Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic

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Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ
Republica Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească
 (Moldovan)
Молдавская Советская Социалистическая Республика
(Russian)
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
←
←
1940 — 1991 →
Flag Coat of arms
Capital Chişinău/Kishinev
Official language de-facto Russian and Moldovan[1]
Established
In the USSR:
 - Since
 - Until		 August 2, 1940

June 28, 1940 (90%); October 12, 1924 (10%)
August 27, 1991
Area
 - Total
 - Water (%)		 Ranked 14th in the USSR
33,843 km²
negligible
Population
 - Total 
 - Density		 Ranked 9th in the USSR
4,337,600 (1989)
128.2/km²
Time zone UTC + 3
Anthem Anthem of Moldavian SSR
Medals Order of Lenin

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldovan: Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ or Republica Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească; Russian: Молда́вская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика Moldavskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika), commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the former republics of the Soviet Union. In the late Soviet Union it was officially referred to as Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova.

The Moldavian SSR was first formed in 1940 and became an independent state in 1991, under the name Moldova .

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Creation

The Soviet Union set up an autonomous Moldavian ASSR on October 12, 1924 as a part of the Ukrainian SSR on part of the territory between the Dniester and Bug rivers (Transnistria), as a way to prop up their propaganda and help a potential communist revolution in Romania.[2]

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was created after the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina on June 28, 1940, which occurred after an ultimatum delivered to Romania and according to the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Soviet Union and Hitler's Reich.

The old Moldavian ASSR was dismantled and the Moldavian SSR was organized on August 2, 1940 from six counties of Bessarabia and six westernmost rayons of the Moldavian ASSR (about 40% of its territory).[3] The northern and southern regions of Bessarabia (the current eastern part of Chernivtsi oblast and Budjak), although their population included 337,000 Moldovans, were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.[4] As such, the strategically important Black Sea coast and Danube frontage were given to the Ukrainian SSR, considered more reliable than the Moldavian SSR, which could have been claimed by Romania.[5]

The occupation prompted Romania to join Hitler's Axis in the summer of 1941 and reconquer the lost territories during the first phase of Operation Barbarossa. By the end of World War II the Soviet Union re-conquered the same territory, and reconstituted the Moldavian SSR.

[edit] Collectivisation and deportations

The collectivisation was implemented between 1946 and 1950. During this time, a large-scale famine occurred: a minimum of 115,000 peasants who died of famine and related diseases between December 1946 and August 1947. According to Charles King, there is ample evidence that it was caused by the Soviets and directed towards the largest ethnic group living in the countryside, the Moldovans. The main cause was the Soviet requisitioning of large amounts of agricultural products, but it was also favoured by a draught, the disruption by the war and the collectivisation.[6]

Many Bessarabians who fled to Romania before the advancing Red Army were eventually caught by the Soviet security forces, many of which being shot or deported as being collaborators of the Romanian and German fascists.[7]

The Soviet authorities targeted several socio-economic groups due to their economic situation, political views, or ties to the former regime. They were deported to or resettled in Siberia; some were imprisoned or executed. Secret police struck at nationalist groups.

A de-kulakisation campaign was directed towards the rich Moldovan peasant families, which were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia. For instance, in just two days, July 6 and July 7, 1949, over 11,342 Moldovan families were deported by the order of the Minister of State Security, I. L. Mordovets under a plan named "Operation South".[8]

Other deportation campaigns were directed towards the Germans (whose number decreased from 80,000 in 1930 to 4,000 in 1959), religious minorities (700 families, most of which belonged to the Jehovah's Witnesses were deported to Siberia in April 1951 under the plan "Operation North").[9]

[edit] 1950-1989

In the 1970s and 1980s Moldova received substantial investment from the budget of the USSR to develop industrial, scientific facilities, as well as housing. In 1971, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a decision "About the measures for further development of Kishinev city" that secured more than one billion rubles of investment from the USSR budget.[citation needed] Subsequent decisions that directed enormous wealth and brought highly qualified specialists from all over the USSR to develop Moldova. Such an allocation of USSR assets was partially influenced by the fact that Leonid Brezhnev, the effective ruler of the USSR from 1964 to 1982, was the Communist Party First Secretary in the Moldavian SSR in 1950-1952. These investments stopped in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Moldova became independent.

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History of Moldova
Dacia
- Bastarnae
- Moesia Inferior
Tivertsi
Brodniks
Golden Horde
- Shahr al-Djadid
Moldavia
- Eastern Moldavia
Bessarabia in the Russian Empire
Moldavian Democratic Republic
- Sfatul Ţării
- Union with Romania
Bessarabia in Greater Romania
Moldavian ASSR
- Moldovenism; Moldovan language
- Soviet occupation
Moldavian SSR
Moldova since 1989
- War of Transnistria
Moldavia • Bessarabia • Transnistria
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[edit] Independence

Although Brezhnev and other CPM first secretaries were largely successful in suppressing Moldovan nationalism, Mikhail S. Gorbachev's administration facilitated the revival of the movement in the region. His policies of glasnost and perestroika created conditions in which national feelings could be openly expressed and in which the Soviet republics could consider reforms.

The MSSR's fight for independence from the USSR was marked by civil strife as conservative activists in the east (especially in Tiraspol), as well as communist party activists in Chişinău worked to keep the MSSR within the Soviet Union. In 1990, when it became clear that Moldova was going to secede, a group of pro-Soviet activists in Transnistria created the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic with its capital in Tiraspol. After the dissolution of the USSR it was renamed into Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

On May 23, 1991, the Moldovan parliament changed the name from the Moldavian SSR to the Republic of Moldova. Moldova seceded from the USSR and became a sovereign, independent country on August 27, 1991, after the failed coup in the Soviet Union. Independence was quickly followed by civil war in the east (Transnistria), where the central government in Chişinău battled with separatists, who were supported by pro-Soviet forces and by different forces from Russia. The conflict left the breakaway regime (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) in control of Transnistria.

[edit] Culture and ideology

The political elite of the Moldavian SSR was one of the most loyal among the Soviet Republic. The little nationalism which existed in the Moldavian elite manifested itself in poems and articles in literary journals, before their authors being purged in campaigns against "anti-Soviet feelings" and "local nationalism" organized by Bodiul and Grossu.[10]

The official stance of the Soviet government was that the Moldovan culture was distinct from the Romanian culture, but they had a more coherent policy than the previous one from the Moldavian ASSR.[11] There were no more attempts in creating a Moldovan language that is different from Romanian, the literary Romanian written with the Cyrillic alphabet being accepted as the linguistic standard for Moldova, the only difference being in some technical terms borrowed from Russian.[12]

Moldovans were encouraged to adopt the Russian language, which was required for any leadership job (Russian was intended to be the language of interethnic communication in the Soviet Union). In the early years, political and academic positions were given to members of non-Moldovan ethnic groups (only 14% of the Moldavian SSR's political leaders were ethnic Moldovans in 1946), although this changed as time went on.

Literary critics stressed the Russian influence on Moldovan literature and ignored the parts shared with Romanian literature[citation needed]. Some towns and villages were renamed after various Communist leaders.

[edit] Relationship with Communist Romania

Throughout the Cold War, the issue of Bessarabia was forgetten by the West, but not in Romania. However, in the 1950s Romania, research on history and of Bessarabia was a banned subject, as the Romanian Communist Party tried to emphasise the links between the Romanians and Russians, the annexation being considered just a proof of Soviet Union's internationalism.[13]

Starting with the 1960s, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceauşescu began a policy of distancing from the Soviet Union, but the debate over Bessarabia was discussed only in scholarship fields such as historiography and linguistics, not at a political level. [14]

As the Soviet-Romanian relations reached an all-time low in the mid-1960s, Soviet scholars published historical papers on the "Struggle of Unification of Bessarabia with the Soviet motherland" (Artiom Lazarev) and the "Development of the Moldovan language" (Nicolae Corlăţeanu). On the other side, the Romanian Academy published some notes by Karl Marx which talk about the unjustice of the 1812 annexation of Bessarabia and Nicolae Ceauşescu in a 1965 speech quoted a letter by Friedrich Engels in which he criticized the Russian annexation, while in another 1966 speech, he denounced the pre-WWII calls of the Romanian Communist Party for the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and Bukovina.[15]

The issue was however brought whenever the relationships with the Soviets were waning, never being a serious subject of high-level negotiations in itself. As late as November 1989, as Russia support decreased, Ceauşescu brought the Bessarabian question and denounced the Soviet invasion during the 14th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party.[16]

[edit] Economy

Although it was the most densely populated republic of the USSR, the Moldavian SSR was meant to be a rural country specialized in agriculture. Kyrgyzstan was the only Soviet Republic to hold a larger percentage of rural population.[17]

While holding just 0.2% of the Soviet territory, it accounted for 10% of the canned food production, 4.2% of its vegetables, 12.3% of its fruits and 8.2% of its wine production.[18]

At the same time, most of the Moldovan industry was built in Transnistria. While accounting for roughly 15% of the population of Moldavian SSR, Transnistria was responsible for 40% of its GDP and for 90% of electricity production.[19]

Major factories included the Rîbniţa steel mill, Dubăsari and Moldavskaia power station and the factories near Tiraspol, producing refrigerators, clothing and alcohol.[20]

[edit] Administrative subdivision

[edit] Cities of republican subordination

Until the 1978 Constitution of the Moldavian SSR (15 April 1978), the republic had four cities directly subordinated to the republican government: Chisinau, Balti, Bender, and Tiraspol. By the new constitution, the following cities were added to this category: Orhei, Rabnita, Soroca, and Ungheni.[21]

[edit] Demographics

Distribution of major ethnic groups in Moldavian SSR, 1989
Distribution of major ethnic groups in Moldavian SSR, 1989
Evolution of the population and the ethnic composition of Moldavian SSR, 1940-1989[22][23]
ethnic group 1941 1959 1970 1979 1989
Moldavians 1,620,800 68.8% 1,886,566 65.4% 2,303,916 64.6% 2,525,687 63.9% 2,794,749 64.5%
Romanians - - 1,663 0.06% 1,581 1,657 2,477 0.06%
Ukrainians 261 200 11.1% 420,820 14.6% 506,560 14.2% 560,679 14.2% 600,366 13.8%
Russians 158,100 6.7% 292,930 10.2% 414,444 11.6% 505,730 12.8% 562,069 13.0%
Jews - - 95,107 3.2% 98,072 2.7% 80,127 2.0% 65,672 1.5%
Gagauz 115,700 4.9% 95,856 3.3% 124,902 3.5% 138,000 3.5% 153,458 3.5%
Bulgarians 177,700 7.5% 61,652 2.1% 73,776 2.1% 80,665 2.0% 88,419 2.0%
Gypsy - - 7,265 0.2% 9,235 0.2% 10,666 0.3% 11,571 0.3%
others 23,200 1.0% 22,618 0.8% 43,768 1.1% 48,202 1.2% 56,579 1.3%
Total 2,356,700 2,884,477 3,568,873 3,949,756 4,335,360

Note: "-" means the official census data does not identify that group in that year, i.e. counts it within other groups, not that the group is not present.

[edit] Communist Party of Moldavian SSR

Ethnic composition of the Moldavian Communist Party[24][25][26]
year\official ethnic group Moldovans Ukrainians Russians Jews
1925 6.3% 31.6% 41.6% 15.7%
1940 17.5% 52.5% 11.3% 15.9%
1989 47.8% 20.7% 22.2% 2.5%
First Secretaries of the Moldavian Communist Party[27]
name period place of birth
P.G. Borodin 1941-1942 Ukraine
Nikita L. Salogor 1942-1946 Ukraine
Nikita G. Koval 1946 - July 1950 Moldova (Transnistria)
Leonid Ilych Brezhnev July 1950 - October 1952 Ukraine
D.S. Gladki October 1952 - 1954 Ukraine
Z.T. Serdiuk 1954 - May 1961 Ukraine
Ivan I. Bodiul May 1961 - December 1980 Ukraine
Simeon Grossu December 1980 - November 1989 Ukraine (South of Bessarabia)
Petru C. Lucinschi November 1989 - February 1991 Moldova (Bessarabia)
Grigore I. Eremei February-August 1991 Moldova (Bessarabia)

[edit] References

  • Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture, Hoover Institution Press, 2000
  1. ^ The Constitution did not define any official language, see Radio Free Europe report for details
  2. ^ King, p.54
  3. ^ King, p.94
  4. ^ King, p.94
  5. ^ King, p.95
  6. ^ King, p.96
  7. ^ King, p.96
  8. ^ King, p.96
  9. ^ King, p.96
  10. ^ King, p.99, 102
  11. ^ King, p.107
  12. ^ King, p.107-108
  13. ^ King, p.103
  14. ^ King, p.103-104
  15. ^ King, p.105
  16. ^ King, p.106
  17. ^ King, p.99
  18. ^ King, p.99
  19. ^ John Mackinlay and Peter Cross (editors), Regional Peacekeepers: The Paradox of Russian Peacekeeping, United Nations University Press, 2003, ISBN 92-808-1079-0 p. 135
  20. ^ King, p.99
  21. ^ "The New Constitution of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic", Radio Free Europe background report
  22. ^ V.V. Kembrovskiy, E.M. Zagorodnaya, "Naselenie soyuznyh respublik", Moscow, Statistika, 1977, p. 192
  23. ^ Soviet 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989 population censa.
  24. ^ E.S. Lazo, Moldavskaya partiynaya organizatsia v gody stroitelstva sotsializma(1924-1940), Chisinău, Ştiinţa, 1981, p. 38
  25. ^ William Crowther, "Ethnicity and Participation in the Communist Party of Moldavia", in Journal of Soviet Nationalities I, no. 1990, p. 148-49.
  26. ^ 1925 data refer to Moldavian ASSR
  27. ^ Moldavian Soviet Encyclopedia, Chişinău, Glavnaia Redaktsia MSE, 1979

[edit] External links

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