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TheSoviet deportations fromBessarabia andNorthern Bukovina took place between late 1940 and 1951 and were part ofJoseph Stalin'spolicy of political repression of the potential opposition to the Soviet power. The deported were typically moved to so-called "special settlements".
The deportations began after theSoviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which occurred in June 1940. According to a secretSoviet Ministry of Interior report dated December 1965, 46,000 people were deported from theMoldavian Soviet Socialist Republic for the period 1940−1953.[1]
Moldovan historianIon Varta referred to the events that occurred in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina after their occupation, including the deportations but also the famine and murders, as a "genocide in all law".[2]
Around 7,500Gagauz were deported toSiberia orKazakhstan, according to estimates by Gagauz Moldovan researcher Konstantin Kurdoglo, author of a volume on the Soviet repressions and deportations inGagauzia.[3]
As a result of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, the Romanian government was forced to accept the Soviet ultimatum of June 26, 1940, and withdrew from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. These regions (as well as theHertsa region) were then incorporated into theSoviet Union, most of the former being organized as theMoldavian SSR, while the other areas were attributed to theUkrainian SSR.
On June 12–13, 1941, 29,839 members of families of "counter-revolutionaries and nationalists" from the Moldavian SSR, and from theChernivtsi (ofNorthern Bukovina) andIzmail oblasts of theUkrainian SSR were deported toKazakhstan, theKomi ASSR, theKrasnoyarsk Krai, and theOmsk andNovosibirsk oblasts. For the fate of such a deportee from Bessarabia, see the example ofEufrosinia Kersnovskaya. TheGeorgianNKVD officialSergo Goglidze, trusted henchman ofLavrentiy Beria, was in charge of these deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.[4]
During 1940 and 1941, 53,356 people fromBessarabia andNorthern Bukovina were mobilized for labour across the entire territory of the Soviet Union; though the mobilization was presented as voluntary, refusal to work could result in penal punishment, and living and working conditions were generally poor.[5]: 43
ProfessorRudolph Rummel, based on older claims, estimated that in 1940–1941, 200,000 to 300,000 Romanian Bessarabians were persecuted, conscripted into forced labor camps, or deported with the entire family, of whom 18,000 to 57,000 did not survive.[6] According to some estimates (as related by historian Pavel Moraru), 12% of the population of the two provinces was killed and deported in one year.[7]
Such figures were not confirmed after the opening of Soviet archives: historianIgor Cașu indicated a figure of 86,604 people from Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Hertsa Region who suffered political repression in 1940–1941, the greater part (53,000) being subjected to forced conscription for labour across the Soviet Union.[8][9] Among the cca. 30,000 deportees, there were representatives from all ethnic groups:Romanians,Ukrainians,Russians, Jews,Bulgarians,Gagauz. Moldovans and Romanians comprised 50% of these, a proportion similar with their weight in the general population, leading Cașu to conclude that the prewar and postwar repressions were not directed at any specific ethnic or national group.[9]
On June 22, 1941,Nazi Germany, together with several other countries, includingRomania (which had the primary objective of reintegrating Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina into the Romanian state), attacked the Soviet Union (seeOperation Barbarossa). After the start of the war, further deportations occurred in the USSR. In April 1942, Romanian deportees and some other nationalities were deported again fromCrimea and theNorth Caucasus.[citation needed] In June 1942, Romanians and others were also deported fromKrasnodar Krai and theRostov Oblast.[citation needed]
On April 6, 1949, the Political Bureau of theCentral Committee issued decision number 1290-467cc, which called for 11,280 families fromMoldavian SSR to be deported askulaks or collaborators with Nazi Germany duringWorld War II. Ultimately, 11,239 families, comprising 35,050 people, were detained and deported on July 6, 1949, with the rest either escaping or being exempt due to their contribution to the Soviet war effort or their support forcollectivisation.[5]: 49 In aninterpellation in theParliament of Romania in 2009, international judge and politicianTudor Panțîru put the number of deportees from July 6–7 at 40,000.[10]
On February 19, 1951,Viktor Abakumov delivered to Stalin a secret notice which listed the planned numbers of deported "Jehovists" fromUkraine,Belorussia,Estonia,Latvia,Lithuania andMoldova, with 1,675 people (670 families) listed for the latter.[11] On March 3, theUSSR Council of Ministers issued the corresponding decree, followed by an order of the Ministry of State Security of February 6. On March 24, the Council of Ministers of the Moldavian SSR issued the decree on the confiscation and selling of the property of the deportees. Operation North started at 4:00 am on April 1, 1951, and the round-ups continued until April 2. The deportees were classified as "special settlers".[12] In total, from the Moldavian SSR, there were 723 families (2,617 people) deported on the night of March 31 to April 1, 1951, all members of neoprotestant sects, mostlyJehovah's Witnesses, and qualified as religious elements considered a potential danger for the Communist regime.[13][14] In the previously mentioned interpellation, Panțîru claimed some 6,000 ethnic Romanians from the Moldavian SSR were deported to Central Asia on April 1, 1951.[10]
Amemorial to the victims of Stalinist repression has been erected inChișinău, close toCentral Station, to commemorate the deportations.
