The Moldovan resistance during World War II opposed Axis-aligned Romania and Nazi Germany, as part of the larger Soviet partisan movement. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), presently Moldova, had been created in August 1940 after a Soviet annexation, and then was invaded by Romania in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. Moldovan resistance straddled across a new administrative border: in 1941–1944, Bessarabia was reincorporated within Romania as a semi-autonomous governorate, while areas across the Dnister were administered into a separate Transnistria Governorate. Shortly after the German–Romanian invasion of June–July 1941, the Communist Party of Moldavia (PCM) ordered the creation of a partisan network. The order was largely ineffective in creating an organized movement due to the rapid disintegration of Soviet territorial structures in Bessarabia. Some early organizers opted to abandon their posts, and Soviet attempts to infiltrate experienced partisans across the front line were often annihilated by the Special Intelligence Service. Nevertheless, partisan formations were still able to stage large-scale attacks on the Romanian infrastructure, at Bender and elsewhere. While Romanian documents identified categories of locals influenced by communist ideas as a passive component of the resistance, various modern commentators point to the overall unpopularity of communism in Bessarabia as accounting for the movement's marginality.
Nikita Salogor, the PCM Junior Secretary, was assigned to the task of establishing a partisan branch in Bessarabia and Transnistria from his headquarters in Leninsk. Linked to the PCM and the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, the emerging guerilla force was multinational, with Romanians or Moldovans generally underrepresented; while some partisan groups were always active against the Romanian Army in Bessarabia, until 1944 most of the Moldovan-designated units of the Central Headquarters fought against the Wehrmacht and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Their commandants included Vasily Andreyev, Ivan Aleshin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Frolov, and Gherasim Rudi.
From 1943, with the turn of tides on the Eastern Front, partisan activity increased, as did its repression by Romanian and German forces. Two Romanian counterintelligence units, Centers B and H, were moved to Bessarabia to assist in the effort. Northern Bessarabia fell to the Soviets during the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive of early 1944, which exposed the south to further penetration by the SMERSH, and saw Moldovan partisan units moving in to assist the Red Army. Following the Soviet advance into Romania, the MSSR was fully reestablished, and the SMERSH could begin hunting down those Moldovans who had participated in the anti-partisan effort. This clash also witnessed massacres of captured partisans by the retreating Axis armies, at camps set up in Tiraspol and Rîbnița.
Soviet historiography and propaganda writing acclaimed Moldovan anti-Nazi resistance, which features in Alexander Fadeyev's Young Guard. Various anti- and post-Soviet authors have revisited that image, in some cases describing the partisans as terrorists. Some enduring controversies exist about the role of minorities, and especially those Bessarabian Jews who were targeted by the Holocaust, and whose contribution was generally overshadowed in Soviet sources. By contrast, Romanian writer Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu introduced polemical claims according to which all partisan groups were primarily Jewish.
Activity Early presence During early 1941, Romanian Conducător Ion Antonescu began full preparation for a clash with the Soviets over the recovery of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. In May, after being informed of Operation Barbarossa, Antonescu expressed his "absolute faith" in Nazi Germany, conceiving of Bessarabia's planned annexation as both an act of retribution and a component of the "holy war" on communism. Antonescu's preparation included hearing reports from his various intelligence agencies as to how the Red Army might organize the defense. The Fourth Romanian Army, garrisoned in Bacău, observed Soviet soldiers stationed in the MSSR, and reported with confidence that the recruits were untrained and always on the brink of a surrender. The Special Intelligence Service (SSI) returned a more pessimistic verdict, which included mention of the Soviet tendency to extend war into the enemy's territory. SSI agents warned that the Soviets could also reap the benefits of peacetime propaganda, "attract[ing] the worker and peasant masses from the enemy's army, as well as the [civilian] population, to the side of the revolution."
On 30 June 1941, eight days after the start of the Axis invasion, the PCM Central Committee issued a letter to local party committees with instructions for the creation of underground organizations and a partisan movement behind enemy lines. It recommended that personnel for underground work should be selected from the prewar members of the clandestine Bessarabian communist organization, and that partisan groups should include people with good knowledge of the language and local conditions. The letter advised that extreme precaution should be taken to preserve conspiracy, especially in Bessarabian regions, and that partisan groups and partisans detachments should initially only include up to 10–15 individuals. In accordance with these instructions, the PCM decided on the creation of three underground party committees, 13 underground party organizations and 8 partisan detachments in the parts of the republic east of the Dniester, while in Bessarabian territories it envisioned 139 partisan detachments and a number of underground partisan groups. In all, it assigned 1,479 individuals for organizational duties related to the partisan movement. The Red Army and the secret police, or NKVD, both began the task of arming locals, but failed to keep up with the pace of Axis attacks. Meanwhile, a "Bessarabian" or "Moldovan" anti-Nazi cell was formed in Nazi-occupied France, following a split in the Romanian Communist Party. This group, having had an undecided status before the Nazi–Soviet war of 1941, constituted the Bessarabian Union, which channeled support for the French Resistance and collected funds for hit-and-run attacks on German targets.
In Bessarabia, the rapid advance of Axis troops accounted for a fast disintegration of government structures and PCM networks. Romanian Army sources reported that most localities openly welcomed the new administration; more in-depth analyses by the Gendarmerie expressed concern about the "Bessarabian mindset", proposing that Soviet indoctrination had depleted the region of pro-Romanian sentiments. However, as noted by historian Igor Cașu, many PCM cadres opted not to evacuate the region, preferring Romanian occupation: "[they] had experienced the Stalinist Terror of the 1930s and knew what they could expect with the return of Soviet administration." Official Soviet estimates suggest that 100,000 Moldovans, including some 2,200 PCM cadres, escaped into the Ukrainian SSR. According to Cașu, this number is artificially high, and excludes those who returned to Bessarabia "once the danger of Soviet reprisals had faded." In August 1941, the PCM Central Committee dispatched commissar Luca Diacenko, the former MSSR Minister of Forestry, into Romanian-held territory, where he was to organize an active resistance. Diacenko sent back messages declaring that he was unsuited for the task, and was consequently stripped of his party membership. Another activist sent over to organize the partisans was Pincus Turkenici, who also opted not to engage in such work; he was put on trial for desertion. The organizational work of MSSR cells had to be pursued clandestinely under enemy occupation; some of the envisioned partisan detachments and underground organizations never became active.
Various groups were still attested as active behind the Axis front line against the Romanian Army and wartime administration. Already in July 1941, scattered groups of partisans and "gangs of armed civilians" attacked the Fourth Army's armored brigades, causing only minimal damage. On 6 July, the Komsomol youth of Șaptebani, including both Bessarabian Jews and Moldovans, reorganized into a resistance cell. Two of its members, the Mordar brothers, shot and killed a German soldier, and were subsequently put to death in Petrușeni. One small unit was formed at Voinova by A. N. Romanenko around 14 July, and was probably responsible for the subsequent detonation of a railway bridge in nearby Bucovăț, before being betrayed and captured by pro-Romanian civilians.
Romanian reports indicate several instances of gunfire directed at German personnel and trucks around Bălți. During one such raid, partisans Vasile Cojocaru and Nikolai Kavchuk successfully disarmed a Wehrmacht patrol and absconded with its rifles. On 15 July, members of Bălți's Judenrat were ordered to hand in any communists that they knew to be hiding in the local ghetto, but refused to comply. Retribution followed: 66 Jews, including 20 Judenrat hostages, were gunned down by the Schutzstaffel. Following one other partisan attack on 19 July, the German command ordered the local police to detain 75 men as hostages, all of whom were subsequently executed.
Troops garrisoned in Chișinău were also targeted by partisan attacks, beginning when Valerian Trikolich threw a grenade at a Romanian battery in Pushkin Park. Sabotage was also reported during the early days of occupation, with workers burying the industrial equipment at Chișinău ceramic tiles factory, or setting fire to the city's soap factory. Some groups were formed that were largely independent of the PCM—groups espousing Soviet patriotism, and sometimes manned by Komsomol youth, were established at Berlinți, Beleavinți, and Sîngerei, while Jews in Briceni formed a self-defense unit which prevented a pogrom. The latter group, comprising 47 people, was involved in a shootout with Romanian troops on 22 July.
Setbacks The occupation authorities responded by scaling up repression. Upon creating their Transnistria Governorate, Romanian authorities established in Tiraspol a large concentration camp for Red Army soldiers and captured partisans. In the long run, this had the unintended effect of pushing locals to organize into underground networks to help detainees escape, sometimes using bribery or forgery to dull the vigilance of Romanian guards. In August, the head of Romanian Police in Bessarabia, Pavel Epure, asserted that whatever communists remained at large were "disoriented and paralyzed"—according to historian Piotr Șornikov, this assessment was correct, but mostly because PCM cadres had been informed of the massive defeats encountered by the Red Army. On 28 July, Romanian General Nicolae Ciupercă had issued an ultimatum to the local population, requiring all individuals engaged in underground activity to surrender or risk summary execution. Days after, General Nicolae Pălăngeanu reported increased attacks on Romanian troops and military convoys and ordered a combing of the villages and forests for "communist agents", indicating that those caught attacking the military should be shot. Repressive measures were then directed toward locals who assisted or sheltered paratroopers, while those who helped capture partisans were promised a reward of 10 to 25 thousand lei and land allotment.