The People’s Council had the same legitimacy as the Petrograd Soviet that started the revolution or even greater legitimacy. All the decisions adopted by the People’s Council cannot be doubted in terms of their historic importance.  As part of the same empire, all the so-called “representative” institutions were constituted according to the same model, Igor Boțan, the standing expert of IPN’s project, stated in a public debate hosted by IPN News Agency.

Igor Boțan reminded that in 1940, as a result of the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact by which Europe was divided between a Bolshevik regime and a Nazi regime in reaction to the Bolshevik movement, the Nazi regime occupied Poland, while the Bolshevik regime occupied the Baltic States, half of Poland and Bessarabia. Then, no one asked the population if they wanted such a fate.

“The people who planted vineyards, who started a business and begin to bring Bessarabia closer to Romania, to the European living standards and economic development model were brutally prevented from continuing by those who believed that they promoted a Marxist scientific project and therefore had the right to do anything. The revolutionary necessity was the justification for them to do anything and nothing else mattered for them. This is our drama,” explained Igor Boțan.

According to the expert, a number of conclusions and lessons for the future can be drawn from the Bessarabians’ civilizational drama of 1940-1941. “We will remain in that gray area or will make effort as society to come closer to the European Union and integrate into this area in which our individual and national rights will be appropriately protected,” noted the political pundit.

The debate titled “The Bessarabians’ civilizational drama of 1940-1941” was the fifth installment of the series “Impact of the Past on Confidence and Peace Building Processes”. The project is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.