Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina
The Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina took place between late 1940 and 1951 and were part of Joseph Stalin's policy 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 the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, which occurred in June 1940. According to a secret Soviet ministry of interior report dated December 1965, 46,000 people were deported from Moldavia for the period 1940—1953.
1940–1941
As a result of the Molotov–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 were then incorporated into the Soviet Union, most of the former being organized as the Moldavian SSR, while the other areas were attributed to the Ukrainian SSR. On June 12–13, 1941, 29,839 members of families of "counter-revolutionaries and nationalists" from the Moldavian SSR, and from the Chernivtsi and Izmail oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR were deported to Kazakhstan, the Komi ASSR, the Krasnoyarsk Krai, and the Omsk and Novosibirsk oblasts. For the fate of such a deportee from Bessarabia, see the example of Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya. The GeorgianNKVD official Sergo Goglidze, trusted henchman of Lavrenty Beria, was in charge of these deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
Labor mobilization
During 1940 and 1941, 53,356 people from Bessarabia and Northern 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.
Aftermath
Professor Rudolph Rummel 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. According to some estimates, 12% of the population of the two provinces was killed and deported.
On April 6, 1949, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee issued decision number 1290-467cc, which called for 11,280 families from Moldavian SSR to be deported as kulaks or collaborators with the "German fascists occupier" during World War II. Ultimately, 11,239 families, comprising 35,050 persons 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 for collectivisation.
