Stelescu, who had served as one of the Guard's orators and paramilitary organizers, reinterpreted nationalist ideology through the lens of anticapitalism and "humane" antisemitism; also appropriating some ideas from communism and classical (Italian) fascism, his followers were sometimes described as Romania's Strasserists.

The Crusade was briefly but centrally associated with Panait Istrati, world-renowned novelist and dissident communist, who, before his death in early 1935, added into the mix of "Romanianism" some elements of libertarian socialism.

During World War II, Rădescu and Lecca were right-wing opponents of the military dictatorship established by Ion Antonescu, while Karadja built an international profile as a rescuer of Jews from the Holocaust.

[8] It is also likely that Stelescu was infuriated by Codreanu's refusal to tackle the political establishment head on: in 1934, the Guard was keeping a low profile, content with mildly criticizing the authoritarian King Carol II.

[9] In April of that year, shortly after the indictment of Victor Precup (who had tried to assassinate Carol), Stelescu himself publicly joined the loyalist movement: he led three columns of students which paid their personal homage to the king outside the Royal Palace, Bucharest.

[16] Citing the Guard's supposed elitism (and in particular Codreanu's association with "those blue-blooded ones, people of dubious [ethnic] origin"),[15] Stelescu hoped to rely on support from more populist Guardsmen, including Ion Moța and Gheorghe Clime.

[19] Literary historian Mircea Iorgulescu notes: "the 'Crusaders' adhered to a protocol that was similar to that of the Guardists—distinctive signs, gatherings performed in an atmosphere of mysticism and clandestinely, a cult of personality surrounding their 'chief', pilgrimages, the annexation and usurpation of symbols, under whose guise they their own attitudes and orientations.

[38] In April, Naționalul Vâlcii journal introduced Cruciada Românismului (put out from Emil Costinescu Street 17, Bucharest) as one of the seven major "Romanian nationalist newspapers", commended for promoting "liberation from underneath the heel of those alien to our kin, our religion, our race".

[15][24][50] Journalist Sándor Cseresnyés includes this effort, which also involved denunciations of Codreanu by the former Guardist Negrescu, in the "enlightenment campaign" mounted by Crusaders, who thus "struck the far-right myth at its roots.

[79] His example was closely followed with a walk-out of thirteen other high-ranking members, including Cavarnali, Manu, Constantin Barcaroiu, and Virgil Treboniu, as well as Cruciada Românismului editor Paul Bărbulescu.

In June, at the height of the Decemviri trial, he resigned, to be replaced by an invalid Army captain, Gheorghe Beleuță;[89] formerly a member of he LANC, he had stood in opposition to Cuza,[90] and claimed to have been involved with the Guardists during their early years.

[100] Beleuță openly supported Conducător Ion Antonescu in his purge of Guardists: in February, he published a message noting that the new regime had earned "my life and this body of mine, riddled as it is with bullets in the war for the Nation's unification".

[101] The eighth commemoration of Istrati's death, in April 1943, was marked by a ceremony organized by Talex and Manolescu, with poetic contributions by Dimitrie Stelaru, and participants such as Panait Mușoiu, Aida Vrioni, Ștefan Voitec, and Marcel Bibiri Sturia.

While attending a French literary congress in March 1989, he debated the issue with scholar Heinrich Stiehler, who had referred to Cruciada Românismului as the "organ of an antisemitic and xenophobic intellectual right".

Talex contended that it was the magazine "of very young folks, whose principal animator, Stelescu, was to be assassinated by the Iron Guard"; his overview was supported at the time by exile journalist Ion Stănică, who noted that references to the Crusaders' "fascist ideology" were picked up from the communist regime's official propaganda.

"[20] Political historian Stanley G. Payne describes the Crusade as distinct among the Romanian fascist groups: "a tiny organization which sought to target workers and to inspire socioeconomic transformation.

In a draft letter completed shortly before Stelescu's murder, sociologist Anton Golopenția, who wrote for the political magazine Dreapta ("The Right"), assessed that Stelism, like Strasserism, represented a struggle of "permanent revolutionaries" against the more pragmatic "radical intellectuals [or] leaders in contact with the bankers".

"[24] A leftward shift followed: in a Cruciada Românismului article appearing shortly before his own resignation in September 1936, Talex spoke of communism as a "flawless doctrine" and "mankind's only salvation for the future", but called out the Soviet incarnation as "red fascism".

The solutions he imposed were explicitly favorable to the cooperative movement "in all economic fields", with emphasis on agricultural rationalization; a minimum and maximum wage were included in his list of promises, but Karadja also argued for free trade ("the simple law of supply and demand") when it came to the internal market.

"[147] Stelescu had nuanced his own take on Italian influence that March, when he wrote: "Fascism has its pluses and minuses, we can note both, we will admire Mussolini as a great creator who has rescued his country from the claws of communism, but that and only that.

"[65] During his interval as leader, Karadja also contended that a new bloc of "nationalist dictatorships" was breaking through the last internationalist institutions, including Soviet ones—with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and the Spanish Civil War as evidence of this geopolitical shift.

[22] Scholar Jean Hormière suggests that Istrati's articles in Cruciada Românismului share in the illusions of politics, including "calls to violence, 'Crusader' language, a cult for the great heroes", their only value being of a documentary kind.

Stelescu sent the message in November 1934, when he criticized ethnic minorities for monopolizing the job market: "Factory positions for Romanian workers, our own kind first and if anything is left we would gladly share it with the foreigner, if he is indeed in need of.

[170] In an issue of that same period, Cruciada Românismului informed taxpayers that local publishing houses were disproportionately staffed by Romanian Jews, and took public funds to promote Jewish writers—nominating Camil Baltazar, Ion Călugăru, I. Peltz, Isaia Răcăciuni, and Ilarie Voronca.

On such grounds, he refused to be called "antisemite", since applying that label to himself would have introduced a "false notion"; while he condemned anti-Jewish violence as "hooliganism", he also explained that the "Jewish Question" would eventually be solved through a "national revolution".

[174] In his words, "Mr. Istrati fights nowadays for the Crusade of Romanianism, searching for the formula of reasonable antisemitism (neither here nor there), for the way into a more gentle chauvinism, for a nice agreement between his anarchic vocation and a methodical process of bashing heads in.

The American Jewish Committee papers describe the Crusade as "a Fascist group which did not have anti-Jewish tendencies", quoting Stelescu's statement "that he was not a Jew-baiter and that, although his party was nationalist, it was inspired by genuine Christian principles.

[180] As late as September 1936, Crusader Dumitru Corbea, who had recently abandoned the Iron Guard over astonishment at Stelescu's killing,[181] was chiding Orthodox priests for neglecting their duties, noting that such behavior was undermining the church itself.

The idea of a homegrown ideological current of that name was swiftly embraced by intellectual sympathizers of the Iron Guard, among them Nae Ionescu, Nichifor Crainic, Alexandru Randa, Traian Brăileanu and Mihail Manoilescu.

In some of the first issues of Cruciada Românismului, Stelescu was nostalgic about his time in the Guard, and alluded to the Crusade as an intact version of Guardist ideology; in that context, he referred to the "regeneration of Romanianism" as shared objective of all far-right movements, achievable once Codreanu will have been ousted.