History of Moldova - World War II and Soviet Era

World War II and Soviet Era

After the establishment of the Soviet Union in December 1922, the Soviet government moved in 1924 to establish the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast on the lands to the east of the Dniester River in the Ukrainian SSR. The capital of the oblast was Balta, situated in present-day Ukraine. Seven months later, the oblast was upgraded to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian ASSR or MASSR), even though its population was only 30% ethnic Romanian. The capital remained at Balta until 1929, when it was moved to Tiraspol.

In the secret protocol attached to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact defining the division of the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany declared it had no political interest in Bessarabia, in response to the Soviet Union's expression of interest, thereby consigning Bessarabia to the Soviet "sphere". On June 26, 1940 the Soviet government issued an ultimatum to the Romanian minister in Moscow, demanding Romania immediately cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Italy and Germany, which needed a stable Romania and access to its oil fields, urged King Carol II to do so. On June 28, Soviet troops crossed the Dniester and occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region.

The Soviet republic created following annexation did not follow Bessarabia's traditional border. The Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldovan SSR), established on August 2, 1940, consisted of six and a half counties of Bessarabia joined with the westernmost part of the already extant MASSR (an autonomous entity within the Ukrainian SSR). Various changes were made to its borders, which were finally settled by November 1940. Territories where ethnic Ukrainians formed a large portion of the population (parts of Northern Bukovina and parts of Hotin, Akkerman, and Izmail) went to Ukraine, while a small strip of Transnistria east of the Dniester with a significant (49% of inhabitants) Moldovan population was joined to the MSSR. The transfer of Bessarabia's Black Sea and Danube frontage to Ukraine insured its control by a stable Soviet republic. This transfer, along with the division of Bessarabia, was also designed to discourage future Romanian claims and irredentism.

Under early Soviet rule, deportations of locals to the northern Urals, to Siberia, and Kazakhstan occurred regularly throughout the Stalinist period, with the largest ones on 12–13 June 1941, and 5–6 July 1949, accounting for 19,000 and 35,000 deportees respectively (from MSSR alone). In 1940–1941, ca. 90,000 inhabitants of the annexed territories were subject to political persecutions, such as arrests, deportations, or executions. In 1946, as a result of a severe drought and excessive delivery quota obligations and requisitions imposed by the Soviet government, the southwestern part of the USSR suffered from a major famine resulting in 216,000 deaths and about 350,000 cases of dystrophy in the Moldavian SSR alone. In 1944–53, there were numerous anti-Communist armed resistance groups active in Moldova; however the NKVD and later MGB managed to arrest, execute or deport most of them and their power base.

By participating in the 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Romania seized the lost territories of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, as well as those of the former MASSR, and established its administration there. In occupied Transnistria, Romanian forces, working with the Germans, deported ca. 147,000 Jews from the territories of Bessarabia and Bukovina, of whom over 90,000 perished in ghettoes and concentration camps.

By April 1944, successful offensives of the Red Army recaptured northern Moldavia and Transnistria, and by the end of August 1944 the entire territory was under Soviet control, with Red Army units entering Chişinău on 24 August 1944. The Paris peace treaty signed in February 1947 fixed the Romanian-Soviet border to the one established in June 1940.

The territory remained part of the Soviet Union after World War II as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Several social and economic groups were targeted to be executed, imprisoned, and deported to Siberia due to their economic situation, political views, or ties to the former regime. Secret police struck at dissenting people and groups. Over the years, the state imposed a harsh denationalization policy toward the ethnic majority, while ethnic Russians and Ukrainians were encouraged to immigrate to the Moldavian SSR, especially to large cities and to Transnistria, to cover the lack of personnel in the newly-established industries. Most of these industries were built in Transnistria and around large cities, while in the rest of the republic agriculture was developed. By the late Soviet period, the urban intelligentsia and government officials were dominated mostly by ethnic Moldovans, while Russians and Ukrainians made up most of the technical and engineering specialists.

The conditions imposed during the reestablishment of Soviet rule became the basis of deep resentment toward Soviet authorities, manifested in numerous resistance movements to Soviet rule. During Leonid Brezhnev's 1950–1952 tenure as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia (CPM), he was ruthless comparing to his predecessor Nicolae Coval in putting down numerous resistance groups, and issuing harsh sentences. A wave of repression was aimed at the Romanian intellectuals who decided to remain in Moldova after the war. During the Operation North, 723 families (2,617 persons) were deported from the Moldavian SSR, on the night of March 31 to April 1, 1951, members of neoprotestant sects, mostly Jehovah's Witnesses, qualified as religious elements considered a potential danger for the communist regime.

Most political and academic positions were given to members of non-Romanian ethnic groups (only 17.5% of the Moldavian SSR's political leaders were ethnic Romanians in 1940).

Although Brezhnev and other CPM first secretaries were largely successful in suppressing Romanian irredentism in 1950s–1980s, Mikhail 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.

In 1970s and '80s 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 funds for Chişinău alone from the USSR budget. Subsequent decisions directed large amounts of funds and brought qualified specialists from all over the USSR to further develop the Moldavian SSR. Such an allocation of USSR assets was influenced by the fact that the-then leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, was the First Secretary of the local Communist Party in the 1950s. These investments stopped in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Moldova became independent.