Soviet Moldavia Research Articles

Problems of the Formation of the Industrial Potential of Pridnestrovie as Part of Molodavia (1940 – 1941)

The author discusses the first steps of the Soviet government to restore and create the industrial complex of Moldovia after the liberation of the right-bank regions of Moldavia – Bessarabia - from the power of Royal Romania in the period from June 28, 1940 to June 1941. The purpose of the study is to characterize and evaluate the actions of central and local authorities in the first months after reunification on the nationalization of fixed assets and collectivization of agriculture, restoration, launch and establishment of industrial enterprises in the territory of the MSSR, as well as to identify the main directions of industrial development in the region during this period, the features of the formation of industrial potential taking into account the ongoing nationalization, the analysis of attracted resources and their characteristics, comparison with the industry of Royal Romania. The author presents an analysis of the main activities of local authorities on nationalization, as well as identifies the main financial sources allocated for the development of industry. The initial economic and cultural level, from which the formation of a new way of life for the Moldovan people began, after the reunification of the population of Bessarabia with the population of Transnistria (MASSR), is analyzed. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that it was the help of the peoples of the USSR that allowed the population of the republic to eliminate inequality in economic, political, cultural and other areas of life in a historically short period of time. According to the results of the study, the fundamental role of Pridnestrovie (MASSR), on whose socio-political and economic basis the reunited Soviet Moldavia was formed, also became obvious. The diverse production base created earlier in Pridnestrovie (MASSR) from scratch, together with thousands of trained highly qualified workers, provided invaluable assistance in the state, economic and cultural revival of Bessarabia. The study used such methods of historical research as retrospective analysis, comparative analysis, as well as a systematic approach and the method of expert assessments.

The world of family values in women’s prose of Soviet Moldavia: social narrative and author’s intention

In this article, using the methodology of ethnological research of literary texts, the significance and specificity of artistic prose in the study of the axiological features of the institution of the Russian family in Soviet Moldova is substantiated. The artistic prose of Soviet Moldavia is presented for the first time as a source of ethnological discourse, reflecting the picture of the traditional system of values (both Russian and Moldavian), consistently formed on the basis of Christian morality by previous generations. The specifics of the historical and demographic features of the development of the family institution in the MSSR are analyzed, where the concepts of the Russian and Soviet families in this period converge and become interconnected; the concept of “Soviet family” is stipulated. Separate axiological features of the development of the institution of the Soviet family in the MSSR (family values and the nature of relations in the family) are considered on the basis of the novels of Russian writers L. Mishchenko “Wormwood – Widow’s Grass”, L. Latyeva “Divorce” and the story of the Moldavian prose writer A. Lupan “Valencha”. An important aspect of the work highlights the world of family values in the women’s prose of Soviet Moldova: through the confrontation of the social narrative and the author’s intention.

Problems of the formation of the industrial potential of Pridnestrovie (1917 - 1940).

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problems of the formation of the industry of Pridnestrovie in the period after the Revolution of 1917 and before the creation of the MSSR in August 1940. The purpose of the study is to characterize the actions of local authorities to restore and establish industrial enterprises on the territory of the MASSR, as well as to identify the main directions of industrial development of the region during this period, the features of the formation of industrial potential, the analysis of attracted resources, comparison with the industry of the occupied part of Moldova - Bessarabia. The study used such methods of historical research as retrospective analysis, comparative analysis, as well as a systematic approach and the method of expert assessments. As a result of the research, the author came to the following conclusion: the industry of modern Pridnestrovie is characterized by a broad industry structure due to the titanic work on its creation in the era when the territory of the modern PMR was part of the MASSR/ MSSR, as well as the needs of the internal market of the USSR in the interwar period. Its foundation was laid under the leadership of the Communist Party and thanks to the help of the fraternal peoples of the USSR in 1920-1930. Against the background of the impoverished Bessarabia, the MASSR, relying on the historically developed specialization of the region, created a developed industry in a relatively short time, and also formed a working class of many thousands. During the same period in Bessarabia, as a result of a sharp decline in the number of industrial enterprises, the working class also declined, the agrarian character of the region became even more pronounced. The economy of Bessarabia during the years of occupation by Boyar Romania was brought to a complete decline and got a chance to recover only after the creation of the MSSR. After the reunification of both banks of the Dniester, the industrial potential of the MASSR became the basis for the development of the united Soviet Moldavia. According to the results of the study, the assessment of the process of formation and development of industrial enterprises of the region, the specifics of their functioning, helped to better understand the process of formation and development of self-identity of the region.

Police vs. Party? Institutional Hierarchies and Agency in Soviet Moldavia, 1944–1952

This paper addresses an under-researched topic in Soviet post-war history. It is about institutional hierarchies in a newly annexed Western borderland based on recently disclosed archival materials from Chișinău (including ex-KGB and MVD) and Moscow depositories. In contrast to all-Union institutional practices, the Moldavian SSR's case study shows that the party was hardly a hegemonic institution in late Stalinism. Using kompromat and inside information, the political police (NKGB-MGB) controlled the party institution. In contrast to the Baltic republics, Soviet Moldavia was headed by weak first secretaries appointed with the connivance of local police. Agency is an essential variable in explaining the dynamics of institutional design and hierarchies in Soviet peripheries in late Stalinism. Political police's predominance in this period is explainable as Bessarabia – mostly part of Soviet Moldavia – was a contested territory between Romania and the Soviet Union and hence the need to establish a more repressive policy to counteract the mass expectations of a regime change. I also argue that the realities of the immediate post-war Soviet Moldavia do not fit the conclusions of a recent book on ‘substate dictators’ by Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk (2020).

Discurs și putere în timpul foametei în masă din Moldova sovietică, 1946-47

The article analyses the Communist discourse strategies in Soviet Moldavia during the mass famine in the immediate postwar years. Based on recent archival findings from several post-Soviet archives as well as Western historiography, the article focuses on why it was so important for the Soviet regime to control language during mass famines. Controlling language was an intrisic part of controlling reality, designing scape-goats, and protecting the power from popular blame and wrath.

Jewish Social Mobility under Late Stalinism: A View from the Newly Sovietizing Periphery

This article expands our knowledge of nationality policies, center-periphery relations, and Jewish life under late Stalinism, a period which has heretofore been viewed predominantly through the lens of Stalin's terror and marginalization. By focusing on Soviet Moldavia, the article demonstrates that developments in this region followed a different trajectory from those displayed in the center. Local expediencies, derived from the needs of a newly Sovietizing territory with “suspect” locals, encouraged the professional advancement of ethnic Jews to positions of power and prestige previously unmatched in this region. The study explores both the opportunities and limitations faced by Jews in this peripheral region, while placing these phenomena inside the framework of Soviet nationality policies and its accompanying policy toward government professionals. Simultaneously, the article highlights both the legacy of Romanian official antisemitism within this region of postwar Soviet society and the role of the “neo-korenizatsiia” program in displacing Jews within Soviet state structures.

Removing a German Sugar Factory to the Soviet Borderlands: A Case Study of the Postwar Technological Transfer in Soviet Moldavia (1946-52).

After the capitulation of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviets removed thousands of factories from Germany to the Soviet Union. The Soviets not only had to displace the factories, but also had to assimilate them in the Soviet context. This article shows how the Soviet authorities struggled with the assimilation of the German equipment in the peripheral town of Rybnitsa, in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviets sought to get the best German technologies and to relocate them to the Soviet Union. They acted as the winners in the war, and demanded a replacement for Soviet losses. But could the German factories serve as a replacement for the Soviet factories? How did the Soviets recreate German equipment in the Soviet sugar factories? Was it enough to encounter and relocate the foreign technology in order to assimilate it?

RFE/RL Never Had a Separate Broadcast Service in Romanian for Soviet Moldavia… Interview with A. Ross Johnson, Former Director of Radio Free Europe (Sergiu Musteață)

A. Ross JOHNSON is a History and Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and Senior Adviser at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Johnson was a senior executive of RFE/RL from 1988 to 2002, serving as director of Radio Free Europe, director of the RFE/RL Research Institute, acting president, and counselor of RFE/RL. He was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2002 to 2016 and senior staff member of the RAND Corporation from 1969 to 1988, where he specialized in East European and Soviet security issues. He is author of the book Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The CIA Years and Beyond.

Mark Sandle, Igor Cașu, Leonid Brezhnev in Moldavia, 1950-52: the making of a GenSek?

This is the first article dealing specifically with Brezhnev in Soviet Moldavia. The article draws mainly on recently disclosed files from the Archive of the Social-Political Organizations of the Republic of Moldova, the former archive of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Moldavia. The authors are trying to understand the importance of the period when Brezhnev served as First Secretary of Central Committee of Moldavia from 1950 to 1952 for his subsequent career. In order to understand better the results of Brezhnev’s rule in Moldavian SSR and the impact on his leadership style, the authors discuss the previous career of Brezhnev as well as the activity of the previous First Secretaries in Soviet Moldavia. One of the main results of Brezhnev period in Moldavia was the consolidation of kolkhozes. In a broader sense, since this period at least, Brezhnev favoured quantity over quality.

Igor Cașu, “Revoluția silențioasă”: revizuirea identității naționale în Moldova Sovetică la apogeul “dezghețului” lui Hrușciov (1956-1957) / ”The Quiet Revolution”: Revisiting the National Identity Issue in Soviet Moldavia at the height of Khrushchev’s Thaw (1956)

The article highlights the impact of Khrushchev’s Thaw on the question of national identity in Soviet Moldavia in the framework of the internal Soviet debates unleashed by the ‘Secret Speech’ and the subsequent Hungarian Revolution. The question of national identity was expressed by two groups, one representing the former GULAG returnees and the other the intellectuals or students socialized in the Soviet milieu. The position of the former was more radical and anti-Soviet, while the latter was milder and respected the status-quo, i.e. the Soviet regime, and only questioned some previously established traditions on what it meant to be Moldavian. Incidentally or not, the former position proved to be more long lasting, in some way prepared and anticipated the national agenda during Perestroika, in the late 1980s. The question of national identity emerged once again with a comparable fervour in 1968 subsequent to the Prague Spring and Ceaușescu’s refusal to support the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia.

Discontent and Uncertainty in the Borderlands: Soviet Moldavia and the Secret Speech 1956–1957

This article examines reactions to de-Stalinisation in Soviet Moldavia between February 1956 and March 1957. The article is based on evidence from the archives of both the former Communist Party of Moldavia and the Moldavian KGB. It highlights the uncertainty there was at local levels because of the denunciation of Stalin. Local party reports demonstrate concern about the activities of religious activists, Western propaganda, nationalism and disaffected youth. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 caused the party to change tack, and to begin a clampdown. These reports highlight that Soviet rule had very shallow roots in Moldavia.

The Politics of Ethno-National Mobilization: Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Moldavia

U nder the impact of glasnost and perestroika, nationalism, long a serious potential threat to Soviet political life, has become the principal force affecting the future of the Soviet state. Regions as diverse as the Baltic republics, Central Asia, and the Caucasus have experienced unrest ranging from mass demonstrations against perceived injustices to intercommunal massacres. What is the relationship between political reform and nationalist mobilization? Why have the numbers of those supporting nationalist movements grown so explosively under present conditions? This paper explores these issues through an analysis of the dynamics of change in Soviet Moldavia. It focuses on the 1987-1989 period, during which popular mobilization in that republic was most intense.l As has become increasingly evident thanks to improved access to Soviet information, most Western analyses through the early 1980s grossly underappreciated the extent of regional divergence within the USSR. While institutional similarities and common patterns of conduct were present, in some respects political behavior also diverged markedly from republic to republic. Clearly, the specific conditions of each locality must be taken into account for a comprehensive understanding of Soviet nationality politics. Not only have some republics experienced massive nationalist upheaval while others remain relatively stable in comparison, but the internal configurations of nationalist movements vary between republics, along with the demands generated by them. Still, while recognizing the importance of local conditions, an effort must also

RECENT RESULTS OF NEOLITHIC RESEARCH IN MOLDAVIA (USSR)

Summary. The area north of the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Caucasus, was a zone of interaction between farming populations and indigenous Mesolithic groups which acquired pottery and elements of stock-breeding. Recent research in Soviet Moldavia, at the western end of this area, has clarified the nature of contacts between farming groups of Balkan origin and local groups centred on the Dnestr and Bug.

Michael Bruchis. Nations—Nationalities—People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984. iv, 230 pp. $28.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Michael Bruchis. Nations—Nationalities—People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984. iv, 230 pp. $28.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

The social structure of the south-east European societies in the moddle ages – a linguistic view

The purpose of this paper is to review several terms spread over a quite large area in South-East Europe. The starting point of our investigation is the Romanian language understood as inheriting an important Thracian vocabulary, specifically referring to the social and political structure of the Early Middle Ages. The terms discussed are not exlusively Romanian. In fact, they reflect - roughly speaking - the ancient extension of the Thracian speakers, i.e. the present-day territories of Romania, Bulgaria, Soviet Moldavia and parts of South- and South-West ·ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia.

Nations--Nationalities--People: A Study of the ationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia

Part of a trilogy on minority policies of the USSR, with special reference to those of former Soviet Moldavia, is based on first-hand experiences and original materials

Nations—Nationalities—Peoples. A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. By Michael Bruchis. East European Monographs, no. 165. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984. iv, 230 pp. $28.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, N.Y

Nations—Nationalities—Peoples. A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. By Michael Bruchis. East European Monographs, no. 165. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984. iv, 230 pp. $28.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, N.Y - Volume 44 Issue 4

Michael Bruchis, Nations — Nationalities — People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, New York, 1984. 230 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Michael Bruchis, Nations — Nationalities — People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, New York, 1984. 230 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

The language policy of the CPSU and the linguistic situation in soviet Moldavia

The language policy of the CPSU and the linguistic situation in soviet Moldavia

Urbanization in a low key and linguistic change in Soviet Moldavia, part 2

Urbanization in a low key and linguistic change in Soviet Moldavia, part 2