The National Peasants' Party was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It was formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party (PNR), a conservative-regionalist group centred on Transylvania, and the Peasants' Party (PȚ), which had coalesced the left-leaning agrarian movement in the Old Kingdom and Bessarabia. The definitive PNR–PȚ merger came after a decade-long rapprochement, producing a credible contender to the dominant National Liberal Party (PNL). National Peasantists agreed on the concept of a "peasant state", which defended smallholding against state capitalism or state socialism, proposing voluntary cooperative farming as the basis for economic policy. Peasants were seen as the first defence of Romanian nationalism and of the country's monarchic regime, sometimes within a system of social corporatism. Regionally, the party expressed sympathy for Balkan federalism and rallied with the International Agrarian Bureau; internally, it championed administrative decentralization and respect for minority rights, as well as, briefly, republicanism. It remained factionalized on mainly ideological grounds, leading to a series of defections.
Poster of the National Christian Party, used for the general election of 1937. Image shows a stereotypical Jewish man maneuvering democratic politics, depicted as a Star of David festooned with heads of PNȚ leftists Mihalache, Virgil Madgearu, and Nicolae L. Lupu, alongside Grigore Iunian of the Radical Peasants' Party
Former PNȚ politicians, in uniform, attending the founding session of the National Renaissance Front; from the left: Armand Călinescu, Grigore Gafencu, Mihai Ralea. To their right is Mitiță Constantinescu, formerly of the PNL
Protest letter sent to Ion Antonescu by Maniu and Dinu Brătianu, January 1942
Maniu interrogated at his show trial in November 1947
Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy that promotes subsistence agriculture, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Adherents of agrarianism tend to value traditional bonds of local community over urban modernity. Agrarian political parties sometimes aim to support the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants against the wealthy in society.
François Quesnay, a physician who is considered the founding father of physiocracy, published the "Tableau économique" (Economic Table) in 1758
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a prominent physiocrat. In his book La Physiocratie, du Pont advocated low tariffs and free trade.
Thomas Jefferson and his supporters idealised farmers as the citizens that the American Republic should be formed around.
Emiliano Zapata fought in the Mexican Revolution in the name of the Mexican peasants and sought to introduce reforms such as land redistribution.