Nikita Leontyevich Salogor (, or Salagor, ; 15 August 1901 – 24 June 1982) was a Moldavian and Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia (PCM) in 1942–1946.
Of Romanian Ukrainian or Moldovan roots, he had a kulak mother, whom he openly denounced later in life. Salogor's early career was in agricultural institutions of the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where he also advanced politically. Following the Soviet advance into Bessarabia in 1940, he joined the leadership of the Moldavian SSR. Immediately promoted to Junior Secretary of the PCM, he was co-opted on its Politburo in early 1941, and took part in a workforce recruitment drive, which is described by historian Ion Varta as connected to the deportation of native Romanians.
Shortly after the German attack on the Soviet Union, Salogor and other PCM leaders withdrew to Soviet Russia, but still sought to exercise command over partisan units organizing in Bessarabia. During this interval, Salogor was able to outmaneuver Piotr Borodin, taking up Borodin's position as First Secretary. He finally returned to Soviet Moldavia in March 1944, and joined the provisional government formed in Soroca. During and after the region's reconquest in August 1944, he involved himself in reconstructing the party structures and investigating the spread of anti-communist resistance. He also managed responses to the Moldavian famine, and set up the Moldavian State University.
Cultivating national communism and posthumously labelled a Moldovenist, Salogor advanced an irredentist project, hoping to increase the Moldavian SSR by incorporating the whole of Romanian Moldavia, as well as the Budjak and Bukovina (Greater Moldova). These proposals threatened the Ukrainian SSR's territorial integrity, and were as such vetoed by Nikita Khrushchev. Salogor lost his PCM positions shortly after, and sent to work as an agricultural manager in Krasnodar Krai. He was allowed to return in 1950, when Moldavian Premier Gherasim Rudi assigned him minor positions in his cabinet. His attempt to undermine PCM leader Nicolae Coval resulted in another demotion. He was only included on the Central Committee in the 1970s, by which time he was already retired and ailing.
Biography Early life Salogor was born on 15 August 1901,Crudu (2015), p. 8 though some of his official biographies had 1902. His place of birth was Konstantinovka village, which was then part of Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire (and is now in Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine). Though described in official records as a poor peasant with only a secondary education,Crudu (2018), pp. 201–202, 207 it remains attested that the Salogor family had "unhealthy" social origins according to Soviet class definitions, and for this reason Nikita cut off all links with his relatives.Crudu (2015), p. 15. See also Cașu (2012), p. 382 According to his own words, he had stopped communicating with his mother in 1918, when she had remarried; in 1930, she would be caught up in the Dekulakization campaign.Cașu (2012), p. 382; Cașu & Pâslariuc, p. 290 Between 1921 and 1924 (that is, for much of the Russian Civil War and though the early months of the Soviet Union), Salogor was active in the Red Army's ranks.
From 1924, areas near Konstantinovka were absorbed by the Moldavian ASSR, set up for Romanians and Moldovans in the Ukrainian SSR; most of present-day Moldova, or historical Bessarabia, was at the time united with Romania. Historian Lilia Crudu argues that Salogor, like his colleague Nicolae Coval, became a "Moldovan" or "Moldavian" only as a byword for his geographic origins in that area, where he also received his communist training; she notes that Salogor was not a native speaker of Romanian (or "Moldovan").Crudu (2015), pp. 8, 14 & (2018), pp. 208–209, 211 Similarly, ethnic Romanian author Ion Costaș sees Salogor and Coval as "ideologized beyond measure" and no longer belonging to a specific ethnic culture.Costaș, p. 11 This is contrasted by another scholar, Igor Cașu, who notes that Salogor was an ethnic Romanian from Ukraine, and simultaneously a Moldovan—Cașu regards these as two complementary identities.Cașu (2012), p. 384; Cașu & Pâslariuc, p. 276 The label of "Moldovan" also appears in the nationality rubric on his political files."Lista deputaților aleși în Sovietul Suprem al RSSM la 12 ianuarie 1941", in Revista de Istorie a Moldovei, Issue 1/2012, p. 57Crudu (2018), pp. 201–202
Salogor moved to other areas of Ukraine in 1924. First employed as the manager of a cooperative credit enterprise, he held a variety of jobs in agricultural enterprises. He was tasked with agricultural projects in Rîbnița and Ocna Roșie Districts (1933–1935), before being integrated into the political establishment of the Moldavian ASSR.Cașu & Pâslariuc, pp. 277, 292 Salogor moved there in 1930, as part of a wave of new arrivals which were meant to infuse the local political structures with stricter Stalinism.Crudu (2018), pp. 195, 197 He was successively president of a raion-level union, a sovkhoz manager, and chairman of the Executive Committee (Ispolkom) of integrating uezd. He was by then a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which remained his only affiliation until 1940.
In 1937, Salogor graduated from the Ukrainian Academy for People's Commissars in the Food Industry and from Moscow's Stalin Academy.Cașu & Pâslariuc, p. 277 The same year, he was elected a Moldavian deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and, by 1939, he was the Regional Soviet leader in Slobozia District.Cașu & Pâslariuc, p. 277. See also Crudu (2018), p. 197 In late June 1940, Soviet forces occupied Bessarabia. Most of the region was merged with areas previously included in the Moldavian ASSR, to form the Moldavian SSR, while the Budjak in the south, and Hotin County in the north, were incorporated with the Ukrainian SSR. Salogor moved into the new republic, and became Junior Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia (PCM), serving under Piotr Borodin, from August or October 1940. He was additionally head of the Orhei County Soviet. During the 1941 one-party legislative election, he became a Telenești deputy in the Supreme Republican Soviet.
In August–November 1940, Salogor was personally involved in the drive to recruit Bessarabian workforce for the Soviet industry. His report on the "organized mobilization of labor for the Soviet industry" acknowledged that 59,500 people from "the former Bessarabia" were enlisted—but expressed his dissatisfaction, as this fell below the planned 77,000.Varta, pp. 36–38 Salogor promised to exercise "rigorous control" and ensure the fulfillment of quotas.Varta, pp. 37–38 Historian Ion Varta believes that the recruitment drive was part of the mass deportation of Romanians, since it main targets were the rural regions "with an overwhelming Romanian majority" and constituted a "premeditated policy of destroying the Romanian element [of Bessarabia], in order to diminish its weight in relation to the Russian-speaking minority groups".Varta, pp. 32–33 An earlier report by the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania noted that such interpretations are "exaggerated", as a significant part of the workers voluntarily enrolled due to prevailing poverty and astute Soviet propaganda. Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania, Raport Final, 2006, p. 595. The Moldavian leadership reported that 5,110 recruits from the initial wave returned as they were deemed unfit or could not be accommodated. According to Varta, this ensured that "the whole population [...] soon learned the truth about the infernal conditions in which inductees were put to work, a matter which later pushed Romanian Bessarabians to resist the policies enforced by Soviet occupation authorities".Varta, p. 32
Wartime leadership In July 1941, when Salogor had joined the PCM Politburo,Tărîță, pp. 38, 44 Nazi Germany began its attack on the Soviet Union; in Bessarabia, this also involved Romanian troops, who managed to annex the region. The PCM reorganized further inland, but its territorial structures disintegrated, with Salogor himself relocating to Odessa by 14 August.Tărîță, pp. 39–40 He was then tasked with communicating with Soviet partisans in Bessarabia,Crudu (2015), p. 8; Tărîță, pp. 39–40 effectively as their leader. While most of his former subordinates joined the Red Army, Salogor continued to do political work. By November 1941, he was in Leninsk as one of three political figures still representing the PCM leadership—alongside M. M. Bessanov and B. I. Kondratenko.Tărîță, pp. 40–41. See also Crudu (2018), p. 197
Borodin had been attached to the Southern Front, which gave Salogor control of the party; however, he made repeated attempts to reassert his personal tutelage.Cașu (2012), pp. 380–382 In March 1942, the PCM's Central Committee investigated Salogor's social origins, but he was able to persuade his colleagues, Borodin included, that he was a reliable cadre.Cașu (2012), p. 382; Cașu & Pâslariuc, p. 290. See also Crudu (2018), p. 198 Both men attempted to obtain increased funding from the Soviet government, with Salogor asking for 222,000 roubles to finance a five-man government of the Moldavian SSR (this request was denied, probably because it was excessively high).Cașu (2012), pp. 380–381 In that context, Salogor remained Junior Secretary to 1946, but also supplanted Borodin to become First Secretary of the PCM, on 7 September 1942. He managed to topple his rival by reporting on Borodin's insubordination and violent tactics.Cașu (2012), pp. 382, 384; Crudu (2018), pp. 197–198 However, he could not fully persuade his Soviet overseers, who merely recognized him as an ad interim party leader; his powerful rivals included Nikita Khrushchev, who regarded the PCM as an annex of the Ukrainian Communists.Cașu (2012), pp. 382, 384. See also Crudu (2018), pp. 198, 207, 210
On 24 June 1942, Salogor received from Colonel Abayev a plan to organize partisan units in Bessarabia—described by historian Anton Moraru as "groups of terrorists and diversionists". After victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, the Red Army took the offensive, and Salogor became a more direct participant in military operations. He was personally involved in selecting PCM cadres for missions behind enemy lines.Crudu (2018), p. 198 As the Soviets reestablished their presence in Ukrainian lands, Salogor called on Nikolai Mikhailovich Frolov to take up command over partisan units in Bessarabia. As Frolov reports, no such units actually existed, mainly because "hostile elements" and "Boyar Romania" held the region in full control.Frolov, pp. 108–109 Some Moldavian-designated multinational groups were established by September, when they participated in an attack on Shepetivka railway station in Reichskommissariat Ukraine, and reportedly killed some 2,000 Germans.Frolov, p. 118 According to Moraru, these units were generally made up of Moldavian Russians and Ukrainians, with only "20 Russified Moldovans" registered by 1944. During the Battle of the Dnieper in late 1943, Salogor was also in contact with the Ukrainian partisans, reporting on their attacks on the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, in preparation for the eventual capture of Kiev.