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Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Moldavian ASSR or Moldovan ASSR (Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; Romanian: Republica Autonomă Socialistă Sovietică Moldovenească) was an autonomous region of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing Transnistria (now in Moldova) and parts which are now in Ukraine.
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The creation of the republic was initiated by the letter signed by Grigore Kotovski, Al. Bădulescu, P. Tkacenko, S. Tinkelman (Timov), A. Nicolau, A. Zalic, I. Dic, T. Diamandescu, T. Chioran and V. Popovici, all signatories being Bolshevik activists (many of them from Bessarabia). This idea became a matter of dispute. Chicherin held that its establishment would be premature and would lead to the "expansion of Romanian chauvinism". On the other hand, Kotovsky held that a new republic would spread Communist ideas into neighboring Bessarabia, with a chance that Romania and the entire Balkan region would be revolutionized. Initially, on March 7, 1924, it was cautiously decided to create the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast within the Ukrainian SSR.
The new oblast initially had four districts, all of them having a Moldovan majority: [1]
- Rîbniţa - 48,748 inhabitants, of which 25,387 Moldovans - 52%
- Dubăsari - 57,371 inhabitants, of which 33,600 Moldovans- 58%
- Tiraspol - entirely Moldovan
- Ananiv - 45,545 inhabitants, of which 24,249 Moldovans- 53%
On 8 October 1924 the oblast was elevated to the status of autonomous republic and included many other regions, including some with little Moldavian population, such as the Balta district (where the capital was located), which had only 2.52% Moldavians.
The ASSR had a mixed Ukrainian (46%) and Moldovan (32%) population, which was estimated to be 545,500. Its area was 8,677 km² and included 11 raions by the left bank of Dniester.
According to the 1926 Soviet census, the Republic had a population of 572,339[2], of which:
- Ukrainians: 48.5% (277,000)
- Moldovans: 30.1% (172,000)
- Russians: 8.5% (48,000)
- Jews: 8.5% (48,000)
- Germans, Bulgarians, Poles, Gypsies, etc: 4.4%
The official capital was at the "temporarily occupied city of Kishinev", and there was an executive capital until 1929 at Balta, and starting in 1929 until its disbanding in 1940 at Tiraspol.
While the creation of ethnic-based autonomous republics was a general Soviet policy at that time, with the creation of the Moldavian ASSR, the Soviet Union also hoped to bolster its claim to Bessarabia. However, the Romanian Communist Party never became popular in Bessarabia or in the whole of Romania.
This purpose is explained in an article of Odessa Izvestia in 1924, in which a Russian politician, Vadeev says that "all the oppressed Moldavians from Bessarabia look at the future Republic like at a lighthouse, which spreads the light of freedom and human dignity".[3]
The area was quickly industrialized, and because of the lack of a qualified workforce and engineering and pedagogical cadres, a significant migration from other Soviet republics occurred, predominantly Ukrainians and Russians. In particular, in 1928, of 14,300 industrial workers only about 600 were Moldovans.
In 1927 there was a massive uprising of peasants and factory workers in Tiraspol and other cities (Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Kamianets-Podilskyi) of southern Ukrainian S.S.R. against Soviet authorities. Troops from Moscow were sent to the region and suppressed the unrest, causing around 4000 deaths, according to US corespondents sent to report about the insurrection, which was at the time completely denied by the Kremlin official press.[4]
Collectivization in MASSR was even more fast-paced than in Ukraine and was reported to be complete by summer 1931. This was accompanied by the deportation of about 2,000 families to Kazakhstan.
In 1925 MASSR survived a famine, followed by the great famine of 1932-1933 (known as the Holodomor in Ukraine), with tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Romanians dying of starvation.
During the famine thousands of inhabitants tried to escape over Dniester, despite the threat of being shot. On February 23, 1932, the most notable such incident happened near the village Olăneşti, when 40 persons were shot. This was reported in European newspapers by survivors. The Soviet side reported this as an escape of "kulak elements subdued by Romanian propaganda".
- Main article: Moldovenism
The "Moldavian language theory" began to be developed here. This theory claimed that the Moldavians were a different nation from the Romanians, and that they were allegedly "oppressed by the imperialist Romanians". After World War II, this would be part of the official ideology of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldova.
In order to differentiate the "Moldavian Socialist culture" from the "Romanian bourgeois culture" and to keep Soviet Moldovans far from Romanian influences, Cyrillic script was used in Moldavian schools (instead of Latin script which was used in Romania). The linguist Leonid Madan was assigned the task of creating this new language, based on the Moldovan dialects of Transnistria and Bessarabia and new words taken from the Russian language or invented by him.
In 1932, when in the entire Soviet Union there was a trend to move all languages to the Latin script, the Moldovan ethnicity theory was dropped and the Latin script and literary Romanian language introduced into Moldavian schools. Leonid Madan's books were taken away from libraries and destroyed.
In the second half of the 1930s a new trend of moving languages to the Cyrillic script started in the Soviet Union. In 1937 Stalin ordered massive repressions, which for the Romanian intellectuals of the Moldavian ASSR meant accusations as "Romanian spies". Nearly all of them were removed from their positions and repressed, and many of them were executed. In 1938 the Cyrillic script was again declared official for the "Moldavian language" and the Latin script was banned. However, the literary language did not return to Madan's creation and remained closer to Romanian.
On June 26, 1940 the Soviet government issued an ultimatum to the Romanian minister in Moscow, demanding Romania immediately cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.[5] Italy and Germany, which needed a stable Romania and access to its oil fields urged King Carol II to do so. Under duress, with no prospect of aid from France or Britain, Romania ceded those territories.[6][7][8] On June 28, Soviet troops crossed the Dniester and occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region. Territories where ethic Ukrainians were the largest ethnic group (parts of Northern Bukovina and parts of Hotin, Akkerman, and Izmail), as well as some adjoining regions with Romanian majority, such as the Hertza region, went to the Ukraine--the transfer of Bessarabia's Black Sea and Danube frontage to the Ukraine insured its control by a stable Soviet republic.
On August 2, 1940, the Soviet Union created the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldovan SSR), which consisted of six counties of Bessarabia joined with the western-most part of what had been the MASSR,[5] effectively dissolving it.
- ^ Nistor, Vechimea... p.19, who cites Izvestia, 29 August 1924
- ^ Nistor, Vechimea... p.4
- ^ Nistor, Vechimea... p.22, who cites Odessa Izvestia, 9 September 1924, no. 1429
- ^ Disorder in the Ukraine?, TIME Magazine, December 12, 1927
- ^ a b Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the politics of culture, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2000. ISBN 0-8179-9792-X.
- ^ Moshe Y. Sachs, Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, John Wiley & Sons, 1988, ISBN 0471624063, p. 231
- ^ William Julian Lewis , The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine, and Strategy, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1982, p.209
- ^ Karel C Wellens, Eric Suy, International Law: Essays in Honour of Eric Suy, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1998, ISBN 9041105824, p. 79
- (Romanian) Elena Negru - Politica etnoculturală în RASS Moldovenească(Ethnocultural policy in Moldavian ASSR), Prut International publishing house, Chişinău 2003
- (Romanian) Ion Nistor, Vechimea aşezărilor româneşti dincolo de Nistru, Bucureşti: Monitorul Oficial şi Imprimeriile Statului, Imprimeria Naţională, 1939
- King, Charles (March 1998). "Ethnicity and institutional reform: The dynamics of "indigenization" in the Moldovan ASSR". Nationalities Papers 26 (1): 57-72.
