Mihail Manoilescu

Mihail Manoilescu

Mihail Manoilescu, right, Vienna, August 30, 1940

Mihail Manoilescu (Romanian pronunciation: [mihaˈilmano.iˈlesku]; December 9, 1891 – December 30, 1950)was a Romanian journalist, engineer, economist, politi-cian and memoirist, who served as Foreign Minister ofRomania during the summer of 1940. His corporatistideas on economics were very popular and applied inSouth America.

1 Biography

1.1 Early life

Born to a political family in Tecuci, he was the nephewof Alexandru Bădărău, twice a minister in Conservativecabinets during the early 1900s, and a descendant of theMoldavian boyar known as Logofătul Tăutu; his gran-father was strong unionist, a supporter of the Union ofMoldova with Wallachia, while his father was a mem-ber of the Socialist Party.[1] The Manoilescus moved toIaşi when Mihail was a child. Having been the recipientof the Gazeta Matematică prize in 1910, he went on tostudy at the ”Școala de Poduri și Șosele” (the School ofBridges and Roads) in Bucharest, completing his train-ing as a valedictorian in 1915.[2] Manoilescu was subse-quently assigned to the Ministry of Public Works, andlater moved to an artillery regiment in Roman.[3]

Upon Romania’s entry into World War I, he was assignedto the Directorate of Ammunitions (led by Tancred Con-stantinescu), and designed an original type of 210 mmhowitzer, which, after southern Romania was invaded bythe Central Powers (see Romanian Campaign), was pro-duced in Nicolina.[4] After the conflict, in 1919, he hada minor role in the National Liberal Party (PNL) govern-ments, assisting General Constantinescu as Head of theIndustrial Recovery Directorate and later as General Di-rector of Industry.[4]

1.2 With Averescu

Soon, Manoilescu joined the People’s Party, a populistforce led by General Alexandru Averescu, becoming un-dersecretary of state in the latter’s first cabinet.[5] He wasresponsible for measures such as organizing the IndustrialExhibition, carrying out industrial statistics, and unifyinglegislation related to the industry.[4] In 1921, he resignedhis ministerial position, justifying it as an attempt to fur-ther his expertise and investigative range.[4]

During the period when the PNL returned to government,Manoilescu focused on his research, and contributed18 individual works.[4] He also became influential asan orator, and was a frequent presence in conferenceshosted by the sociologist Dimitrie Gusti.[4] Manoilescureturned to high office with the second Averescu execu-tive, and drafted innovative legislation concerning tariffsand salary amortization.[4]

In 1926, while on a mission to Italy, where he was to ne-gotiate a loan and pave the way for the friendship treatysigned between the two countries,[6] he met the fascist

1

2 1 BIOGRAPHY

dictator Benito Mussolini and became his admirer (call-ing the Fascist regime “a truly constructive political rev-olution, one that can only compare itself with the greatFrench revolution in scale and novelty”).[7] Subsequently,he was active in collaboration with the Comitati d'azioneper l'universalità di Roma and other Italian-led projects ofinternational cooperation.[8]

1.3 1927 trial

He was then an advocate of the crowning of CarolCaraiman as King of Romania (in the place of his un-derage son Mihai).[9] In the autumn of 1927, while dis-tributing Carol’s appeals to the leaders of various po-litical parties and carrying his letter to Queen Marie,he was arrested (martial law was proclaimed by the IonI. C. Brătianu government in the incident’s wake).[10]Manoilescu, who benefited from Averescu’s vocal sup-port, was acquitted when tried by a court subordinatedto the Council of War in late November.[11]

His own testimony was indicated by Time as arguing thatCarol was alarmed by an alleged growth in republicanismand only wished to be part of the Regency.[12] He alsostated:

“The Prince is too loyal and decent to thinkof dethroning his own son.”[13]

While accusing the executive of having previously at-tempted to purchase his silence, Manoilescu stressed hisbelief that King Ferdinand had, just before his death,asked Brătianu for Carol to be allowed to return.[12] Healso speculated that Ferdinand had endorsed a regencyonly for as long as Carol continued to behave irrespon-sibly, and had not wanted to exclude his son from thethrone.[12] Averescu, who unsuccessfully called on bothCarol and Brătianu to take the stand,[12] backed this ver-sion by mentioning his own experience as a mediator be-tween Ferdinand and Carol, during which the latter hadallegedly agreed to comply, while the former had eventu-ally become more open to Carol’s return.[14]

The acquittal came as a shock, given rumors that Pre-mier Brătianu had instructed the court to find Manoilescuguilty.[15] In an unusual incident during the first day oftrial, news correspondents from abroad were told that in-ternational phone connections had been severed — theyresorted to crossing the Danube into Bulgaria at Giurgiu,using phones there to contact their employers, and re-peated the trip several times over the following days.[15]

1.4 Camarilla

After Carol returned to rule as Carol II in mid-1930,Manoilescu was a very influential person in the king’scamarilla, being the Minister of Economy in the NationalPeasants’ Party (PNŢ) cabinets of Iuliu Maniu and

Gheorghe Mironescu (while he was a member of thatparty),[16] as well as under Nicolae Iorga (1930-1931).[17]He was elected to the Assembly of Deputies for the PNŢin 1930, representing Caraş County.[4] His political ad-versaries speculated that he had forged documents andplayed a hand in bringing Carol’s mistress, Magda Lu-pescu, back into the country.[18]

In his memoirs, Manoilescu claimed that, at the time, hehad played a hand in the release of Mihai Gheorghiu Bu-jor (imprisoned since 1918, due to his Bolshevik activismand designs for a communist revolution);[19] Manoilescuauthored a series of articles in his support, and allegedlyintervened alongside King Carol[19] (it is generally ac-cepted that the most decisive action in this respect wastaken by Maniu, who spoke against imprisonment forpolitical crimes such as Bujor’s).[19]

At the time, he became a staunch rival of his fellowPNŢ member Virgil Madgearu. According to Petre Pan-drea's hostile account, Manoilescu purchased from thewriters Sergiu Dan and Ion Vinea an allegedly stolentext which appeared to be entirely written by Madgearu,but had been heavily forged by the two to include criti-cism of the king; Manoilescu attempted to use the doc-ument against its supposed author, but was exposed byCarol himself (who, according to Pandrea, was amusedby the events).[20] The incident contributed to PNŢ inner-conflict that caused Manoilescu to leave the grouping.[20]

In 1931, Manoilescu was governor of the National Bankof Romania[4] and began teaching Political economy atthe Polytechnic Institute. As governor, he refused to sal-vage the Marmorosch Blank Bank with state funds, andclashed with Carol over the issue, being ultimately re-moved from office in November of the same year.[4]

He began editing a magazine, Lumea Nouă, which was tobecome the main platform for his ideas, and, in 1932,created his own party — Liga Naţional-Corporatistă(National-Corporatist League).[21] Between 1932 and1937, he was assigned a seat in the Senate, representingthe Romanian Chamber of Commerce.[4]

1.5 Political and economic theories

In Paris in 1929, he published the first version of hisfundamental work, The theory of protectionism and in-ternational exchanges at the Giard publishing house (aspart of the “Bibliothèque Économique Internationale”collection).[4] His intense advocacy of industrializationformed the main theme of the book The role and des-tiny of Romania’s bourgeoisie (1942), which was one ofthe main works dealing with the development of a localmiddle class, alongside those written by Ştefan Zeletinand Eugen Lovinescu (while sharing some perspectiveswith the essays of Emil Cioran);[22] the topic blended withhis support for authoritarianism and the single-party sys-tem, as Manoilescu rejected democracy (which, in hisview, encouraged the majority-forming peasantry to de-

1.7 Foreign Minister 3

cide on matters that did not concern it).[23] The role anddestiny... criticized the course of Romanian social devel-opment:

"[...] an oversized bourgeoisie which mim-icks the boyars of yesteryear and has an over-bourgeois way of living, oversized in compari-son with its means, creates a certain social in-stability and features a high percentage of indi-vidual failures.That is why the Romanian bourgeoisie is notin fact a bourgeoisie in one of its most essen-tial features; whereas the Occident focuses onaccumulation, security and the future, our bour-geoisie will focus on spending, satisfaction andthe present. Whereas the Western bourgeoiswork for their children, the Romanian bour-geois will often only work for themselves.”[24]

Among others, Manoilescu adopted some of thePoporanist ideas on capital and its international circula-tion, as present in the works of Constantin Stere[25] (inturn influenced by the Marxist Werner Sombart).[26] Heargued that a national economy could develop only if itminimized its contacts with the world market and re-lied instead on cultivating internal demand for a localindustry.[27]

At the same time, his magazine supported a nationalistand racist approach, viewing corporatism as “the guar-antee of Romanianization",[28] and proclaiming that“the racial basis of Romania is the same as that ofAryan Europe”.[29] Manoilescu himself welcomed theanti-Semitic policies of the Alexandru Vaida-Voevodgovernment.[30]

Manoilescu’s corporatist and protectionist ideas began tobe applied in Brazil, as the basis of that country’s indus-trial development during its Estado Novo regime.[31] Hisopinion that the engagement of productive forces in in-dustry, seen as always more productive than agricultureand other raw materials, is a welcomed process consti-tuted an influence on both Celso Furtado and Raúl Pre-bisch[32] (arguably, it also indirectly influenced the UnitedNations Economic Commission for Latin America andthe Caribbean).[31] On the other hand, Manoilescu’s ad-vocacy of autarkic measures has been compared to themeasures enforced by later Stalinist regimes, includingthat of Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania,[33] who on at leastone occasion described his works as a major contributionto the theory of underdevelopment.[34]

1.6 Iron Guard

Despite the increasingly tense relations between Caroland the fascist Iron Guard, Manoilescu was viewed withinterest by the latter.[35] By the late 1930s, he was himselfa supporter of the Guard (which he hoped to see turning

into a corporatist movement — “an instrument to vali-date the goals of the [Guard’s] national revolution”),[36]and donated part of his land to one of the latter’senterprises.[37] His new discourse was ridiculed by his for-mer colleagues in the National Peasants’ Party, as “des-perate attempts to exit from the [old generation of politi-cians] and sit among the new men”.[38] In February 1937,he began discreetly financing the Guard’s newly createdpaper, Buna Vestire (he was exposed as the man behindit by virtually all political commentators of the time).[39]

In the election of 1937, he ran for the Senate on theEvery-thing for the Fatherland Party list (which served as a frontfor the Iron Guard).[18] According to his political adver-sary Constantin Argetoianu, the party’s unofficial leaderCorneliu Zelea Codreanu made similar proposals tophilosopher Nae Ionescu and General Gheorghe Moruzi:Ionescu denied the request because, as a self-proclaimedpillar of the Guard, he could not accept such a lowlyposition, while Moruzi called Manoilescu “a con artist”and alluded to his reported connection with Magda Lu-pescu.[18] Argetoianu sarcastically remarked, “the partyof «moral regeneration» was left with one guest, withManoilescu!"[18] During the period, Manoilescu also ap-plied changes to his earlier vision on industry and self-sufficiency, calling for Romania to develop itself by sup-plying rawmaterials to the rising force that was Nazi Ger-many.[40]

1.7 Foreign Minister

In July 1940, at the moment of crisis when Bessarabiaand Northern Bukovina were ceded to the Soviet Union,Manoilescu was named foreign minister in the pro-fascistgovernment headed by Ion Gigurtu. The new execu-tive was faced with eventually successful attempts byHungary, backed by Italy and Nazi Germany, to re-vise its border with Romania and the Treaty of Trianon.Manoilescu, who was a supporter of the Axis alliance,[41]attempted in vain to make use of his influence with Italianauthorities.[4] In order to ensure less international adver-sity toward Romania, he also offered to cede SouthernDobruja to Bulgaria (although Germany had not includedthis revision in its demands toward the Romanian exec-utive), an approach eventually leading to the Treaty ofCraiova.As an official representative of the country convokedby the Axis, on August 30, he signed the Second Vi-enna Award, which divided Transylvania between Hun-gary and Romania (see Northern Transylvania).[42]WhileGerman Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop com-municated the final decision in the Gold Room of theBelvedere Palace, Manoilescu fainted.[43]

In September, he was involved in negotiations with Sovietenvoys regarding a détente between the two countries;at the time, examining the situation created by warmrelations between the Axis and the Soviet Union (see

4 2 NOTES

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), the fall of France and theUnited Kingdom's isolation (which had deprived Roma-nia of diplomatic alternatives), Manoilescu argued thatRomania looked “with respect” towards Moscow, Berlin,and Rome.[44] Asked by the Soviet delegation to accountfor alleged new border incidents, he stiffly denied thatthese had ever occurred.[45]

1.8 1940s, imprisonment and death

The responsibility for the Transylvanian compromiseweighed heavily on him later in the following year, whenthe Iron Guard, revived by the leadership of Horia Sima,came to government and proclaimed the National Le-gionary State; it refused to appoint Manoilescu to anyleadership position.[46] After the Iron Guard’s 1941 Re-bellion, he remained present on the political stage as asupporter of Ion Antonescu's dictatorship (see Romaniaduring World War II).[47] In autumn 1940, he representedhis country to Rome, where he attempted to persuade Ital-ian officials to look into information about Hungarian vi-olence in Northern Transylvania, and, in July 1942, trav-eled to the Independent State of Croatia to meet with OttoFranges, his collaborator on an overview of Southeast Eu-ropean economy.[4]

On October 12, 1944, after the Soviet occupation be-gan, Manoilescu was jailed without trial for 14 months,during which time he was expelled from his position atthe Polytechnic Institute.[4] Because of the bad sanitaryconditions in prison, he became sick with endemic ty-phus, and sent to the hospital for contagious diseases inColentina.[48] Set free in December 1945, he resumedwork on his unfinished writings, and became an advo-cate of harvesting geothermal power in Romania (hisinnovations in the field were patented on the name ofhis son, Alexandru Manoilescu).[4] He was once againjailed without trial and without a sentence by CommunistRomanian authorities on December 19, 1948, and wasbrought first to Jilava prison,[48] and then to the noto-rious prison of Ocnele Mari. While being held there,Manoilescu became, together with the philosopher PetreŢuţea, one of the most esteemed members of the “Un-derground Academy” (organized by inmates as a form ofcultural resistance and survival).[49]

Manoilescu was ultimately brought to Sighet prison,where he died at the end of 1950.[50] Typhus had lefthim with heart problems, which were aggravated in de-tention; with nomedical attention, this led to his death;[48]his body was buried in a common grave. For years, hisfamily asked about him, but there was no official answer.In 1951, although deceased, he was brought to trial bya civil court for his journalistic activities. On April 12,1952 he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison,10 years deprivation of civil rights, and confiscation ofall property, a measure which is thought to be unprece-dented in a civilised state.[51] His family was told of hisdeath only in May 1958.[52]

2 Notes[1] Valeriu Dinu, ”Prefață. Schiță de portret: Mihail

Manoilescu”, în Mihail Manoilescu, Memorii, 2 volume,ediție îngrijită, prefață, note și indice Valeriu Dinu, cu-vânt înainte Mugur Isărescu (București: Editura Enciclo-pedică, 1993), p. 7.

[2] Dinu, ”Prefață”, p. 7.

[3] Mihăiță.

[4] Mihăiţă

[5] Hîncu, p.69; Ornea, p.265

[6] Hîncu, p.69; Mihăiţă

[7] Manoilescu, 1926, in Hîncu, p.69

[8] Ornea, p.266; Veiga, p.253

[9] Ciachir; Mihăiţă; Ornea, p.265

[10] “More Carol-ings"; “Manoilescu Trial”

[11] Ciachir; “Manoilescu Acquitted”

[12] “Manoilescu Trial”

[13] Manoilescu, in “Manoilescu Trial”

[14] “Manoilescu Acquitted”

[15] Ciachir

[16] Ornea, p.273; Pandrea

[17] Ornea, p.265; Veiga, p.127, 129, 213-214

[18] Argetoianu, p.87

[19] Cioroianu, p.28

[20] Pandrea

[21] Boatcă, p.23; Veiga, p.214

[22] Ornea, p.48, 138, 266

[23] Ornea, p.46, 268-269; Stahl

[24] Manoilescu, in Scurtu et al. (Manoilescu’s italics)

[25] Boatcă,p.23; Love

[26] Boatcă, p.17; Love

[27] Chirot, p.250; Gallagher, p.33

[28] Victor Munteanu, 1936, in Ornea, p.273

[29] Al. Randa, 1941, in Ornea, p.108

[30] Ornea, p.273-274

[31] Love

[32] Boatcă, p.23; Love

[33] Chirot, p.251; Gallagher, p.33

[34] Gallagher, p.33

5

[35] Argetoianu, p.87; Ornea, p.270

[36] Manoilescu, 1937, in Ornea, p.277

[37] Ornea, p.270

[38] Dreptatea, 1937, in Ornea, p.275

[39] Ornea, p.275-276

[40] Gallagher, p.33; Stahl

[41] Ornea, p.270-272; Şandru

[42] “Fire in the Carpathians"; Mihăiţă; Ornea, p.265

[43] “Fire in the Carpathians”

[44] Manoilescu, in Şandru

[45] Şandru

[46] Ornea, p.280

[47] Mihăiţă; Ornea, p.284-285

[48] Harre

[49] Popescu, p.80

[50] Dinu, p. 14; Chirot, p.250; Gallagher, p.33

[51] Dinu, ”Prefață”, p. 14.

[52] Dinu, p. 14.

3 References

• Constantin Argetoianu, “Memorii”, in Magazin Is-toric, December 1967, p. 78-87

• Manuela Boatcă, “Peripheral Solutions to PeripheralDevelopment: The Case of Early 20th Century Ro-mania” (PDF file), in Journal of World Systems Re-search, XI, 1, July 2005, p. 3-26

• Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power andPrevalence of Evil in Our Age, Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, 1996

• Dan Ciachir, “Ziarişti cu greutate”, in Ziua, March17, 2007

• Adrian Cioroianu, “Lumina vine de la Răsărit.«Noua imagine» a Uniunii Sovietice în Româ-nia postbelică, 1944-1947”, in Lucian Boia, ed.,Miturile comunismului românesc, Editura Nemira,Bucharest, 1998, p. 21-68

• Tom Gallagher, Theft of a Nation: Romania sinceCommunism, C. Hurst & Co., London, 2005. ISBN1-85065-716-5

• Angela Harre, “Mihail Manoilescu – a political bi-ography of a national economist”

• Dumitru Hîncu, “O acţiune politică contestată. De-scoperiri în arhivele Ministerului de externe dinViena”, in Magazin Istoric, November 1995

• Mihai Mihăiţă, “Mihail Manoilescu. Personalitatemarcantă din AGIR”, in Univers Ingineresc, at theGeneral Association of Romanian Engineers site

• Joseph L. Love, Theorizing underdevelopment:Latin America and Romania, 1860-1950

• (Romanian) Mihail Manoilescu, Rostul și destinulburgheziei românești, studiu critic Dan Pavel, edițieîngrijită de Leonard Oprea (București; EdituraATHENA, 1997), în Colecția ”Cărți fundamentaleale culturii române”, Colecție inițiată și finanțată deFundația Soros pentru o Societate Deschisă Româ-nia. ISBN 973-98191-8-4.

• (Romanian)Mihail Manoilescu,Memorii, 2 volume,ediție îngrijită, prefață, note și indice Valeriu Dinu,cuvînt înainte Mugur Isărescu (București: EdituraEnciclopedică, 1993), Colecția ”Biblioteca BănciiNaționale”, coordonată de Mugur Isărescu. ISBN973-45-0042-2.

• Z. Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptăromânească, Ed. Fundaţiei Culturale Române,Bucharest, 1995

• (Romanian) Petre Pandrea, “Carol II-Madgearu-Manoilescu”, in Magazin Istoric, July 2001

• Alexandru D. Popescu, Petre Ţuţea: Between Sacri-fice and Suicide, Ashgate Publishing, London, 2004

• (Romanian)* Constantin Schifirneț, MihailManoilescu: o viziune monografică despreburghezia română, in Sociologie românească mod-ernă, București: Criterion Publishing, 2009, pp.125–166

• (Romanian) Ioan Scurtu, Theodora Stănescu-Stanciu, Georgiana Margareta Scurtu, Istoriaromânilor între anii 1918-1940: 3.3. MihailManoilescu despre modul de viaţă al românilor

• (Romanian) Vasile Şandru, “Septembrie 1940.Relaţiile România-U.R.S.S. îl preocupă pe An-tonescu”, in Magazin Istoric

• (Romanian) Henri H. Stahl, Gânditori şi curente deistorie socială românească Cap. X: Gânditori dintrecele două războaie mondiale

• Time:

• “More Carol-ings”, November 7, 1927• “Manoilescu Trial”, November 21, 1927• “Manoilescu Acquitted”, November 28, 1927• “Fire in the Carpathians”, September 9, 1940

6 3 REFERENCES

• Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941:Mistica ultranaţionalismului, Humanitas, Bucharest,1993

7

4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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