Rakovsky on Romania and Bessarabia

My review of Christian Rakovsky´s "Roumania and Bessarabia", published by the Workers International League. 

Christian Rakovsky was a leading Bolshevik who for a short period was premier of the nominally independent Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (actually an appendix to Soviet Russia). He also had a number of diplomatic missions abroad. Rakovsky supported Trotsky´s Left Opposition against Stalin, surrendered in 1934, but was nevertheless purged by the Stalinist regime a few years later. He was executed in 1941.

“Roumania and Bessarabia” is a pamphlet written by Rakovsky in 1925, when he was Soviet ambassador to Britain. Perhaps for diplomatic reasons, the pamphlet is said to have been penned in Moscow. This rare work was reissued in 1990 by the Workers International League, a small Trotskyist group in Britain.

Bessarabia is an area between Romania and the Ukraine. Today, most of Bessarabia comprises the independent nation-state of Moldova. Historically, Bessarabia was contested territory between Czarist Russia and Romania, changing hands several times. Its population was multi-ethnic, albeit with a Romanian-speaking plurality. After the 1917 revolutions in Russia, Romania took advantage of the political turmoil and occupied Bessarabia, an occupation subsequently recognized by the great powers. Soviet Russia, of course, regarded Bessarabia as Russian territory, and protested the Romanian invasion and annexation. “Roumania and Bessarabia” lays out the official Soviet position on the question. Before the revolution, Rakovsky (a Bulgarian by birth) had been active in both the Romanian, Bulgarian and Russian Marxist movements, which presumably explains why he was chosen to write a text of this sort.

Rakovsky´s pamphlet contains historical, legal and political arguments against Romania´s right to Bessarabia. Thus, he points out that the region has always been multi-ethnic, with a substantial Slav population. Russia originally conquered Bessarabia at a time when Romania didn´t even exist as an independent state, being part of the Ottoman Empire. Rakovsky questions the legal validity under international law of the agreement whereby Britain and France recognized Romania´s incorporation of Bessarabia. He argues that Romania attempted to double-cross the Allies during World War I, and points out that Russia (i.e. Czarist Russia) came to Romania´s aid during the war, to no great benefit for itself. Here, Rakovsky is clearly appealing to diplomatic sensibilities in various Western capitals.

His main arguments, however, are more political and directed at a very different audience.

Rakovsky argues that not even the Romanian-speaking population of Bessarabia supports the Romanian occupation. During the revolution, the peasants occupied land owned by aristocratic landlords. When Romania took the area in 1918, the landlords returned. The peasants were subject to a regime of terror. Several peasant uprisings were brutally suppressed. Rakovsky argues that all talk about “land reform” and “universal suffrage” in Bessarabia is a pure sham. The “democratic” decision by the local provisional government to hand over power to the Romanian military was a de facto coup d´etat. The author mentions massacres, rapes, floggings and other atrocities committed by the Romanian troops.

Here, I think that Rakovsky is talking to socialists, Communists and humanitarians to protest the White terror in Bessarabia.

Rakovsky says that the Soviet government is willing to negotiate with Romania, but only if the Romanian troops are withdrawn across the river Pruth, i.e. only if they actually leave Bessarabia! At the same time, the Bolshevik ambassador is careful not to suggest that Bessarabia must be annexed to the Soviet Union. Before the revolution, Rakovsky had protested Czarist Russian control of Bessarabia, and he was obviously sensitive to the suspicion that the Soviet Union simply continued the imperialist aims of Czarism. Instead, the author implies that a plebiscite should be organized in Bessarabia, and that the territory might then become an independent state. He also raises the slogan of a “democratic federation of the Balkans” and somewhat undiplomatically calls for the overthrow of the Romanian oligarchy.

“Roumania and Bessarabia” may be of some interest to advanced students of Soviet history. Christian Rakovsky attempts to combine diplomatic arguments with revolutionary agitation, in an almost perfect mix. I suppose the pamphlet might also be interesting to Romanians and Moldovans.

Stalin “solved” the Bessarabian question in 1940 by seizing the area from Romania by force, ironically as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The peasants were once again subject to terror, now from the Soviet side. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, most of Bessarabia became the independent state of Moldova. It´s still marked by conflicts between Romanian-speakers, Russians and various minority groups who usually side with the latter. Unfortunately, the area might change hands a few more times in the future…