Romulus Zăroni or Zeroni (; 28 April 1906 – 23 October 1962) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian politician and agronomist, who collaborated with Petru Groza in establishing the left-agrarian Ploughmen's Front, and served as Minister of Agriculture in 1945–1946. Generally associated with the ethnographic region known as Țara Hațegului, he was of peasant origins—during his political ascendancy, he presented himself as a destitute smallholder, but was in fact from a well-to-do family, and was himself a prosperous entrepreneur. Though enshrined in popular memory as a dimwitted blunderer, Zăroni had in fact taken an agricultural specialist's diploma in Weimar Germany, and was well-read; he was also noted as an amateur poet and author of political manifestos. Before consolidating his political partnership with Groza, he had carved out his own political path as a Romanian nationalist and an advocate of prohibition. He had caucused with the Agrarian League, and had appeared on its lists for legislative elections in 1932.
Zăroni joined Groza's protest movement in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression. As one of the Ploughmen's Front secondary leaders, he supported collaboration with other leftist groups within the Kingdom of Romania, including the underground Romanian Communist Party, but also the Hungarian People's Union or the United Socialists. Zăroni entered the public eye in 1937, when he published an anti-fascist brochure specifically aimed at the peasants; well-liked in leftist circles, it was ridiculed by the conservatives as inadequate. He himself was always seen as subservient to Groza, being consequently ridiculed as Groza's servant, or pet animal. During World War II, Groza entered the anti-fascist underground and found himself imprisoned as a result. Zăroni himself was less vocal, though he reportedly participated in some efforts to reanimate the Ploughmen's Front.
Groza and Zăroni reached their political apex after the coup of 23 August 1944, when the Communist Party and the Ploughmen's Front were allowed to participate in government. Zăroni himself entered the Second Sănătescu cabinet as a high-ranking functionary in the Ministry of Agriculture, preserving his post during the Rădescu cabinet. He then helped engineer a crisis over the issue of land reform, becoming complicit in the communist power-grab of March 1945. Groza took over as the communist-appointed Premier, advancing him to the post of Minister. Zăroni soon antagonized the communists by folding back on his conservatism, which included support for the Romanian monarchy, and by seeking to bring together like-minded members of the Front. He was made Minister of Co-Operation, then, upon the full consolidation of a socialist-republican regime, was demoted to head of Centrocoop. He was allowed to continue political work within the Great National Assembly, dying while still in office on its presidium, at age 56. He endured as the butt of many a Romanian joke, and a stock character prefiguring Bulă.
Biography Beginnings Zăroni was born on 28 April 1906 in Hunyad County, Transylvania (the region as a whole was in the Hungarian partition of Austria-Hungary). Sources report his exact birthplace as either Hășdat"Romulus Zăroni", in Neuer Weg, 25 October 1962, p. 2 (now part of Hunedoara city) or Nădăștia de Sus"Cui dăm votul și încrederea noastră. Romulus Zăroni ministrul cooperației și membru în comitetul executiv al Frontului Plugarilor candidează în jud. Târnava Mică", in Frontul Plugarilor, 26 March 1948, p. 5Radu & Budeancă, p. 73 (later absorbed by Călan). In some descriptions, he is listed as "a simple man [and] a peasant from Țara Hațegului", located further to the south, on what was then the border with the Kingdom of Romania; his ethnic Romanian parents are known to have been named Ioan and Eva.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 60, 61 His official biography noted that he was the son of "destitute plow-wielding peasants", and that he himself "toiled from his earliest years to for his parents' sliver of land, to earn himself a bitter loaf of bread." Various sources contradict this take, describing the Zăronis as a family of wealthy peasants, or chiaburi.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 61–62, 73–74
Attending primary school in Nădăștia de Sus, Romulus witnessed the union of Transylvania with Romania, during which he had enrolled at what later became Decebal National College in Deva.Radu & Budeancă, p. 61 Young Zăroni reportedly got interested in the "workers' movements and the proletariat's struggle", which became main subjects on his reading list. He is known to have studied at an agricultural school in Weimar Germany, returning as a trained agronomist with a direct involvement in improving working techniques—back home, he set up a model farm.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 61–62 In October 1931, Ioan Moța's newspaper Libertatea hosted Zăroni's letter calling for a near-complete prohibition. In this text, he was also claiming that the production and sale of spirits was a Jewish business, whereby "the Jewish heathen sucks dry the soul of this nation"."'Monopolul spirtului'. Păreri venite din popor, dela cei bine înțelegători", in Libertatea cu Foaia Interesantă, Issue 20/1931, p. 2 Rumors recorded by historians Sorin Radu and Cosmin Budeancă claim that Zăroni's first political engagement was with a right-wing group called "Agrarian League", which he represented during an election in Timișoara. The authors note that such accounts remain uncorroborated.Radu & Budeancă, p. 75 Zăroni was however officially registered as a League candidate for the Assembly of Deputies in Hunedoara County for elections in July 1932."Campania electorală. Lista Ligii Agrare la Hunedoara", in Cuvântul, 10 July 1932, p. 7
Zăroni eventually rallied with the peasants' protest movement, formed in reaction to the Great Depression; as one of Petru Groza's "closest collaborators", he helped establish the Ploughmen's Front in early 1933, when he was aged 26. Unverified reports suggest that he was also Groza's employee, or "servant", at a mill in Călan-Strei.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 75–76 Zăroni's output included amateur poetry, taken up by the Front's newspaper Horia in 1932–1933. Samples include the fable Sătulul nu crede ălui flămând ("Those Who Have Dismiss Those Who Have Not").Clemente Constantin, "Lirica în ziarul Horia", in Familia, Vol. 2, Issue 4, April 1966, p. 5 In February 1933, he published therein a sketch of the Front's political program. It called on all peasants to unite into a single political-and-professional organization, while also demanding that the state abolish its courts of arbitration, or Agricultural Chambers, seeing them as instruments of exploitation.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 62–63 That April, speaking at the Front's first congress in Deva, he expressed the belief that the movement would soon catch on "throughout the country."Cleja, pp. 45–46 He was thereafter leader of the Front's plasă-level organization in Hunedoara—in which capacity he "stood up to the landowners and the exploiters", convincing various peasants that they should never vote for the leading right- and left-wing parties. He therefore competed with a dominant agrarian force, the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ), but still had friendly contacts with some of its representatives, including Corneliu Coposu. The latter provided some biographical detail on Zăroni, reporting that he had once attended a congress of the International Agrarian Bureau in Prague.Radu & Budeancă, p. 62
Zăroni was fourth on the Ploughmen's Front list during the Assembly election of December 1933—his colleague Miron Belea held the top position."Campania electorală. Candidaturi depuse", in Dimineața, 19 December 1933, p. 5 Their activity, and that of the Front as a whole, soon became intertwined with efforts undertaken by the underground Romanian Communist Party (PCR, or PCdR). According to the latter's official reports, Zăroni had grown "convinced that the working class, with the Communist Party at its helm, was the only political force that could express the workers' community aspirations toward a dignified and free life". He therefore militated "for the industrial workers' alliance with the toiling peasantry". Zăroni took the initiative in sealing pacts with the PCR and its satellites: in September 1935, he signed the accord of Băcia, creating an alliance between the Front and the Hungarian People's Union (MADOSZ), which represented pro-communist sections of the Hungarian Romanian community; in December, he approved of the Țebea alliance with the United Socialists.Radu & Budeancă, pp. 63–64 He was however supportive of drawing the PNȚ into a popular front, and once traveled to Bucharest to present his case.Radu & Budeancă, p. 64 He also kept up with the anti-communist side of the peasants' movement, and subscribed to the more centrist Cuvântul Satelor of Șoșdea (as one of its few regular readers in all of Hunedoara County); this publication described Groza's movement and the fascist Iron Guard as equally dangerous for the peasantry.Vali Corduneanu, "Un manuscris inedit din 1953 reconstituie istoria longevivei mișcări de la gazeta Cuvântul Satelor", in Agenda Senzațional, Vol. V, Issue 36, December 2005, p. 1
Zăroni was largely unknown to Romanians outside of Hunedoara County, with his name only appearing rarely in the central press; he was however familiar to the Kingdom's secret service, the Siguranța, as well as to the Romanian Police.Radu & Budeancă, p. 60 In October 1936, he appeared in Deva at Groza's trial for sedition, testifying that the prosecution witness was Groza's personal enemy.V. Munteanu, "Un interesant proces la Deva. Agentul provocator", in Adevărul, 22 October 1936, p. 3 Zăroni was an unsuccessful candidate in the local election-rounds of early 1937, losing first at Deva and then at Hunedoara. Ahead of general elections in December 1937, he contributed a "propaganda brochure"Radu & Budeancă, p. 65 advising peasants not to give in to the lure of fascist parties; he was reportedly prompted to write it after witnessing that some plughmen had preferred to join the Iron Guard.Cleja, p. 49 The text was admiringly quoted in the left-wing daily, Dimineața, which depicted Zăroni as a spiritual legatee of the peasant leader Vasile "Horea" Nicola;"Dimineața în Ardeal. Cum grăesc strănepoții lui Horia. De ce nu pot fi țăranii extremiști. O interesantă broșură a unui plugar din Hunedoara — Dela redacția noastră din Cluj", in Dimineața, 22 October 1937, p. 12 it was instead mocked by the conservative Neamul Românesc:
The arguments presented by Brother Romulus of Nădăștia are of secondary importance. What should excite all of our combative defenders of democracy is something else: namely, that the Romanian peasant, now obeying his cousin Zăronea , will never but never again go 'fascist'. Messrs Mussolini and Ugo Sola may now plead with him, and so may Mr Iuliu Maniu, but the Romanian peasant will endure as he always was: a staunch democrat, a skilled plowman, an 'awakening' elector, a citizen fed on illusions and befuddled by promises. But not a fascist, never that. Especially given that fascism pushes one to work industriously for one's country, for one's kin, for one's own interest."Ultima oră. Așa da, bade cutare", in Neamul Românesc, 17 August 1937, p. 2