Gheorghe I. Tătărescu (also known as Guță Tătărescu, with a slightly antiquated pet form of his given name; 2 November 1886 – 28 March 1957) was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania (1934–1937; 1939–1940), three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs (interim in 1934 and 1938, appointed to the office in 1945–1947) and once as Minister of War (1934). Representing the "young liberals" faction inside the National Liberal Party (PNL), Tătărescu began his political career as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca, becoming noted for his anticommunism and, in time, for his conflicts with the PNL's leader Dinu Brătianu and the Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu. During his first time in office, he moved closer to King Carol II and led an ambivalent policy toward the fascist Iron Guard and ultimately becoming instrumental in establishing the authoritarian and corporatist regime around the National Renaissance Front. In 1940, he accepted the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and had to resign.
After the start of World War II, Gheorghe Tătărescu initiated a move to rally political forces in opposition to Ion Antonescu's dictatorship, and sought an alliance with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). He was twice expelled from the PNL, in 1938 and 1944, creating instead his own group, the National Liberal Party-Tătărescu, and representing it inside the communist-endorsed Petru Groza cabinet. In 1946–1947, he was also the President of the Romanian Delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris. Then, relations between Tătărescu and the PCR began to sour, and he was replaced from the leadership of both his own party and the Foreign Ministry when his name was implicated in the Tămădău Affair. Following the Communist takeover, he was arrested and held as a political prisoner while being called to testify in the trial of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. He died soon after his release from prison.
Elected an honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 1937, he was removed from his seat by the communist authorities in 1948.Gogan One of his brothers, Colonel Ștefan Tătărescu, was at some point the leader of a minor Nazi group, the National Socialist Party.
Early life and politics Born in Târgu Jiu, Tătărescu studied at Carol I High School in Craiova. He later went to France, where he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Paris in 1912, with a thesis on the Romanian parliamentary system (Le régime électoral et parlementaire en Roumanie). He subsequently worked as a lawyer in Bucharest. He fathered a son, Tudor, and a daughter, Sanda (married to the lawyer Ulise Negropontes in 1940).Petru
After joining the National Liberal Party (PNL), he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in November 1919, representing Gorj County.Constantinescu, p.21 Among his first notable actions as a politician was an initiative to interpellate Nicolae L. Lupu, the Minister of Interior Affairs Ministry in the Romanian National Party-Peasants' Party cabinet in answer to concerns that the executive was tolerating socialist agitation in the countryside.Constantinescu, p.24-25
He stood among the PNL's "young liberals" faction, as they were colloquially known, supporting free trade and a more authoritarian rule over the country around King Carol II, and opposing both the older generation of leaders (who tended to advocate protectionism and a liberal democracy) and the dissident group of Gheorghe I. Brătianu (see National Liberal Party-Brătianu).Hitchins, p.380, 385, 412; Ornea, p.16; Scurtu, "Politica...", p.16-17; Veiga, p.212
The Undersecretary in the Interior Affairs Ministry under several PNL cabinets (beginning with that of Ion I. C. Brătianu in 1922–1926), he first became noted as a collaborator of Ion G. Duca. In 1924–1936, in contrast to his agenda after World War II agenda, Tătărescu was a noted anticommunist, and reacted vehemently against the Romanian Communist Party (PCdR, later PCR),Cioroianu, p.36, 111 recommending and obtaining its outlawing, based on communist adversity to the concept of Greater Romania, and notably arguing that the Comintern-supported Tatarbunary Uprising was evidence of "imperialist communism".Tătărescu, 1926 speech
First cabinet
Context Tătărescu became leader of the cabinet in January 1934, as the fascist Iron Guard had assassinated Prime Minister Duca on 30 December 1933 (the five-day premiership of Constantin Anghelescu ensured transition between the two governments). His was the second PNL cabinet formed during Carol's reign, and the latter's failure to draw support from the mainstream group led to a tight connection being established between Carol and the young liberals, with Tătărescu backing the process leading to the creation of a royal dictatorship.Hitchins, p.412; Scurtu, "Politica...", p.16 One of Tătărescu's first measures was a decisive move to end the conflict between the National Liberal executive and the Mayor of Bucharest, Dem I. Dobrescu (who was backed by the National Peasants' Party)—making use of his prerogative, he removed Dobrescu from office on 18 January.Zănescu et al., p.83
The brief period constituted a reference point in Romanian economy, as the emergence from the Great Depression, although marked by endemic problems, saw prosperity more widespread than ever before.Veiga, p.211 This was, in part, the contribution of new economic relations which Tătărescu defended and encouraged: the state transformed itself into the main agent of economic activities, allowing for prosperous businesses to benefit from its demands, and, in time, leading to the creation of a camarilla dominated by the figures of industrialists such as Aristide Blank, Nicolae Malaxa, and Max Auschnitt.Gallagher, p.102-103; Veiga, p.212-213 In this context, Tătărescu's allegedly subservient position in front of Carol was a frequent topic of ridicule at the time.Gallagher, p.102; Pandrea According to a hostile account of the socialist Petre Pandrea: "Tătărescu was ceremonious in order to cover his menial nature. When he was leaving audiences [with the King], he pressed forward on the small of his back and returned facing backwards from the desk to the door, not daring to show his back. [...] Watching over the scene [...], Carol II exclaimed to his intimate assistants: — I don't have a big enough tooshie for all the politicians to kiss!"Pandrea (Pandrea's italics)
Among other services rendered, he intervened in the conflict between Carol and his brother, Prince Nicholas, asking the latter to renounce either his marriage to Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti—considered a misalliance by Carol, it had not been recognized by Romanian authorities—or his princely prerogatives.Scurtu, "Principele Nicolae..." Nicholas chose the latter alternative in 1937.
Inside his party, Tătărescu lost ground to Dinu Brătianu, elected by the traditional Liberal elite as a compromise in order to ensure unity; upon his election in 1934, the latter stated: "This time as well, I would have gladly conceded, if I were to believe that anyone else in the party could gather voter unanimity."Brătianu, in Scurtu, "Politica...", p.17
The issue remained debated for the following two years. The party congress of July 1936 eventually elected Tătărescu to the second position in the party, that of general secretary.Scurtu, "Politica...", p.17
European politics In his foreign policy, Prime Minister Tătărescu balanced two different priorities, attempting to strengthen the traditional military alliance with Poland which was aimed at the Soviet Union, and reacting against the growing regional influence of Nazi Germany by maintaining the relevancy of the Little Entente and establishing further contacts with the Soviets.
In August 1936, he removed Nicolae Titulescu from the office of foreign minister, replacing him with Victor Antonescu. This caused an uproar, with most of Romania's diplomatic corps voicing their dissatisfaction. Over the following months, virtually all of Titulescu's supporters were themselves recalled (including, among others, Constantin Vișoianu, the ambassador to Poland, Constantin Antoniade, Romania's representative to the League of Nations, Dimitrie Ghyka, the ambassador to Belgium, and Caius Brediceanu, the ambassador to Austria) while Titulescu's adversaries, such as Antoine Bibesco, were returned to office.Potra, Part I, Part II Bibesco subsequently campaigned in France and the United Kingdom, in an attempt to reassure Romania's main allies that the move did not signify a change in Romania's priorities.Potra, Part II Tătărescu was later blamed by his own party for having renounced the diplomatic course on which Romania had engaged.Țurlea, p.29
In early 1937, Tătărescu rejected the proposal of Józef Beck, Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, to withdraw Romania's support for Czechoslovakia and attempt a reconciliation with Hungary (the following year, Romania withdrew its support for the former, indicating, just before the Munich Agreement, that it was not in a position to guarantee Czechoslovakia's frontiers).Hitchins, p.432-433 This was accompanied by Czechoslovak initiatives to establish close contacts between the Little Entente and the Soviets: a scandal erupted in the same year, when the country's ambassador to Romania, Jan Šeba, published a volume calling for Soviet-Entente military cooperation (despite the Soviet-Romanian conflict over Bessarabia) and expressing the hope that the Soviet state would extend its borders into West Belarus and Ukraine.Otu Kamil Krofta, Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, received criticism for having prefaced the book, and, after Tătărescu paid a visit to Czechoslovak Prime Minister Milan Hodža, Šeba was recalled to Prague.
Facing the Iron Guard In combating the Iron Guard, Tătărescu chose to relax virtually all pressures on the latter (while mimicking some of its messages), and instead concentrated again on curbing the activities of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and outlawing its Popular Front-type organizations (see Amicii URSS).Cioroianu, p.43, 113-118; Frunză, p.84, 102-103; Veiga, p.223-224
In April 1936, he and the Minister of the Interior Ion Inculeț allowed a youth congress to gather in Târgu Mureș, aware of the fact that it was masking a fascist gathering; delegates to the congress, traveling in a special train commissioned by the government, vandalized Ion Duca's memorial plate in Sinaia train station, and, upon their arrival in Târgu Mureș, made public their violent antisemitic agenda.Ornea, p.304-305; Veiga, p.233 It was probably there that death squads were designated and assigned missions, leading to the murder of Mihai Stelescu, a former associate, in June of the next year.Ornea, p.305, 307
In February 1937, an intense publicity campaign by the Guard, begun with the ostentatious funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin (killed in the Spanish Civil War) and culminating in the physical assaulting of Traian Bratu, rector of the University of Iași, by Guardist students, provoked the premier's order to close down universities throughout the country.Veiga, p.234