new political establishment around the camarilla, relying on a compromise with Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (leader of the Iron Guard). Codreanu refused to accept negotiation, but Carol successfully approached the PNL's "young liberals" faction, which came to power with Gheorghe Tătărescu (January 1934). Royal dictatorship and World War II The frequent target of attacks in the Iron Guard press, Argetoianu led his grouping until 1938, when, faced with the unstoppable rise of the Iron Guard, Carol banned all parties and established his National Renaissance Front (FRN). His own short-lived FRN cabinet, established after that date, was, after Gheorghe Argeşanu's the second in quick succession to the violent clash between the Guard and monarch (after the murder of Armand Călinescu by the former). The Argetoianu government was replaced by that of Tătărescu, who had to deal with the Soviet Union's occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and was in turn replaced with Ion Gigurtu (Argetoianu, who remained influential throughout the period, began calling for a rapprochement between Romania and the Soviets). Carol's regime crumbled after the Second Vienna Award, when Romania had to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary; it was replaced by the Iron Guard's National Legionary State, which, itself repressed during the previous years, began a campaign of retaliation — like Tătărescu and several others, Argetoianu was kidnapped on November 27, 1940 in the wake of the Jilava Massacre, and faced assassination until being rescued by the intervention of Romanian Army officials. Retreating from public life during World War II and the Ion Antonescu dictatorship (see Romania in World War II), Argetoianu left the country in the spring of 1944, settling in Switzerland. Romania's withdrawal from the Axis in August and the start of Soviet occupation caused him to return in November, seeing an opportunity in the apparent decrease in the appeal of traditional parties and expanding on his vision of Romanian-Soviet cooperation. He was the subject of derision in the National Peasants' Party press (Dreptatea wrote of him: "leading the intrigue in favor of a private property–based communism, a capitalist-based socialism, a mass-free democracy... The country is trustingly placing itself at your disposal. Here are your strings: pull them! Here are your back rooms: maneuver them! Here is your «people»: take it away!"). UNMR, arrest, and death Attempting in vain to mediate between the Communists and the PNȚ, Argetoianu was rejected by both sides, and, in January 1947, formed his