What were the internal and external goals of the creation of the former Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR), which will soon be 100 years old? What were the conditions of existence of the people in that territory? What legacy did the former autonomous entity leave for the current Republic of Moldova, including the Transnistrian region that has been controlled for a long period of time by a separatist regime? Such aspects were discussed by experts invited to IPN’s public debate “100 years under the sign of the MASSR”.
Igor Boțan, the permanent expert of IPN’s project, linked the establishment of the MASSR to the internationally promoted interests of the USSR, which did not recognize the union of Bessarabia with Romania in 1918. “We must devote attention to the fact that on the eve of the Soviet-Romanian negotiations on the status of Bessarabia in Vienna, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created by a resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR of October 12, 1924. It is important to see why this Moldovan autonomous republic was created on the territory of Ukraine. According to the newspaper Odesskie Izvestia, “all Bessarabian Moldovans, i.e. those from the right side of the Nistru, oppressed, regard the autonomous republic as a beacon that spreads the light of freedom.”
Igor Boţan noted that researchers, including from the Russian Federation, consider that “this Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created to make further claims to Romania and to impose its point of view on the national problem, taking into account the alleged World Revolution, but also as a means of influence of the Soviet Union on the West. The Moldovan population in the territories that became part of the MASSR did not exceed a third of the population of the autonomous entity, and the Moldovan influence in the region throughout the existence of the Moldovan statehood was weak,” he said
In the same connection, Anatol Țăranu, doctor of history, political commentator; said that “the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union never recognized Bessarabia’s affiliation to Romania and an attempt to further promote this idea of Bessarabia’s affiliation to the Soviet Union was made at the Vienna Conference. The Soviets came up with the idea of a referendum, which was to be held in Bessarabia, regarding membership in one state or another. Romania categorically denied the referendum, for the simple reason that for Romanians, for the Romanian Kingdom, Bessarabia was Romanian land and this fact could not be questioned in any way,” stated Anatol Țăranu.
According to him, two conceptual trends regarding this autonomous republic confronted each other. “The first was the so-called Romanianizing conception, suggested by the Romanian communist immigrants settled in the USSR, who considered that Bessarabia should be Soviet, socialist, but for them the Moldovans represented part of the Romanian people, and they considered that Transnistria was also populated by Romanians. For them, the creation of the autonomous republic meant nothing but a trigger for the Sovietization of Bessarabia and further of Romania,” said the historian.
“The second, Moldovan current focused on the idea that Moldovans represent a distinct ethnicity in relation to Romania. In the last instance, when the MASSR was created, the Moldovan concept triumphed and the MASSR was created on the basis of the Moldovan concept, to the detriment of the Romanianizing one,” concluded Anatol Țăranu.
For his part, Alexandru Postica, president of the Association of Former Deportees and Political Prisoners of Moldova, highlighted the phenomenon of the Great Terror, which occurred in 1937-1938 in the Soviet Union, including in the Moldovan autonomous republic, and caused tens and hundreds of thousands of human victims.
“The year 1937 in the MASSR is a page that was not researched because there was no access to this territory in this region, Transnistria. And yet, we already know something of those realities thanks to a group of archaeologists who managed to identify in Tiraspol a mass grave with over 5,000 bodies. Those persons were executed between 1937 and 1938. There is already confirmed evidence of how people were transported to that area, had their hands tied and were shot in the head. I saw pictures of skulls with up to 12 bullets fired into them. Probably, it was done intentionally to frighten others, to shatter any tendency to defend their rights,” said Alexandru Postica.
“We see that political terror and the elimination of opponents were the basic element, a recipe tested in the MASSR and later used in Bessarabia. Indeed, this autonomous entity was in fact an ideological laboratory, which was launched by the Soviet Union and which tested in somewhat smaller proportions what was to happen later on the right bank of the Nistru, after the so-called “reunification” of Bessarabia with the USSR. After all, that experiment with the autonomous entity was conducted specifically to justify this tendency to annex Bessarabia again,” he said.
Alexandru Postica noted that this experiment was perpetuated over time, but the forms and manner of repression on the local population changed and this explains that important element in the DNA of those from the Transnistrian region, which prevents demonstrations against the occupation regime.”
The public debate entitled “100 years under the sign of the MASSR” was the 42nd installment of the series “Impact of the past on confidence- and peace-building processes”. IPN News Agency implements this project with the support of the German Foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
