[5] Notable members of the group, other than its founder Brătianu, included the historians Ștefan Ciobanu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Scarlat Lambrino, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor, Petre P. Panaitescu, Victor Papacostea, and Aurelian Sacerdoţeanu, the geographer Simion Mehedinți, the novelist Mihail Sadoveanu, the actor and poet Mihail Codreanu, the linguist Alexandru Rosetti, the jurist Paul Negulescu, the Romanian Army general Artur Văitoianu, and the lawyer Mihai Antonescu;[6] it was primarily intellectual in appeal, and was especially involved in recruiting members of social and cultural elites, whom it placed at the top of its political hierarchy.
[14] The main PNL was subsequently led by Ion G. Duca, who was assisted by the future leader of the so-called "young liberals" (supporting both free trade and an authoritarian rule over the country around the king's person), Gheorghe Tătărescu.
[15] In 1933, as Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Gheorghe I. Brătianu publicly declared his admiration for him—this partial assimilation of fascism was a discourse also present with several other intellectuals (the historian Nicolae Iorga and the poet Octavian Goga).
In the new context, Brătianu became an opponent of the monarch, and, in front of Carol's attempts to have the 1923 Constitution amended by authoritarian legislation, was a supporter of legal traditions;[20] the Georgists also expressed reserve towards the outlawing of the Iron Guard, viewing it as a dangerous precedent.
[24] In 1934, together with Alexandru Averescu's People's Party, it created the Constitutional Front, which soon (but briefly) included Mihai Stelescu's Crusade of Romanianism (emerged as an offshoot of the Iron Guard, it disappeared a short while after its leader was assassinated) and Grigore Forțu's minor Citizen Bloc.
In elections of November 1937, the Georgists joined with the National Peasants' Party and the Iron Guard in the electoral pact that was meant to protect the opposition from all possible interference of the Tătărescu government in the results of the voting.
[26] The uniquely indecisive results of the voting allowed Carol to form a loyal executive around the far right National Christian Party and its leaders, Octavian Goga and A. C. Cuza; the Georgists remained in opposition to the new government, and began talks for a reconciliation with the PNL, after the defeated Tătărescu lost ground to the "old liberal" leadership around Dinu Brătianu (the second brother of Ion I. C. and the uncle of Gheorghe).
Gheorghe I. Brătianu attempted to determine more Axis sympathy towards Greater Romania's borders by discussing the matter with the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop—consequently, he was placed under surveillance by Siguranţa Statului, on Carol's direct orders.