Talk:Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina

Article as of 01.2012
I don't really know who wrote this article, but the way it is right now it is full of pro-Russian/-bolshevik bias. Take for example the question of the 1897 census. The data is simply posted without explaining that in the years between 1812 when the Russians first annexed Bessarabia and 1867, they brought in so many immigrants that the proportion of Moldovans/Romanians decreased from 86% to 56% (or 47.6% -- as claimed by this source in cyrillic characters that can't be read by a majority of people reading the English Wikipedia). I think this article deserves attention from some Romanian editors as well. Octavian8 (talk) 16:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Mea culpa: I identified the source as reliable and translated the section from Russian Wikipedia, thanks for adding further info on the censuses. I agree that there are problems with the article, in particular, i disagree with the recent revert by Anonimu, which removed both unsourced paragraphs as well as sourced ones. I would appreciate if anyone dug into the issue and restored suitable passages. Estlandia (dialogue) 09:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't know what type of agenda this user is following with his edits. Seems that deleting referenced text that does not suit him is his trademark. Octavian8 (talk) 12:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That user may have deleted it because the reference is no longer available. However, it was archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20070930153621/http://www.ziua.ro/prt.php?id=213493&data=2006-12-30


 * That edit seems to have just moved things around. After two years with "citation needed" tag, that user deleted the passage. So the passage should go back in, with the archived reference, but the article has been rearranged so the edit can't just be reverted.

2601:600:8500:B2D9:550E:1A12:AF33:E2CF (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Things that could possibly be added back in, just copying the text:

Anti-Soviet resistance
That file is now at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moldavian_passive_underground_resistance_flag.gif

Mention of Răzeni Massacre but the same text is on that page, merged in 2012.

The material removed after two years with citation needed tag, with original reference but needs link replaced with archived version: These figures do not include the people shot on the spot who refused to flee in June 1940, for example many of the administration officials.

In addition, a large number of people were arrested by NKVD and disappeared. Up to one thousand corpses were discovered after the retreat of the Soviets in 1941 in the cellars, courtyards and wells of the NKVD headquarters in the county centers, including 450 corpses in Chişinau, mostly of priests, university and high school students, and railroad workers. (See also NKVD prisoner massacres.)

In April–August 1943, in Tatarka, near Odessa, a mass common grave was discovered on a lot of 1,000 sq. meters. 42 separate common graves of several dozen bodies each were identified, containing ca. 3,500 bodies, of which 516 were exhumed, studied, and buried in cemetery before the region became a front line. Among the dead were persons arrested in the Moldavian ASSR in 1938-1940, and in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in 1940-1941. A little bit silly to remove something when it's "unsourced" yet leave an entire article which deals with that subject on Wikipedia. (Tatarka common graves). Removed: In the wake of the Jassy-Kishinev Operation several prisoner camps were created, including in Chişinău and Bălţi. In the latter city, the NKVD organized a smaller regular camp, and a larger concentration camp, which contained some 45,000 prisoners, including 35 to 40 thousand soldiers of the Romanian Army (many of which were originally from Bessarabia and Bukovina) and Romanian civilians, 5,000 German POWs, and 5,000 Hungarian, Italian, and Czech POWs fighting for the Axis. The harsh food and hygiene conditions in the camp meant the survival of only the fittest prisoners in the winter of 1944-1945, to be sent to NKVD POW camps in the interior of USSR. The common graves of many thousands of perished in the Bălţi prisoner camp were uncovered after the fall of the Soviet system, until which time the Soviets kept the area of the former camp outside landscape development.

History_of_Bălți describes the camp, and mentions that information about it was suppressed, which would explain why not enough about it is commonly known for an editor to have created an article for it (though many concentration camps, in Europe and other regions, probably don't have articles). But this might be better put in another article about events after Germany attacked the USSR.

Removed, not sure if should be included somewhere: These people were taken during the night; sometimes whole families with children were uprooted. They had to be ready within one hour, and were transported to Siberia or Eastern Kazakhstan, in overcrowded railway cars, for four to six weeks, with no sanitation and very little food.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the deportees were allowed to return to Moldova, and around half chose to do so.

Smaller size deportations often targeted the inhabitants of the cities, as well as the areas covered by anti-Soviet movements during 1945-1950, i.e. Bukovina, Herţa region, as well as Orhei, Bălţi and Soroca counties. According to a document signed by Ivan Serov, Deputy Minister of Interior of the USSR, on 1 July 1953, 46,616 deportees from Moldavian SSR were reported in localities with special regime (spetsposeleniya) in Russian SFSR and Kazakhstan, of which 10,387 were deported in 1941 (including 1,780 children), and 36,147 - in 1949 (including 10,447 children). In the meantime (1940/41-1953), many of the deported have died because of harsh transportation, detention and climate conditions, disease, and malnutrition.

Food requisitions, famine, and collectivisation
During 1946-1947, 216,000 people died on hunger on the territory of the Moldavian SSR, provoked by the quasi-total food requisitions by the Soviets from the farmers' households "for the needs of the state", by poor harvest, and by absence of a large number of local males, conscripted into the Soviet Army. Several thousand more starved in Southern Bessarabia.

Forced labor
Thousands were mobilized into work camps (but at least they were formally, although very little, paid), and sent far away through the Soviet Union. In 1940 alone there were 56,365 such. Partially removed in that edit, but what was kept is no longer in the current article: Although, not targeting Romanians as an ethnic group, but rather the pre-Soviet civil society as a political class, the Soviet occupation resulted in an anti-Romanian Soviet politicide and ethnic cleansing of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Between 1940 and 1941, 300,000 Romanians were persecuted, conscripted into forced labor camps, or deported with the entire family, of whom 57,000 were killed (not counting those died in the Gulag). These policies also continued from 1944 until 1956, after which they were reduced to isolated cases.

According to some sources, in total throughout the duration of the USSR, around 2,344,000 people originally from Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the former Moldavian ASSR were victims of arrests, political persecution, deportation, forced labour, of whom 703,000 perished. The latter number includes the 298,500 victims of the 1946-47 famine, and an estimation of 100,000 of perished POWs which were locals. The remainder are victims of executions, massacres, arrested perished in Gulag, and deportees died.

These policies mostly targeted the elites of Bessarabians and Bukovinains which did not leave for Romania in 1940 and 1944–1945, including former teachers, doctors, clergymen, lawyers, policemen and soldiers, larger landowners (nobility and richer peasants, called by the Soviets kulaks), members of political parties (including former members of the clandestine Communist Party of Romania), as well as those who expressed any kind of dissent, which altogether constituted a significant part of the population and included the majority of the educated population, the bearers of Romanian culture. However, they were by no means restricted to ethnic Romanians, as many thousand ethnic Ukrainians, Russians, Jews who inhabited the region before 1940 were also deported en masse together with local Romanians on social and political grounds. Only in northern Bukovina, the persecutions resulted in a disproportionate number of ethnic Romanian victims. However, this could be also explained by the social nature of villages in the region, which rejected Soviet social tactics, and by local Ukrainians keeping a low profile to avoid themselves persecution.

A large block of direct quotes, "Excerpts from Soviet-Nazi diplomatic exchanges on 23–27 June 1940" were removed. "expects the German Reich Government at the same time urgently to advise the Rumanian Government in Bucharest to comply with the Soviet demands, since war would otherwise be unavoidable." This is interesting in relation to the negotiations for the Soviet Union to join the Axis powers. This quote makes it seem that it was the Soviet Union, not Germany or Italy, who came up with the reason "in order to avoid war". In fact war did happen, and Machiavelli advised that... "The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage."

This article currently says that the Soviet Union said (source is in Romanian) "the international situation that was created requires the rapid solution of the items inherited from the past, in order to fix the basis of a solid peace between countries". "international situation" could mean "Germany is at war with the UK", yet if the Soviet Union was willing to go to war with Romania it could conceivably do so with Germany in the future, even if it only happened after various political leaders died. War didn't guarantee that Germany would become stronger, but maybe due to luck, France lost and so Germany did. The UK's navy could enforce a blockade, but could not conquer Germany, so it was reasonable to think defeating the Soviet Union could be easier. If Germany had invaded the UK and won, it would have been weaker in the short term, but with no major opponents left in Europe it would have posed an even greater threat to the Soviet Union in the long term. Maybe Germany, or Italy, would have advised Romania to withdraw even if the Soviet Union hadn't said it expected Germany to do so, but that communication may have meant that the later negotiations regarding the Soviet Union joining the Axis powers virtually ensured that Germany would attack it. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:550E:1A12:AF33:E2CF (talk) 00:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110221013107/http://unimedia.md:80/?mod=news to http://unimedia.md/?mod=news&id=20961

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality
Haha, why "Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina" but "Union of Bessarabia with Romania"? Need to change both articles to common title - occupation or union. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.25.53.138 (talk) 07:23, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Well the union of Bessarabia with Romania was not an occupation as it was agreed to in the treaty of versailles and so if anything an annexation and in a referendum Bessarabia preferred union with Romania to the alternatives — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.135.40.47 (talk) 17:01, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Recent reverts
Regarding these 2 reverts by Anonimu, : while I agree that the USSR never recognized the unification of Bessarabia with Romania and I think the US also never recognized it (thus the dispute should be mentioned somewhere), I still think occupation is a correct word to use in the 'result' parameter. After all, the article itself is entitled Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Miacek (talk) 23:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Nordern Bukowina was not part of the Ribbentrop Molotow pact
This information y am missing here. According to Hitler's view of point, the Bukovina was his own sphere of influence since it once belonged to Austria-Hungary as the Kingdom of Galicia. This was a major motive for Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, because it was contrary to the joint intention of the two dictators in the pact of 23.08.1939 to restore the strategic spheres of influence of Russia and Austria-Hungary from before the 1st WWW. On the other hand, the ambassador of the Soviet Union had announced to Hitler's the intention of Soviet Union to occupy southern Bucovina, as part of Russia's historical interests, because this historical territory of Romanian Moldavia was part of the Tsarist Empire in the 18th century. There, however, Hitler had strategic interests in Romanian crude oil, as in Finland in nickel and titanium, as well as coal from Norway. These imperial economic interests and the historical spheres of influence were ultimately the reason for the war against the Soviet Union. The fantasized racial theories were only the necessary ideological incitement of the Germans to accept the war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8071:3EA7:A00:B0B4:1645:17C5:6C45 (talk) 05:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you have that backwards. The racial and territorial aims of the Nazis were the main driving force for Germany attacking the Soviet Union. The fact that Northern Bukovina was not included in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was simply an additional pretext. Invading the Soviet Union was always the ultimate goal of Nazism, ever since Hitler announced as such in Mein Kampf. The idea that Nazi Germany would not have attacked if the Soviets had not annexed the region is fantasy. 90.241.246.235 (talk) 01:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Russian invasion of the wikipedia recent history articles
I noticed modifications of wikipedia articles about the recent russian history that give so much space to the russian historiography such that the articles are hard to follow. The russian historiography was and still remains very much influenced by the present russian politics. The facts are very much blured by so much information and even opinion which render the topics quite difficult to follow. It defeats the purpose of an free encyclopedia and ultimately will lead to the dismisal of Wikipedia as source of quick information about the recent historical events. Simply said, the russophiles with their contributions of "alternative history" will defeat Wikipedia by its own means: freedom of making noise in order to cover the simple facts. 2001:B07:6477:A21E:910C:6D6E:3542:F81D (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)