of legal persons Law for the Organization of Professions22
of February 192416, itself modified in April (envisioning an organization of the basis of
1927 – also stood in conjunction with the corporations with at least 50 members, be-
vision promoted in the field by the Inter- ing moreover targeted only to the laborers
national Labor Organization, which com- of small manufactories and leaving aside
missioned surveys of the local situation17 those of larger factories, together with the
as part of its general inquiries over the pat- artisans of the villages, those working at
terns of professional representation across home, and the state employees23), and then
Europe18 (originally prompted by the evo- on the grounds of the 1912 Law for the Or-
lutions in Hungary under the aegis of the ganization of Professions, Credit and Social
white counterrevolution of 1919-192119 and Insurance24 (providing for the creation of
later taking a critical view of the corporatist guilds comprising at least 25 members in-
restructuring of capital-labor relations in tegrated into corporations of at least 1000
Italy, in 192620). members, while also being expressedly de-
For sure, this entire legislative package signed to cover all categories of labor). It
– with the corresponding enterprise of in- was for this reason that the 1921 law of the
stitutional construction – largely emerged syndicates represented the second local
as a response to the revolutionary tide of attempt of sending to the grave the institu-
the Left, in the footsteps of the Russian tions of the guilds in favor of those relying
Revolution and of the social tensions cre- entirely on the notion of free professional
ated by the First World War, being also un- association.
derpinned by the new constitution of 1923. It was necessary, neverthelss, for a third
Laying down the right to free association attempt of the sort to come later, in 1933,
(Article 5, in continuation to the article all throughout the intervening period the
mentioned of the previous constitutional institutions of professional representation
document), this one stated – in Article 21, created under the new regulations having to
and by an altogether new departure from coexist with structures of the other variety.
the older constitutional document – that Thus, in the new provinces of Transylvania
«all factors of production are equally enti- and Bukovina there continued to stay in
tled to protection», indicating accordingly place bodies that had been created within
that «the state can intervene by laws in the the horizon of Hungarian and Austrian laws
relations between these factors, such as to dating from 1884, respectively 1907, while
prevent economic and social conflicts». in Old Kingdom Romania the guilds and
Meanwhile, the state of economic decline corporations established in the framework
perceived as partly produced by the dis- of the 1912 law exhibited an agonising sur-
mantling of traditional professional bodies vival, the first of them performing respon-
in the 1870’s had been counteracted by the sibilites of professional training and the
means of refurbished corporatist struc- latter continuing to administer social insur-
tures endowed with a public character, as ance at the grass roots (with the supervision
patterned – by taking a leaf from German, of this activity originally granted to a Cen-
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Plan for the corporatist restructuring of the state devised by a commission of the Ministry of Labor and Social Care in
1942
tral House of Professions, Credit and Social Despite the undeniable line of continu-
Insurance placed under the authority of the ity stretching from Manoilescu’s defense
Ministry of Commerce and Industry before of statist «neoliberalism» in the early
being shifted to the Ministry of Labor)25. In 1920’s30, through his later elaboration of
Bessarabia, the specific conditions of legis- the tenets of economic protectionism to-
lative vacuum required the rapid extension wards the end of the decade31, up to his
of the 1912 regulation, by the means of a law appeal to the corporatist political design
adopted in September 192326. The confus- as a means for the mobilization of national
ing situation was only drawn to an end with energies and for attaining the objective of
a decision for the dissolvation of the guilds economic closure in the 1930’s, one can-
issued by the Ministry of Labor in July not identify any significant involvement of
193327, after the nation-wide unification of him with the theory of corporatism before
the systems of social insurance under the the moment April 1932, when his jour-
cover of the same ministerial department nal «Lumea nouă» was inaugurated with
in April 193328, itself predated by creation this program32. Otherwise, advocacies for
of the Chambers of Labor – now able to ad- corporatism made by straight reference
judicate for themselves the mission of pro- to the Italian model first appeared in Ro-
fessional education –, in 193229. mania in the newspapers «Cuvântul» – in
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Rizescu
Plan for the corporatist restructuring of the state devised by a commission of the Ministry of Labor and Social Care in
1944
1926, with the corporatist system present- the state of the parties with the state of the
ed as «conducive to a victory in the war of guilds»36.
economic restoration currently fought in Pleadings for corporatism with a right-
Italy»33, thus occupying a place «in be- wing cast were also advanced before the
moment 1932 from within the movement
tween the school of bare individualism and
of the professional associations of the small
non-interventionism and the one of col-
lectivism and statist interventionism»34 –, entrepreneurs and artisans, as well as of the
white-collar social segments. This was the
then «Curentul» – in 1928, with the state-
case of the journal «Gazeta meseriilor»,
ment that «the present century can only
initiated in October 1929 and giving voice
be dominated by the corporatist economy,
to a movement of the petty industrialists
in the same way as the previous one was
and traders which revolved around the cor-
dominated by the capitalist one»35 – and
poratist bodies lingering after 1921, origi-
«Calendarul» – from its inception in Jan-
nally underscoring the prevailing paradox
uary 1932, under the directorship of the of the intermingling between the two types
influential traditionalist theorist N. Crain- of institutions of professional representa-
ic and searching for a «new form of public tion37, in order to then turn – starting with
life» that could «only arise from replacing July 1930 – to an open rejection of syndi-
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cal policies as venues of social divisiveness, sionals, initiated in February 193341 and
further demanding a return to the old wis- offering a venue for corporatist pleading
dom of the guilds, delivering a convocation up to the late 1930’s42. It also constituted
for a congress meant to rejuvenate them the matrix from within which the first po-
and reporting on the creation of a General litical organization legitimated by a cor-
Confederation of the Guilds, in September poratist program emerged: the Citizens
193038. Block for the Salvation of the Country, cre-
Emerging at the same juncture there ated in June 1932 under the leadership of
also stood the General Confederation of the schoolteacher G. Forțu43 and gradually
Professional Associations, dominated by propelled towards a cohabitation with the
white-collar constituencies, led by I. D. Iron Guard (in the same fashion as Enes-
Enescu – the president of the Society of Ro- cu was to join the National Christian Party
manian Architects –, founded in June 1930 upon its very foundation, in 1935).
but drawing upon an informal movement We can find Enescu even more deeply
articulated in 1929. Issuing its periodical involved than Manoilescu in the corporat-
«Drum nou» in October 1930, it departed ist experiments of the royal dictatorship44
from the previous movement in so far as it – started with the constitution of February
brought together organizations shaped ac- 1938 which provided (in Article 61) for the
cording to the 1921 legislative vision, nev- organization of the electoral body on the
ertheless going farther on the path of cor- basis of occupational categories – namely
poratist argumentation, thus conceiving of «agriculture and manual labor», respec-
professional affiliation as a means to get tively «commerce and industry» and «in-
«crystallized and consecrated the organic tellectual occupations» –, continued with
realities, liberated by all parasitism», by the government decree for the organization
taking in view that «the nation can only of the guilds issued in October of the same
obtain its definitive and complete expres- year45 and leading to the unfulfilled legis-
sion through corporatism»39. It could lative project of July 1939 meant to broad-
benefit in the beginning from the support en upon the conception of the latter, thus
of the General Union of the Small Entre- erecting the full legal framework required
preneurs and Craftsmen of Grater Roma- for the actual functioning of the guild sys-
nia, functioning since 1921 on the basis tem46. The activities of the sort continued
of a special law, itself staying at odds with in the guise of the attempts of refurbish-
the provisions of the law of syndicates but ing the corporatist politics under general
nevertheless placed in opposition to the Antonescu47 (taking place after the abro-
interest groups gathered around «Gaze- gation of the 1938 decree by another one,
ta meseriilor» and playing the role of a of December 194048, and the indefinite
vacillating promoter of corporatism with postponement of the issue by virtue of the
its periodical «Glasul micii industrii», wartime organization of labor, in October
launched in March 192240. Dismantled in 194149).
1934, the organization of Enescu had as a
longer running offshoot the Confederation
of the Associations of Intellectual Profes-
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Rizescu
3. Corporatist Authoritarianism: Strong and manding the unification of «the elements
Mild Varieties Intertwined of the entire professional body in public
and mandatory corporations headed by au-
Just two months before the elections of thorities entrusted with jurisdictional and
December 1937 that were to pave the way administrative responsibilities»53. The
for the installation of the royal dictator- Romanian contributor, otherwise, qualified
ship with corporatist constitutional cre- his case by reverting to the slight corporat-
dentials, «Revista de studii sociologice și ist trappings of the Romanian system which
muncitorești» – founded in July 1933 and he approved as necessary adjustments of
benefiting from the support of the acting modern democracy to the requirement of
minister of Labor, D. R. Ioanițescu, as well giving an institutionalized expression on a
as of the former occupants of the same po- permanent basis to the interests of profes-
sition G. Trancu-Iași and N. Lupu – pub- sional groups (in continuation to other in-
lished the discourse delivered by the leader terventions by him on the topic54).
of the Romanian delegation to the Second The privileged focus of this kind of
International Congress of Social Policy theorizing was the provision contained in
held at Paris, earlier in July. The author article 70 of the 1923 constitution – rein-
was the specialist in labor legislation M. I. forced by the electoral law of March 1926
Barasch ‒ consecrated in the country and and sometimes mentioned as a threshold in
abroad over the previous decade50 –, who the evolution of constitutional thinking in
maintained that syndical freedom contin- the country55 – regarding the special rep-
ued to stay as «a fundamental principle of resentation of the state-sponsored, pub-
the international labor legislation, whose lic institutions of the professional cham-
suppression could only be seen as an attack bers in the Senate. In place for a long time
upon the very foundations of the Interna- when becoming an object of constitutional
tional Labor Organization»51. debates, the Chambers of Commerce and
This involved a starker rejection of the Industry had first been envisioned by a
drive towards corporatist structures of pro- law of May 1864 – in continuation to failed
fessional representation than the opinions projects with the same target of 1959 and
expressed in the general report presented 1861 –, being conceived as public institu-
in the framework of the same manifestation tions with consultative functions set at the
by J. B. de La Gressaye, the French pres- time alongside the Ministry of Internal Af-
ident of the congress. In accordance with fairs, of Agriculture and of Public Works56.
his earlier pronouncements supporting, They only started to be actually created in
in a broad social Catholic vein, the design January 1868, when the Bucharest one –
of «free syndicates enveloped in organized originally providing for only a commercial
corporations»52, the latter author argued section, with no representation of the in-
that the design of mere «separate syndi- dustrial brach – came into existence57, and
cates for the employers and the employ- started to emerge throughout the Old King-
ee» did not provide a solid basis for the dom in the footsteps of a new law adopted
development of social relations in the new in May 188658, which broadened their elec-
conditions of economic life, therefore de- toral basis such as to comprise the tax-pay-
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