MSSR continued process of restoring Moldova's statehood, PCRM

The decision to found the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) made on August 2, 1940 was decisive for our country and was a logical continuation of the process of restoring Moldova's statehood, the Central Committee of the Communists Party says in a statement issued last weekend. “After hundreds of tough years, Moldova regained its name, the attributes of statehood, the own bodies of power, the place on the political map of the world. Even if Moldova became part of the Soviet Union on August 2, 1940, it created all the preconditions that laid the political and economic foundations in the last decades. On the basis of them, Moldova is now an independent and sovereign state,” it is said in the statement. According to the statement, in this period Moldova reached the highest development level in its history. It turned from a backward province into a republic that at the end of the 1980s became one of the most modern not only in the USSR, but also in the region. “The most important fact is that the republic created on August 2, 1940 included the territory between the banks of the Nistru River. The aspiration of Moldova's multinational people to live within the borders of an integral state is logical and just, while the inseparable character of Transnistria is one of the main guarantees of the existence of the independent Moldovan state,” the statement reads. The Opposition party leveled criticism at the ruling political parties. “We are convinced that the ruling coalition, which shows disregard for Moldova's present and future, is temporary. It is a challenge that out people will be able to cope with,” the statement says. Most of the historians consider the creation of the MSSR was a consequence of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact known as the Stalin-Hitler Pact, which was signed on August 23, 1939. It provided for the annexation of eastern Romanian, eastern Poland and the Baltic States to the USSR. On June 28, 1940, the Red Army crossed the Nistru and occupied Bessarbia, Northern Bucovina and the Hertsa Region. Consequently, on August 2, 1940, six Bessarabian counties - Balti, Tighina, Chisinau, Cahul, Orhei, and Soroca – and six of the 13 districts of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - Tiraspol, Grigoriopol, Dubasari, Camenca, Rybnitsa, and Slobozia - were joined to the MSSR. The Romanian territories Northern Bucovina, the Hertsa Region, and northern and southern Bessarabia were included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.