The PP broke with the antiquated two-party system, creating a wide coalition of lobbies, and advertised itself as the new challenge to the National Liberal Party (PNL).

In its early years, the League brought together members of the moribund Conservative Party and social reformers of diverse backgrounds, and secured for itself the votes of poor peasants and demobilized soldiers.

The general mood was one of romantic optimism, which cast away Romania's endemic social problems, including the stringent issues of electoral and land reform: the majority of Romanian conscripts were landless peasants, rendered politically marginal by the census suffrage.

[6] Even more reluctant, the opposition Conservatives became split into factions: the traditional wing, led by Alexandru Marghiloman, was "Germanophile", and reserved about the "Greater Romania" project; the Conservative-Democratic Party, under Take Ionescu, had a history of cooperation with the PNL, and gave full endorsement to the Entente.

[25] The suffrage was more of a personal triumph for Averescu, who joined the Assembly of Deputies as a progressive, watching over the government's fulfillment of reforms, and denouncing the peace agreements; he envisioned an alliance with the PNL, but asked for Brătianu to renounce the party presidency.

[26] The Marghiloman project came to an abrupt halt in November 1918, when the Armistice with Germany spelled out a world victory for the Entente forces, and opened new prospects for the union with Transylvania.

The PNL was swiftly returned to power by King Ferdinand, but the political turmoil required emergency apolitical rule, and General Artur Văitoianu took over as prime minister.

[58] Despite such rhetoric, the Averescans pursued a policy of practical alliances with the ethnic minority political clubs, against the centralizing and nationalist forces (PNL and the Democratic Union Party).

Averescu, Flondor, Goga, Imbroane, Niță and Dori Popovici held congress on April 16, 1920, when the League was officially declared a "People's Party", the first political group to register members everywhere in Greater Romania.

[38] In the Old Kingdom, the PP still relied on the influence of military men, including General Constantin Coandă and Major Ștefan Tătărescu,[64] and, after another PND schism, absorbed into its ranks the Cuza–Codreanu–Șumuleanu faction.

[82] Averescu's subordinates also staged the unusually harsh trial of communist Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor, and stood accused of murdering PS militant Herșcu Aroneanu.

[85] As Veiga writes, Averescu's Romania was uniquely positioned in respect to leftist uprisings: the Romanian left as a whole was "very weak", and the country "traversed the great revolutionary wave without any sort of practical consequences.

[87] There was just one notable act of retribution: on December 9, 1920, Max Goldstein exploded a bomb inside Parliament, killing the Conservative Party's Dimitrie Greceanu, and injuring several others (including Argetoianu).

[101] By 1922, as a result of the Versailles and Trianon treaties, the borders of "Greater Romania" had been secured, and the country, with its growing economy, officially went from 7.5 to 16.5 million inhabitants, which also seemed to compensate for her demographic losses.

This far-right group, later joined by PP right-wingers Ion Zelea Codreanu, Șumuleanu and Brăileanu,[104] was dedicated to antisemitic violence, popularizing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion canard, and welcoming into its ranks the fascist youth.

[119] However, the PP's electioneering was noted for its numerous and unsanctioned abuses, including the use of state funds for People's Party propaganda and the intimidation of opposition candidates (particularity those running for the PȚ and the Bessarabian Peasantists).

[121] Novelist Mihail Sadoveanu was elected in Bihor County, Transylvania,[122] but, together with poet George Topîrceanu, represented a new generation of Moldavian PP cadres.

[123] The Bukovinian caucus co-opted Antin Lukasevych and Iurii Lysan of the Ukrainian Social Democrats, who also won parliamentary seats,[124] while the partnership with individual Jewish and German politicians was again revived.

[112] Mihail Manoilescu, his Minister of the Economy, adopted radical fiscal policies for the redistribution of wealth,[128] and undermined the PNL's big finance with calls for cooperative banking.

[148] The PNA defection was a debilitating coup against the Averescans, who lost not just Goga, but also Ghibu, Agârbiceanu, and several high-ranking cadres (Silviu Dragomir, Stan Ghițescu, Constantin Iancovescu).

[154] Seeing the Iron Guard and other growing parties as direct threats to the political system, Premier Duca reestablished censorship and repressive mechanisms, even before the actual voting.

[158] In July 1935, the PP's fascist breakaway groups, PNA and LANC, merged to form the National Christian Party (PNC), a direct competitor of the Iron Guard.

In September 1935, they formed a Constitutional Front, soon joined by the para-fascist Crusade of Romanianism and by Carol's outstandingly vocal critic, Grigore Forțu, who led a marginal Citizens' Bloc of National Salvation.

[151][160] In March 1937, attempting to deescalate the crisis, Tătărescu banned all political uniforms, primarily targeting the Guard and the PNC, but also outlawing the PP's yellow shirts and cockades.

[169] Averescu's politics were part of a European-wide reorientation, a pragmatic conservative answer to the postwar leftist riots, but also a manifestation of the soldiers' particular resentment toward classical liberal democracy.

"[3] Also according to Florescu: "In 1920–1921, Romanian political life traversed a very complex interval [...] evolving from obsolete conservative tendencies to an increased radicalism, aiming to keep in tune with the new age.

An angry Jewish commentator, Isac Ludo, accused his coreligionists of naivete, since their endorsement of the PP did not prevent Averescu from tolerating antisemitic hooliganism, nor Goga from stoking it.

[202] The party slogan was Muncă, cinste, legalitate ("Labor, honesty, legality"), which in itself alluded to the meeting of workers' rights, social liberalism, and "evolved" conservatism.

In early 1919, it won official support from two provincial weeklies: Adevăr și Dreptate, put out in Galați by Sebastian S. Eustatziu, and George Lungulescu's Alarma Mehedințiului, of Turnu Severin.

The process required support from some key members of the old political class, most notoriously so from two former PP dignitaries, Petru Groza and Mihail Sadoveanu, who held some of the top positions in the new state.