Tatarbunary Uprising

The Tatarbunary Uprising (Romanian: "Răscoala de la Tatarbunar") was a Bolshevik-inspired peasants' revolt that took place in September 15-18, 1924, in and around the town of Tatarbunary ("Tatar-Bunar" or "Tatarbunar") in Budjak (Bessarabia), then part of Romania, and now part of Odessa Oblast, Ukraine. It was led by a pro-Soviet revolutionary committee which called for unification with the Ukrainian SSR and an end to "Romanian occupation". [Frunză, p.70; Otu, p.39; Tătărescu]

Several sources indicate the part played by Comintern agents, whose anti-Greater Romania agenda was promoting Moldovenism [Frunză, p.71; Ripa; Troncotă, p.19] (later that year, a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, roughly corresponding to Transnistria, was established inside the Ukrainian SSR). The Tatarbunary region was largely inhabited by ethnic groups other than Romanian. [Cermotan; Clark; Veiga, p.114]

Character

Authorities of the Kingdom of Romania saw the incident as a mere terrorist action, backed by the Soviet Union, that tried to destabilise the situation inside the country and prepared for a Red Army incursion. [Clark; Frunză, p.70-71; Troncotă, p.19; Veiga, p.115] This was in connection with the Comintern plan regarding Romania, drafted by the Balkan Communist Federation and Vasil Kolarov in mid-1924 — implying the simultaneous action of Soviet troops and communist cells inside Bessarabia. [Otu, p.39; Ripa; Troncotă, p.19]

Attempts for a Romanian-Soviet détente, made early in the year, were frustrated when Maxim Litvinov approached the Ion I. C. Brătianu cabinet with a plan for a plebiscite in Bessarabia, which was viewed as unacceptable. [Otu, p.38-39; Ripa]

Andrey Kulishnikov, a Soviet political commissar known under the pseudonym of "Nenin", and his associate Ivan Bezhan ("Koltsov") were instrumental in creating several committees in the Budjak; the latter engaged his men in an open fight with the Gendarmes, and, on September 17, took Tatarbunary and publicly announced that the Red Army was supporting his actions. [Clark; Otu, p.39-40; Tătărescu] At the same time, Soviet artillery in Ovidiopol, on the left bank of the Dniester, had engaged in maneuvers. [Otu, p.40; Tătărescu]

The revolt was suppressed by the Romanian Army's Third Corps after three days of fighting in which a number of people died and around 500 were arrested (287 of whom were brought to trial). [Otu, p.40] Kulishnikov and other prominent participants were killed during the clash with Romanian troops. [Clark; Ripa]

Outcome

A trial was held in Chişinău and after more than three months, 85 of the insurrectionists were convicted and sentenced to between one and fifteen years in jail. [Clark; Otu, p.40; Ripa; Tătărescu] This trial attracted Soviet propaganda and international attention, with Romain Rolland, Maxim Gorky, Paul Langevin, Theodore Dreiser, and Albert Einstein, among others, speaking out on behalf of the defendants, while Henri Barbusse even traveled to Romania to witness the proceedings. [Cermotan; Clark] However, the widespread condemnation of the rebellion inside Romania was also present with the country's non-communist socialist groups; the Socialist Federation's Ilie Moscovici wrote in 1925:

"In Tatar Bunar, the Third International's agents provocateurs were involved, who, toying with the lives of Bessarabian peasants, wanted to prove to Europe that Bessarabians are in favour of the non-existent and ridiculous «Moldavian Republic».
A few peasants in a few isolated communes could not chase away the gendarmes [...] were it not for a few agents provocateurs assuring them that the revolution had begun throughout Bessarabia or that the red armies had entered or were about to enter." [Moscovici, in Frunză, p.71]

The view was shared by at least one foreign observer, the American scholar Charles Upson Clark, according to whom:

" [...] the Tatar-Bunar rebellion was simply the most striking example of a Communist raid, engineered from without [...] and not a local revolution against intolerable conditions due to Roumanian oppression, as it was represented to be by the Socialist press everywhere." [Clark]

The events were a major contributing factor in the decision to outlaw the Communist Party of Romania. [Troncotă, p.19]

Notes

References

*ro icon [http://www.revista.memoria.ro/index.php?location=view_article&id=281 Memoria.ro: 1926 speech related to the events in Tatarbunary] , held by Under-secretary for Internal Affairs Gheorghe Tătărescu
*ro icon [http://www.sud-est.md/numere/20001001/dramaintelectualilor/ Leonid Cemortan, "Drama intelectualilor basarabeni de stânga", in "Revista Sud-Est"]
*Charles Upson Clark, [http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/clark/bc_28.shtml "Bessarabia. Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea": Chapter XXVIII, "The Tatar-Bunar Episode"]
*Victor Frunză, "Istoria stalinismului în România", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
*Petre Otu, "1924: România întregită — pace cu Sovietele, dar... Război cu Internaţionala a III-a", in "Dosarele Istoriei", 10(26)/1998
*ro icon [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_23336/septembrie_1924___bolsevicii_incearca_sa_recupereze_basarabia.html Grigore D. Ripa, "Septembrie 1924 - Bolşevicii încearcă să recupereze Basarabia"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional", December 1, 2004
*Cristian Troncotă, "Siguranţa şi spectrul revoluţiei comuniste", in "Dosarele Istoriei", 4(44)/2000
*Francisco Veiga, "Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaţionalismului", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993