Dobrescu remained largely opposed to the left-wing caucus formed around the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, but, especially after studying at the Free University of Brussels, became interested in anarchism, which claimed him as an ally.

[9] Dobrescu, who became fluent in French, was widely read in matters of political economy, having studied Montesquieu, Jules Michelet, François Guizot, Adolphe Thiers, and Le Play.

[20] As noted by the agrarianist writer Ilariu Dobridor, Dobrescu was the second person in Romanian history, after Ion Ionescu de la Brad, to have championed peasantism as a political, not merely "philanthropic", effort.

[19] He intervened in reviving local cottage industries with unusual marketing tactics, including having one of his girl pupils sew and wear an apron with the slogan Arta casnică e comoara femeii ("Handicrafts are a woman's treasure").

[29] In order to facilitate the peasantry's access to education and the amenities of modern life, Dobrescu also advocated for the establishment of free libraries (the first of which were set up in 1878–1879 in Mușătești and Poenărei),[8] rural banks and general stores.

This institution comprised a choral and folk dance ensemble, a public library, an ethnographic and pedagogic museum, an agronomical station, a gymnastics arena, a school for adults, several cultural circles, a popular bank and a magazine that disseminated news of these venues' achievements.

"[37] Aware that the authorities would eventually intervene to ban such gatherings, Dobrescu and other delegates attempted to quickly rouse the peasants of Muscel County, riding into Nămăești and announcing a second congress to be held in that village.

With these, he earned more attention from Brătianu, who was serving as Prime Minister of Romania; against the irredentist agenda, he wished to preserve good relations with the Austrian establishment and expected civil peace in his constituency.

Such enfranchisement came with its own limitations: some 98% of the electorate could only vote for Assembly with indirect suffrage, the rest being excluded from this by wealth and literacy requirements; some 41% of the deputies elected under these new laws represented rural constituencies, but most of them were not land-working peasants.

In 1886, he traveled into Transylvania, creating additional outrage in National Liberal circles: government officials claimed that he was there to purchase fur hats "à la Michael the Brave", to use as a quasi-uniform for his "peasant army" to invade Bucharest with.

[71] In May 1890, Dobrescu, Panu and Nădejde still co-sponsored a bill together, namely one which would have removed references to the King of Romania in the oath taken by judges (and which historian Vasile Niculae described as "Parliament's first socialist and democratic act to have an anti-monarchic nature").

[79] Scurtu reads the Society's charter as a "moderate" political program;[36] Valescu reports that in 1893 Take Ionescu, the Conservative Education Minister, informed the team that he would not tolerate any revolutionary message in Gazeta Țăranilor.

[39] As noted by historian Nicolae Iorga, Gazeta had a "talented" editor, but a "mostly local" influence; the statement is qualified by Constantin Bacalbașa, who argues that this venue also "planted the very first seeds of a rural awakening".

[88] The two Dobrescus confronted each other over the issue of education reform: both agreed that Minister Ionescu's Conservative project was needlessly elitist; however, Dobrescu-Argeș contended that the National Liberal counter-proposal was even more "backward".

His proposal was to create a network of compulsory primary schools with equal budgets, irrespective of whether they served rural or urban communities; it failed to register support on either side of the political divide.

Dobrescu openly supported some Conservative causes: with his theater, he performed one of his plays in front of King Carol I, who awarded him a decoration and his own portrait as a souvenir;[90] in November 1892, he voted for adding 300,000 lei to the civil list, going to the royal family.

[94] His abilities were also noted by the staff journalist at Foaia Populară, who described Dobrescu as the "miraculous" figure of a self-made man,[95] and by Bacalbașa, who remembered him as "highly intelligent, cultured, and overflowing with political ambitions".

[1][107] By 1894, Dobrescu had sided with the emerging caucus of politicians favoring a switch to the universal suffrage—as he put it, the "8,000,000 citizens who make up the bulk of this nation" needed to be spoken for by a "league of resistance", which is what Partida could represent.

[121] On various topical causes, Dobrescu worked with both Fleva and Haret, but also with other major figures in politics and militant culture, including Arghezi, Vasile Kogălniceanu, Ion Luca Caragiale, and Nicolae Filipescu.

[127] That year, Haret, who was serving as Education Minister, made a point of expressing his support for the agrarian movement, refusing to shut down Malul de Răsună (accused of generating "socialist propaganda"), and awarding its president, G. Rădulescu, a medal of merit.

[150] Dobrescu-Argeș lived to see the revival of his peasant theater, which, on August 6, 1903, staged his last play În sat sau la oraș ("In the Village or in the City") in front of an audience that included Minister Haret.

"[77] During his final days, Dobrescu reportedly felt overwhelmed about political issues, including Conservative opposition to the administrative law he had been working on, telling Valescu: "They won't even let me die, those bandits".

[155] Dobrescu died in his mother's home on the evening of December 10, 1903, "after horrible suffering"; his burial outside Mușătești Church gathered a large mass of peasant mourners, and, though not present there, Justice Ion Mandrea, who had convicted Dobrescu-Argeș, voiced his regrets.

[156] Two days after the funeral ceremony, the University of Iași issued papers recognizing his doctoral diploma; these reportedly arrived alongside a gift of 2,000 lei from the Interior Ministry as payment for his services.

[169] In 1909, Sămănătorul novelist Mihail Sadoveanu described Gazeta Țăranilor as having renounced its mission of enlightening peasants: "[it] peddles all scandals, injustices and filth that one finds in the cities, and it both stirs up and puts down a man's soul".

[5] Ultimately, following World War I, land reform and universal suffrage were introduced throughout the newly established Greater Romania, making it possible for Mihalache to form his own Peasants' Party (PȚ) as the first of several interwar agrarianist movements.

[180] The movement, in which "Dobrescu-Argeș's memory" was a "foundation stone",[181] remained factionalized to a degree: in 1920, at Priboieni, the folklorist Constantin Rădulescu-Codin relaunched "Gazeta Țăranilor as a National Liberal mouthpiece, critical of Mihalache's policies.

A re-investigation of his politics was hampered by the destruction of his Țĕranul, issues of which are exceedingly rare;[184] research was able to track down, but not recover, the flag used by Dobrescu in rallying peasants, which, in 1933, was "hidden away in a Gorj County village".

[191] As noted in 1939 by sociologist Henri H. Stahl, Dobrescu had an enduring but paradoxical influence on Muscel's culture, where city-dwellers still dressed up in a modernized peasant costume—"this style was created and spread, quite intentionally, through propaganda, starting with Dobrescu-Argeș".

"[199] In 1974, the Romanian Communist Party Institute of Studies officially designated him a representative of the "numerically weak village bourgeoisie", noting that his solutions "could not lead to solving the basic social problems of the oppressed masses, urban as well as rural.