This report made me think of the the School they terrorists took over.
One of the Newspaper Editors was fired for reporting the true numbers of the massacre, I don't know if I put that article in the the Files of Terror thread or not.
You might be able to dig around on this site and try the search that I used to get there.
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Stengoram of a Session of the Bureau of
the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Moldavia
TAKING PART:
CC Bureau Members Cdes. Antosiak,
Bodiul, Diordica, Il’yashchenko, Steshov,
Voronin21
CC Bureau Candidate Member Cde.
Sidorenko22
Cde. Volosiuk
Cde. Konstantinov
Cde. Stepanov — department heads of the
CP CC[23]
Cde. Savochko
Cde. Pasikovskii
Cde. Malakhov
Cde. Gorsa — deputy department heads of
Cde. Kondrat’ev the CP CC[24]
5. On the Violation of Party Discipline by
the Minister of Communications of the
Moldavian SSR, Cde. V. P. Russu
Cde. BODIUL: The decision of the CPSU CC
says that insofar as materials of an
anti-Soviet character are being published in
Romanian newspapers and journals, USSR
Glavlit is ordered to monitor Romanian
publications and, if anti-Soviet materials
should appear, to remove them from
circulation.[25] As you know, we decided to
limit the circulation of Romanian
newspapers in which undesirable materials
are published, but unfortunately the
Ministry of Communications did not uphold
this decision.
(Report of Cde. Konstantinov)[26]
Cde. BODIUL: Up to that point,
communications officials had both
propagated and distributed Romanian
literature. It was then brought to your
attention, Cde. Russu, that too much
Romanian literature was being circulated.
And this year a huge number [of people]
had begun subscribing to Romanian
newspapers! You were given an instruction
to halt the circulation of Romanian
newspapers. There’s a journalist law in
Moscow, and do you really think the CC is
not empowered?[27] Are you somehow
above it? Why are you not controlling the
ministry?
Cde. RUSSU: This was in fact done from the
time of the first conversation in 1966, when
the circulation of Romanian periodicals and
publications was widespread. In 1967 the
volume of subscriptions to Romanian
newspapers and journals was sharply
reduced. The greatest possible reduction
was carried out. The circulation was
coordinated with the CC department.[28]
We reduced the number of issues to a
fifteenth of what it had been at the time of
the first conversation.
I traveled to the Ministry of
Communications in Moscow. They did not
want to apply this huge reduction. I linked
up with the CPSU CC department, and, with
the department of propaganda and
agitation, I called the all-union Ministry of
Communications.
Cde. BODIUL: There’s a USSR Minister [of
Communications], Cde. Psurtsev, and you
should have resolved all matters with
him.[29]
How many issues of the newspapers are
entering Moldavia?
Cde. RUSSU: 388 copies for professional
purposes— “Scînteia”—48 copies and by
retail trade some 90 copies. 5 copies to
Ungeny,[30] 2-3 copies to a camping-site,
and several copies to the Soyuzpechat
kiosk in the CC.
In August and September all issues of the
newspapers were held back except for 20
copies designated for border points.
Cde. KONSTANTINOV: But the newspapers
showed up in our hotel and at the airport,
and they were selling them at the kiosks
and in the Intourist hotel.
Cde. RUSSU: In connection with the
long-anticipated events in Czechoslovakia,
I was mobilized.[31] We were in a difficult
situation. We had no experience in this sort
of thing. Since the end of the Great
Patriotic War, we had never once
conducted a training exercise. Several
months before August, the designation of
the battalion was changed. As a result, the
battalion was deprived of its most
important and vital asset. I was not in my
office at the Ministry, since I conducted the
work directly there. There was nowhere to
deploy the equipment. I was in contact with
Minsk, Moscow, and Kyiv. On 23 August
the battalion was brought up to combat
readiness. On the 24th, it was sent to
Czechoslovakia to reestablish
communications. I was preoccupied with
the creation of this military formation.
On the 22nd, the first department reported
to me that there was an urgent instruction
from Moscow. I rode over there and
received a ciphered telegram, which said
that all [Czechoslovak] newspapers must
be held back for two days and all journals
for four days until a directive is received
from Moscow. This was brought on by the
events in Czechoslovakia.
On 22 August, when I was in my military
unit, some soldiers said to me that a
meeting was under way in Romania, and I
listened in to a bit of the meeting where
Ceausescu delivered his speech. I then told
D. S. Cornovan[32] that we must also hold
back all Romanian newspapers. Events
unfolded that way in the future. The deputy
minister, Severinov, assumed leadership of
the ministry.[33] He reported that there
was an instruction from the CC ordering
newspapers and journals to be held back
for two days.
But Severinov and Kucia decided to act in
accordance with the instructions from
Moscow, in accordance with the
instructions of the USSR Ministry of
Communications, which are issued at the
behest of the CPSU CC.[34]
During the first two to three days when the
newspapers were held back, we accepted
the participation of Glavlit. And then they
said: “You have instructions from Moscow;
you should act in accordance with these
instructions.”
Cde. BODIUL: Who in the USSR Ministry of
Communications reads Romanian
newspapers? They issue their regulations
on the basis of general instructions. With
regard to Czechoslovakia, they perhaps
gave a directive from the CPSU CC. But in
Moldavia itself it was clearer which
newspapers must be held back.
Cde. RUSSU: On 26 August, I received
instructions to do the same with Romanian
newspapers as I had been doing with
Czechoslovak publications.
Cde. BODIUL: You report to your ministry
how their actions are in conformity with our
actions, which must be in accordance with
instructions from the CPSU CC. We received
consent and even instructions from the
CPSU CC not to distribute Romanian
newspapers on the 21st. If the all-union
Ministry is interested and is following the
materials, let them consult with the CPSU
CC and the CC of the Moldavian Communist
Party. What happened was a lack of
coordination. And this happened because in
the [all-union] ministry they don’t read
Romanian newspapers.
Cde. IL’YASHCEHNKO: You received
instructions from the [Moldavian] CC, and
even if you did not agree with them, you
can disregard them only if you check with
the CPSU CC. You received instructions
from the CC of the Moldavian Communisty
Party and did not fulfill them. You instead
acted on your own. You did not come and
say that this is not in accord with the
instructions of the CC of the Moldavian
Communisty party and the USSR Monistry
of Communications. You say that people
there also are well-versed in politics. This
is a very dangerous approach. This is a
very dangerous approach when you place
party organs against one another. This did
enormous political damage.
Cde. RUSSU: I would like to say that I am
very much guilty of this, but it was not
through any design.
Cde. IL’YASHCHENKO: You distributed
counterrevolutionary propaganda against
the will of the CC of the Moldavian
Communist Party. You distributed harmful
propaganda, even though you must realize
that it is forbidden to distribute it.
Irrespective of the fact that you did a lot on
this matter, you committed a serious
political mistake in the process.
Cde. BODIUL: It is extremely easy to give a
correct assessment of this matter. You
disregarded the instructions you were
given. The assessment by K. F.
Il’yashchenko is completely correct.
Cde. STESHOV: I would say that this is due
not only to a lack of control, but to a lack of
supervision over your employees. They
began distributing things, but the minister
did not know about it; it was done without
his knowledge.
Cde. BODIUL: You informed us about the
penalties imposed against everyone,
including the first deputy minister, and
informed us about the sorts of measures
you adopted. What’s at issue here are the
interests of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union and our policy. The Romanian
press features hostile items, but you
approach it just as you would any old thing.
Cde. RUSSU: There are more than 400,000
radio receivers in the republic and nearly
half a million televisions. The broadcasts
are in all the major languages: Ukrainian,
Moldavian, and Russian.[35] We must take
urgent measures for the accelerated
creation of technical means to carry out
counterpropaganda.[36] Construction of
the radio relay station from Kishinev to
Kagul is going very poorly.[37] It seems to
me that help must be provided to the
builders, who do not regard the project as
an important matter.
Cde. BODIUL: The main thing is not the
builders, but the project planners.
Everything possible must now be done so
that these facilities can be built. We must
consider and adopt measures to this end.
We must act more quickly in creating a
zone and beginning construction of the
facility.
Cde. RUSSU: We have to expedite the
construction of the Kishinev-Kagul radio
relay station. We need to have powerful
means of communication.
Cde. BODIUL: To do that, we’ll have to
come up with the money. The formulation
should be left as “for violations of party
discipline, either to reprimand or to give a
stern warning.”
Cde. IL’YASHCHENKO: This isn’t the first
incident with Kucia. I’ve known him for
many years.
Cde. KONSTANTINOV: He behaved
outrageously when they began to explain it
to him.
Cde. BODIUL: Kucia and others let Russu
down. The proposal is to issue a stern
warning to Russu.
[SOURCE: AOSPRM, F. 51, I. 29, D. 49, ff.
4 and 10-15]
Mark Kramer, a frequent contributor to the
Bulletin, is the director of the Harvard
Project on Cold War Studies and a senior
associate at the Davis Center for Russian
Studies, Harvard University
[21] Translator’s Note: In addition to
Bodiul, these officials included Georgii
(Gheorghe) Fedorovich Antosiak, the first
deputy chairman of the Moldavian Council
of Ministers (responsible for economic
affairs); Aleksandr (Alexandru) Filippovich
Diordica, chairman of the Moldavian
Council of Ministers; Kirill’ Fyodorovich
Il’yashchenko, chairman of the Presidium of
the Moldavian Supreme Soviet; Boris
Aleksandrovich Steshov, Moldavian CP CC
Secretary (responsible for industry); and
Pyotr (Petre) Vasil’evich Voronin.
[22] Translator’s Note: Sergei Stepanovich
Sidorenko was the chairman of the official
Moldavian trade unions.
[23] Translator’s Note: The officials listed
here were: Vasilii (Vasile) Mikhailovich
Volosiuk, head of the Moldavian CP CC
Administrative Organs Department; Anton
Sidorovich Konstantinov, head of the
Moldavian CP CC Propaganda and Agitation
Department; Georgii (Gheorghe)
Afanas’evich Stepanov, head of the
Moldavian CC Agriculture Department;
Boris Nikolaevich Savochko, head of the
Moldavian CP CC Department for Industry
and Transportation; and Aleksandr
(Alexandru) Ignat’evich Pasikovskii, head of
the Moldavian CP CC General Department.
[24] Translator’s Note: The officials listed
here were Vladimir Nikolaevich Malakhov,
deputy head of the Moldavian CP CC
Propaganda and Agitation Department;
Georgii (Gheorghe) Ivanovich Gorsa,
deputy head of the Moldavian CP CC
Oerganizational-Party Work Department;
and Vasilii (Vasile) Fedorovich Kondrat’ev,
deputy head of the Moldavian CP CC
Department for Industry and
Transportation.
[25] Translator’s Note: Glavlit was the
widely-used nickname of the main organ
responsible for enforcing censorship in the
Soviet Union, the State Directorate for the
Protection of State Secrets in the Press,
which was reestablished in August 1966 as
a body directly
accountable to the USSR Council of
Ministers. Glavlit was originally set up by
the Bolsheviks in 1922 and existed under
various names thereafter. From August
1963 to August 1966, the agency (then
known as the State Directorate for the
Protection of Military and State Secrets in
the Press) was subordinated to the USSR
Committee on the Press. A decree issued
by the USSR Council of Ministers on 18
August 1966 restored Glavlit to its previous
status as a constituent body of the Council
of Ministers. See “Postanovlenie Soveta
Ministrov SSSR o Glavnom upravlenii po
okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v pechati
pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR (Glavlit),” 18
August 1966, in Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv
Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), F. R-9425,
Op. 2, D. 432, L. 1.
[26] Translator’s Note: See the Document
No. 1 above.
[27] Translator’s Note: The reference to a
“journalist law in Moscow” is somewhat
peculiar. There was no comprehensive
press law in the Soviet Union until June
1990: “Zakon SSSR o pechati i drugikh
sredstvakh massovoi informatsii,” 12 June
1990, in Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta
SSSR (Moscow), No. 26 (1990), pp.
492-508. Earlier on, several laws and
provisions of the Soviet constitution relating
to the press were enforced by Glavlit, the
Committee on the Press, and other
agencies, but a comprehensive law on the
press was never adopted, despite
considerable discussion of the idea in 1966
and 1967. The monthly journal Zhurnalist,
edited by E. V. Yakovlev, which began
publication in January 1967 after its
predecessor, Sovetskaya pechat’, fell into
official disfavor, was especially active in
1967 in promoting consideration of the
possibility of a press law. On this point, see
Mark W. Hopkins, Mass Media in the Soviet
Union (New York: Pegasus, 1970), p. 133.
The proposal for a press law ran into
difficulty, however, after the Soviet
Committee on State Security (KGB)
forcibly cracked down on a group of over
100 intellectuals and scholars in November
1967 for allegedly preparing a draft press
law that would have abolished censorship.
Soon thereafter, in April 1968, E. V.
Yakovlev was removed as editor-in-chief of
Zhurnalist and accused of “committing
serious mistakes,” “exercising
unsatisfactory leadership,” and “frequently
publishing ideologically weak materials.”
For declassified materials about these
events, see “TsK KPSS,” 14 November
1967 (Secret), from Yu. V. Andropov, head
of the KGB, plus the accompanying draft
“Proekt zakona o rasprostranenii otyskanii i
poluchenii informatsii,” in Arkhiv Prezidenta
Rossiislkoi Federatsii (APRF), F. 3, Op. 78,
D. 8, Ll. 46-56; and “Postanovlenie
Sekretariata TsK KPSS: O sereznykh
nedostatkakh v rabote zhurnala
‘Zhurnalist’,” St No. 50/5s (Top Secret), 26
April 1968, in RGANI, F. 4, Op. 19, D. 101,
L. 11. The idea of a press law was thus
largely stillborn. In the absence of such a
law, Glavlit, the Committee on the Press,
the KGB, and other bodies responsible for
overseeing the press acted in accordance
with guidelines set forth by the CPSU
Politburo, the CPSU Secretariat, and the
USSR Council of Ministers. Various
problems that arose in 1967 and especially
1968 (in part because of ferment connected
with the Prague Spring) led to the adoption
in January 1969 of stringent, new
guidelines laid out in a CPSU Secretariat
directive: “Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK
KPSS: O povyshenii otvetsvennosti
rukovoditelei organov, pechati, radio,
televideniya, kinematografii, uchrezhdenii
kul’tury i iskusstva za ideino-politicheskii
uroven’ publikuemykh materialov i
repertuara,” St No. 64/1s (Top Secret), 7
January 1969, in RGANI, F. 4, Op. 19, D.
131, Ll. 2-6. For published materials
bearing on control of the press during this
period, see A. Z. Okorokov et al., ed., O
partiinoi i sovetskoi pechati,
radioveshchanii i televidenii: Sbornik
dokumentov i materialov (Moscow: Mysl’,
1972), esp. pp. 357-372.
[29] Translator’s Note: The phrase “CC
department” is shorthand for the “CPSU CC
Department for Liaison with Communist and
Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries”
(Otdel TsK KPSS po svyazyam s
kommunisticheskimi i rabochimi partiyami
sotsialisticheskikh stran), which oversaw
relations among Communist states.
Because of the department’s long and
unwieldy name, it was often referred to as
simply the “CPSU CC department” or the
‘CC department.”
[30] Translator’s Note: Bodiul is referring
here to Nikolai Demyanovich Psurtsev, who
had been serving as Soviet minister of
communications since March 1948.
[31] Translator’s Note: Ungeny is a
Moldovan city roughly 75-80 kilometers to
the west of Kishinev (Chiºinãu), along the
Romanian border.
[32] Translator’s Note: Russu’s comments
here are interesting insofar as they show
how many reservists were being mobilized
in the leadup to the invasion.
[33] Translator’s Note: Dmitrii (Dumitru)
Semenovich Cornovan was a full member of
the Moldavian CP CC Bureau and a
Moldavian CP CC Secretary (responsible for
propaganda). [34] Translator’s Note:
Mikhail (Mihai) Nikolaevich Severinov was
the Moldavian first deputy minister of
communications.
[35] Translator’s Note: Severinov was
identified in the previous footnote.
Konstantin (Constantin) Aleksandrovich
Kucia was head of the foreign
communications section of the Moldavian
ministry of communications.
[34] Translator’s Note: Mikhail (Mihai)
Nikolaevich Severinov was the Moldavian
first deputy minister of communications.
[35] Translator’s Note: Severinov was
identified in the previous footnote.
Konstantin (Constantin) Aleksandrovich
Kucia was head of the foreign
communications section of the Moldavian
ministry of communications.
[36] Translator’s Note: The population of
Soviet Moldavia at this time, according to
official Soviet census data, consisted of
roughly 16 percent Ukrainians, 10-11
percent Russians, 66 percent “Moldavians”
(ethnic Romanians), and small percentages
of other ethnic groups (officially referred to
as “coinhabiting nationalities”). Russian
was the most widely used language in the
republic, especially in urban areas, but
Ukrainian and so-called Moldavian were
also permitted. The supposedly distinct
language of “Moldavian” was purely a
Soviet artifact. It was identical to Romanian
except that it used the Cyrillic alphabet
instead of the Latin.
[37] Translator’s Note: The comments here
about the lack of progress in countering
Romanian radio and television broadcasts
are especially important in light of the
concerns that Bodiul had been expressing
since 1965-66 about “hostile” Romanian
broadcasts.
[38] Translator’s Note: Kagul is a small city
in the far southwest of Moldova along the
Romanian border, roughly 200 kilometers
south of Kishinev (Chiºinãu).
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Subject:
Czechoslovakia,Moldavia,Soviet
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
(Prague Spring),USSR
Bulletin
12-13 -
End of the
Cold War
Pact
Keywords:
Collection
ID:
Research
Notes
Geographic Subject:
Czechoslovakia,Moldavia,USSR
Document
Author:
Document Origin:
Published:
Document Date: 10/11/68
Document
ID:
Document Type: Translated
Russian Document
Archive:
National
Archives
Moldova
(AOSPRM)
Scholars
Christian Ostermann,
Director
Mircea Munteanu,
Project Associate
Richard Thomas,
Production Editor
M. Dee Beutel, Project
Assistant
Cold War International
History Project
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson
Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave.,
N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20004-3027
Email:
coldwar1@wwic.si.edu
Tel: 202/691-4110
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