Corpul Muncitoresc Legionar or Corpul Muncitorilor Legionari (CML, the Legionary Worker Corps or Legionary Workers' Corps) was a fascist association of workers in Romania, created inside the Iron Guard (which was originally known as the Legionary Movement) and having a rigid hierarchical structure. From its creation until September 1940, the CML was led by Gheorghe Clime; afterwards, the position was filled by Dumitru Groza, who oversaw the Corps during the period when the Iron Guard was in power — the National Legionary State —, and involved it in the 1941 Rebellion and Pogrom. The CML had its headquarters in Bucharest, on Calea Călăraşilor.
Together with the Iron Guard, it was outlawed by Conducător Ion Antonescu during the Rebellion, and dissolved itself. In time, the group formed around Dumitru Groza was drawn into collaboration with Antonescu, and later refused to become involved in talks with the Romanian Communist Party over the possibility of a political truce.
History
Context and creation
Even before the Corps creation, the Legionary Movement's leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, had already manifested a special interest in the labor movement. As early as 1919, he had joined Constantin Pancu in his Garda Conştiinţei Naţionale, an association of workers, engaging in street battles with those whom they saw as Bolshevik agitators and drafting a political program which owed inspiration to the Austrian Christian Social Party and, possibly, to the DNSAP. In 1933, he was among those who condemned the repression of the Grivița Strike by the National Peasants' Party cabinet of Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. Nevertheless, Roger Griffin's analysis of the relations established between the Movement and the working class indicates that such interventions were marginal in respect to other goals set by Codreanu, and largely fruitless. In contrast, Codreanu himself is thought to have based his decision on the fact that industrial employees were already joining his grouping in relevant numbers.
Corpul Muncitoresc was created on October 25, 1936. The first of its units, centered in Azuga, was established in 1938. Soon afterwards, all working-class political cells (cuiburi, or "nests") withdrew from their affiliation with local structures, and were reunited inside the CML. Codreanu underlined the class' importance in the context of his ideology, and, through an appeal to the CML in particular and the proletariat in general, he indicated: "In your fight, up to now, you have strayed on hundreds of slanting paths and you have been defeated. All your attempts have been crushed. This time around, you will vanquish under the Legionary symbol, your sacrifice will be rewarded with a reward of the victorious and the masters of a country."
Early trends
Various other statements of Legionary leaders clarified their intention to marginalize left-wing politics inside the labor movement, while making vague promises regarding social equality (appealing to "authentic workers", they indicated their refusal to accept "transforming the administrative and professional problem into a terrible political weapon", and proclaimed a will to balance the labor cause with capitalism, leading to a world were employers and employees would be "comrades"). Dumitru Groza, who expanded on the theme of Legionary workers being "masters of their own country", is known to have deemed Codreanu "the Messiah of the Romanian worker".
The Corps, coinciding with a peak in Iron Guard popularity and influence, as well as with the apex of interwar industrialization in Romania, signified a major shift in regard to recruitment policies. Before the period of persecution and Codreanu's killing (November 1938), it swelled in numbers. There are several views in respect to its overall importance inside the larger movement: according to Aurel Dragoş Munteanu, the Corps was the largest and most popular branch, while Francisco Veiga describes it as "an elite organization", and argues that its strength lay in determination rather than sheer numbers.
Initially, the CML made gains in the ranks of semi-skilled workers. Soon after, it came to draw much of its membership (around 8,000 people) from the industrial areas of Bucharest, most notably Grivița, and from the city's major employers (both in the services industry, with Societatea de Transport București, and in Nicolae Malaxa's factories). Veiga indicates that the organization had only marginal impact on the Prahova County, where the oil industry was centered.