The struggle of Bessarabian refugees in Romania as reflected in the counter intelligence files of the Securitate

Abstract

Romania’s position in the period 1948-1958 was directly dependent on the foreign and security policy of the Soviet Union, so that, in the first years of the Cold War, Moscow’s relations with the West were dominated by the communist ideology approach, which was faithfully copied by the elite of the Romanian party. In the first years after the Second World War, the Soviet Union’s guarantee for its own security was the sovietization of the territories that had become annexed states, thus effectively ceding the right of decision in the political, social, economic and military fields to the Soviet Union. In the first decade after World War II, Bucharest, a staunch ally of Moscow, subtly changed direction and began to build its own line of communism. Thanks to the concessions made by Khrushchev and the perseverance of the Romanian political leadership, Romania escaped the military presence and Soviet advisors. Starting from 1965, N. Ceaușescu, who continued Romania’s independence policy within the Warsaw Pact, firmly condemned Moscow’s intervention in Prague, thus laying the foundations for economic and political support from Western states. However, the reality of being incorporated into the Soviet bloc forced Romania to maintain „fraternal and friendly international relations” with the Soviet Union. The 1970 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, as well as the 1976 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union attest that the so-called coexistence and cooperation expected at the highest diplomatic level have been fulfilled. This situation did not change even in the eighth decade of the last century, the Ceaușescu regime remained preserved in neo-Stalinism, based on the cult of personality and the model of the single absolutist leader, although Mihail Gorbachev suggested, among other things, the velvet socialist model for Romania. In accordance with the real expectations of the political leadership, the Romanian state security constantly documented the actions related to the implementation of Soviet influence and intervention. The present study presents the actions carried out by the state security at that time (Securitatea), in which Romanian citizens were involved whose only crime was that they had previously lived in Bessarabia.