Partidul politic Dreapta Political party The Right Parti politique La Droite Partido politico La Derecha

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UNIFICATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA WITH – ROMANIAN NATION SHOULD BE REUNIFIED

Chișinău – 2016 Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………...………. 3

II. Occupation of Moldova between the Prut and the

Dniester rivers, by the Tsarist Russia …………………………………….……………………… 4

III. Unification of Moldova with and Formation of

the Modern Romania ………………………..………………….………………………………………………………………….. 7

IV. Liberation of from Tsarist Domination and

its Unification with Romania ……………………………………..…...…………………………………………… 9

V. Soviet Attempts to Recover Bessarabia and Beginning of

anti-Romanian Manipulations …………….……………………………………..……………………………… 1 3

VI. From a Legitimate Part of Romania to a Soviet Colony ……... 18

VII. Proclamation of the State Republic of Moldova and its

Destiny ……………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………... 25

VIII. Who We Are and What Do We Want? …………………………………………………………… 31

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I. INTRODUCTION

For almost 25 years, on the map of Europe, there is a small country located between Romania and Ukraine. This is the Republic of Moldova.

Photo 1. The Republic of Moldova today. Administrative Map. - 3 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified

Although its existence is known by all countries of the world and by the United Nations, the Republic of Moldova is actually the result of a plan developed by the Kremlin in the early 1920s, in order to divide the Romanian nation.

To clarify this problem, we will refer to the most important histo- rical stages.

II. OCCUPATION OF MOLDOVA BETWEEN THE PRUT AND THE DNIESTER RIVERS, BY THE TSARIST RUSSIA

At the end of XVIIIth century, which is also the time of the French Revolution, the Ottoman Turkey began to lose war after war against the Tsarist Russia. These wars erupted because of the Russians who wanted to recover the city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, taken by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and transformed into the capital of their empire. To achieve this goal, Russia needed to replace the suzerainty or the direct Ottoman government in the Balkan Peninsula, by their own domination.

Slavic peoples from the Balkans, especially the Serbs and the Bul- garians, were the specific points of interest of Russia. The Russians hoped to attract them to their side against the Ottomans, and even integrate them into the Russian Empire.

Russia was struggling to implement its plans because there were a Latin people, the , who spoke a neo-Romance language, Romanian. This people were living in three countries: , Muntenia and Moldova.

Muntenia and Moldova were under Ottoman suzerainty, but had struggled to succeed in keeping intact their own culture, Christian religion and lifestyle. The Ottoman Turks have no right to colonize - 4 - Political Party THE RIGHT the Romanian lands or to impose their religion, their language or their traditions on those territories.

Photo 2. The Romanian space in the Middle Ages. The territory between the Prut and the Dniester is part of Moldova till 1812.

The XIXth century begins with a new great war between Russians and Turks. This time again, the territory of the both Romanian principalities serves as battlefield and supply base, initially for the two the both belligerent parties, and then only for Russia, which keeps under occupation the both principalities from 1806 to 1812. Its plans for territorial extension aimed both principalities, the would become the border between the Ottoman and the Russian empires. But the worsening of relations between Russia and France and the beginning of Napoleon’s military campaign against Russia determined Petersburg to temper its claims, by li- miting them to the whole principality of Moldova, and then to Mol- dova extended to the Siret River. Finally, Russia accepted the proposal - 5 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified of the Turks to follow the line of Prut and divided the Romanian Moldova into two parts, East and West. The Turks “surrendered” to Russia a territory that was not theirs, which was not part of the Ottoman Empire, an area they didn’t have the right to assign, accor- ding to the status of their suzerainty on Romanian principalities.

As a result, in 1812, Moldova is divided; its territory between the Prut and the Dniester becomes part of the Russian Empire. To distinguish it from the rest of Moldova and invent a distinct re- gional identity, the Russians called it Bessarabia. In fact, they didn’t merely extend over the whole area the ter- ritory between the Prut and the Dnie- ster, the name used to define only the south part of this

Photo 3. In 1812 the Russian Empire annexes the interfluve. This na- territory between the Prut and the Dniester and creates me originates from the province (then Guberniya) of Bessarabia. the ruling dynasty of Wallachia, the Basarab, who had exercised power over the southern territories of Moldova, including the mouths of the Danube and the Black Sea coastline.

After the abusive annexation to the Russian Empire, the eastern part of Moldova, which had become the province of Bessarabia, was subjected to successive waves of colonization, that have signi- ficantly decreased the percentage of the Romanian local population,

- 6 - Political Party THE RIGHT from 95% in 1812 to 47%, according to official data of population census in 1897. At the same time, the tsarist regime gradually banned the use of in administration and education, and consequently, at the beginning of the XXth century just 10% of Romanian major ethnics were able to read and write.

The representatives of colonizing ethnics receive preferential treatment, getting tax exemptions and fertile lands for agricultural activities, while the majority of Romanian ethnics are deprived of land and depend on the nobility, a social class russified during the time and where the percentage of nobles coming from outside of Bessarabia begin to exceed, with no right of appeal, the number of nobles, descendants from ancient families of Moldova. The major Romanian population is discriminated on ethno-cultural criteria. To access the functions and benefits granted by the Russian imperial administration, the elite representatives were imposed to pass through russification and abandon their own culture and their own language. Any demonstration in favour of a closer relationship with Romanians from Moldova and Muntenia was severely pu- nished. The tsarist regime begins to clog the connections between the Romanians, especially since 1848, when a revolution breaks out within the Romanian lands, Moldova and Muntenia. The objectives of this event were both democratic and focused on national liberation and the union of principalities in one state.

III. UNIFICATION OF MOLDOVA WITH WALLACHIA AND FORMATION OF THE MODERN ROMANIA

Finally, the movement of liberation and unification of the Romanian Principalities, put into practice by the representatives of the young generation having studied in the West, most of them in

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Paris, has been successful. In 1859, the elected assemblies of the both principalities elected the same person, the Moldovan , as prince of both States, event that started the unification of Moldova and Muntenia. The unified state was named Romania, re- flecting the name of the people do- cumentarily attested in the Middle Ages and its Roman origin. In the second part of the XIXth century Ro- mania knew a period of rapid mo- dernization and economic, political and cultural progress, which tran- sformed it into a point of attraction for many people of the same ethni- Photo 4. Alexandru Ioan Cuza, city and speaking the same lan- born in Moldova, elected to the throne of Moldova and Wallachia guage, from the territory beyond the in 1859, main architect of the Prut, today’s Republic of Moldova – unification process of the both Romanian countries during the at that time, the Russian Guberniya years 1859-1862 and the creation of Bessarabia. of Romania.

The existence of Romania as a state of the Romanian nation, although after 1878, the year of the international recognition of its independence, its boundaries were covering not even half of the Romanian ethnic space, it was a landmark for Romanian intellect- tuality from Transylvania, , and not least from Bes- sarabia.

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Photo 5. The United principalities of Moldova and Wallachia, named Romania in 1862. The southern part of Bessarabia, returned to Moldova by the Russian Empire, after its defeat in the Crimean War.

IV. LIBERATION OF BESSARABIA FROM TSARIST DOMINATION AND ITS UNIFICATION WITH ROMANIA

In the context of the first Russian Revolution (1905-1907) and the relative liberalization of social and political life, in Bessarabia there was a phenomenon aimed to create active groups of intel- lectuals who started a movement for claiming national rights for the Romanian ethnic majority, discriminated by the tsarist autho- rities. This movement continues until the First World War. This is also the time for inventing newspapers and magazines and orga- nizing the congress of Romanian teachers and soldiers. They ask for the introduction of the Romanian language in schools, for the creation of new Romanian schools and for the distribution of land to peasants (the solution of the so-called “agrarian question”).

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Photo 6. Guberniya of Bessarabia at the time of the Ist World War and the dissolution of the Russian Empire.

Representatives of social classes and groups, of ethnic groups, localities and counties (judete) of Bessarabia gathered in a national council known as “Sfatul Tarii” (Country Council), created the Moldavian Democratic Republic (Bessarabia).

As a result of the chaos installed in Bessarabia by the units of the Russian army, who withdrew from the Romanian front, the authorities of Bessarabia, the “Sfatul Tarii” as legislative institution, and the Directory as executive institution invited the units of the - 10 - Political Party THE RIGHT

Romanian army to intervene to restore order and proclaim the in- dependence of the MDR from the Russian Empire.

In a very short time, to repair the grave injustice committed in 1812 by separating Moldova, Bessarabia expressed its will to unite with Romania, the unique historical and legal successor of Moldova continuation historical and legal Moldova, by a majority vote by a majority vote of “Sfatul Tarii”: 86 votes in favour, 3 against and 36 abstentions.

Photo 7. Members of Sfatul Tarii, the Parliament of Bessarabia, who voted the unification of Bessarabia and Romania, March 27, 1918.

After the unification of Bessarabia and Romania, the agrarian reform occurs: the peasants, most of whom were Romanian, receive pieces of land. Thousands of schools in the language of the majo- rity, Rumanian, are created and, in a period of two decades, the number of literates increases, exceeding 50% of the population. In - 11 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified

1939, throughout Bessarabia, there were more than 2800 educa- tional institutions of all levels. Bessarabia goes through a process of modernization in the European spirit; via Romania, the province is connected to the cultural life and civilization of the interwar Europe. This is the period when the National Theatre, several con- servatories, a Faculty of Agriculture and theology, both within the University of Iasi, were founded. A radio station was created in Chisinau, new railways were built, the frequency of train traffic was multiplied by four, the road length by five, the number of bridges increased by more than seven times. Three airports are built in Chisinau, Akkerman and Izmail. The amount of industrial production in 1932 was three times higher compared to 1913 and recorded a growth from 250 million lei to 800 million lei. Banks and credit institutions have emerged, being focused on giving special assistance for agricultural activities. As a result, Bessarabia made progress regarding the overcoming of underdevelopment. The most important thing to note here is that modernization approach that followed Bessarabia in 1918 was concerning its belonging to the Romanian nation. The desire of the Bessarabian elite to integrate the Romanian ethnic majority from Bessarabia within the Roma- nian National Unitary State was a solution to put the end to the deprivation to which they were submitted during the tsarist occu- pation, a deprivation from the communion with other Romanians, who were contributing to the building of the modern Romania. This desideratum was corresponding to the spirit of the period after the First World War, when the formation of nation-states according to ethnic principle was seen as a step forward against the tyranny of empires which had imposed, for many centuries, unfair and unjust boundaries that had only separated people, as the frontier settled along the Prut River in 1812 by the Russian armed forces. - 12 - Political Party THE RIGHT

Photo 8. Unified Romania after 1918.

V. SOVIET ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER BESSARABIA AND BEGINNING OF ANTI-ROMANIAN MANIPULATIONS

After the end of the civil war in Russia and the formation of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s communist authorities, particularly Joseph Stalin, established the objective to recover European territories lost by Russia after the First World War. This objective also involved the territory of the Romanian Bessarabia. The Soviets cause and support by all possible means some attacks organized by the Bol- shevik diversionists presented as “popular revolts”, in order to give birth to a massive anti-Romanian movement in Bessarabia, which would have allowed them to destabilize Romania and expand along the Prut. Such attempts are illustrated by the uprisings of Khotyn and Tighina in 1919 or Tatarbunary in 1924. They fail because of - 13 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified the incapacity to attract the broad masses of the population on their side and are thwarted by the . Then the Soviets decide to change the strategy.

Photo 9. In red, the MASSR, created within the Soviet Ukraine in 1924 with the goal to return Bessarabia to Russia / the USSR, capitals in Balta and Tiraspol.

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Photo 10. The ethnic composition of the MASSR, a shared area between ethnic Romanians (West) and the Ukraine (East).

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In order to cancel the union of Bessarabia with Romania and recover the territory of Bessarabia, the government of the USSR creates in 1924 the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Re- public within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, officially a republic with full rights in the framework of a federation of free countries, de facto a simple Russian colony, as it was until 1917. The MASSR is created with the stated purpose “to reunite the Mol- dovan Soviet people” within the same republic. The Prut River is declared the western border of the republic, the whole Bessarabia is considered as an occupied part of the MASSR.

During this period, the Soviet authorities are beginning to use language, ethnicity and culture facts in the geopolitical interest, to implement Stalin’s policies to return to the USSR the territories lost by the Russian Empire after the first World War. Thus, the local name of the Romanian spoken beyond the Dniester, “the Mol- dovan language” is used by the Soviets to build a “Moldovan Soviet people” who speak “Moldovan”, a language different from Romanian.

In this sense, there are attempts at invention of a literary variant of the "Moldavian" different from Romanian, using the Cyrillic spelling, introducing thousands of words of Russian origin and eliminating neologisms of French origin Italian and the Romanian had taken the XIX-th century. For this purpose, there are attempts at inventing a literary variant of the “Moldavian” different from Romanian, using the Cyrillic script, introducing thousands of words of Russian origin and eliminating neologisms of French and Italian origin that Romanian had taken in the XIXth century.

The failure of these attempts has been recognized by the Soviet authorities in 1932, when they found that the local population of

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Romanian ethnicity and language did not understand the new “Moldovan language”. Then, the Soviet authorities introduced the literary variant of the language spoken in Romania (including Bessarabia) in schools and administration of MASSR, keeping only the name “Moldovan”. From the official point of view, this maneu- ver is justified by the necessity to expand the influence of Commu- nist propaganda to Romania and among the Bessarabian young people who didn’t know the Cyrillic script any more. But given the dreadful Stalinist terror, part of Transdniestrian writers struggling to maintain the Latin script have been accused of “Romanization” and executed. Instead of contributing to the Sovietization of Bessarabia, the abandonment of the “Moldovan language" project has led only to amplification of the cultural influence of Romania beyond the Dniester. In 1938, the Cyrillic script is reintroduced, the Romanian writers are banned and a “Moldavian Soviet litera- ture” arises.

At the same time, economically, the local population is forced, as everywhere in Ukraine, to submit to the Soviet policy of forced collectivization. Opponents are sometimes sentenced to death, shot or starved, with the entire population of the Soviet Ukraine. During the period 1932-1933, more than 6 million Ukrainian citizens become victims of the Soviet authorities’ campaign to force peasants to give up their land to agricultural collectives. Among them, there are thousands of ethnic Romanians from MASSR. Some residents, especially those who had relatives in Bessarabia, crossed the Dniester illegally on the territory of Romania. The less fortunate were killed by Soviet border guards during the passage of the river.

Nevertheless, the USSR propaganda efforts were directed to create an impression of prosperity and happiness of the people

- 17 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified from MASSR, presented as a center of attraction for the inhabi- tants of Bessarabia.

VI. FROM A LEGITIMATE PART OF ROMANIA TO A SOVIET COLONY

On August 23rd, 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany sign a nonaggression treaty, appended by a secret additional protocol, which the whole of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The victims of this plan, known in history as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, became such countries as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, attacked from both sides and split in September 1939, when the USSR and Nazi Germany started the Second World War. In case of Romania, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact stipulates the “special interest” of the USSR for the territories of the northeast of this country, namely for Bessarabia.

From August 1939 to June 1940, the USSR was too involved in the European war it had started (Poland, Finland) for “worry” about Romania. In addition, the Soviets expected their allies, Nazi Ger- many, to occupy France, the main western country ally of Romania. Just a few days after the Fall of Paris, on June 26, 1940, the Roma- nian ambassador in Moscow received an ultimatum by which the Soviet government asked Romania to cede to the Soviet Union the territory of Bessarabia and part of Bukovina, who had also united with Romania in 1918. The annexation of Northern Bukovina was requested as “compensation” for “having had Bessarabia under control during 22 years”, but the initial motivation resulting from the ultimatum, was linked to “the unity of Bessarabia, populated mainly by Ukrainians, with the Soviet Republic of Ukraine”.

Moscow authorities have used the Ukraine to reoccupy Bessarabia, - 18 - Political Party THE RIGHT through false statements: Ukrainians were not more than 20% of the total population of Bessarabia, even according to the tsarist census date from 1897.

Photo 11. The territorial losses of Romania in summer of 1940, with Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the district of Hertsa in the northeast.

Militarily threatened by Hungary and Bulgaria, with the most important ally, France, occupied by Nazi Germany and the German authorities who recommended to Bucharest to satisfy the Soviet claims, on June 28th, 1940, Romania cedes Bessarabia and the nor- thern part of Bukovina, informing the Soviets that the withdrawal from Bessarabia, implemented by threats, does not mean its reco- gnition as part belonging to the USSR. A year later, Romania reco- vered the territory of Bessarabia and Bukovina, but lost it again in 1944 because of the Soviet military operations on the eastern front.

On August 2nd, 1940, the Soviet Union creates a new Soviet repu- - 19 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified blic on the territory of Bessarabia, called the Moldavian Soviet So- cialist Republic, violating the Constitution of 1936 which allowed the authorities to accept within the USSR only existing countries.

Photo 12. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, created by the Soviet authorities after the occupation of Bessarabia by force and threat, in 1940-1941 and in August 1944. An action done by transgression of their own Constitution. - 20 - Political Party THE RIGHT

It was “the reunification of the Moldovan people”, promoted by the Soviet propaganda from 1924 to 1940. This is because the new republic included certain territories of MASSR – 6 out of 14 districts. The question was essentially about the extension of a kind of colonial administration in Bessarabia, which had been prepared in order to transform this Romanian province into a new and obedient Soviet republic. Through an arbitrary and unjustified decision, ignoring the will of the citizens, the leaders from Moscow detach a part of Southern Bessarabia, a part of northern Bessara- bia and the Northern Bukovina and assign them to the Ukrainian SSR. After the territorial division of Bessarabia, the Moldavian SSR loses access to the Danube and the Black Sea coast.

The Soviet administration of occupation implements violent and brutal intervention measures within the society of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to ensure total control over these territories. These measures concern also physical extermination of “hostile ele- ments” as well as discrimination of the Romanian people on ethnic criteria. In the second half of the 1940s, in the 50s and 60s of the XXth century, in the main administrative structures, the weight of in- habitants of Romanian ethnicity, who were representing more than two thirds of the population of the MSSR was insignificant: only 4 of 75 members of the counties (judete) executive committees and only 2 of 26 members of the Supreme Court of the MSSR were Romanian. Over 60% of the deputies in the Supreme Soviet of the MSSR were coming from the left side of the Dniester, as the majority of mi- nisters, composed of Slavs – Russians and Ukrainians. In the field of railways, the Romanian employees represented at that period 1.1%. At the Ministry of Internal Affairs the Romanians represented 7.7%. In consumer associations (which had control on the distribution of food products), there were only 1.7% of the local Romanians among employees. In the structures of the Communist Party of the MSSR, - 21 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified which was, as elsewhere in the Soviet Union, the real center of decision-making (or execution of orders issued by the party of Moscow), the situation was similar: among the 71 secretaries of regional committees of party “confirmed” by the political Bureau of the CC of the (b)CPSUM (Bolshevik Communist Party of the Soviet Union), only 7 were Romanians, none of them Bessarabian – all of them were communist specialists coming from the left side of the Dniester.

The Soviet occupiers used the mass crimes to ensure that any form of opposition to the imposed belonging of Bessarabia to the USSR, was eliminated. In the period June 28th 1940 – July 1941 (when Bessarabia becomes again part of Romania), over 300,000 people have suffered because of the Soviet occupation, a figure that exceeds 12% of the entire population of Bessarabia in 1940. More than 48,000 people were arrested, most of them representatives of the Romanian state administration, who had not managed to take refuge in the free territory of the country, but also intellectuals and many farmers. Of these, around 30,000 people were murdered or tortured. More than 280,000 people were deported to Siberia, behind the Arctic Circle, of whom approximately 135,000 till September 1940, 19,200 people in October and November 1940, 27,000 people in December 1940, and about 100,000 people on June 13-14, 1941.

After the Soviets’ return, in 1944, other 250,000 people were expelled from their homeland in Siberia, between 1944 and 1948. On July 6th, 1949, more than 35,000 Bessarabians were deported. Between 1954 and 1964, over 300,000 people are forced by the authorities to register in the “volunteer detachments” and go to Russia or Kazakhstan for public works (e.g. the release of land for agriculture) event that can be considered as a last wave of planned - 22 - Political Party THE RIGHT deportations. However, the process of encouraging people to spread themselves to the entire territory of the USSR continued during its entire existence. Moreover, the Soviet authorities requi- sitioned all available reserves of grain and other population’s foods in order to revive the USSR after the war, in accordance with the principles of war communism. In 1946-1947, because of the severe drought, the population remains without food, over 300,000 people of Bessarabia lost their lives during the famine. Compared to the population of Bessarabia, the only similar event from the point of view of gravity which can be compared to the famine of 1946-1947 is the Ukrainian Holodomor. As during the Holodomor, the Bessarabian peasants were deprived of food grains and any provision, the fruit of their labor, and left to starve. In total, in the space of years 1940-1941 and 1944-1964, nearly 900,000 people were forced to leave the MSSR and over 330,000 people were killed. As for deported people, more than 320,000 have died during transportation because of the inhumane conditions (travel in cattle cars, often without food or water) or in places of destina- tion, in the Gulags. If we add to this figure the number of Bessarabians, died during the war on the western front, where they were taken by the Soviet authorities to defend a country that was not theirs, we find that more 700,000 inhabitants, most of them Romanians, lost their lives in 1940-1941 and 1944-1953 years as a result of the Soviet occupation. According to these estimates, one third of the Romanian population from Bessarabia was physi- cally exterminated during this period.

As soon as the Soviet authorities of occupation have escaped from “hostile elements”, they began to colonize the MSSR with Slavic tribes from outside of the republic, especially Russians and Ukrainians, who were favoured in employment, property and other goods insurance, in comparison with the Romanian inhabitants. - 23 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified

This discrimination, practiced but not publicly declared as such, continued until the end of the Soviet Union existence. Its remini- scences are felt even today.

Photo 13. The Romanians deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities of occupation, on June 12-13, 1941.

In the post-war period, the MSSR continued to be industrialized, but the industry was firstly aimed to meet the needs of the USSR, not the needs of the local population. At the same time, the colo- nization with Slavic ethnics occurred, being invited as qualified specialists and workers in enterprises „of importance for the Union”. At the same time, the food production of the MSSR was transported outside the Republic at very low prices, which led to the implementation of an intense economic mode of exploitation the Soviet Moldova. The Romanian language is marginalized during this period, being reduced to the status of kitchen language, wi- thout any official status stipulated by law. The number of Romanian language schools decreases gradually while new Russian classes - 24 - Political Party THE RIGHT are open for Romanian ethnics who choose studies in Russian for their children in the hope of seeing a personal ascension, a faster and safer work for them. This is because the Russian was the unique language whose mastery was an obligatory attribute for any form of progress on the social ladder. All conditions are crea- ted for the Bessarabian Romanians’ denationalization and their in- tegration within “the great Soviet culture”, that is to say ‘Russian’.

VII. PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF MOLDOVA AND ITS DESTINY

The ethno-cultural Soviet policy of creating a Romance East European “Soviet nation” called “the Moldovans” and different from the Romanians failed because of the impossibility to create another form of literary language, another literature – inclu- sively because of Stalinist repressions. In this way, since 1950, the unique dif- ferrence between the “Mol- dovan language” from the MSSR and Romanian from Romania was the Cyrillic alphabet imposed in the MSSR. The classic writers of of the XIXth century as Mihai Emi- nescu, Vasile Alecsandri, Photo 14. In Chisinau, the bust of of the Constantin Negruzzi, Bogdan national poet of all Romanians, Mihai Petriceicu Hasdeu, were Eminescu, a symbol of Romanian resistance in post-war Bessarabia. studied in schools and con-

- 25 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified sidered classics of the “Moldavian literature”, even though some of their works illustrating the unity of all Romanians were censored and prohibited. The most eloquent example is Mihai Eminescu with his poem “Doina”, where the boundaries of the space inhabited by Romanians are clearly delineated: the Dniester in the east and the Tisza in the West. And many other poems of Mihai Eminescu, where he speaks about Romania as a country, were banned as well as his entire publicist work. Meanwhile, the regime allowed or even encouraged the resumption of neologisms, technical and scientific terms from Romanian dictionaries printed in the same period in Romania, and their inclusion in the explanatory ortho- graphic, orthoepic and specialized dictionaries from the MSSR. It was a clear testimony to everyone that there is only one people with only one language, Romanian. In the late 1980s, along with the movement for restructuring and democratization, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, intellectuals from the MSSR (writers, profess- sors, artists, cultural personalities, scientists) have requested the return to the Latin script and the correct name of the language – Romanian, and of the people – the Romanians. The official return to the Romanian identity was seen as the liberation and the end of an occupation regime that caused suffering to Bessarabians we have just spoken, and had separated them from their fellow citizens from the right side of the Prut, separating thousands of families.

In 1989, in the MSSR, the Latin script was proclaimed as the official writing system for the language of the local ethnic majority, so that everybody can see the truth – the “Moldovan language” does not exist. “The Moldovan-Romanian linguistic identity” and the official status for Romanian language were proclaimed by law. Since 1990 there is a return to the study of the history of the entire Romanian people and significant actions on several aspects for the

- 26 - Political Party THE RIGHT integration with Romania are undertaken. The national symbols of Romania are adopted – the red-yellow-blue tricolor; the national anthem of Romania “Desteapta-te, române” (Wake up, Romanian!) also becomes the national anthem of the Republic of Moldova; a coat of arms is formalized, being inspired from the arms of Romania, an holding a shield charged with an aurochs, the symbol of Moldova. The same symbol of the Moldova region, sur- rounded by those of other Romanian regions, is represented on the coat of arms of Romania.

Photo 15. A large public event, called the Great National Assembly, August 27, 1991, the day of the proclamation of the Republic of Moldova’s independence. Such gatherings with the participation of 6-7 hundred thousand people took place on August 27, 1989 and December 16, 1990, with a crucial role for the official return to the use the instruments belonging to the Romanian Cultural heritage: Latin alphabet, flag, coat of arms, anthem, school subjects, history of Romanians etc. - 27 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified

The massive return to the Romanian identity would normally end up the unification of the former Soviet republic with Romania. In 1991, it proclaims its independence, but its further route does not follow the way of the Democratic Republic of Moldova (Bessa- rabia) from 1918. This is due to the fact that the political power remained in the hands of the former nomenclaturists of the main Soviet colonial structure from this territory, the Communist Party. Some of them, for example the first President of the Republic of Moldova, Mircea Snegur, accepted the popular demands to return to the Romanian identity, encouraged by public meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants, with the aim to consolidate their political power; but when he and other members of the old party apparatus or of the Soviet state were supported by the masses, they have abandoned the process of rapprochement with Romania and proclaimed a local independence which they used as a screen to get rich and become a real class of exploitation, following to the model of an African banana republic. The main parties that were in power in the Republic of Moldova since 1991 derived, through their prominent members, from the Communist Party of Moldova, a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party which is now in power, the Democratic Party of Moldova (DPM), was called from 1997 to 2000 the “Movement for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova” and was founded by a group of Petru Lucinschi , the second President of the Republic of Moldova and the penultimate general secretary of the Communist Party of the MSSR and, as M. Snegur, one of the prominent members of the Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova (PDAM), that ruled from 1992 to 1998. Since 2009 until now, the PDM has stayed in power through a coalition proclaimed as pro- European, but eliminated the biggest party initially allied, the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova, founded in 2007 by a group - 28 - Political Party THE RIGHT of people who had left the PDM. During the period 2001-2009 the Republic of Moldova was led by the Party of Communists and its leader, Vladimir Voronin. The PCRM was legitimized (as “successor” of the Communist Party of the MSSR) during the PDAM’s govern- ment in 1995. Common interests between the PCRM and the group represented by the PDM existed before as well as after 2009. For example, the vice-president and the main funder of the DPM and the person who runs secretly the Republic of Moldova today, without holding any state function, Vladimir Plahotniuc, was one of Oleg’s key business partners, the son of the former President Vladimir Voronin.

No matter if they declared themselves “pro-European” or not to in order to ensure control over the state, those who exercised the real power in the Republic of Moldova have demonstrated a certain degree of subordination and tacit acceptance of Russia’s interests in this territory. After the Russian military aggression in 1992 in the districts from the left side of the Dniester of the former MASSR, the Republic of Moldova has known a permanent blackmail. If people plead for the reunification, they will remain in the frame- work of international associations founded by Russia – the Common- wealth of Independent States, but also could be incorporated into the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. The greatest part of the political elite of the Republic of Moldova pleads for the “reunification” with the separatist region from the left side of the Dniester, because in this way, the perpetuation of the republic’s independence, their own ambitions and power posi- tions are guaranteed. The energetic dependence on imports from Russia is complete. The Russian-language press, from Russia and the local one, dominates audiovisual information and writing space, despite the placement of Russian users as usual language for 20% of the entire population. The Russian propaganda - 29 - Unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania – Romanian Nation Should Be Reunified intersects fortunately with the Soviet theses of anti-Romanian moldovenism replaced constantly on the official agenda in a “pure” or veiled form to counteract the tendencies of the unification with Romania, as happened repeatedly during the two decades passed since the collapse of the USSR. The vulnerability of the population mostly composed of people educated in the Soviet period and brainwashed concerning Romania and the Romanian identity, toward the “pro-Moldovan” (=pro-Russian) discourse, embellished of Soviet nostalgia, is great. These facts could not have been kept so long after the collapse of the USSR without a tacit acceptance or even a collaboration between the holders of political power of the purported independent state, the Republic of Moldova.

In 2014 and 2015, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova as well as the international community could learn the “sudden” disappearance from the banking system of a sum equal to almost one billion dollars, the eighth part of the GDP. Actually, this event is neither the first nor the last, held in Chisinau, but the one that was known by the general public. The institutional systems of the Republic of Moldova (banks, customs, justice, internal affairs) are used for more than two decades for money laundering, smuggling and other illicit operations, drug trafficking, human trafficking, being an interconnection of illegal interests of the local elite and especially of the underworld of the Russian Federation, connected with the Kremlin, in the entourage of the Russian President Vladi- mir Putin. According to data supplied by the investigative jour- nalists, more than 20 billion euro, money of the Russian esta- blishment, ware laundered and sent to the West via the Republic of Moldova. These financial resources, once arrived in the West, are also used for financing the destabilization activities of the European Union and for the proliferation of right and left political

- 30 - Political Party THE RIGHT extremism within the member countries. Not only Transnistria, but the whole territory of the Republic of Moldova, can be defined, rightly, as a “black hole” of Europe, whose existence threatens the European security at the Eastern boundaries.

VIII. WHO WE ARE AND WHAT DO WE WANT?

We represent a group of citizens of the Republic of Moldova and want the reunification of this territory with Romania. The reasons are related to our Romanian ethno-cultural identity, the same for all the Romanians, but also to the concrete political and economic realities.

The reunification of Moldova with Romania would be the solution for the historical problem of the Romanian nation’s separation as well as for the problem of the existence of a pseudo- state created by the Soviets and used by the Russians in order to pursue their political-economic and geopolitical interests. Nowa- days, in this geographical area, there is a state of maximum and very unpredictable instability that tomorrow could be fully subject to Russia in case of coming to power of completely Russophile people who are against Europe and its interests. It could serve as a bridgehead for an attack from behind against the pro-European Ukraine. The union with Romania will allow the entrance of the territory between the Prut and the Dniester in the space of the EU and NATO, which will become stable, predictable and much less penetrable for the authoritarian and anti-democratic regime of Vladimir Putin that endangers the stability and the security through- out Europe.

Throughout its modern history, the Romanian nation has en- joyed strong support from Europe, especially from France. When

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Europe and France were strong, Romania was strong too. We can never forget the vital support that the Second French Empire under Napoleon III, granted in 1859-1866 to the unification of Moldova with Wallachia and formation of Romania as a state, without which the aspirations of Romanian people to live in the same country were perhaps thwarted by neighboring empires. Now, in 2016, we are seeking attention and support from the representatives of Europe for the ideal that we represent, in the same spirit of Latin solidarity between our peoples, but also in the spirit of safeguarding European civilization to which the Romanian nation belongs.

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