De la lupta de rasă la lupta de clasă. C. Rădulescu-Motru
From Race Struggle to Class Struggle. C. Rădulescu-Motru

Summary/Abstract: Rădulescu-Motru’s socio-political thought went through four distinct stages. In the first, between 1900 and 1910, he approached the concept of nation in juridical rather than ethnic terms, in Noua revistă română [The New Romanian Review] and Naţionalismul [Nationalism], and advocated full political and civil rights for the Jews living in Romania. In the second stage, which matured between 1934 and 1936 [in Românismul, catehismul unei noi spiritualităţi (Romanianism, the Catechism of a New Spirituality)], the author—seduced by the European rise of “totalities” or “communities” and fascinated by the “spiritual renewal” promised by bolshevism, fascism, and Hitlerism—advocated, in the case of Romania, a totalitarianism deprived of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, a totalitarianism he dubbed “Romanianism.” The third stage coincides with the early war years, when [in Timp şi destin (Time and Destiny), in Etnicul românesc (Romanian Ethnicity), and in his diary, Revizuiri şi adăugiri (Revisions and Additions)] he rejected Bolshevik collectivism and, accepting without reservation the premise of totalitarianism—shared by both the extreme left and the extreme right—, he stated that “the interests of the community take precedence over the interests of individuals.” Basically, he shared the views of Hitlerist collectivism, even accepting its idea of “race struggle”—chiefly anti-Semitic. During the fourth stage, following the events of 23 August 1944 and becoming himself a victim of “class struggle,” he changed his views and began advocating the model of German collectivism, purged of its racist elements.

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