Ya. M. KOPANSKY. International solidarity with the struggle of the workers of Bessarabia for reunification with the Soviet Motherland (1918-1940). Chisinau. Shtiinets Publishing House. 1975. 337 pp. The print run is 3,300. Price 2 rubles 95 kopecks.

Monograph of a senior researcher at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. SSR, Candidate of Historical Sciences Ya. M. Kopansky is devoted to the history of the fight against corruption.-

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a Soviet state supported by the international proletariat and the democratic public of the world, against the imperialist annexation of Soviet Bessarabia, for the liberation of the region from the invaders and its reunification with the socialist Fatherland. The book summarizes the results of studying the problem related to the efforts of the Soviet government, the Moldovan people to achieve the return of Bessarabia to the Soviet state.

Describing the peculiarities of Moldavia's development in the post-October period, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L. I. Brezhnev said in a speech in Chisinau on October 11, 1974: "The forces of international imperialism, which took up arms against the young state of workers and peasants, managed to tear the region between the Prut and the Dniester away from the Soviet Homeland for twenty-two years by the hands of the ruling classes of royal Romania. Thus, the Moldovan land and the Moldovan people were forcibly separated. " ¹ From the first days of the foreign invasion, the workers of Bessarabia fought for the restoration of Soviet power, for reunification with the Soviet Homeland.

The long-term occupation of Bessarabia, in which a regime of social and national oppression was established, became one of the links of the anti-Soviet strategy of imperialism in the period between the two World Wars. The reviewed work shows how the Bessarabian question became the subject of a sharp confrontation between the Country of Soviets and progressive forces of foreign countries with the world reaction, which Royal Romania relied on in its annexationist policy. The Communist Party and the Soviet Government took a consistent position on this issue. "The struggle of the multinational Soviet Union for a just solution of the Bessarabian question," the author emphasizes, " and its principled and consistent solidarity with the workers of the occupied territory is a bright page in the history of the struggle for the triumph of the principles of Great October in all the territories of our country, whose workers formed the army of the socialist revolution, contributed to the overthrow of tsarism and capitalism, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the creation of the world's first state of workers and peasants" (p. 116). The monograph examines the various forms of this struggle, traces how, depending on specific conditions, one or another of them came to the fore: either military, diplomatic, or political. The author rightly notes that even during the civil war, the Soviet Government, in accordance with its proclaimed policy of peace, preferred a peaceful settlement of the Bessarabian question (p.51).

J. M. Kopansky pays close attention to the analysis of Soviet-Romanian relations; the activities of Soviet diplomacy aimed at a fair resolution of the Bessarabia issue; coverage of the Soviet-Romanian conferences in Warsaw (1921) and Vienna (1924); and the struggle on this issue at the Genoa Conference. The book shows the role of V. I. Lenin in shaping the Soviet position on the Bessarabian question and his personal participation in organizing the struggle for the return of the occupied territory to the bosom of the socialist Fatherland.

The rulers of royal Rumania, and after them bourgeois historiography, did much to distort the essence of the Bessarabian question. Without recognizing the independence of the Moldavian nation, they portrayed the annexation of Soviet territory as almost an act of" voluntary annexation " of Bessarabia to Romania. The brutal occupation regime was passed off by them as carrying out some kind of civilizing mission. Moreover, they sought to use any contacts between official representatives of the USSR and Romania to create the impression that the Soviet Union was reconciled to the occupation of Bessarabia. Similar statements are also found in some books currently published in the West, especially in the writings of the reactionary Romanian emigration, who, for anti-Soviet purposes, repeatedly return to the long-resolved Bessarabian question. Ya.M. Kopansky convincingly reveals the groundlessness of their conjectures.

It is known that the world reaction tried to use the issue of Bessarabia to disrupt the efforts of the USSR aimed at normalizing relations with capitalist countries, at concluding bilateral non-aggression treaties in the early 1930s, and then at creating a collective security system in Europe. In this regard, the Bessarabian question occupied an important place in the relations of the USSR not only with the Republic of Uzbekistan-

¹ "Pravda", 12. X. 1974.

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We are close, but also with France, England, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia and a number of other countries. Describing the art, endurance and flexibility of Soviet diplomacy, Y. M. Kopansky emphasizes on the example of Bessarabia that for the Soviet government, the solution of problems of preserving peace and peaceful coexistence of states has always been inextricably linked with the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country, with defending the right of peoples to decide their own destinies, with military solidarity with the workers of the territories.

The author does not limit himself to covering the diplomatic activities of the Soviet government. He writes about the continuing ties of the CPSU with the party organization of Bessarabia (including during the period when the Bessarabian party organization temporarily became part of the Communist Party of Romania), analyzes the systematic speeches of the Soviet press, the work of Moprov organizations, the activities of the Society of Bessarabians in the USSR, tells about mass meetings and rallies of the Soviet public in support of the Bessarabia, the struggle for its reunification with the Soviet Homeland (pp. 83-117).

A special feature of the book is its multidimensional nature and the author's comprehensive approach to the study of the problem. Along with the analysis of the most important aspects of the implementation of Lenin's national policy and interethnic relations in our country, the internationalist actions of the foreign proletariat and the progressive public of the world are widely covered. The emergence and development of the movement of foreign workers in defense of the struggling Bessarabia, in support of the Soviet position on the Bessarabian question, is thoroughly studied by Y. M. Kopansky. It is regarded as one of the manifestations of genuine proletarian internationalism on an international scale, born of the Great October Revolution. First of all, this is shown by the example of the Romanian revolutionary forces, which condemned the anti-Soviet actions of the Romanian rulers and rose up to defend Soviet Bessarabia. Detachments of Romanian workers, who participated in the armed resistance to the royal troops in 1918, actually became the first military formations of foreign internationalists on Soviet soil. "The best sons of the Romanian people," the author notes, "denounced the annexationist policy of the ruling circles, angrily exposed the bloody crimes of the Romanian oligarchy in the occupied territory, and strongly supported the struggle of the workers of Bessarabia for reunification with the Soviet Homeland" (p.313).

J. M. Kopansky analyzed the fundamental internationalist position of the Communist Party of Romania (CPR) on the Bessarabian question. The book rightly emphasizes that this line was adopted in the process of overcoming nationalist tendencies and demanded a complete break with the social patriotism of the opportunist leaders of the Romanian social democracy.

A significant part of the monograph is devoted to covering the mass movement in support of the revolutionary liberation struggle of the workers of Bessarabia, which unfolded in the states of the Balkan region, in France, Czechoslovakia, Austria and many other capitalist countries. The author examines such major mass campaigns as the protests of foreign workers in 1922 against the regime of terror established in Bessarabia, international support for the position of the USSR on the Bessarabian question at the Soviet-Romanian conference in Vienna in 1924, solidarity with the participants of the heroic Tatarbunar uprising, a protest campaign against the murder of one of the leaders of the liberation struggle in Bessarabia, P. Tkachenko in 1926, the international community spoke out against the annexation of Bessarabia in connection with the decade-long occupation of the region, mass actions in defense of the Bessarabian anti-fascists persecuted by the authorities in 1934-1936, etc.

The monograph examines the main forms of international solidarity: press appearances, material support, sending letters and telegrams of protest to the occupation authorities, mass rallies and demonstrations, using parliamentary stands, trips of representative delegations to Bessarabia, active assistance to the work of foreign unions of Bessarabian emigrants, etc.

Using examples of support for the struggling Bessarabia, the book analyzes the emergence and formation of new forms of class solidarity of the international proletariat. Speeches in defense of the workers of Bessarabia are closely intertwined

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the struggle against the excesses of the occupiers in this region, international support for the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the aspirations of the Moldovan people for reunification within the USSR, solidarity with the Country of Soviets as a whole. These speeches, writes Ya. M. Kopansky, "not only enriched the experience of organizing major international campaigns against terror in various corners of capitalist countries and the colonial world, and supported the national revolutionary movement of oppressed peoples, but at the same time multiplied the forms of solidarity of the international proletariat with the world's first state of workers and peasants, of which Bessarabia was an integral part. forms of defense of the U.S.S.R. against the machinations of international reaction " (p. 314). The book shows how important the Comintern, the CIM, the Profintern, the Krestintern, the MOPR, and the Anti-Imperialist League were in rallying the proletarians and all the progressive forces that stood up for the workers of Bessarabia; the activities of the Balkan Communist Federation, the Balkan Bureau of the MOPR, and their press organs are widely presented. Along with prominent figures of the CPSU, the Soviet Government, and fraternal Communist parties, the solidarity movement was attended by the largest representatives of world science and culture, whose friendly attitude towards the Soviet Union was manifested, in particular, in their speeches in support of the workers of Bessarabia.

In the final section of the book, J. M. Kopansky describes with what joy all Soviet people, the foreign proletariat and the progressive public of the world welcomed the reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR in June 1940 and the formation of the Moldavian SSR.

The publication of the work, which so fully presents the most important aspects of international support for the struggle for the triumph of historical justice in Bessarabia, was made possible by the author's in-depth study of a wide range of sources from Soviet and foreign archives, a significant part of which he first introduced into scientific circulation; memoirs of revolutionary figures of that period; interwar foreign communist and democratic press (some of these periodicals will be first encountered by the Soviet reader on the pages of the reviewed monograph).

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