Corneliu Zelea Codreanu - Biography - Creation of The Legion

Creation of The Legion

He returned from Grenoble to take part in the 1926 elections, and ran as a candidate for the town of Focşani. He lost, and, although it had had a considerable success, the League disbanded in the same year. Codreanu gathered former members of the League who had spent time in prison, and put into practice his dream of forming the Legion (November 1927, just a few days after the fall of a new Averescu cabinet, which had continued to support Cuza).

Based on Frăţia de Cruce, he designed as a selective and autarkic group, paying allegiance to him and no other, and soon expanded into a replicating network of political cells called "nests" (cuiburi). Frăţia endured as the Legion's most secretive and highest body, which requested from its members that they undergo a rite of passage, during which they swore allegiance to the Captain. According to American historian Barbara Jelavich, the movement "at first supported no set ideology, but instead emphasized the moral regeneration of the individual", while expressing a commitment to the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Legion introduced Orthodox rituals as part of its political rallies, while Codreanu made his public appearances dressed in folk costume — a traditionalist pose adopted at the time only by him and the National Peasant Party's Ion Mihalache. Throughout its existence, the Legion maintained strong links with members of the Romanian Orthodox clergy, and its members fused politics with an original interpretation of Romanian Orthodox messages — including claims that the Romanian kin was expecting its national salvation, in a religious sense.

Such a mystical focus, Jelavich noted, was in tandem with a marked preoccupation for violence and self-sacrifice, "but only if the were committed for the good of the cause and subsequently expiated." Legionaries engaged in violent or murderous acts often turned themselves in to be arrested, and it became common that violence was seen as a necessary step in a world that expected a Second Coming of Christ. With time, the Legion developed a doctrine around a cult of the fallen, going so far as to imply that the dead continued to form an integral part of a perpetual national community. As a consequence of its mysticism, the movement made a point of not adopting or advertising any particular platform, and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu explained early on: "The country is dying for lack of men and not for lack of political programs." Elsewhere, he pointed out that the Legion was interested in the creation of a "new man" (omul nou).

Despite its apparent lack of political messages, the movement was immediately noted for its antisemitism, for arguing that Romania was faced with a "Jewish Question" and for proclaiming that a Jewish presence throve on uncouthness and pornography. The Legionary leader wrote: "The historical mission of our generation is the resolution of the kike problem. All of our battles of the past 15 years have had this purpose, all of our life's efforts from now on will have this purpose." He accused the Jews in general of attempting to destroy what he claimed was a direct link between Romania and God, and the Legion campaigned in favor of the notion that there was no actual connection between the Old Testament Hebrews and the modern Jews. In one instance, making a reference to the origin of the Romanians, Codreanu stated that Jews were corrupting the "Roman-Dacian structure of our people."

He began openly calling for the destruction of Jews, and, as early as 1927, the new movement organized the sacking and burning of a synagogue in the city of Oradea. It thus profited from an exceptional popularity of antisemitism in Romanian society: according to one analysis, Romania was, with the exception of Poland, the most antisemitic country in Eastern Europe.

Codreanu's message was among the most radical forms of Romanian antisemitism, and contrasted with the generally more moderate antisemitic views of Cuza's former associate, prominent historian Nicolae Iorga. The model favoured by the Legion was a form of racial antisemitism, and formed part of Codreanu's theory that the Romanians were biologically distinct and superior to neighbouring or co-inhabiting ethnicities (including the Hungarian community). Codreanu also voiced his thoughts on the issue of Romanian expansionism, which show that he was pondering the incorporation of Soviet lands over the Dniester (in the region later annexed under the name of Transnistria) and planning a Romanian-led transnational federation centered on the Carpathians and the Danube.

From early on, the movement registered significant gains among the middle-class and educated youth. However, according to various commentators, Codreanu won his most significant following in the rural environment, which in part reflected the fact that he and most other Legionary leaders were first-generation urban dwellers. British historian of fascism Stanley G. Payne, who noted that the Legion benefited from the 400% increase in university enrolment ("proportionately more than anywhere else in Europe"), has described the Captain and his network of disciples as "a revolutionary alliance of students and poor peasants", which centered on the "new underemployed intelligentsia prone to radical nationalism". Thus, a characteristic trait of the newly-founded movement was the young age of its leaders: later records show that the average age of the Legionary elite was 27.4.

By then also an anticapitalist, he identified in Jewry the common source of economic liberalism and communism, both seen as internationalist forces manipulated by a Judaic conspiracy. As an opponent of modernization and materialism, he only vaguely indicated that his movement's economic goals implied a non-Marxian form of collectivism, and presided over his followers' initiatives to set up various cooperatives.