National Liberation Movement in the Moldavian SSR, 1989-1991: some contributions

The article focuses on the national movement in the former Moldavian SSR in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Based on newly disclosed documents from the archive of the former Central Committee of Moldavia, the author analyses the relation between the CPM-CPSU and the informal organizations related to a wide range of issues pertaining to the language question, re-evaluation of the Stalinist repressions, relation with Romania and so on. An important role in the breakdown of the Communist regime in Moldavia was played by students, intellectuals, writers especially, but also historians. One of the main conclusions of the article is that the Communist Party of Moldavia propagated and supported with its entire means the idea of preserving Moldova within Soviet Union, up to late August 1991, during the abortive putsch in Moscow against Gorbachev. This reality contrasts with the post-Soviet pretensions of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova that CPM sustained the idea of independent Moldova in late 1980s-ealry 1990s.