Moldavian Communist Party Central Committee, No. 145 ss, to CPSU Central Committee, 'Information on New Falsifications of Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian Relations in the Publications of the Socialist Republic of Romania'

Information on New Falsifications of Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian Relations in the Publications of the Socialist Republic of Romania

The Moldavian Communist Party CC first of all informs the CPSU Central Committee about the deeds of gross misrepresentation of the historical events connected with the problems of the formation and development of the Moldavian people, its statehood, of Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian relations committed in the Socialist Republic of Romania.

Recently, the mass organs of information, scientific and propagandistic institutions of the SRR have increased the number of publications that contain a willful falsification of the above-mentioned events, such as the revolutionary activities of the workers and communist organizations from the Balkan region and of the Communist International. Attracting attention [is] not only the numerical increase in the published materials, but also the intensification of their anti-Russian, anti-Moldavian and anti-Soviet orientation, many historians of the SRR sharing the bourgeois national-chauvinist conceptions of both the current imperialist and Maoist adepts of anti-Sovietism.

The principal sense of the publications comes down to the argument of the ethnic unity of peoples who live between the Danube and the Nistru Rivers, the community of traditions, of cultures, of languages, etc. Through them is negated the legitimacy of the independent existence of the Moldavian nation and statehood outside of Romania, the unanimously accepted evaluation of the reactionary essence of the Turkish yoke is revised and the Imperial Ottoman defense of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Danubian principalities is demonstrated. At the same time, the liberating mission of Russia in the Balkans is now characterized as being as being one of overwhelming the region. In the opinion of many Romanian authors, “the aggressive intentions of Russia concluded with the 1812 annexation of Bessarabia” and the total annexation of the Danubian principalities was only stopped due to the attitude of France against Russian expansionism and the resistance of the Danubian peoples. In the same order of ideas, they demonstrate the inconsistency seen in the policies of contemporary states that, through all possible means, evaluate the injustices of the past as a perfectly acceptable state of affairs.

In the publications the participation of Romania in the First World War is justified completely. As candidate member of the RCP CC, deputy of the Grand National Assembly, Pascu, affirms, “it had neither an unjust nor an imperialist character, but rather the noble pursuit of ‘national and state unification.’” In his opinion, “the Romanian people were overcome by an unprecedented enthusiasm, when it found out about the entrance into the war on the part of the Entente.”

Recently, Romanian historians have been characterizing the annexation by the Romanian kingdom of Soviet Bessarabia in 1918 even as “the union of Bessarabia with Romania as a result of the decisions of the Sfatul Ţării.” Now this act of annexation is interpreted as the result of a national movement of liberation in Bessarabia for union with “its motherland—Romania,” fixed through the decision of the Sfatul Ţării.

The decisions of the COMINTERN, which supported the unending struggle of the Moldavian people for reunion with the Soviet fatherland, have been subjected to outrageous attacks. In the opinion of contemporary Romanian authors, the decisions of the COMINTERN, supposedly, “were directed towards the dismemberment of the Romanian national unitary state and the separation of the Romanian people.”

Rejecting the decisions of the RCP’s IV^th and V^th Congresses as being wrong, imposed by the COMINTERN, Romanian historians today declare that the principal component of the party always considered and considers still the [Romanian] annexation of Bessarabia and of Bucovina as a natural process of the unification of a nation, a process which reached its logical conclusion in 1918. The act of the liberation of Bessarabia in 1940 is treated by Ioniţa, the deputy secretary of the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the RCP CC, as “an annexation by the Soviet Union of Romanian territory,” being equivalent with the fascist Hungarian diktat.^[1]

The policy of the Romanian fascist state is being radically revised, it is affirmed that Romania found itself in the fascist camp, so to speak, because of the territorial pretensions of the Soviet Union towards it.

This and other confabulations constitute a gross falsification of historical truth, of the true aspirations of the Moldavian people, which directly participated in the revolutionary struggle for the installation of Soviet power in the former Gubernia of Bessarabia, and heroically defended it in the period of the Civil War. Finding itself after the intervention and treason under occupation, it did not stop the insurrectional fight until the liberation of the right bank of Moldavia in 1940.

Contemporary Romanian historical, socio-political and artistic literature, treating the events connected with the Second World War, not only pass over in silence the savagery of the Romanian army on occupied Soviet territory, but demonstrates that it accomplished a heroic deed in the aim of returning lost territories and preserving national unity. It sees the error of the leading circles not in the participation in the war against the USSR, but in the fact that the Romanian Army went further than the Nistru River.

If in earlier times the confabulations of the Romanian falsifiers figured only in the works of savants, currently they can be found in the written and oral discourses of party and state working people, of leaders of community organizations, of literary and artistic figures, they are printed in the pages of party, state and community publications—in the newspapers Scanteia [The Spark]and Romania Libera [Free Romania], in the journals Era socialista [Socialist Era], Anale de istorie [Historical Annals], etc. Ioniţa, deputy secretary of the Propaganda and Agitation Section of the RCP CC, Popescu-Puţuri^[2] and Voicu, members of the RCP CC, Pascu, candidate member of the RCP CC, etc., have dedicated special efforts to this end.

Only in the months of March and April of the current year, the newspaper Scanteia, the organ of the RCP CC, hosted 8 articles that contained chauvinistic opinions of a purposeful nature. On 16 April of the current year, the newspaper published the article Testimony to Romanian Continuity and inserted a map with frontiers of the Romanian state marked as comprising the current Soviet territories up to the Nistru River and further, in northern Bucovina.

In essence, overt territorial pretensions towards the Soviet Union are manifested in the monograph of Muşat and Ardeleanu, Political Life of Romania: 1981-1921, published at the beginning of 1976, in the articles: Pascu, “Moments of the Struggle of the Romanian People for the Formation of the Romanian Unitary State” (the journal Magazin istoric, no. 2, 1976), Popescu-Puţuri, “From the Past of the Struggle of the Romania People for the Defense of Sovereignty and the Independence of the Fatherland,” Muşat and Ioniţa, “The Fundamental Problems of the History of Our People,” (the journal Anale de istorie, no. 1, 1976).

The number of publications with a similar chauvinistic and nationalist character continues to grow, especially in connection with the launching of the campaign for preparations for the celebration, in 1977, of those 100 years since the proclamation of Romanian independence. From them there emerges the clear tendency of the Romanian ideological services to induce the idea among world public opinion of the illegal entrance of Moldavia and northern Bucovina as a component part of the USSR, to stir up nationalist, pro-Romanian states of mind among the ranks of the Moldavian population. To this end, they send a large quantity of literature of all types, treating contemporary Romanian conceptions on territorial problems, ethnography, etc., to the addresses of editors, librarians, houses of culture, scientific institutions, writers and scholars in the Moldavian SSR. Romania is becoming the place where, through different channels, reactionary literature published in the USA, FRG, Israel, China and other countries in which the most extravagant anti-Sovietism prospers penetrates into the Soviet Union. In 1975, 13,600 examples of ideologically dangerous publications were sent from Romania to different institutions in Moldavia, a considerable part of which from Romanian publishing houses.

Along with sending literature, Western countries transmit to Moldavia dangerous broadcasts through the intermediary of 11 radio stations, for a total time of 13 hours a day.

Romanian citizens who arrive in Moldavia on tourists visas openly provoke discussions connected with the territorial problems, etc. In particular, they demonstrate with firmness that the USSR imposes on the small countries, Romania included, in various ways, inequitable economic relations, as a result of which the Romanians suffer material difficulties.

From the general analysis of the increased number of publications and radio broadcasts with a nationalist, anti-Soviet character, as well as the tendentious discussions of Romanian citizens creates the impression that the anti-Russian, anti-Soviet orientation in the activity of the historians, philosophers, literary personalities, workers in the Romanian party and community organizations is assisted by the center and developed with vast means of influence over the masses, over world public opinion with the aim of creation a unique opinion about unjust borders, about the allegedly artificial separation of the Romanian people.

This and other tendencies in Romania, which have attained an increasingly clear character of territorial pretensions, naturally, finds active support in the West, especially in the revanchist circles of West Germany, as well as among the rabid Maoists. These circles use them for unjustifiably accusing our state of expansionism, for subjugating peoples and for other calumnious confabulations.

For instance, in one of the recent broadcasts of the radio station Deutsche Welle it is affirmed that, in the book of Muşat and Ardeleanu Political Life in Romania: 1918-1921, “we find a large dose of political material with an explosive character.” Using quotes from the entire book, the radio station praises the Romanian authors who engage polemics with “foreign Marxist historians that try and justify the annexation of Romanian territories.”

Recently, the West German journal, Der Spiegel, published a review of the book written by Romanian novelist Preda, Delirium, with the title, “Antonescu, the military dictator and the friend of Hitler, is romantically rehabilitated because he fought against the Russians.” In this work, Antonescu is presented in the figure of a “courageous and incorruptible leader, burdened by the noble preoccupation of improving the well-being of his people and preserving the territorial integrity of Greater Romania.”

In the atmosphere of intensified hostile propaganda around our republic, the Moldavian Communist Party CC, in full conformity with the CPSU CC directives, is raising the vigilance of the working people, their intransigence before the attempts at [undermining] their statehood, at their ancient friendship with all of the peoples of our great fatherland. In the vast ideological activity, which is developing according to an elaborate plan, the grandiose economic and social successes of the Moldavian people, obtained due to the indestructible union and brotherhood of the USSR peoples, to the greatness and power of our Soviet fatherland, are widely disseminated. The Moldavian people, devoted to the end to the Leninist party and to its great Soviet fatherland, is full of decisiveness for the consolidation, with all of its intentions and deeds, of the friendship and brotherhood with the Great Russian and Ukrainian peoples, and with the other peoples of the USSR, in order to construct with trust and faith a communist society. However, unfortunately, under the influence of Western and Romanian propaganda, some persons among the ranks of intellectuals [and] among the youth, not sufficiently prepared for the critical perception of the diverse anti-Soviet confabulations, permit themselves, in their circles of relatives and intimates, and sometimes in public places, to make demagogic pro-Romanian affirmations, spreading provocative rumors.

Persons of Jewish and German nationalities who wait to depart the USSR but who, for various reasons, were not allowed to leave the country have engaged in especially unpleasant and irresponsible discussions and manifestations. At the current moment, there are 87 such families of Jewish nationality and 587 of German nationality comprising approximately 2 thousand persons. In total, 100 thousand citizens of Jewish nationality and around 12 thousand of German nationality live in Moldavia. Around 15 thousand people have emigrated, principally to Israel and the FRG. The retained persons, in the aim of extorting visas, employ Romanian and bourgeois insinuations regarding the Moldavian SSR in order to create an unhealthy atmosphere, stimulating hunger strikes, sending through delegates of various institutions many calumnious letters to the UN and to the ambassadors of capitalist countries accredited to Moscow.

Much work is done with persons disposed to emigrate, and in this way many citizens renounce their departure. At the same time, a part of this group does not interrupt its hostile activity within the interior of the republic, as the result of which the negative influence of bourgeois propaganda over persons of Moldavian nationality increases.

The essence of the unhealthy manifestations on the part of nationally marginalized Moldavians is expressed in the spirit of Romanian publications and Western bourgeois anti-Soviet propaganda. The most dangerous declarations, openly pro-Romanian, have been made by some writers, especially Strâmbeanu, Vodă, Marinat and several others. Their ideological teacher is the Moldavian writer Ion Druţă, who lives in Moscow and who, in an entire series of his works published by Moscow publishing houses, throws calumny upon CPSU policy, misrepresents the national relations in our country, denigrates the Soviet way of life, its economic system and socialism, [and] demonstrates the lack of viability and of humanity of the socialist order. The publication of his works, which are being published also in Romania, creates serious difficulties in the ideological task of forming an international consciousness among the working people.

The Moldavian Communist Party Central Committee reacts operationally to all of the smallest manifestations of nationalism, localism and pro-Western orientations, giving a principled evaluation and undertaking decisive measure for liquidating them.

The issues connected with the patriotic education of the working people, of the class approach to evaluating social phenomena, of intolerance towards manifestations foreign to our regime, ideology and morals, other issues connected with ideological work are systematically realized at the CC plenums and at the meetings of the republic’s party active, are studied in the system of Marxist-Leninist education, are translated into life by all of the republic’s communists.

[To provide] for propagandistic and journalistic cadres, savants and workers in the creative domains, ongoing permanent seminars explain the domestic and foreign policy of the CPSU, give vast information about the achievements of our country, unmask the confabulations of the Maoists and of other renegades of contemporary opportunism, [and] the provocative character of bourgeois propaganda, at the CC, municipal and county committees, where the cadres are initiated into the best methods of ideological work among the ranks of the working people.

In conformity with the CPSU CC decisions, “With regard to the supplementary measures for the continual intensification of ideological work among the ranks of the population in the Moldavian SSR and in the Cernăuţi region of the UkSSR” and “With regard to the supplementary measures in the domain of ideological work in connection with the intensification of Romanian nationalist propaganda which harms the interests of the USSR,” the Moldavian Communist Party CC has elaborated and undertaken measures for increasing the print-runs of literature, and number of radio and television broadcasts, in which the events of the past and present of the Moldavian people, its centuries-long aspirations that were crowned with the joining of Bessarabia to Russia through the will of the great masses of the population, are treated from a [Marxist-Leninist] scientific position, the attempts of the Western and Romanian information/intelligence organs to misrepresent the true essence of Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian relations, [as well as] the contemporary foreign policy activities of the CPSU and the Soviet Government, are unmasked with all decisiveness.

Up to this moment, there were published over 150 monographs, collections of articles, documents and other publications regarding the questions connected with the formation of the bourgeois and socialist Moldavian nations, the revolutionary movement and construction of socialism in our region and in other regions.

Given that in some of the secondary school manuals published in the past the role of the feudal state in the consolidation of the Danubian people was exaggerated and other errors were committed, their re-editing is being organized. In the new manuals the questions regarding the formation and development of the Moldavian nation [and] its statehood are treated in an expressive and convincing manner on the basis of a rich factual material showing the progressive role of Russia in the liberation of the peoples in the Danubian basin, in their union into independent states, illustrating the edifying force of Leninist nationalities policy, showing the achievements obtained in the construction of socialism on Moldavian soil.

The museums more broadly explain the activity of the communist illegals, of the Bolshevik organizations in our region, the participation of the Moldavian people in the proletarian revolutionary movement, in the victory of the October Revolution, in the creation of the Soviets for the proclamation of the Soviet Bessarabian Republic, the formation of the Moldavian SSR as a component of the unitary Soviet Union. Activities were launched for the creation of the Museum of Military Glory, in which the participation of the Moldavian people in the Civil War and the War for the Defense of the Fatherland will be illustrated. This and other cultural institutions are destinations for visiting tourists. Unfortunately, many Romanian groups refuse in an organized manner to visit the museums.

Within the Moldavian Information Agency (ATEM), a principal Editorial Office of Information for Abroad, prepares well-argued materials about the realization of the Leninist nationalities policies in Moldavia, familiarizing [foreigners] with the achievements of the Moldavian SSR and unmasking the confabulations of foreign falsifiers.

The Moldavian Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries increased the amount of informational materials about the Soviet Union sent abroad to the addresses of related institutions, the majority of which discuss the life of the issue of the Moldavian people, [and] Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian relations.

In conformity with the planned measures of the CPSU CC regarding the consolidation of a technical-material base for Moldavian television and radio broadcasts, currently work is underway for increasing the power of the television stations taking into account the assuring of quality broadcast reception throughout the entire territory of the republic. Measures are being undertaken for the regulation of tourism, which has attained a mass character from Romania.

In conformity with the political objectives outlined at the XXV^th Congress of the CPSU, the Moldavian Communist Party CC has drawn up a complex plan of ideological measures, in which is foreseen the organization of some scientific-practical conferences, republican meetings of propagandists in the framework of which the question connected with mass political work are analyzed. In May of the current year, there will take place a republican assembly of ideological workers. At the Moldavian Communist Party CC [and] in the municipal and county party organizations meetings with journalists, faculty heads from the social sciences, and workers from the creative unions are being organized. The seriousness of the political-ideological level of the published materials has increased. The entire spirit of the periodical publications is oriented towards the internationalist and patriotic education of the working people, towards affirming the Leninist way of life and Leninist activities. In the case of mistaken works, critical reviews are organized, while referring to especially dangerous literary and film works, the Moldavian Communist Party CC had adopted special decisions.

The Congresses of the Writers and Film-makers this April has developed under the enormously positive influence of the remarkable document of our epoch, as it has entered into the consciousness of all Soviet people, namely the highly scientific report of L. I. Brezhnev at the XXV^th CPSU Congress. The authors who depart from class criteria in their evaluation and treatment of social-political problems, and who become exponents of opinions foreign to the ideology of socialist realism, tolerating ideological confusion and apoliticism, received a well-earned riposte at the above-mentioned forum.

The creation of a series of documentary films about the triumph of Leninist nationalities policies was foreseen, [as was] the organization of a film festival with the theme of Soviet patriotism and proletarian internationalism, completing the repertoire of the theatre and musical collectives with works about the friendship of the peoples of the USSR.

In May-June there will be municipal and county seminars of the primary party organizations, at which the new forms and methods of patriotic and internationalist education of the working people will be studied.

We know that the countermeasures undertaken in Moldavia for the neutralization of foreign propaganda have created serious difficulties for the Romanian and bourgeois intelligence services. Thanks to the principled position of the CPSU Central Committee towards the activity of the Romanian organs that harm the interests of our country and, similarly, to the ideological work of the party, the Moldavian people follow with devotion the course traced by V. I. Lenin, preserving and consolidating with fidelity the great friendship of the USSR peoples, fully supporting the policy of the CPSU, being proud of its social-economic achievements and considering it a great happiness to live and to create in a powerful state such as our great fatherland.

The strong patriotism of the Moldavian people is now meaningfully manifested in the successful translation into life of the tasks outline by the XXV^th Congress of the CPSU.

Along with the above-mentioned information with a political character, the Moldavian Communist Party CC announces that the Romanian side, unilaterally, [and] grossly transgressing the provisions of the Soviet-Romanian Hydro-Technical Agreement, is raising a levee of earth along the Prut River for a length of over 100 km. The raising is accomplished by paramilitary subunits working at an accelerated rhythm. After the termination of the construction of the above-mentioned levee, during periods of rising water levels the railway hub at the frontier at Ungheni and 12 localities on our side will be flooded.

The repeated appeals from USSR government authorities regarding the execution of the provisions of the Soviet-Romanian Hydro-technical Agreement have not enjoyed understanding. The Romanian side declares that it will accept the coordinated decision on the works begun regarding the building of levees along the Prut River in the sector mentioned only on the condition of the revision of all the decisions adopted earlier conforming to which the reclamation of our side in the course of the Prut also should be made in full accord with the Romanians.

Probably, according to the agreement concluded with China, a large number of Romanians and Chinese specialists occupied with the cultivation of rice and vegetables are working along the Soviet-Romanian frontier.

The leaders of the frontier counties in Romania accept without hesitation contacts with our frontier counties, the exchange of delegations is made, as a rule, only on the initiative of our side, as a result of which the meetings rarely take place. The Romanian representatives, when they visit the frontier counties of Moldavia, are shown all that is important and valuable from our advanced experience, while our delegations are especially officially received, they are shown principally historical places, concerts, they spend much time in restaurants.

The Moldavian Communist Party CC is fully conscious of the exclusive importance of the measures undertaken in connection with the Romanian nationalist and chauvinist propaganda which harms the interests of the USSR, and it translates into life, with all responsibility, the CPSU CC directives connected with the internationalist and patriotic education of the working people, of the formation within it of strong moral qualities and patriotic fidelity to their great Soviet fatherland.

MCP CC Secretary, I. Bodiul (signature)

^[1] Whereas the annexation of Bessarabia was accomplished on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, the “Hungarian diktat” decided by Ribbentrop and Italian Foreign Minister Ciano did not involve the USSR.

^[2] Ion Popescu-Puturi was also President of the Romania-China Friendship Society, which enjoyed broader liberties and Romanian state support in carrying out its activities in contrast to the competing and considerably restricted Romanian-Soviet Friendship Society (ARLUS), thus already establishing Popescu-Puturi as a Soviet bête noire.