The Transnistrian war officially broke out on March 2, 1992, at a time when there had been violence for several months. The war was the last - and bloodiest - stage of a conflict in the former USSR between reformist forces, which in the republics had taken the form of national emancipation movements, and conservative ones, which wanted to maintain a Soviet empire with its capital in Moscow. The newly formed Russian Federation intervened in the war to maintain a bridgehead in the former province / Union republic.
On March 2, 1992, the war on the Dniester began, in which the troops subordinated to the Chisinau authorities faced the armed forces of the Transnistrian separatists, supported by the Russian army.
Although this date is officially considered the day the war began, the first armed clashes between the Moldovan police and the Tiraspol secessionists took place in the late months of 1991.
After the first clashes between the Moldovan police and the Transnistrian forces, on the night of March 1 to 2, 1992, Cossack detachments attacked the Dubasari police station and took hostage 34 people who were inside the building. This attack is considered the official start of the Dniester war.
The beginning of this war was, in fact, the culmination of political and social disputes that had intensified in particular in the last years of the Soviet Union’s existence.
In the second half of the 1980s, when the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, launched a series of reforms, known as perestroika, meaning restructuring, the USSR entered a period of change that included political liberalization at regional level.
These changes initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev led to the emergence in the former union republics of national emancipation movements, after the forced Russification, promoted for many decades in the USSR.
From cultural and identity claims to political claims
The Republic of Moldova, back then the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, was no exception. Here, too, there was a growing national renaissance movement, especially since 1988. Early that year, the first informal meetings of the Bessarabian Romanians took place, which initially had more of a cultural character. At these gatherings, Romanian songs were sung, verses banned during the Soviet period were recited, such as Eminescu's “Doina”, but at the same time, although timid at first, identity issues were discussed: are Moldovans Romanian or not? Is the language spoken by the majority population of the Moldovan SSR Romanian?, etc.
This cultural movement soon became the “Alexie Mateevici” circle and quickly turned into a kind of socio-political talk club, to then develop into a street movement that increasingly pushed on the right to speak the Romanian language at the official level (even if it was still called Moldovan), the right to give up the Cyrillic alphabet and return to the Latin one, the right to one's own culture.
The key event that proved to be the real trigger of the national renaissance movement in the Republic of Moldova, though, was the letter addressed by the Writers' Union of the Moldavian SSR in October 1988 to the “Central Committee of the Moldavian Communist Party, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR, the Council of Ministers of the MSSR”, the leadership of the Communist Party, the legislature and the government of Chisinau. The signatories demanded the proclamation of the “Moldovans’ mother tongue”, as the text read, as the state language on the territory of the MSSR, and the return to the Latin alphabet, banned along with the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, initially in 1940 and then in 1944. A growing number of people of culture and science started adhering to that call launched by the writers in Chisinau.
In 1989, the Popular Front of Moldova (FPM) emerged, the first socio-political organization that soon became an alternative, although still unofficial, to the Communist Party, the only party accepted in the Soviet Union. The FPM was formed on the basis of what was the Movement for Democracy in Moldova. Such movements had appeared throughout the Soviet Union in 1986-1987 and were intended to support the reforms promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, but they quickly turned into something other than what the Soviet leader had intended.
The forces that opted for national emancipation and the deepening of political, economic and social reforms were increasingly coagulating around the Popular Front. In the first months of 1989, a series of spontaneous protests and clashes with Soviet law enforcement forces took place. On March 12, 1989, during such a protest, the mob tried to storm the building of the former Central Committee of the Moldavian Communist Party. The number one slogan at the protest, in which thousands of people took part, was “Language! Alphabet!”, that is the Romanian language and the Latin alphabet. Other actions followed, such as the resignation of the leader of the then Communist Party of Moldavia, Simion Grosu.
The first victory of the national forces can be considered the one scored at the elections of April 6, 1989, when seven writers from Chisinau, representing the reforming and democratic forces, became deputies in the parliament of the USSR – the Supreme Soviet. They were Ion Druta, Ion Constantin Ciobanu, Grigore Vieru, Nicolae Dabija, Ion Hadirca, Dumitru Matcovschi and Mihai Cimpoi. The elections took place on the basis of a system of constituencies, in which the seven outranked the candidates promoted by the Soviet nomenclature.
Under the increasing pressure of social developments, trying to keep its power under the new circumstances, the communist party apparatus started looking for reliable people, which were at the same popular among the general public. The one selected for the job was Mircea Snegur, until then secretary of the Central Committee of the Moldavian Communist Party (PCM), who was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (legislature) of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic on July 29, 1989. Although reluctant at first, Mircea Snegur finally supported the return to the Latin alphabet and the adoption of the law on the state language.
On August 27, 1989, a large-scale rally took place in Chisinau, which went down in history as the first Great National Assembly, attended by some 750,000 people, according to the press at the time. The demonstrators called on the authorities to proclaim Romanian as the state language on the territory of the Moldavian SSR and to convert it to the Latin alphabet. The Supreme Soviet complied with those requests. A law in this regard was passed on August 31, 1989, except that the name of the state language was included in the text of that law as the “Moldovan language”, not Romanian language.
The Interfront – the Soviet regime’s reply to the national liberation movement
All these events, however, triggered a series of reactions from the leaders of the Soviet structures in the MSSR, the communist leaders, the representatives of the KGB. In order to counter the actions of the Popular Front, which was seen as a tool to promote the interests of Romanian nationalists, the so-called Interfront was established, a name derived from the Russian phrase “International Front”, often identified as the ethnic Russian Interdvijenie movement (the International Movement).
The Intefront brought together, in particular, elements hostile to the reforms promoted by Gorbachev, workers in large plants and factories “of union importance” as they were called at the time, who were mostly from Russia, and supporting the the Soviet regime.
On the Bessarabian bank of the Dniester River, the Interfront did not enjoy much popularity, despite a tacit support from the Communist Party and the KGB.
On the left bank, however, in Transnistria, but also in Tighina, where ethnic Russians and Ukrainians were the majority, it took root and managed to grow and turn into a formidable opposition to the reforms promoted in Chisinau.
The Interfront was also supported in the southern region of the Republic of Moldova, populated predominantly by ethnic Gagauzians.
After the 1990 elections, the Transnistrian and Gagauz regions are moving further and further away from Chisinau
Divergences intensified further after the February-March 1990 legislative elections.
Although the Communist Party of Moldavia was still the only party registered for the elections, opposition representatives were allowed to run as independents. Following the election, 371 deputies were elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Together with the affiliated groups, the Popular Front scored an important victory. Its representatives took about 27% of the seats in parliament. Along with the moderate communists, mostly from rural areas, they formed the majority.
Opponents of the new reforms, however, won in the cities of Tiraspol, Ribnita and Tighina in the Dniester region.
Against the background of growing tensions in the Chisinau parliament, deputies from the Gagauz and Transnistrian regions stepped down in protest.
On June 23, 1990, the Chisinau Parliament adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty, which provided for the supremacy of local law over Union law. The declaration was voted against the background of Moscow preparing a new union treaty that would lead to the reform of the USSR and give more freedom to the republics, but not as much as they would have liked.
Meanwhile, so-called self-defense detachments started getting shape in Tiraspol and other Transnistrian localities, with the aim of defending themselves against the “Romanian nationalists” in Chisinau.
The acts of disobedience to the Chisinau authorities started growing in number, and on September 2, 1990, the so-called Pridnestrovian Moldavian Socialist was proclaimed, later renamed the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. Its composition included the districts located on the left bank of the Dniester River, but also the town of Tigina on the right bank, and two villages nearby.
A few months later, in December 1990, another separatist entity was proclaimed in the area inhabited by ethnic Gagauzians - the Gagauz Republic.
The press at the time wrote that these alleged separatist republics - Transnistria and Gagauz - had been created with Russian support in an attempt to maintain control of Chisinau, which was moving further and further away from Moscow.
The situation in the south of the Republic of Moldova became less tense only in 1994, when the areas inhabited by Gagauzians obtained the status of an autonomous region within the Republic of Moldova.
In Transnistria, however, things developed differently. From the autumn of 1990 until the end of 1991, but especially after the proclamation of the independence of the Republic of Moldova, on August 27, 1991, the separatist forces in Tiraspol managed to gain control over most state institutions and strategic sites in the region.
The Russian troops that remained in the region also became a destabilizing factor, unlike those on the right bank of the Dniester, which withdrew after the collapse of the USSR. These Russian troops played a key role in creating, training, equipping and arming the detachments of separatists who have been fighting, since the end of 1991, with volunteers, the army and the police of the Republic of Moldova.
