A 1945 manifesto in Bârlad called on UP members to "erect a country where there would be no more poor people on this rich a land." With its involvement in the PCdR's war on price gauging, the PNP was soon identified as an anti-capitalist force by the middle class and the industrialists, who were reticent about joining its ranks. The UP tried to dissuade their fears, assuring them that the measures were only temporary. The PNȚ had some success in identifying the PNP as a front of the PCdR: PNP territorial offices complained that Nationalist Peasantist propaganda on this topic was driving away potential recruits. Păiușan describes the UP as an organization which "betrayed the country" by "turning Romanians against the anti-Bolshevik war and sealing a pact with the Soviet enemy." When addressing a Romanian public, the National Populars took on the promotion of left-wing nationalism. Party speakers argued that "the criminal fascist war" offered "an occasion for verifying one's patriotism", and held that fascists "exploited patriotic sentiment", "poisoning the soul of the people". Writing in "Lupta Patriotică", Novacu theorized that: "Motherland and patriotism stand for combat and sacrifice for mankind's permanent ideals. For liberty and independence, for one's language, art, for one's credo, one's bread, for our factories and our fields." Despite the UP's involvement in Northern Transylvanian regionalism, its leadership in Banat alleged that the PNȚ was only superficially and opportunistically patriotic. Party documents also identified the PNP with a struggle against Hungarian "revisionism", or against "venomous chauvinism" in general. The Northern Transylvanian issue was solved in Romania's favor, according to PNP sources, only because of "the unconditioned help of our great Eastern friend, the USSR, and our old friend, France." The UP and later the PNP were formally dedicated to purging the country of fascists, in particular former members of the Iron Guard. The UP was the first organization to propose arresting Maria Antonescu, Veturia Goga, and Alexandru Hodoș. In practice, it proved immediately attractive for a category of former wartime fascists, and especially for Guardist sympathizers within the Orthodox Church. Notorious examples include the Religious Affairs Minister, Constantin Burducea and Religious Affairs Undersecretary Ion Vască, whose fascist past was a tool for extortion.