As a historical region, Bessarabia was the eastern part of the
Principality of Moldavia. In 1812, under the terms of the
Treaty of Bucharest, the region was ceded by the
Ottoman Empire, to which Moldavia was a
vassal state, to the
Russian Empire.
Interwar Soviet-Romanian relations The
Bessarabian question was both political and national in nature. According to the 1897 census,
Bessarabia, then a
guberniya of the Russian Empire, had a population that was 47.6%
Romanians, 19.6% Ukrainians, 8% Russians, 11.8% Jews, 5.3% Bulgarians, 3.1% Germans and 2.9%
Gagauz. The figures showed a strong decrease in the proportion of Moldovans and Romanians compared to the census of 1817, which had been conducted shortly after the Russian Empire annexed Bessarabia in 1812. In that survey, Moldovans and Romanians represented 86% of the population. The decrease seen in the census of 1897 was caused by the Russian policies of settling of other nationalities and of
Russification in Bessarabia. During the 1917
Russian Revolution, a
national assembly was formed in Bessarabia to manage the province. The assembly, known locally as
Sfatul Țării, initiated several national and social reforms, and on 2/15 December 1917, it declared the
Moldavian Democratic Republic an autonomous republic within the
Russian Federative Democratic Republic. The
Rumcherod, an Odessa-based soviet council, loyal to the
Petrograd Soviet and formed by late December, decided to take actions against the authority of
Sfatul Țării. Its Front Section (Frontotdel), made up of Bolsheviks was sent to Chisinau and on 1/14 January 1918 it captured strategic locations and buildings. The Bolsheviks attempted to take power for themselves by arresting elected deputies, abolishing the
Sfatul Țării and replacing it with a self-proclaimed Moldavian Soviet. None of its members were ethnic Moldavian, in contrast with
Sfatul Țării where the ethnic Moldovans were about 70%. With the consent of the
Allies and based on calls from more sources for a Romanian military intervention,
Romanian troops entered Bessarabia in early January 1918 and, by February, had pushed the Soviets over the
Dniester. In the wake of the intervention, Soviet Russia broke off diplomatic relations with Romania and confiscated the
Romanian Treasure, which was stored in
Moscow for safekeeping. After the
White Army forced the Soviets to withdraw from Odessa, and the
German Empire agreed to the Romanian annexation of Bessarabia in a secret agreement (part of the
Buftea Peace Treaty) on 5/18 March, Romanian diplomacy repudiated the treaty by claiming that the Soviets were unable to fulfill their obligations. On 18 April
Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet
Commissar for Foreign Affairs, sent a note of protest against the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania. Back in August 1916, the Entente and the neutral Romania signed a secret convention that stipulated Romania would join the war against the Central Powers in exchange for several territories of
Austria-Hungary, such as
Bukovina. During the end of
World War I, national movements of the Romanians and the Ukrainians began to emerge in the province, but both movements had conflicting aims, each seeking to unite the province with their national state. Thus, on 25 October 1918, a Ukrainian National Committee, gaining the upper hand in
Czernowitz, declared Northern Bukovina, populated by a Ukrainian majority, part of the
West Ukrainian People's Republic. On 27 October the Romanians followed suit, proclaiming the whole region united with Romania, and calling in Romanian troops. Soviet Russia would continue its policy of non-recognition of Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia, which it considered Romanian-occupied territory, until 1940. During the negotiations before the
Treaty of Paris, the
United States' representative asked for a
plebiscite to be held in Bessarabia to decide its future, but the proposal was rejected by the head of the Romanian delegation,
Ion I. C. Brătianu, who claimed such an undertaking would allow the distribution of
Bolshevik propaganda in Bessarabia and Romania. A plebiscite was also requested at the Peace Conference by the
White Russians, only to be rejected again. The Soviets would continue to press for a plebiscite during the following decade, only to be dismissed every time by the Romanian government. Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia was
de jure recognized by the
United Kingdom,
France,
Italy, and
Japan in the
Bessarabian Treaty, signed on 28 October 1920. Soviet Russia and Ukraine promptly notified Romania that they did not recognize the treaty's validity and did not consider themselves bound by it. Ultimately, Japan failed to ratify the treaty and so it never came into force, leaving Romania without a valid international act to justify its possession of Bessarabia. The United States refused to discuss territorial changes in the former Russian Empire without the participation of a Russian government. Thus, it declined to recognize the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania, and, unlike its position of recognizing the independence of the
Baltic States, it insisted that Bessarabia was a territory under Romanian military occupation and incorporated the Bessarabian emigration quota into the Russian one in 1923. In 1933, the US government tacitly included the Bessarabian emigration quota into that of Romania, an act that was considered a
de facto recognition by Romanian diplomacy. However, during
World War II, the US argued it had never recognized Bessarabia's union with Romania. In 1924, after the failure of the
Tatarbunary Uprising, the Soviet government created a
Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on the left bank of the Dniester river within the
Ukrainian SSR. The Romanian government saw that as a threat and a possible staging ground for a communist invasion of Romania. Throughout the 1920s, Romania considered itself a pillar in the
cordon sanitaire, the policy of containment of the Bolshevik threat, and avoided direct relations with the Soviet Union. On 27 August 1928, both Romania and the Soviet Union signed and ratified the
Kellogg–Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. On 9 February 1929, the Soviet Union signed a protocol with its western neighbors,
Estonia,
Latvia,
Poland, and Romania, confirming adherence to the terms of the Pact. In signing the Pact, the contracting parties agreed to condemn war as a recourse to solving conflict, to renounce it as an instrument of policy and to agree that all conflicts and disputes would only by peaceful means. At the time, the Soviet ambassador,
Maxim Litvinov, made it clear that neither the pact nor the protocol meant renunciation of Soviet rights over the "territories occupied by Romanians". On 3 July 1933, Romania and the Soviet Union were signatories the London Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Article II of which defined several forms of aggression: "There shall be recognized as an aggressor that State which shall be the first to have committed one of the following actions: First—a declaration of war on another State. Second—invasion by armed forces of the territory of another State even without a declaration of war. [...]" and "No political, military, economic or other considerations may serve as an excuse or justification for the aggression referred to in Article II." In January 1932 in
Riga and in September 1932 in
Geneva, Soviet-Romanian negotiations were held as a prelude to a non-aggression treaty, and on 9 June 1934, diplomatic relations were established between both countries. On 21 July 1936, Litvinov and
Nicolae Titulescu, the Soviet and Romanian Ministers of Foreign Affairs, agreed upon a draft of a Mutual Assistance Pact. It was sometimes interpreted as a non-aggression treaty, which would
de facto recognize the existing Soviet-Romanian border. The protocol stipulated that any common Romanian-Soviet action should be approved by France ahead of time. In negotiating with the Soviets for the agreement, Titulescu was highly criticized by the
Romanian far right. The protocol was to be signed in September 1936, but Titulescu was dismissed in August 1936, leading the Soviet side to declare the agreement null and void. Subsequently, no further attempts were made to reach a political rapprochement between Romania and the Soviet Union. Moreover, by 1937, Litvinov and the Soviet press revived the dormant claim over Bessarabia.
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and aftermath signs the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Behind him are (left) German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin. On 23 August 1939, the
Soviet Union and
Nazi Germany signed the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty that contained an additional secret protocol with maps in which a demarcation line through
Eastern Europe was drawn and divided it into the German and Soviet interest zones. Bessarabia was among the regions assigned to the Soviet
sphere of interest by the Pact. Article III of its Secret Additional Protocol stated: With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas. On 29 March 1940, Molotov declared on the Sixth session of the Supreme Soviet: "We do not have a pact of non-aggression with Romania. This is due to the presence of an unsolved issue, the issue of Bessarabia, the seizure of which the Soviet Union never recognized although it never raised the issue of returning it by military means". That was seen as a threat to Romania.
International context Assured by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of Soviet non-interference, Germany started World War II one week later by
invading Poland from the west on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Union
attacked Poland from the east on 17 September, and by 6 October,
Poland had fallen. Romanian Prime Minister
Armand Călinescu, a strong supporter of Poland in its conflict with Germany, was assassinated on 21 September by elements of the far-right
Iron Guard with Nazi support. Romania remained formally neutral in the conflict but aided Poland by providing access to Allied military supplies from the
Black Sea to the Polish border and also a route for the Polish government and army to withdraw after their defeat. The Polish government also preferred a formally neutral Romania to ensure the safety from German bombardments of supplies transported through Romanian territory. (See also
Romanian Bridgehead.) On 2 June 1940, Germany informed the Romanian government that to receive territorial guarantees, Romania should consider negotiations with the Soviet Union. From 14 to 17 June 1940, the Soviet Union gave ultimatum notes to
Lithuania,
Estonia and
Latvia, and when the ultimata were satisfied, it used the bases that it had gained to
occupy those territories. The
Fall of France on 22 June and the subsequent British retreat from the Continent rendered the assurances of assistance to Romania meaningless. ==Political and military developments==