REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

OPPOSITION ACTIVITIES OF THE
LEGIONARY MOVEMENT DURING
NOVEMBER 1947 – MAY 1948
Ilarion łIU 1
Abstract: After the November-1946 elections, the leaders of the Legionary Movement decided to
stop observing the protocol with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, negotiated in late 1945 by
Nicolae Petraşcu with the Communist Party officials. The authorities initiated campaigns for
arresting active legionaries, which caused a panic behaviour among the adepts of the
organization. The leaders of the Movement were summoned to react as the communists, once
having legally reached to power, wanted to repress the legionaries. On the other hand, Horia
Sima, in Occident, wanted in his turn for the Legionary Movement to give up the neutrality
politics. With American support, he disposed organizing within the country an information service
in favour of the democratic powers. To this purpose, Eugen Teodorescu was sent in the country,
with the mission of setting in motion a legionary network that should obtain whatsoever
information on the Communist and Soviet activity in Romania. Consequently, in late 1947, the
Legionary Movement manifested again as opposition force against the regime installed in
Bucharest after the 23 rd of August 1944, paradoxically benefiting of USA’s support. The
Americans were disposed to “erase” the legionaries’ extremist past, hoping they would find allies
disposed to make active opposition within Romania’s borders.
1. Introduction
After the elections from November 1946, the communist authorities initiated visible
opposition-intimidation measures. This way, through the Order no. 50.000 of the 12 th of
February 1947 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, SiguranŃa (Romanian secret service),
Police and Gendarmerie were authorized to arrest the citizens that would have manifested
themselves as “instigators” 2 . In the appended instructions, the legionaries were also
stipulated, which attests that the regime reckoned no longer valid the “neutrality
agreement” adopted in December 1945. Arrestment for “anti-democratic manifestations”
had been also operated in 1946; however they were rather intimidation measures, the
arrested persons not having received liberty-privation sanctions.
The authorities’ attitude determined some legionaries to make pressures on the
“Country’s Commandment”. The legionaries who felt targeted by the government’s
campaign of “confining the instigators” launched posters in the country’s capital and
main cities, wherein there was the call “to action” against the communists.
1 Department of Communication and Public Relations, Faculty of Political Sciences, Dimitrie
Cantemir Christian University of Bucharest, Romania.
2 Romania’s National Archives – Direction Central Historical National Archives (subsequently
DANIC), Fund of the Gendarmerie’s General Inspectorate, file no. 27/1947, f. 280.