Union of Bessarabia With Romania - Soviet Occupation

Soviet Occupation

The status quo was changed 22 years later, when, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Article 4 of the Secret Annex to the Treaty), Nazi Germany agreed that it had no interest in Bessarabia, effectively yielding it to the Soviet Union. On June 26, 1940, Romania received an ultimatum from the Soviet Union demanding the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina, with an implied threat of invasion in the event of noncompliance. Under pressure from Moscow and Berlin, the Romanian administration and the army were forced to retreat from Bessarabia and from Northern Bukovina to avoid war. On June 28, 1940, these territories were occupied by the Soviet Union. During the retreat, the Romanian Army was attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Bessarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. Some 42,876 Romanian soldiers and officers were unaccounted for after the retreat.

The southern and northern parts, whose population was just over half ethnic minorities (Ukrainians, Bessarabian Bulgarians, Bessarabian Germans, and Lipovans), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR as Izmail Oblast and as part of Chernivtsi Oblast. At the same time, the Moldavian ASSR, where ethnic Romanians were a plurality, was disbanded, and just under half of its territory was joined with the remaining territory of Bessarabia to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, coterminous with the present-day Moldova. Although Soviet troops were forced out in 1941 by the invasion of Axis forces, and Romania re-established its administration, the Soviet Union reconquered and reannexed the area in February–August 1944.

The official Soviet policy (1940–1941, 1944–1989) also stated that Romanian and Moldovan were two different languages and, to emphasize the distinction, Moldovan was written using a special Cyrillic alphabet (the Moldovan alphabet) derived from the Russian alphabet – unlike Romanian, written with its own version of the Latin alphabet.