Talk:Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu

Penitentiaries

Hi, I wrote "penitentiary" instead of "concentration camp", which may have sounded rather benign 70-75 years ago, when members of illegal political organizations (like communists in Romania) were "concentrated" in "camps", after their trials. These camps were low-security, prisoners were allowed visits, letters, and packages from relatives and friends. From 1945 to 1989, even official, communist-leaning histories in socialist Romania called these prisons "camps", thus avoiding the special connotation that the phrase "concentration camps" had acquired during WWII. Since "camps" would be an unfortunate translation, I preferred "penitentiary", while discarding the previous "concentration camp". Quatrocentu 05:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You are right. I had replaced the reference in other articles. But I would not use "penitentiary", rather "internment camp". Its most striking feature was that it was a camp, and punishment/"penitence" (to my knowledge) was secondary as a purpose to withdrawal from public life - and I don't think they were placed on any kind of trial. Dahn 11:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello again,

Not only were they tried in courts of law, but L.P. was their lawyer. He defended them individually and as a group, in 1929, 1933, and afterwards. Even Ceausescu faced trial in 1934 in Craiova (up to 1989 there was a small "Museum of the Trial" in the building were he and three of four others stood in court). I happened to visit it long ago.

Quatrocentu 05:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I meant they didn't try them during the war. To my knowledge, the camps (as opposed to prisons like Doftana, which were prescribed by common law) were exceptional, and were either introduced by Carol II during his stand against legionaires (I know for sure that he built camps at Miercurea Ciuc and some others - don't know oif they were still around in the 1940s), or by Antonescu when he came to power. Of course, for most of the interwar, they stood trial as a rule. But with internment, Antonescu did not bother, and you could be interned for any attitude or even potential attitude (as communists were rounded up on principle - they had not even managed to do something in particular that time) against the regime. Not just communists: Gen. Rădescu went straight to the camp for criticizing the Germans. Dahn 13:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello again, even Lucretiu can be considered nationalist as "per se" he was before communist a Romanian nationalist.

Well, that is a possible conclusion on facts, not a fact in itself. There are several issues that make his nationalism questionable (at least, for parts of his life), but, that aside, the notion of his "nationalism" itself still has very little valid arguments (for one, he never actually said the widely popular supposed quote "before being a communist, I am a Romanian"). Dahn 16:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I deleted the words "the 'far right'" that were in front of the names of Mircea Vulcanescu and Mihail Polihroniade. In all earnestness, whereas Polihroniade was a prominent member of the Legionnaire Movement, Vulcanescu was never more than a representative of a (traditionalist) Christian right. He was neither a member of any far-right political movement, nor did he express support of their views. Quatrocentu 08:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Both Gândirea and Cuvântul qualify as far right, and the latter was connected with the Iron Guard at the time when Vulcănescu wrote for it. Furthermore, Gândirea itself (until becoming arguably sympathetic to the Guard), was a major promoter of far right ideas (including right-wing corporatism and anti-semitism).

This is splitting hairs, but I must admit I am thoroughly confused about the distinction you make between the far right and the "(traditionalist) Christian right", especially when discussing Crainic and his collaborators. I should also specify that I do not find "far right" to be either insulting or problematic as a term (at the time, it was not even an exonym). I use it for the Action Française, and therfore I should use it for Crainic (let me add: for Crainic before he was a vocal fascist, because he eventually did make that choice fully and openly).

Nevertheless, I am going to add "the right-wing" in front of the two, for three distinct reasons: for one, whatever Vulcănescu's actions where, they were not as radical or evident as Polihroniade's; it also appears that, at the time, neither had made a dive into the far right; the third reason is practical, since readers arguably need to understand what the nature of their debate with Pătrăşcanu was (for the same reason why Stahl is assigned an ideological attribute). Dahn 11:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not gonna make any more changes. I'd much rather have you make them (and I like the openness of this talk page, so I'll say my say right here). Vulcanescu was very much what we would call today an apolitical technocrat, a specialist involved in the activity of several administrations. He also happened to be deeply religious. But that does not make him far-right any more than it does Teoctist or your next-door church-going old lady. (Of course, in a way, Teoctist IS far-right, but he does not pursue a change in the political regime of Romania, now does he?) Cuvantul was, at a time, dominated by members and supporters of the Legionnaire Movement (Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade), but also published people like Mihail Sebastian. All in all, it can be considered a paper with far-right views, but not exclusively. Gandirea, on the other hand, was much rather a supporter of the National Peasant Party, until it was hijacked by legionnaires, in 1940. Men like Crainic or Sandu Tudor can be considered right-wing, conservative, traditionalist-minded and whatnot (but the "far-right" label would put them in the same camp with people whose views they hated and fought against). Also, the paper one writes for does not automatically make one representative of the general political view of that particular paper. William Buckley wrote most of his life for The New York Times, and that does not make him a liberal. I read most of the issues of Cuvantul and Gandirea, and I think I read everything Vulcanescu wrote and I challenge you to show me ONE sentence that you think proves Vulcanescu's far-right political views (I should stress "political", because otherwise everybody who is a staunch supporter of the Orthodox Church would be considered far-right). I didn't like the simplicity of that association you make between the names of Mircea Vulcanescu and Mihail Polihroniade. One was a member of the Legionnaire Movement (and leader of the Axa family of nests), the other was not. One was preparing himself to be the Movement's foreign minister (until he was killed in the repression against the movement), the other was a distinguished public servant. One was director of the Legionnaire paper "Axa", the other happened to publish in newspapers that expressed right-wing views (but either were not specifically legionnaire, or were simply against the movement). As for the three reasons you give: (1) "whatever Vulcanescu's actions where, they were not as radical or evident as Polihroniade's" - that means he was not as far-right as Polihroniade; (2) "it also appears that, at the time, neither had made a dive into the far right" - then why call Vulcanescu far-right?; and (3) "the third reason is practical, since readers arguably need to understand what the nature of their debate with Patrascanu was (for the same reason why Stahl is assigned an ideological attribute)" - do the readers need to understand that marxists can be subtly subdivided in Austro-Marxists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, etc., but that everybody else is simply far-right? I don't think so. Last but not least, I'm not going to enter a debate over whether corporatism was "far-right" as you say or rather leftist, since we both know that opposites attract and there was a lot of leftist roots in fascism. It is the ur-fascism, as Umberto Eco calls it, that interests us here, the intolerance that really permeates Romanian (and European, for that matter, e.g. French Action Française) writing and doing. And once again, Mircea Vulcanescu's writing and doing is hardly an example of intolerance. What best example do you want, but the fact that the Criterion group, of which Vulcanescu was one of the initiators and leaders, even thought of discussing Lenin at one of their evenings dedicated to important men of the times. By the way, the late (and rather far-left) Zigu Ornea - whom I respect a lot, though less than I respect the final sacrificial standing of Vulcanescu - is not the only source for these events. With undisguised friendship, Quatrocentu 06:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Quatrocentu, I believe you may want to read again part of my message and the sentence in the article as I have rephrased it (either that or I did not get your points, for which I apologize in advance). You see, I had added "right-wing" in front of the two, instead of "far right" - not only because I thought it was necessary to clearly indicate to readers what the sides in the Criterion debate where, but also because I understood your concerns and tried to come up with what you too would consider an accurate version. Although, strictly in a debate about Lenin, I would likely go with Stahl's POV over those of either Polihroniade, Vulcănescu, or Pătrăşcanu, I did not ever mean to promote, as you imply, the notion that all the Right is one and the same whereas Marxism is many different things. It is entirely coincidental that, when speaking about the Criterion debate, it becomes more relevant what sort of Marxism Stahl stood for (since he contrasted his Marxist views to Pătrăşcanu's, whereas Polihroniade et al had, for good or worse, an utterly different perspective on the world itself - I just say "by then", because Polihroniade had just ended his own affair with communism). Now, I have also attempted to indicate that, no matter what my opinion on Vulcănescu's ideology is, I fully agree that he cannot be compared to Polihroniade (if you read my previous message again, you will notice that we were talking past each other on this issue). Among my other arguments was one where I conceded that, however one defines Vulcănescu's ideology overall, it is unlikely that he was anything but "generic right-wing" at the time of Criterion (and I even admitted that the same works for Polihroniade); since I don't suppose that you argue Vulcănescu was left-wing, but simply that he was not far right, I suppose you could also agree with my addition.

For the rest: I understand your overall point, and I agree with more of it than you would assume, but I also have to point out that parts of it are open to the general debate and some are simply inaccurate. For one, Crainic and Gândirea were only associated with the Peasantist for a couple of years (or even less), at the time of the great anti-Liberal coalition of intellectuals (ca.1930); it is my understanding that Crainic moved that may after Maniu began supporting Prince Carol, whom Crainic saw as the main guarantee of his own political program. The PNŢ itself was an ideological mess at the time, and it was the inner conflict with people like Manoilescu, Crainic, and Vaida-Voevod which eventually led it to rally around its Poporanist left wing (the new party program was produced by a think tank involving Mihalache's group, and some historians even pointed out that the far left of the party was even welcoming Communist Party activists by 1937). Gândirea started as an Expressionistic magazine, and it was actually hijacked by Crainic - the reason why Vianu and even Blaga stopped contributing. If you read what Crainic was publishing at the time, you see blatant anti-Semitism, corporatism, open praise for fascism, and a focus on Carol as the would-be leader of a fascist structure. Whan Carol created his own corporatist experiment (which itself rallied people from right and left, for reasons that are complicated enough not to be brought up here), Crainic sided with it - eventually, as you know, he rallied with the Guard and split with Carol (like his rival Ionescu).

Crainic's ideas can easily be, and have been, described as "far right". I know the term fluctuates depending on national context, but, even with that in mind, he was without doubt on the far right of the local political spectrum, and in tune with other far right movements of his time. Furthermore, no matter where they started, Crainic and his disciples did move further and further to the right, and embraced something more specific and clearly localized within the far right - namely, fascism. As I have said here and elsewhere: I do not use and view these terms as insults or as evidence of guilt (nor do I want to use the "if it quacks like a duck" sophistry). I simply happen to believe that they apply, can point out that they did apply, and that there is at least a relative consensus on them. A similar point stands for Cuvântul.

It may also be important to highlight another point I made elsewhere: I do not even take for granted the notion that the Iron Guard was founded as a fascist movement. There are several non-partisan historians (I mean: aside from those Codrenist revisionists who make this case in their conflicts with Simists) who argue that there was more to the story, while they contend that it was an original and far right movement in its origins (this should be consistent with Codreanu's statements about fascism, which he viewed with sympathy, but as an outside phenomenon). Of course, this is not to say that it was not anti-semitic and revolutionary, but we both know that there is no intrinsic connections between fascism and anti-semitism, and not all revolutions are the same revolution. It also should not dissuade us from noting that fascism was probably embraced in full by the Guard under Sima (or even during Codreanu's later years, depending on who you believe). Whether the original dogmatic element remained important after that moment is an open debate. As a side note: all historians will agree that the Iron Guard was overall connected to fascism to the point where it is inseparable from a complete analysis of the phenomenon (some because they argue fascism is actually many fascisms, others because they see fascist influences as standing at the movement's core).

I actually fully agree with you on the issues connected with fascism in general. I will never reject the points about left wing influences (albeit Syndicalism had arguably moved outside of the spectrum as early as Sorel's nationalist outbursts, which may or may not add to the debate). I also identify corporatism as a left-wing concept, at least in its source - you have misunderstood me: I wrote "right-wing corporatism" specifically to refer to the right-wing variant of corporatism. I hope you will agree that, by the time Crainic supported corporatism, cultural references to Sorel or even Valois were overshadowed by Mussolini's association with the term. Furthermore, when Crainic placed a dictatorial king at the top of his ideal corporate structure, we can safely say that he was not talking about Syndicalism. To me, explaining what Carol meant for the right in this context is simple; having to place his leftist followers (Armand and George Călinescu, Flueraş, Ghelmegeanu, Galaction, a very mysterious Arghezi etc) in this scheme is the only thing that could probably (I insist: probably) call for verifying if corporatism had a left-wing aspect in late 1930s Romania.

Concerning Vulcănescu himself. In essence, me having to prove he was far right would rely on us agreeing what far right is. I do not know if you consider his critique of "Junimism" in the University far right, but, prima facie, I do. I need to point out that I am not familiar with most of his work, which is why I did take your argument into account when rephrasing the text. I would also have to be uncultured not to be aware of the fact that he also was a follower of the left-wing and partly Marxist-inspired Gusti, which would clearly indicate that he was among the most open-minded persons of his background in his area of expertise. Since I do not want to write texts that reflect my personal views, I was and am open to any suggestion that would ensure neutrality (whereas, in Crainic's case, the term "far right" is used and does apply, I am not entirely sure about Vulcănescu, and will not draw my own conclusions on his work).

The issue of tolerance and what it evidences is marginal in this discussion, but I will point out that Criterion, although most of its members became supporters of totalitarianism, was not itself fascist. As I have said above, chronology and sources point out that this was a transitional phase, and that the main Criterionist trait was a mal du siècle (together with, well, acute dissatisfaction over Liberal policies). Several of its members had been or continued to be communists, and Criterion was attacked by the established far right (the LANC), the minuscule far left (I think it was them who called the group "Cretinion"), and Poporanists such as George Călinescu. The story changed in the following year, when Criterion was started anew by a group of right-wingers - reason why Stahl decided not to attend further sessions.

You wrote: "I'm not gonna make any more changes. I'd much rather have you make them (and I like the openness of this talk page, so I'll say my say right here)." Hopefully, you have said this because you did not notice that I had added "right-wing" (and not "far right") for the reasons explained. I think you are a very good editor, and, on principle, your contributions could only improve pages. Like on the previous issue of "internment camps" vs. "prisons", this was a technicality, and we simply got our wires crossed over chronology and secondary context. If I may have passed a POV on certain matters, I assure you that it was unintentional, and hope that I have proven I'm not set in my ways. I accept all forms of coherent criticism; in my defense, the large edits I made on this article simply did not allow me to reflect on any single detail, and I was not always aware of what the other side argued for in respect to these (or even, at times, that there was such a thing as another side). Dahn 01:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

And I thought I was the one writing long seemingly ceaseless messages! You are absolutely right, I was working on something else at the time (outside wikipedia) and I mistook your change for a reverting. "Right-wing" works for me and I have nothing else to add. Thank you for reminding me about Crainic's hijacking Gandirea (you were right about that). Sorry if I don't pick up right now the conversation on the Guard prior to and after 1938, on Manoilescu or Criterion. It's such a delicate subject, where one may easily get POV only by trying to be NPOV. Last year I talked to a Romanian historian who had come here for a postdoc, and he was insisting on the difference between history and memory, and on the fact that the "memory" of the 1930s is still too powerful in Romania and informs all attempts at writing the history of those years (I put quotation marks to the word "memory", exactly the way he did with his fingers, because, of course, it is a socially constructed memory, even for old people who lived through the 1930s, but especially for all the younger cohorts, who are unable to surpass an extremely imbricated network or social representations). Thanks for the kind (and totally undeserved) words towards the end of your message.Quatrocentu 06:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting explanation and overview, Quatrocentu. If you have the time and energy, why not try to build some of it in a separate article? I for one would be interested in finding out more about this subject, with which I am not very familiar, except in general terms. Turgidson 14:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Trial and execution

I have some qualms about the following sentence from the section "Trial and execution": <bockquote>

In preparation for the trial, the Securitate organized violent interrogations of political detainees (among others, the National Peasant Party's Corneliu Coposu and the Liberal politician Bebe Brătianu) or suspects (Gheorghe Tătărescu, who testified against Pătrăşcanu and was the target of a violent response from the latter). [Cioroianu, p.228; Ioniţoiu]

Perhaps this is how this appears in the original, but to my ears, the quote seems to draw a moral equivalence between the violence of the Securitate's interrogation methods (which presumably means physical violence, i.e., beatings, etc), and the "violent response" of the accused, which presumably means a verbal outburst in self-defense against the accusations. Could the nuance -- which is far from being trivial, in my opinion -- be made more explicit? Eg, I would suggest using something like "sharp rebuke" when talking about Pătrăşcanu's response to Tătărescu or others, if that does not deviate substantially from the quoted text (otherwise, perhaps insert a clarification, to the effect that "violence" means two different things in the same sentence). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Turgidson (talk • contribs) 00:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

FA Candidate?

Wow, this article is really well sourced, and although I haven't had a chance to read through it all yet, it looks to be well written too. I stumbled on it through Special:Random, but looking at it, began to wonder if it could be nominated for FA status, if we could find an image and do abit of copyediting. We'd also need to verify the sources, which would require someone who can speak Romainian. What does anyone think? mais ^(talk) 16:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Musings from 1948

"Among the new victims is also the former minister of justice, Patrascano, a Communist leader of the old school. An orthodox Leninist, he was excluded from public life and from his post as university professor. Patrascano is the author of the theoretical work Under Three Dictatorships, which he wrote during an enforced sojourn under the surveillance of the Nazi regime of Antonesco: is he now going to get a chance to continue his analysis of the fourth Rumanian dictatorship? Or will his be the fate of Stefan Foris, former general secretary of the illegal Communist Party, who has disappeared tracelessly in the dungeons of Bodnaras’ secret police?" (Valentin Toma, "Stalinist Terror in Rumania - Real Face of the “Popular Democracy”", New International, Volume 14, No.7, September 1948, pp. 213–215.) Turgidson (talk) 05:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

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