“Vladimir Voronin knows what he says as he was the victim of foreign direct influence during the parliamentary elections of 2005 and 2014...”
1. Fable of the mosquito and the horse
Vladimir Voronin, the leader of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and of the Electoral Bloc of the Communists and the Socialist (EBCS) created for the snap elections, recently delivered a speech at the international symposium of Marxist political parties devoted to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Eulogizing the successes of the CPC, the leader of the EBCS overstepped the mark in his fawning statements and inappropriate parallels. Undoubtedly, the economic successes of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are impressive. But the Chinese phenomenon, besides admiration, generates serious concern. That’s why this should be studied attentively and in a critical manner.
But let’s return to the comparison of the PCRM with the CPC that reminds us of the fable of the mosquito and the horse. Comparing the PCRM’s successes with the successes of the CPC, Voronin complained that the Republic of Moldova “during the past 12 years, after the Communists left power, have seen external administration being legalized, while the PRC strengthened its sovereignty It’s a pity that the leader of EBCS doesn’t’ develop the issue of leaving the power. He could have drown a parallel between the events of April 7-8, 2009 in central Chisinau and those of April-June 1989 in the Tiananmen Square so that the audience realizes why the PCRM left power, while the CPC strengthened it. Maybe someone would ask the leader of the PCRM why he left power before the examination of the report of the special commission for the investigation of the April 7 events.
Noting the open-door and reform policy announced by Deng Xiaoping, which led to tectonic changes during several decades, the leader of the PCRM could have invoked the fact that he also launched reformist policies in the Republic of Moldova. The difference is that Mister Deng acted in a calculated way when he announced the openness and reformation of China, while Voronin acted hazardously, threatening with the transformation of the Republic of Moldova into the Cuba of Europe. Between this threat made in April 2001 at the PCRM’s congress and the visit paid by President Jiang Zemin to Chisinau in July 2001, Vladimir Voronin changed the switch, ordering that the Republic of Moldova should join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is a crucial institution in the economic ascension of the PRC. Later, in 2002, there was signed the decree on the European integration of the Republic of Moldova, even if in 2001 he won the citizens’ mandate for integration into the Russia-Belarus Union.
The aforementioned examples are sufficient to see the difference between the Chinese political wisdom and the Moldovan political ruletka. There is one more thing that makes the PCRM different from the CPC – the authentic Marxist parties struggle for power by all ways and keep it at any cost, while from Voronin’s panegyric the Chinese mates could learn that the PCRM simply left power. It is interesting that the comparing of the successes of the PCRM with those of the CPC has a numerical indicator – the number of Chinese people who live below the poverty line was equaled to the number of Moldovans below the poverty line – by approximately 3 million persons in each of the two countries.
2. About real external influence
The problem of external influence in the Republic of Moldova became an obsession and a campaign issue of the EBCS. The leader of the PCRM was unable to avoid it in the panegyric devoted to the CPC. In fact, Vladimir Voronin knows what he says as he was the victim of foreign direct influence during the parliamentary elections of 2005 and 2014. In the first case, a dozen of Russian political technologists came to the Republic of Moldova to prevent him win the elections, but these were arrested and expelled from the country. In the second case, the picture of President Putin with the current coalition partners – Zinaida Grechanyi and Igor Dodon – confiscated over half of his voters. But this matters less. The future of the Republic of Moldova as seen through the angle of foreign influences is now at stake. Here the Chinese and other examples are very useful:
- After the armed conflict between the USSR and China of March 1969, the PRC decided to come closer to the U.S., establishing diplomatic relations in 1979, together with the announcement of the open-door and reform policy of Mister Deng. Gradually, owing also to the U.S. investments and technologies, China became a world superpower. The open-door and reform policy contributed to the reintegration of Hong Kong through which over 70% of the foreign investment came to the country, primarily American and European ones;
- The U.S. turned not only China into an industrial superpower, but also the USSR. The big industrialization of the USSR, including the building of automobile and tractor/tank factories, was delivered at the end of the 1920s – the start of the 1930s with the direct contribution of 25,000 American engineers and technicians who projected over 500 plants and trained millions of Soviet technicians. It’s a pity that the Soviet propaganda hid the given information from the general public;
- After World War II, Europe was divided into spheres of influence of the West and the USSR, in accordance with the Yalta agreements. Consequently, the states from the sphere of influence of the West developed vertiginously, also owing to the Marshall Plan, while those from the area of the USSR got truncated sovereignty, with the military intervention of the USSR in Hungary and Czechoslovakia serving as an example. The implosion of the Communist system crowned the struggle for getting rid of the USSR’s tutelage;
- The presence of Japan in 1945 – 1952 under the protection of the U.S. and South Korea, following the division of the spheres of influence with the USSR along parallel 38, meant the swift post-war restoration and subsequent impetuous development of these. None of the two countries lost sovereignty. On the contrary, they both became industrial and technological giants. In this connection, it is opportune to compare the influence of the U.S. with that of the USSR in North Korea.
3. Conclusions
The pretention of the EBCS and PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin as regards the fact that the party he represents is of Marxist origin does not stand up to the most elementary criticism. The Marxist parties do not form coalitions with bourgeoisie, conservative, clerical parties like the PSRM. The panegyric in relation to the CPC is fawning, humiliating and full of untruths, especially about the humanist character of the Marxist parties. The civil war in Russia, after the Bolsheviks usurped the power, and the repression of the Stalinist regime are a proof of the anti-human character of the so-called Marxists.
The speculations about the dangers of the Republic of Moldova being under external influence are seriously distorted. For about 30 years, 15% of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Moldova has been under the control of a separatist regime that is openly supported by the Russian Federation whose troops stay illegally on the country’s territory. Similar foreign influence is exerted by Russia in Georgia and Ukraine, which lost substantial parts of the sovereign territory. On the other hand, none of the countries that have been temporary under the influence of the West after World War II lost their sovereignty. On the contrary, they strengthened their sovereignty, developing themselves impetuously from socioeconomic viewpoint.
The Republic of Moldova needs temporarily the support of the development partners from the European Union and the U.S. for modernizing itself and finding their economic niche alongside the EU. The alternative to this development path is the Republic of Moldova’s integration into the Eurasian Economic Union where the elections are rigged, the citizens’ rights are seriously violated and wars and armed conflicts take place.