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June 27, 1975

Moldavian Communist Party Central Committee, no. 189 s, to CPSU Central Committee, 'Memorandum on the Falsification of Historical Events in Romania and Measures for Preventing its Negative Consequences in Moldavia'

This document was made possible with support from Leon Levy Foundation

Memorandum

On the Falsification of Historical Events in the Socialist Republic of Romania

and Measures for Preventing its Negative Consequences in Moldavia

 

 

The last decade has witnessed an evolution in Romanian conceptions regarding many of the principal questions connected with the history of the appearance and the development of the Romanian state, of the Romanian nation, of Russo-Romanian [and] Soviet-Romanian relations and of the history of Moldavia. The revision of positions was initially observed in the works of some authors, especially historians, who were expressing their personal point of view. Later, however, these tendencies began to be manifest ever more clearly in scientific publications (monographs, historical atlases, manuals, etc.), in artistic works, periodical press, on television programs and radio broadcasts, in verbal propaganda.

 

In works recently published in the SRR—The History of Romania (1970), The History of the Romanian People (1980), The Great Conflagration—World War II (1971), Historical Atlas (1971), The Formation of the Romanian Nation and the Romanian Unitary State (1974), as well as in many others—the historical conceptions of bourgeois-landowner Romania on the ethnographic provenience of the Danubian peoples and the continuity of the development of the Romanian nation from the earliest times up until our days are clearly and unequivocally reflected and, on the basis of these pseudoscientific theories, the fact of the formation in the feudal epoch of a series of [separate] eastern romance peoples, including the Moldavians, is negated.[1]

 

Acknowledged in the past, the facts that demonstrate the progressive role of Russia in the Balkans, which even the fascist government of Antonescu did not negate, is changing, under the conditions of anti-Soviet tendencies, of Romanian militant policies, into a spirit hostile to the Soviet Union. If during the 1950s and 1960s it was recognized that the Russo-Turkish wars of the XVII-XIX centuries played an objectively progressive role, weakening the Ottoman yoke and leading to the liberation of the Danubian Principalities, in the 1970s, especially in the last two-three years, the participation of Russia in the Balkan wars is reproduced in Romanian publications exclusively as aiming to annex territory at the expense of “the Romanian provinces.”

 

The joining of Bessarabia to Russia is treated as an occupation of Romanian territory, although, as is known, Romania as a state appeared 30 years after the events of 1812.

 

The question of Bessarabia was passed over in silence in Romanian literature, while in the recent period it is treated from the position of territorial pretensions towards our country.

 

Developing the bourgeois concept of the formation of the Romanian nation from the Balkans to the northern Carpathians, Romanian historians present the forced annexation of Bessarabia by the Romanian kingdom in 1918 as “an act of the unification of all Romanians” and demonstrate that this reunion was produced by the will of the people, as a result of its long struggle for the recognition of this act, supposedly legitimized by the Paris Peace Conference.

 

This base falsification of the true aspirations of the Moldavian people is the most misrepresented in the official Romanian publication Questions and Answers Regarding the History of the Romanian Communist Party and of the Workers’ Movement in Romania; destined for the network of party education.

 

In the Romanian journal History Annals (no. 1, 1975), which is the organ of the Institute for Social-Political Studies of the RCP CC, the [1812] joining of Bessarabia to Russia is presented as a transaction between Russia and Turkey, as the result of which the latter ceded territory from the body of the Romanian Principalities. In this number of the journal, Romanian pretensions toward some Soviet territory are exposed, essentially, in an overt manner.

 

In recent years, Romanian researchers search relentlessly in the classic works of Marxism-Leninism for references to Danubian and Balkan problems, to the Romanians and Moldavians, using these declarations tendentiously in order to confer an appearance of indisputable character to their revisionist conceptions.

 

Thus, the historian A. Otetea, well-known in Romania as a specialist in social-political processes, used quotes from K. Marx on the anti-Russian Bonapartist book The Political and Social History of the Danubian Principalities, published in Paris in 1855 by E. Regnault, a bourgeois French historian, and published them as a separate book—K. Marx, Notes on the Romanians. This work stirred up in Romania, and especially in the West, an unhealthy interest around the respective excerpts. Books began to appear, articles and reviews were published, that portrayed K. Marx as an adversary of the joining of Bessarabia to Russia, and almost as an adept of pan-Europeanism. Through this not only were the conceptions of K. Marx on the history of the Danubian Principalities misrepresented without scruple, an attempt was made to stir up an anti-Soviet spirit, to sow the seeds of mistrust and hostility between the Russian, Moldavian and Romanian peoples.

 

Confusion is awakened not only by the failure to condemn such misrepresentations of historical reality, but, on the contrary, their stimulation by the current leadership of the RCP, which used them as a weapon, as is reflected in an overt manner in party and state documents, on the basis of which they undertake ideological measures, [and] construct relations with our party and state. This is mirrored in the RCP program, adopted at the Eleventh Congress in October 1974, in which no distinction is made between Ottoman, Habsburg and Tsarist imperial policies, all of which are considered annexationist towards the Balkan peoples. The occupation by Romania of Soviet territory in 1918 is treated in the program as a triumph of truth, as the conclusion of the unification of the entire Romanian people. The unification of Bessarabia with the Moldavian Autonomous Republic in 1940 is similarly treated from the position of bourgeois-nationalist historiography. In the monograph The Great Conflagration—World War II, the peaceful resolution of the Bessarabian issue is explained in the following manner: “On 26 June as a result of the ultimatum sent by the Soviet Government to the Government of Romania, the territory between the Prut and Nistru [Dniestr] Rivers, as well as a part of northern Bucovina entered as a component into the Soviet Union.”

 

In order to explain the events connected with the first period of the Second World War, Romanian savants have taken recourse to the reactionary bourgeois theory about “the two aggressors.” If in the works of Romanian authors published before 1970 the participation of Romania in the War against the USSR was, in some measure, condemned, in recent works this is excluded. Not only that, but the Romanian leaders have reached the point of affirming that Romania found itself in the fascist bloc as a result of the incorrect policies of the Soviet state.

 

Speaking in general about the war, Romanian authors recognize the merit of the Soviet Union in crushing Hitler’s Germany, but despite that, when it comes to speaking about the liberation of Romania, this role of the Soviet Union is not recognized.

 

Instead of the Iasi-Chişinău operation, the Romanian authors write about “the breaking of the German front in north-east Romania by the Soviet Army” (not the German-Romanian front, but only the German front). The respective breaking is considered only as an encouragement for the liberation struggle of the Romanian people, which was victorious on 23 August 1944. This armed revolt is considered one of the decisive turning points of the Second World War.

 

Much is written about the fact that “Romania was the fourth country according to the number of dedicated troops, which participated in the war against Germany (540 thousand men) and the regret is expressed that, in spite of its contribution to the war, Romania was not recognized as a cobelligerent country, but is considered a defeated country, which has given rise to many difficulties both along domestic policy lines and in the international arena. (Historical Yearbook, no. 1, 1975)

 

A new encouragement for the continued falsification of historical sciences in the SRR and the creation of tensions in the political situation around the so-called independent course of Romanian leadership policy was given in the discourse of the RCP Secretary General, N. Ceausescu, during the 30th anniversary festivities of the “Stefan Gheorghiu” Academy on 28.III.1975.

 

In the above-mentioned discourse, as is known, he declared that “currently in the world all sorts of deliberately erroneous interpretations are formulated, according to which the dismemberment of some states, the capricious separation of some peoples is represented as a legitimate manifestation of historical necessity, while the results of such artificially created situations are theorized and interpreted as being a natural process in the formation of a separate nation.” After this discourse, in the pages of the Romanian press, on the radio and on television a new campaign began of continual misrepresentation of the history of the Romanian nation, of the Romanian state, and of its neighboring peoples, of the falsification of the true events of the Second World War and, especially, of the events tied to the entrance of Bessarabia as a component of the Soviet Union. On top of that, in all publications a single aim is emerging—to demonstrate the illegality of the existence of the Moldavian nation and statehood.

 

In the framework of the course developed not long ago of raising the professional level of journalists at the above-mentioned academy, Professor Shevchebie declared: “I know that you will ask me the question which I am always asked—what is the position of our party regarding the problem of Bessarabia and Bucovina? I will respond in time. The [existence of the] Moldavian SSR does not presuppose a separate nation. The language of communication is Romanian. No matter how much the contrary is affirmed, it is clear to the entire world that this is the Romanian language. Regarding their ethnic provenience, the [majority] population is Romanian. It is unfair that this territory was torn from Romania. Time will decide [regarding] this injustice.”

 

Such hostile concepts towards our country, which reemerge in both scientific treatises and in political discourse, creates an erroneous interpretation of the policies of the CPSU and the Soviet State among the Romanian people, and an unhealthy attitude towards the Moldavian SSR.

 

“The Romanians and the Moldavians are the same people,” “Bessarabia is a Romanian land from the time of Stephan the Great, it passed to the USSR only because Romania in 1940 and 1945 was weaker than the USSR”—all of this, as well as other similar declarations can be heard from Romanian tourists, members of delegations and groups that come to the republic, from Romanian citizens during their discussions with our people who find themselves in Romania.

 

From the synthetic analysis of the materials and declarations of Romanian citizens, the impression is created that the anti-Russian and anti-Soviet tendency in the activity of historians, philosophers and other Romanian savants, as well as among workers in the press, community/communal organizations is coordinated from the center and is developed with the assistance of some importance means of influence over the people, over world public opinion, with the aim of imposing the idea of unjust borders, the dismemberment of peoples, and of the artificial creation of the Bessarabian question.

 

To this end, in Romania and beyond its frontiers, the emigrants edit many books in the languages of different peoples. Particularly large amounts of anti-Soviet literature were published during the preparation for the Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Europe, [and] the General Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). In April of the current year, on the streets of Paris, in the metro, flyers were put up, in which the return to Romania of “the territories of Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina annexed by the Soviet Union” was requested.

 

In recent years the sending into Moldavia of some Romanian publications in which territorial pretensions towards the Soviet Union are exposed has intensified. These provocative actions are effected by ideological organizations within Romania—the Central State Library of Bucharest, some institutions which send to the addresses of librarians, newspaper and journal editors, to the churches, to the priests in Moldavia, books, newspapers, journals and other materials that contain nationalist, anti-Russian conceptions. Among others, the works of N. Ceauşescu in eight volumes were sent into Moldavia, which include his speeches in Beijing, the well-known protest against the assistance accorded to the Czechoslovakia people during the counter-revolutionary events in that country, and other discourses in which the Romanian political leader disagrees with the Marxist-Leninist positions of the socialist countries of Europe, of the workers and progressive communist movements in the world, and [in which he] approaches a hostile bourgeois and Marxist [sic] ideology.

 

The Moldavian Communist Party Central Committee has elaborated and is implementing complex measures oriented towards preventing the penetration into the republic of both the inadmissible negative influence on our people of the renegades’ anti-Russian and anti-Moldavian conceptions, and of the Romanian falsifiers of objective historical truth, [and the] Soviet patriotism of the Moldavian people.

 

In the last five years, the publishing houses of Moldavia have prepared and published over 80 works which contain criticisms of the positions of Romanian authors and their contemporaries that falsify the past and present of the Moldavian people. In works such as The Outline of the History of the Moldavian Communist Party, Soviet Moldavian Statehood and the Bessarabian Problem, Against the Bourgeois Falsifiers of the History and Culture of the Moldavian People, The Nationalist Policy in Action, Facts and Presumptions, Pages from the History of Soviet Moldavia, International Solidarity in the Struggle of the Working People of Bessarabia for the Reunion with the Soviet Fatherland, [and] Beyond the Façade of Bourgeois Theories, as well as in many other works, the attempts of Romanian authors to avoid and pass over in silence the expansionist tendencies of the former Romanian leaders is unmasked, [as are their attempts] to deprive the Moldavian people of their statehood and of the possibility of constructing socialism in a united family with the Soviet peoples.

 

These works decisively reject the tendency of impressing the revolutionary struggle of the region with a pro-Romanian character, unmasking the traitorous role of the Sfatul Ţării, the counterrevolutionary bourgeois-landowner organ, exposing it to the whole world through reference to the documents of the Romanian Communist Party referring to these and other questions—the revisionist character of the current policies of the leadership in Romania, unmasking the affirmations regarding the “forced” russification of Moldavia. The true aspirations of the Moldavian people are demonstrated eloquently and convincingly, its unity with the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, and with the other fraternal peoples of our country, in which they acquired liberty, stability, national self-determination and happiness.

 

Unmasking the confabulations of the Romanian chauvinists is always at the center of attention in the Moldavian press. The press organs of the republic—the newspapers Soviet Moldavia, Socialist Moldavia and the others—oppose the torrent of lies and calumnies with the scientific treatment of Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian relations, the Leninist nationality policy of the CPSU, the fraternal relations of the Soviet peoples with all of the socialist countries, its revolutionary solidarity with repressed peoples, the active defense of the sovereignty and independence of all countries and peoples.

 

Moldavian television, radio and cinema also give a certain riposte to the Romanian revisionists. Recently, the achievements of the Moldavian people during the years of Soviet power are propagated more eloquently and more convincingly, the preoccupation of the CPSU CC and Soviet Government with the development of the region,  with the spiritual qualities of our people, their strong Soviet and internationalist patriotism, is evident. The International Life Section of the Radio and Television prepare daily broadcasts designed to neutralize the confabulations spread about by the Romanian falsifiers.

 

A long-term plan for ideological work has been drawn up in the republic in which are foreseen measures for inculcating working people with a communist conception of the world, with an internationalist consciousness and high Soviet patriotism. This work is developed beginning with the pre-school educational institutions and with the schools, and terminates with the work collectives, as well as in the home.

 

In Chişinău, the Museum of the History of the Communist Party of Moldavia functions with success, elucidating the appearance of revolutionary movements in the Bessarabian Gubernia, the struggle of the Moldavian people for Soviet power, the organic tie with Russia and the aspirations of the people for unity and fraternity with all the peoples of the USSR. On the basis of numerous materials the decisive disagreement of the Moldavian people with the occupation of Bessarabia, its unending struggle for the liberation and reunion with the motherland, is demonstrated in a convincing manner. The Museum is visited with interest not only by the working people of the republic, but also by Romanian citizens who arrive in Moldavia.

 

Currently, the Museum of Military Glory is being created, which will reflect the indestructible brotherhood in arms of the Moldavian, Russian and Ukrainian people in the fight against the foreign invaders of the region from the XVth  to the beginning of the XXth centuries, the manliness and spirit of sacrifice manifested by the working people of our fatherland in the defense of the victory of Soviet power from foreign intervention and internal counterrevolution, the undying heroism of the Soviet peoples in the years of the Great War for the Defense of the Fatherland, including during the crushing of the groups of German-Romanian invaders in the Iasi-Chişinău operation.

 

The Directorate of Foreign Tourism at the Moldavian SSR Council of Ministers and the Moldavian Society of Friendship and Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries exerts considerable efforts for the extensive information of Romanian tourists during their stay in the republic. Guide-translators have been instructed in the framework of special preparation courses to this end. Along with excursions of a general nature, the visiting programs include meetings with working people from the republic, with veterans of the Great War for the Defense of the Fatherland, viewings of cinematic films about Moldavia are arranged, as well as the attendance of concerts, [and other] shows. In recent years tens of thousands of examples of folders and pamphlets were published and disseminated among the ranks of tourists, a publication plan for publicity literature for Romanian tourists has been elaborated for the years 1976-1980.

 

From the information in our possession, the work undertaken in Moldavia has become a serious obstacle to the separate course of the Romanian leadership. Our information unmasks the defamatory essence of the Romanian publishing houses and publications, creating amongst the ranks of the Romanian people a righteous idea about history, the revolutionary struggle of the Moldavian people and the construction of socialism in our region, about the foreign policy of the CPSU CC, [and about] the friendly attitude of our people and state towards Romania.

 

Unfortunately, the complicated relations between Moldavia and Romania are not taken into consideration by some of the central [Soviet] ideological organizations. Sometimes, works appear which are in solidarity, to a certain measure, with Romanian publications. Thus, in the guide Populations of the Countries of the World, published in Moscow in 1974, under the editorship of Professor B. C. Urlanis, in the enumeration of the peoples of the Romance language group (pp. 317-318), the Moldavian people are not named, as if they did not exist. Such an unforgiveable error is wonderfully convenient for the Romanian falsifiers, which impose exactly this idea on everyone.

 

The well-known ethnographer V. I. Naulko affirms that the Moldavians of Bessarabia are newcomers, foreign colonists, while the Ukrainians are the native population (The Development of Interethnic Relations in Ukraine, Kiev, Naukova dumka, 1975).

 

In the monograph The Tatarbunar Revolt, published in 1974 by the Political Publishing House in Ukraine, the author P. I. Smishko affirms that the insurgents advocated for reunion with Soviet Ukraine. In reality, as is known, the revolt in Tatarbunar of 1924 proclaimed the Soviet Moldavian Republic and advocated for reunion with the Soviet Union. P. I. Smishko badly complicates things also in the work The Struggle of the Working People of the Ukrainian Danubian Principalities for Reunion with the Ukrainian SSR (1917-1940), Lvov, 1969. Basically, this entire book is oriented against the Outline of the History of the Moldavian Communist Party.

 

N. I. Lebedev, doctor in historical sciences, in the outline of documentary publications in the journal Problems of History, no. 9, 1968, names the Moldavian cities and villages as Romanian. “On 28 June—Lebedev relates—after receiving the agreement of the Romanian Government, the Red Army began the campaign to liberate Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina, while on 30 June our troops arrived at the Prut River. The local inhabitants of the Romanian cities and Romanian villages welcomed with joy and hope the liberating Red Army.” (p. 147)

 

According to the opinion of P. D. Kazakov, explicated in the book The Liberation of the Right Bank of Ukraine and of Crimea (Moscow, Voienizdat, 1974), the Moldavian SSR did not even exist: “…Soviet troops, liberating the right bank of the Ukraine, arrived at the frontier with Romania.” (pp. 27-28) This error is committed by Colonel G. Kozlov, candidate in historical sciences, in the article The Great Victor, published in the newspaper Sovietski patriot on 24 March 1974.

 

In the [Soviet] central periodical press and in some publications—The Desk Calendar, 1975 edited in Leningrad, In the World of the Beautiful (Moscow, Politizat, 1974), The Youth Calendar 1975 (Moscow, Politizdat), The Press Book of the Union Chamber of Books—the classic Moldavian writer Mihai Eminescu is described only as a Romanian poet.

 

In the Romanian cinematic film Michael the Brave, the Moldavian people are presented as being one in the same with the Wallachian [Vlah] people and are named Romanians. In spite of our objections, USSR GOSKINO (State Cinematography) acquired it and presented it throughout the entire country, popularizing this falsification of historical reality.

 

All of this and many other events complicate the ideological work connected with the dangerous tendencies that have occurred in official Romanian policy and social life, reducing the efficiency of our propaganda against the misrepresentation of the facts by militant Romanians, [against] their efforts to recast in falsified form the history of the republic.

 

Numerous requests by intellectuals from the domains of science and the creative arts are addressed to the Moldavian Communist Party CC which rightfully express confusion regarding these facts, which lead to divergences in the treatment of some questions of principal importance connected with the ethnography, history and life of the Moldavian people.

 

Regarding the attempt of the Romanians to artificially create the territorial problem between our countries and to build relations with the CPSU and the Soviet state on this superficial theme, it seems to us that it would be proper to prevent this provocation. In order to do that, in our opinion, comprehensive measures must be undertaken, coordinated on the basis of a single plan. In a series of problems in these complex measures, referring first of all to the centuries-old friendship between the Moldavian, Russian and Ukrainian peoples, to the unity of the Soviet peoples, to the perception by the Moldavian people of the Leninist theory about the construction of socialism and the loyal respect for it, as well as in other questions, the republican party organization, the scientific community, the entire Moldavian people can be actively implicated. To this end, the scientific institutions of social science and the intelligence services of the republic must be extended and consolidated.

 

Firstly, in the activity of scientific research the confusion existing in the domain of publishing houses must be eliminated immediately and a unique and clear position must be elaborated referring to the historical past of the Moldavian people and its statehood, to the revolutionary movement in our region, to the role of the liberating wars of Russia in the Balkans and to the contribution of the Soviet Union in the liberation of the Romanian people from fascism. The scientific publications regarding these questions have neutralized in large measure the significance of the erroneous interpretation of these questions in Romania.

 

There is a need for an organization, especially good in informational and publicity practices, which could exercise influence, well-argued, from a realistic position, to affirm the truth and fairness [of the Soviet position] acting upon Moldavian and Romanian public opinion, to inform them systematically about the domestic and foreign policy of the CPSU CC and the Soviet Government. To this end, it is necessary to coordinate the actions of the organs regarding the problems of ideological work.

 

Unfortunately, the number of newspapers and journals in Moldavia is extremely limited for fulfilling these functions. The necessity is imposed of publishing a literary newspaper and a pedagogic newspaper, a journal for youth, which could be occupied with the concrete problems of the education of intellectuals and youth, as well as exert a positive influence over this category of working people in Romania.

 

In the aim of neutralizing the negative influence of Romania over our republic, it would be opportune to put into practice the subscribing of Romanian periodical publications only through the Moldavian SSR or of permitting that these publications should come to us from other republics. Now the persons who are refused the possibility of subscribing [in Moldavia] do so freely in other cities of our country.

 

The most powerful means of reaching the masses in ideological work is, as is known, through radio and television. However, the joint Television-Radio center that currently functions in Chişinău is supplied with a 1958-type apparatus, which is both physically and morally obsolete. In the powerfully irregular territory of the republic only four re-transmitters have been installed with a wave-length of one meter and a total power of 36 kilowatts. Because of the low power of the transmitter, Moscow radio broadcasts cover only 90 percent, and Moldavian broadcasts only 40 percent, of the population of the republic. At the same time, Romania has installed five re-transmitters with a range of one meter and a total power of 90 kilowatts along our frontier. As a result, all of the population of the Moldavian SSR can freely receive Romanian radio broadcasts, and a great part of the republic can receive those of Romanian television as well. These broadcasts are penetrated with the spirit of nationalism, anti-Russianism, they frequently transmit the hostile calumnies of the Maoists, as well as diverse Western information, they present films from bourgeois countries, etc. We do not have one re-transmitter at the frontier.

 

The Moldavian Communist Party CC considers that it is extremely necessary to consolidate a television and radio broadcasting base. In order to achieve this the current complex of equipment and studios at the radio-television center in Chişinău must be reconstructed and the means of transmission must be intensified to the maximum, in order to ensure the Moldavian SSR with three programs of radio and television broadcast, assuring their reception in the entire territory of the republic and in a significant part of Romania as well.

 

In order to assure quality propaganda through the intermediary of the press, radio and television, well-prepared Journalists are necessary. These are few and far between in Moldavia, especially among the ranks of the native population, a considerable part of the workers in newspapers and journals do not correspond to contemporary conditions. In order to resolve this important problem, the Moldavian Communist Party CC has addressed a request to the USSR Ministry of Specialist Education to open a Journalism Faculty at the University of Chişinău.

 

The falsifications of historical truth expressed in the ignorance of the role of the Soviet Army in the liberation of Romania would be unmasked through a cinematic film about the Iasi-Chişinău operation, which led to the liberation of Romania. Likewise, the making of a film about the great liberating mission of Russia in the Balkans would be welcome. The showing of the film and other measures can be implemented through the Societies of Friendship with Bulgaria [and] Hungary, through the development of the Days of Moldavian Culture in France, Italy, FRG and in other countries that have influence over Romania and in which live many emigrants from Bessarabia and Romania.

 

There is also a necessity for perfecting the current manner of working with Romanian tourists. In the aim of treating the same way a series of complicated problems connected with Russo-Romanian and Soviet-Romanian relations, and of realizing a single line of work with Romanian tourists, it would be correct to concentrate on the preparation of Guide-Translator Romanian specialists in the Moldavian SSR.

 

There is a necessity for regulating the visit to Moldavia of Romanian citizens with individual visas. Travelling alone through the republic, these persons engage in provocative discussions, etc. At the request of our people, these persons are expelled, however this does not always happen in time. It would be opportune to limit the entrance of Romanian citizens into our republic with free visas and to allow the visiting of Moldavia in organized groups [only].

 

Scientific activity and solidly-argued propaganda regarding the correct treatment of the processes of historical formation, developed in the spirit of objectivity and good-will, from the principled position of equitability and exigency, without a doubt, will exercise a positive influence over Romanian and world public opinion, will influence also the Romanian leadership in order to bring it back to reality.

 

The Moldavian Communist Party CC considers that in our relations with Romania we should finally obtain their recognition of the Moldavian SSR. The ignoring of the Moldavian nation offends our people, expresses an attempt against vital and moral principles which have formed and developed in the Leninist spirit of the fraternity and unity of the Soviet peoples. The principal problem is that Romania constructs its relations with our party and country, and defines its domestic and foreign policies, on the basis of these errors.

 

Our lack of reaction to such an unnatural situation is perceived in Romania as a weakness, as a lack of the possibility of the Moldavian people to defend its right to exist. Not receiving the proper riposte, the Romanians add to their pretensions, resorting to all types of forms and methods for misrepresenting the truth and for disseminating some false conceptions with the aim of deliberately misinforming world public opinion, compromising the national policies of the CPSU, which assure the prosperity of the Socialist Moldavian nation and its statehood.

 

 

[1] In the usage of Soviet authorities, Marxist-Leninist ideology, and its central zero-sum struggle between the classes, constituted the only legitimate basis for “scientific” historical research. Western non-class document-based methodology was thus branded as “unscientific” and “pseudoscience.”

The Moldavian Communist Party requests the development of a “comprehensive” and “coordinated single plan” for propaganda regarding the Moldavian political and ethnic identity. The MCP was particularly distressed by the tendency among Soviet ethnologies and histories of ignoring the new “Moldavian” ethnicity altogether, and referring to it instead simply as Romanian. Also troublesome were the “Romanian authors and their contemporaries that falsify the past and present of the Moldavian people."


Document Information

Source

AOSPRM, fond. 51, inv. 36, dosar 110, filele 144-158; Document No. 11 in Elena Negru and Gheorghe Negru, “PCM şi Naţionalism (1965-1989): Documente adunate în cadrul programului de cercetări effectuate de câtre Comisia pentru studierea şi aprecierea regimului tolitar communist din Republica Moldova,” special edition, Destin românesc, vol. 16, no. 5-6 (2010), pp. 55-65. Translated for CWIHP by Larry L. Watts.

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