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<article-title>Agrarianism in Romania: Political Evolution and Doctrine of Ploughmen&#8217;s Front (1933 - 1953)
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<author>Sorin Radu</author>

<aff>Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania</aff>


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<title>ABSTRACT</title>
<p>The Ploughmen’s Front was founded in 1933 in order to maintain the political interests of Romanian peasantry. The Ploughmen’s Front planned to become a political alternative of the National Peasant Party, which had been accused of turning into a “bourgeois” party and that it estranged itself from the real interests of the peasantry. The importance of this political organization will develop at the end of the World War II when it will draw attention to the communists. Led by Petru Groza, the Ploughmen’s Front was an artificially developed post-war organization, with the specific purpose of countering the influence of the National Peasant Party in rural areas, as well as to mediate the Communist influence among the peasants. Since 1945 until its “self-dissolution” in March 1953, its actions were thoroughly supervised by the Communist Party of Romania. The aim of this formation was “to organize the immense energies of the country's huge agricultural sector”. The official documents of the Ploughmen’s Front defined this mass-organisation as a “fighting party of the working ploughmen, born from the land-related struggles of the poor ploughmen, from the fight against the exploiting landlords and bankers and their governments”. The task of the Ploughmen’s Front was to organise and mobilise the ploughmen for the improvement of their material and cultural status. The political weight of the Front increased significantly after Dr. Petru Groza’s formed the government (the 6th of March 1945) when, with the full logistical support from the State, it became a magnet for peasants. Credible documentary sources estimate that the Ploughmen’s Front had approximately 1.5 million members in 1948-1949. Our work is based on unpublished documents of the Archive of the Central Committee of Romanian Communist Party and of the Archive of the Ploughmen’s Front in Bucharest.
  
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<p><italic>Keywords:</italic> Agrarianism, Romania, Communization, Countryside, Comrades.</p>
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