Ploughmen's Front
농민전선 (루마니아)
A left-wing peasant political organisation founded at Deva in 1933 by Petru Groza. Electorally insignificant between the wars, it came under the influence of the then illegal Communist Party. In 1944 it joined the communist-led National Democratic Front, and as a pillar of Groza’s 1945 government it took an active part in establishing the communist regime. It dissolved itself in 1953.
In depth
According to the Romanian source, the Ploughmen’s Front was founded at Deva in January 1933 under Petru Groza’s leadership. Begun by Groza in Hunedoara County after he left Averescu’s People’s Party, the movement spread to the Banat and then to the rest of Romania, and at its peak in 1946 it had over a million members. Groza held that the National Peasants’ Party, the main agrarian party, had betrayed the peasants, and called for rural social security and tax reform favouring smallholders. According to Corneliu Coposu, the group was funded by Red Aid.
In September 1935 it signed an agreement with the Union of Hungarian Workers of Romania (MADOSZ), and on 6 December at Țebea it agreed on a joint antifascist struggle with the communist-influenced Democratic Bloc and the Socialist Party. In this period it never won more than 0.30% of the vote. When Carol II’s authoritarian regime banned all parties in 1938 it remained active underground, and under Antonescu’s dictatorship Groza was arrested in 1943–1944.
In October 1944 the Ploughmen’s Front joined the communist-led National Democratic Front. When Groza became prime minister on 6 March 1945, the Front held the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Culture and Arts. In the 1946 election it ran on a common platform with the Communist Party, and the Groza cabinet won through large-scale electoral fraud. The party at times clashed with the Communists, for example by calling for the preservation of small private plots and voluntary cooperatives, but it eventually gave in to their demands. In 1948 it absorbed the National Peasants’ Party–Alexandrescu, and in 1953 it dissolved itself at the Communist Party’s instigation.