Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–48) in the context of "1944 Romanian coup d'état"

⭐ In the context of the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, the Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–48) is considered a key participant due to its involvement with…

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⭐ Core Definition: Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–48)

The Romanian Social Democratic Party (Romanian: Partidul Social Democrat Român, or Partidul Social Democrat, PSD) was a social-democratic political party in Romania. In the early 1920s, the Socialist Party of Romania split over the issue of affiliation with the Third International. The majority, which supported affiliation, evolved into the Communist Party of Romania in 1921, while the members who opposed the new orientation formed various political groupings, eventually reorganizing under a central leadership in 1927. From 1938 to 1944, the party was outlawed but remained active in clandestinity. After 1944, it allied with the Communists and eventually was forced to reunite with them to form the Workers' Party of Romania in 1948. It published the magazines Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea. After the end of the Communist single-party system in 1989, a group of former members created a new party which proclaimed itself the direct descendant of the PSD.

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👉 Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–48) in the context of 1944 Romanian coup d'état

The 1944 Romanian coup d'état, better known in Romanian historiography as the Act of 23 August (Romanian: Actul de la 23 august), was a coup d'état led by King Michael I of Romania during World War II on 23 August 1944. With the support of several political parties, the king removed the government of Ion Antonescu, which had aligned Romania with Nazi Germany, after the Axis front in northeastern Romania collapsed in the face of a successful Soviet offensive. The Romanian Army declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Soviet Red Army on the Moldavian front, an event viewed as decisive in the Allied advances against the Axis powers in the European theatre of World War II. The coup was supported by the Romanian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, and the National Peasants' Party who had coalesced into the National Democratic Bloc in June 1944.

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Romanian Social Democratic Party (1927–48) in the context of National Peasants' Party

The National Peasants' Party (also known as the National Peasant Party or National Farmers' Party; Romanian: Partidul Național Țărănesc, or Partidul Național-Țărănist, PNȚ) was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party (PNR), a conservative-regionalist group centred on Transylvania, and the Peasants' Party (PȚ), which had coalesced the left-leaning agrarian movement in the Old Kingdom and Bessarabia. The definitive PNR–PȚ merger came after a decade-long rapprochement, producing a credible contender to the dominant National Liberal Party (PNL). National Peasantists agreed on the concept of a "peasant state", which defended smallholding against state capitalism or state socialism, proposing voluntary cooperative farming as the basis for economic policy. Peasants were seen as the first defence of Romanian nationalism and of the country's monarchic regime, sometimes within a system of social corporatism. Regionally, the party expressed sympathy for Balkan federalism and rallied with the International Agrarian Bureau; internally, it championed administrative decentralization and respect for minority rights, as well as, briefly, republicanism. It remained factionalized on mainly ideological grounds, leading to a series of defections.

With its attacks on the PNL establishment, the PNȚ came to endorse an authoritarian monarchy, mounting no resistance to a conspiracy which brought Carol II on the Romanian throne in 1930. Over the following five years, Carol manoeuvred against the PNȚ, which opposed his attempts to subvert liberal democracy. PNȚ governments were in power for most of the time between 1928 and 1933, with the leader Iuliu Maniu as its longest-serving Prime Minister. Supported by the Romanian Social Democrats, they expanded Romania's welfare state, but failed to tackle the Great Depression, and organized clampdowns against radicalized workers at Lupeni and Grivița. This issue brought Maniu into conflict with the outlawed Romanian Communist Party, though the PNȚ, and in particular its left, favored a Romanian popular front. From 1935, most of the centrist wing embraced anti-fascism, outvoting the PNȚ's far-right, which split of as a Romanian Front, under Alexandru Vaida-Voevod; in that interval, the PNȚ set up pro-democratic paramilitary units, or Peasant Guards. However, the party signed a temporary cooperation agreement with the fascist Iron Guard ahead of national elections in 1937, sparking much controversy among its own voters.

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