Elements of the Regime
To understand the main characteristics of the deportations, we first have to understand the motivations behind said deportations and other methods of repression. For Bessarabia to become one of the Soviet Socialist Republics (the Moldovan SSR), people inhabiting this territory had to be detached from their Romanian identity. This included a gradual replacement of the Romanian language with an invented “Moldovan dialect,” and the replacement of political leaders of Bessarabian origin with citizens from the other Socialist Republics, among others. As the Moldovan historian Octavian Țâcu mentions in his book Homo Moldovanus Sovietic:
“The Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was made possible through the targeted partition between the Moldovan and Romanian identities, even though these two peoples shared a language and historical background (Țâcu 88).”
This comes in conjunction with the following statement made by the author later in the book:
“In the 17th century, the Moldovan chroniclers wrote for the first time in Romanian and in the Romanian region (before so done by Transylvanians and people from Muntenia), that Romanians from Moldova, Transylvania and Wallachia form a single people of Romanian origin that speak a neo Latin language (related to Italian, Spanish, and the other Romance languages), and that the regional names of people from Muntenia, Oltenia, Moldova and Ardeal strengthen the Romanian unity and identity conferred upon these people by foreigners (p.97).”
And
“The Russian ethnographer A. Zashciuk mentions in 1863 in the Ethnography of the Bessarabian region, published in the fifth volume of the Notes of the Odessa Association of History and Antiquity, that 'the greater majority of the people living in the Bessarabian region are Moldovans or Romanians,' in another passage bringing up that Moldovans in Bessarabia “call themselves Romanian (p.112)."
As such, it was the foreign Soviet intervention and modification of the local identity that led to the better incorporation of the Bessarabian population into the Soviet Union, deportations being only one of the elements of repression implemented to reach this goal, that also included sudden disappearances, public humiliation and even assassinations of those who did not conform to the new Soviet regime.
Cultural Heritage
This is where cultural heritage and language preservation played a crucial role in preserving the Romanian identity on Bessarabia’s territory. Țâcu mentions the newspaper Basarabia as an important contributor to this goal during the time Bessarabia was part of the Russian Empire, the newspaper founders becoming important actors that continued pushing to revitalize the Romanian identity later into the decades as well:
“Ion Pelivan, having returned to Chisinau in 1905, together with Pan Halippa and with the help of Vasile Stroescu, set up the foundation for the Moldovan National Culture Society. In 1906, they managed to publish in the Moldovan province the first newspaper in Romanian, Basarabia, pan-romanian aspirations being centered around said newspaper. The newspaper came out between May 26th 1906 and March 11th 1907, 79 editions in total, the publication promoting national radicalism and agrarian reform. […] The newspaper was written in Romanian using the Cyrillic alphabet, but the title of the publication, Basarabia, was written using latin letters. The newspaper was financed from within the Bessarabian province, thanks in part to Vasile Stroescu, as well as using Romanian funds, particularly with the help received from Constantin Stere from Iasi. The newspaper was imposing correct Romanian literary and grammatical norms, seeking to revitalize the Romanian language in Bessarabia (p. 123).”
“From the Moldovan National Culture Society was born the National Moldovan Party, the first political organization. The main leaders of the 1905-1907 national rebirth movement will thus become the main actors in Bessarabia’s autonomy project, and later its independence and unification with Romania (p. 127).”
Though such efforts became virtually impossible after 1940, such early contributions helped preserve remembrance of Bessarabian’s shared history with other Romanian territories during the Soviet occupation and after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code
Article 58 was reserved to citizens convicted of treason, the convictees being branded "enemies of the state."
Photo Source: bolashaq.edu.kz
Jumping to the beginnings of the Second World War, we revisit the pact that indirectly made deportations from future occupied regions possible: the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. The Commission for the study and appreciation of the totalitarian communist regime in Moldova, established by Acting President of Moldova Mihai Ghimpu in 2010, speaks to the events. As per the Commission:
“As a direct consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of July 9th 1940, citizens of the Bessarabian and Northern Bukovina region accused of counterrevolutionary crimes are subjected to article 58 (1-18) of the Ukrainian SSR criminal code. Article 58 denounces an individual as the 'enemy of the state,' placing them at the risk of arrest, deportation, or even extermination (The Commission 40).”
It is the Ukrainian SSR criminal code that was attributed to the accused because of how the Moldovan SSR was created. Bessarabia joined the Moldovan ASSR, previously formed on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, to form the Moldovan SSR. As such, citizens from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were now subject to the infamous Article 58 that led to the expulsion, detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of people. As stated by the historian Igor Cașu:
“What differentiates the pre-1953 and post-1953 internal Moldovan SSR affairs is the difference in methods of repression: before 1953, repression was brutal, including group executions, deportations, and mass famine. After 1953, such methods were given up on, instead being replaced by public humiliation, arrests, and transfer to labor camps (Cașu 15)."
Zooming in on how the nature of deportations shifted throughout the years:
“The first mass deportation from the Moldovan ASSR took place in February of 1930. Many people managed to escape their deportation through the help of their family members or fellow villagers. A more unique aspect to the 1930 deportations, when compared to future ones, is the exclusive deportation of the family head. This ‘mistake’ will not be repeated in future deportations, when women and children will be transported to the far-reaching regions of Siberia as well. Women were cited as the most influential anti-Soviet protesters, since women faced less harsh punishments for such acts (p. 45-46)."
These early deportations were different in character from their 40s counterparts because of their periodicity before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. During the 40s and 50s deportations, the goal became the full eradication of the family and regime resistance.
The soviets
The deportations were closely tied with the production capacity of individual peasants. As mentioned previously, most of the ones deported were kulaks.
A particular phrase became widespread at the time [during Soviet occupation]: “Who does not work, does not eat,” referring to the contribution made by each individual in the collective production effort (p. 73).
But there was a deeper meaning to these words. Because of the nature of the soviets, small production groups created by the government with production quotas imposed by the government, peasants were forced to meet said constantly-rising quotas. If peasants did not produce and meet their quotas, they would literally not eat because nothing would be left for said peasants to eat, or they would suffer harsh punishments, including the possibility of being deported.
As described above, the deportations were connected with more overarching motivators behind the repressions practiced in the region. From the Soviet authorities’ perspective, deportations were a necessary element in instituting the communist regime in Bessarabia, regardless if said regime brought unimaginable atrocities for so many people.
Estonian deportees.
Photo Source: estonianworld.com/ Photo by Vabamu
A shared history
It should also be mentioned that it wasn’t only Bessarabians that were deported. While most post-Soviet Union countries intentionally dramatize their citizens’ experiences, many countries were victims to Soviet repression. Deportations were only one element of repression in the greater scheme of communist ideological change and sovietization of occupied territories. Through using the chaos of the Second World War, Soviet authorities were able to practice mass terror that affected people of many nationalities, not only from their neighboring states. This is a shared history between several peoples.
Sources
1. Top image: sfânt, Arhivele Naționale ale României Film frame from the movie Războiul nostru. Romanian Refugees after the Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. March 15, 2011. http://anr.infoideea.ro/basarabia1940/page3.html?lang=ro. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabia_and_Northern_Bukovina_03.jpg.
2. Țâcu, Octavian. Homo Moldovanus Sovietic. Editura ARC, 2019. ISBN 978-9975-0-0324-7
3. TVR. "Ziarul "Basarabia": informații inedite," https://tvrmoldova.md/sfatul-tarii-100-de-ani-file-de-istorie/ziarul-quot-basarabia-quot-informatii-inedite/
4. Академия “Bolashaq.” “Article 58: Treason against the Motherland – Академия ‘Bolashaq,’” May 25, 2021. https://bolashaq.edu.kz/en/novosti-en/article-58-treason-against-the-motherland/.
5. dokumen.tips. “(PDF) Moldovenii sub teroarea bolşevică.” Accessed August 17, 2023. https://dokumen.tips/documents/moldovenii-sub-teroarea-bolsevica.html.
6. Wikimedia. April 9, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_for_the_Study_of_the_Communist_Dictatorship_in_Moldova
7. Cașu, I. Dușmanul de Clasă. Cartier, 2014. ISBN 978-9975-79-828-0.
8. World, Estonian. “Estonia Remembers the Soviet Deportations.” Estonian World (blog), June 14, 2023. https://estonianworld.com/life/estonia-remembers-the-soviet-deportations/.
*All the translations from the Romanian are mine, unless otherwise specified.