Labor Politics and Syndicalism in Interwar Romania: the Drives to the Right and to the Left

Abstract

The article surveys the ideological drives to the Right and to the Left in the Romanian space, as they applied to the field of labor and social policies, over the period stretching from the first local reactions taken to the corporatist restructuring of syndical organization in fascist Italy up to the installation of communism. The developments involved are placed against their early XXth century historical background and the identity of the liberal approach to the issues concerned, enjoying a dominant position over the years coming in the aftermath of the First World War, is delineated in order to be invoked as a reference against which the tenets of the rival perspectives are evaluated. The full-blown fascist and communist relevant views are related to the other varieties of right-wing and respectively left-wing demands. The issue of syndicalism is taken as the central thread of the process of change under scrutiny, and the shaping of the legislative and institutional devices meant to address the problem of the representation of professional interests in an authoritarian guise is treated as the cornerstone of the same process.