Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

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The Moldavian ASSR against the Bessarabian enclosing Greater Romania 1919-1940

The Moldavian or Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Russian Молдавская Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика / Moldavskaia Awtonomnaja Sovetskaya Sozialistitscheskaja Respublika - short МАССР / MASSR) was an autonomous republic ( ASSR ) within the Ukrainian SSR between the First and Second World War . It extended east of the Dniester over an area of ​​8,100 km², on which about 545,000 people lived.

The seat of government was Balta from 1924–1929 , Tiraspol from 1929–1940 , but the formal capital was Kishinev (Chișinău), which was “temporarily occupied by Romanians” from the Soviet point of view . The autonomous republic was divided into 11 rajons (districts).

territory

Russian map of the MASSR

The territory of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was not identical to the territory of the later Moldavian SSR , but comprised the territory of today's Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic ( Transnistria ) plus today's Ukrainian districts of Balta and Podilsk (before 1935 Birsula , until 2016 Kotowsk).

founding

The MASSR was founded on October 12, 1924 on the east bank of the Dniester by Bessarabian communists and influential representatives of the Moldovan minority with the support of Moscow on the left bank in order to construct its own Moldovan identity. Bessarabia was affected by the revolutionary turmoil of 1917/18, the disintegration of the tsarist empire and the Bolshevik takeover of power in 1918. The regional council therefore called on January 24th . / February 6, 1918 greg. Romania for military assistance, whereupon Romanian troops invaded. On April 9, 1918, Bessarabia declared its annexation to Romania for eternity while maintaining partial autonomy . In November 1918 the union with Romania was completed and the Sfatul Țării disbanded. The area was granted to Romania by the Treaty of Paris in 1920. However, the treaty was not ratified by Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Therefore, Romania's attempt to recognize Bessarabia as a separate territory under international law failed.

From the Soviet point of view, which did not want to recognize the annexation to Romania, it was "a staged separation from Russia and a planned annexation by Romania". As a result, the ASSR area was elevated to an autonomous oblast on March 7, 1924 . The Moldovan national movement accuses the establishment of the MASSR exclusively to the Soviet claims to the former Russian governorate Bessarabia (originally the eastern half of the Principality of Moldova from 1350 until the annexation by Tsar Alexander I , then 1812-1918 Russian, with a break between 1856 and 1878 for the southwestern part ) on the west bank of the river.

However, the establishment of the MASSR was intended to serve two goals of the emerging foreign policy of the Soviet Union : It was to facilitate the penetration of Soviet propaganda into the Kingdom of Romania and thus export the socialist revolution , and on the other hand to ensure that the Bessarabian question an important topic of international politics stayed. With the establishment of the MASSR along the Romanian border, the Soviet Union succeeded in increasing the pressure on Romania in the negotiations on the future of Bessarabia , highlighting the successes of the Soviet system and acting as a counter-model to the Romanian monarchy as a political magnet.

population

Ethnic composition of the Moldovan ASSR according to the 1926 census

The Moldovan ASSR exclusively comprised areas that had never belonged to the former Romanian Principality of Moldova , but in which there were extensions of the settlement area of ​​the Romanian-speaking population. 32 percent of the population belonged to the Moldovan titular nation , while 46 percent belonged to the Ukrainian ethnic group , so that the Moldovans, so designated by Soviet statistics, were a minority in their own Autonomous Republic.

In order to sever ties with Romania and to prevent irredenta movements after a future annexation of Bessarabia, Soviet historians, ethnologists and philologists began to emphasize the independence of a Moldovan nation different from the Romanian nation. The Romanian language was renamed " Moldovan language " and from 1930 onwards it was written in Cyrillic letters.

According to the 1926 Soviet census, the population was 572,339 people, including 172,419 Moldovans (30.1 percent), 277,515 Ukrainians (48.5 percent), 48,868 Russians (8.54 percent), 48,564 Jews (8.49 percent), 10,739 Germans (1.87 percent).

Rajon Total population Moldovans / in percent Ukrainians Russians Jews Poland German Bulgarians Other Current location of the Rajon
Dubossary 42,609 28,559 ... 67.03 6,077 2,867 4,612 27 246 16 205 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Slobodzeya 37,617 24,341 ... 64.71 6,537 5,714 571 22nd 72 25th 335 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Grigoriopol 30.094 13,744 ... 45.67 4,629 3,851 1,114 33 6.315 21st 387 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Kamenka 39,169 15,038 ... 38.39 18,263 424 4.172 952 215 4th 86 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Rybnitsa 47,731 17,023 ... 35.66 23,064 1,809 4,422 1,138 28 15th 232 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Ananyev 62,289 21,005 ... 33.72 32,224 2.136 6,406 164 122 8th 227 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast
Birsula (from 1935 Kotovsk, from 2016 Podilsk) 57,823 18,521 ... 32.03 30,717 3,804 2,978 710 446 19th 628 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast
Tiraspol 64,750 16,845 ... 26.02 12,627 21.205 6,608 147 1,020 5,862 436 Republic of Moldova - Transnistria
Krutyje (from 1930 Kodyma ) 50,913 8,592 ... 16.88 36,518 402 4,601 481 118 5 196 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast
Krasnye Okny 41,249 6,472 ... 15.69 27.203 2.161 2,718 341 2.118 19th 217 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast
Balta 75,061 1,895 ... 2.52 70,830 316 1,246 485 17th 4th 268 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast
Balta (city) 23,034 369 ... 1.60 8,826 4,182 9,116 353 22nd 28 138 Ukraine - Odessa Oblast

Political leadership

First Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee or Central Executive Committee of the MASSR (1924–1926) and Chairman of the Regional Council of People's Commissars (1926–1928 and 1932–1937) was Grigory Borissov (1880–1937).

After Borisov's death, the MASSR remained de facto leaderless until 1938 Tikhon Konstantinow (1898-1957) chairman of the Central Executive Committee and Fyodor Browko (1904-1960) chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and chairman of the Revolutionary Committee.

conversion

After the Soviet Union took the Bessarabian part of what was then Romania in 1940 through military occupation in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact , the MASSR was divided and dissolved on August 2, 1940. The Raione Camenca , Rîbnița , Dubăsari , Grigoriopol and Tiraspol , which encompasses today's Transnistria , were merged with the Bessarabian part of what was then Romania , which reached as far as the Prut , and made an independent Moldovan SSR . The Balta and Kotovsk districts fell directly to the Ukrainian SSR , which received 60 percent of the territory of the former MASSR. Brovko became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the newly formed Moldavian SSR , Konstantinov succeeded him as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

In 1941, Romanian troops, as allies of Hitler's Germany, again occupied Bessarabia and the territory of the former MASSR including the entire remaining Transnistria area as part of the German attack on the Soviet Union . During the Soviet summer offensive of 1944, however, the area came back under Soviet rule.

See also

credentials

  1. ^ Van Meurs, Wim: The Bessarabian Question in Communist Historiography: National and Communist Politics and History Writing. New York 1994. p. 79.
  2. ↑ Ioan Bulei: Roma, 1924–1927 Archived from the original on October 17, 2007. In: Fundaţia Culturală Magazin Istoric (ed.): Magazin Istoric . No. 3, March 1998. Retrieved February 26, 2008.
  3. ^ Charles King: The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture Studies of Nationalities. Stanford, CA 2000. pp. 63 ff.
  4. ↑ http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Moldova.htm#Moldavian%20Soviet%20Socialist%20Republic

literature

  • Kilian Graf: The Transnistria Conflict. Product of late Soviet distribution struggles and the collapse conflict of the imploded Soviet Union. Disserta-Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-942109-30-7 .
  • AM Samsonov: History of the USSR. Volume 1. Berlin 1977.
  • Erhard Stölting: A world power is breaking up. Nationalities and Religions of the USSR. Eichborn, Frankfurt 1990, ISBN 3-8218-1132-3 .
  • Charles King: Ethnicity and Institutional Reform: The Dynamics of 'Indigenization' in the Moldovan ASSR. In: Nationalities Papers. Vol. 26, Issue 1 1998. pp. 57-72.
  • Charles King: The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture Studies of Nationalities. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, CA 2000, ISBN 0-8179-9791-1 .