Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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The Moldovan Communists: from Leninism to Democracy?
Luke March
___________________________________________________________
On 6 March 2005, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won
parliamentary elections for the second time. By dint of Moldova’s parliamentary
constitution it was able shortly afterwards to form the government and (after
negotiation with other parliamentary forces) secure the re-election of its First
Secretary Vladimir Voronin as Moldovan President. This was an unprecedented
result: already with its victory in 2001 the PCRM had become the only avowedly
Communist party to return to power in the post-Soviet space in a free and fair
election, and with its repeat victory it had a strong claim to be (by far) the most
electorally successful European Communist party ever.1
The implications of these precedents are highly contested. The PCRM’s
policy profile and performance receives no mention in the voluminous ‘successor
party’ literature, which analyses the origins and transformation of former ruling
parties2, and only latterly has this author attempted to address this anomaly.3 The
broader consequences of the party’s return are also controversial. The prevailing
view still sees the party as an ‘unreformed’ force prone to creeping authoritarianism.4
However, whilst Moldova has undergone undeniable ‘democracy deterioration’ in
some areas, it did not become the pro-Russia ‘Bessarabian Belarus’ many prominent
analysts predicted.5 In contrast, the party’s 2005 re-election campaign bucked regional
trends of popular mobilisation against corrupt, authoritarian authorities. Far from
facing a so-called ‘Maize revolution’ the PCRM was re-elected on a pro-European
platform little different to its chief competitors and with its relations with Russia at a

Dr Luke March is Lecturer in Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics at the University of Edinburgh. His
email is: [email protected]. The article was first published in the University of Strathclyde's Studies in
Public Policy series, No. 405, available at http://www.cspp.strath.ac.uk/. The British Academy (Small
Research Grant SG-36185), and a Kennan Institute Short-Term Scholarship in November-December
2003 provided funding for this article. The author would like to thank the staff of the European
Division at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. for help and provision of sources. Special
mention is due to Anatol Gudym, Irina Severin and Valerian Tăbirţă, amongst others, for assistance
and friendship while in Chişinău.
1
The closest rival would be the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which won over 38% of the vote
in 1946, however in an election heavily influenced by Soviet pressure.
2
For example, Jane Leftwich, Curry and Joan Barth Urban The Left Transformed in Post-Communist
Societies (Lanham, [Md.]: Rowman & Littlefield 2003), András Bozóki and John T. Ishiyama The
Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), John
T Ishiyama Communist Successor Parties in Post-Communist Politics (Huntington, N.Y.: Nova
Science Publishers, 1999).
3
L. March ‘Socialism with Unclear Characteristics: the Moldovan Communists in Government’,
Demokratizatsiya, vol. 12, no. 4, Fall 2004, pp. 507-524 and L. March ‘Power and Opposition in the
FSU-The Communist Parties of Moldova and Russia’, Party Politics, forthcoming 2005. This present
article is a synthesis and updating of several themes introduced in these articles.
4
For example, Paul D. Quinlan ‘Back to the Future: An Overview of Moldova under Vladimir
Voronin’, Demokratizatsiya, vol. 12, no. 4, Fall 2004, pp. 485-504, and ‘A Bearish Outlook?’, The
Economist, June 25-July 1 2005, p. 14.
5
For example, Taras Kuzio “Back to the USSR; Russia Helps Moldova Follow Belarus’ Lead”,
Jamestown Foundation Prism, 8, 3, March 31, 2002, Michael Shafir “Moldova’s Elections: Redrawing
the regional map?” RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 5, No. 45, Part II, March 2001.
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
___________________________________________________________________________________
nadir, in fact with promises diametrically opposed to those which brought it to power
four years earlier. This led a prominent analyst of Moldovan politics to talk of a new
paradigm in Moldova’s politics based round a new national consensus over
Moldova’s European vocation.6
Accordingly, we focus here on two main aspects of the PCRM’s activity.
First, we aim to understand how the party has won not just one but two elections, by
undertaking both a wider discussion of its long-term reconstitution as a viable
political force, its policy aims and achievements. Second, we assess the broader
contribution of the party to Moldova’s socio-economic transformation and in
particular the significance and implications of the party’s apparent volte-face.
The party’s long-term revival, it will be argued, supports some of the
expectations of literature about successor party transformation. A more sophisticated
account, however, has to take into account both the specificities of national legacy
and the contingencies of post-Soviet reform. The PCRM originally gained power
partly because of Soviet-era advantages partly because of the weakness of post-Soviet
democracy and acute economic distress. Nevertheless, the party’s leadership also
played a great role. The PCRM, far from being an unreconstructed communist party,
is evolving into a nominally communist ‘social populist party’ with a charismatic
leader able to manoeuvre the party’s position opportunistically and exploit its
opportunities. The party’s volte-face was therefore not unexpected, but nor yet is it
entrenched. Whilst in its second term the PCRM will face greater incentives and
pressures to institutionalise its pro-European direction, its incomplete transformation
into a fully democratic party remains an obstacle to this direction.
Policy profile: principle, pragmatism, eclecticism
At first glance the PCRM certainly justifies the common view that it is ‘one of
the most backward and certainly most Red groups in power anywhere in the postSoviet world’.7 Its party program, traditionally an “objective” statement of the party’s
long-term aims, is a clear statement of orthodox Marxism-Leninism, with claims
about the ultimate goal of communism, internationalism, the temporary victory of
capitalism and the class basis of the party’s support co-existing with commitments to
free welfare, state control over banks, at least partial re-collectivization, working class
participation in public administration and a “voluntary and renovated” union of
republics. The party unapologetically claims that it is the heir to the Soviet-era
Communist Party of Moldavia (CPM). Like the notoriously orthodox Ukrainian
Communist Party, it even numbers its congresses to imply continuity: its December
2004 Congress being the V (XXII). Moreover, it remains a member of the post-Soviet
umbrella forum for communist parties, the orthodox Union of Communist PartiesCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP-CPSU).8
However, even in the party programme there are signs of a more pragmatic,
eclectic, and contradictory policy stance. Although there is no explicit commitment to
democracy, there is rejection of “dogmatism”, “totalitarianism”, “ideological
monopoly” and the Stalinist “cult of personality” with commitments to “reformed
socialism”, political rights and freedoms, and entrepreneurship except in the “strategic
6
Vladimir Socor ‘The Regional Impact of Moldova’s Elections’,
http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=97, accessed 9 July 2005.
7
Jamestown Foundation Monitor, 8, 67, April 5, 2002.
8
Programma i ustav Partii Kommunistov Respubliki Moldova (Chişinău: Partiya Kommunistov
Respubliki Moldova, Tsentralnyi Komitet, 2001).
1
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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branches of industry”.9 The party has attempted to broaden its appeal beyond the
Russian-speaking ethnic minorities (a core support of the CPM as well as left-wing
movements in the early 1990s, such as the Socialist Party and Unitate-Edinstvo
(Unity) movement. It has espoused a “Moldovanist” stance similar to that of
Moldova’s first two presidents, Mircea Snegur and Petru Lucinschi. For example, in
its 2001 electoral platform, it promised to defend the right of the Moldovan people to
their name “Moldoveni” and language “limba moldoveneasca”.10 The party claims to
respect all Moldovan languages, cultures and confessions and to be the “party of
Moldovan statehood and patriotism”.11
Overall, the party programme is vague enough to provide the leadership room
for manoeuvre. For instance, it envisions a two-stage transition to a communist
classless society. During the first “general democratic stage” the PCRM promised to
work with “progressive forces” and preserve the “multi-layered” economy. The
second stage promised the “preponderance of the socialist structure” in the economy
and “its orientation to maximally satisfying working class needs”, whilst saying
nothing about democracy. Such promises could be read in two ways: either the
market and democracy were a temporary phase before the onset of full socialism, or
socialism was a goal for the very distant future, even just a rhetorical device.
A certain amount of the party’s eclecticism appears to be prompted by internal
divisions. After de facto secession of Transnistria in 1991-2 the most nostalgic
elements gravitated towards the neo-Soviet Transnistrian regime of former CPM
member Igor Smirnov, rather than the refounded party. Although as a result the
PCRM (unlike Communist Parties in Russia and Ukraine) is relatively unencumbered
by large numbers of militant restorationists within its ranks, it does clearly have an
influential “hard-line’ wing, especially at local level, and represented in its leadership
by such people as ‘Little Lenin’ Victor Stepaniuc (Party deputy chairman and fraction
leader 2001-5) and Vadim Mişin (Deputy chair of parliament 2001-5). This tendency
is more openly nostalgic towards the USSR, reverent towards the Marxist-Leninist
heritage, supportive of Russia, and critical of aspects of the market. In contrast, more
moderate party leaders like Iurie Stoicov have a more Eurocommunist slant. Stoicov,
the party’s official ideologist in 2001-5 (although in practice this role was shared with
Stepaniuc and Voronin), even claimed to see more socialism in the West than the
USSR.12
Indeed critics increasingly assert that neither Voronin nor the party are real
communists and that their ideology is merely a slogan or brand name designed to
mobilize a nostalgic electorate, with several sources suggesting that Voronin no
longer believes in Communism, if indeed he ever did.13 There is much to be said for
this view. To a significant degree the PCRM represents a ‘social populist’ party
rather than a pure communist party.14 That is, a party which attempts to be the vox
populi rather than the vanguard of the proletariat, and which appeals to particularist
identity issues (in this case ‘Moldovanism’) while downgrading internationalism and
class issues. However, although the PCRM’s communism has become far more
9
Ibid.
Vladimir Voronin: Vasha sudba-v vashikh rukakh, (Chişinău, PCRM, 2001).
11
“Moldovan Leader Says Communists Pledged to Democracy, Independence”, Infotag, 27 October
2003.
12
Interview with Iurie Stoicov, PCRM CC Secretary for Ideology, Chişinău, 29 September 2003.
13
E.g. “Chto dalshe?”, Vremya, 23 October 2003, “Veterany KPSS: “Net, Voronin, tyi ne
kommunist”, Moldavskie vedomosti, 4 October 2003, pp. 1-3
14
L. March and C Mudde ‘What’s Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left after 1989:
Decline and Mutation’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 3, no. 1, 2005 pp. 23-49.
10
2
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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nominal, it is an important symbol for traditionalist elements and remains an
important motivation in party conduct.
Nevertheless, as in the Soviet era, declared ideology is only part of the overall
picture. The PCRM’s political culture demonstrates both an authoritarianism that
belies its declared democratic elements, and a pragmatic relationship with the
Moldovan political elite that belies the party’s outsider stance and criticism of the
regime. This is altogether unsurprising: the Soviet nomenklatura from which both the
party elite and many of its opponents are descended (both presidents Snegur and
Lucinschi, as well as Moldova Noastra leader Dumitru Braghiş) was notorious for its
opportunism, elitism and clientelism, especially in Soviet Moldavia, which became a
“personal fiefdom” for Brezhnev’s clients such as Ivan Bodyul and Semën Grossu.15
For example, Voronin's personal hold over the PCRM has appeared near
absolute. He is credited by party supporters with bravery and exceptional leadership
in refounding the party almost single-handedly when other former leaders were
unwilling to do so.16 He has far less of an apparatchik (‘party hack’) and more of a
khozyaistvennik (‘manager’) image than many communist party leaders, with a
charismatic appeal that extends beyond the party organization.17 This is because he
was better known as a state than party official in the Soviet period. Although he was
formerly CPM Tighina (Bender) city secretary, he received public approval as the
head of the Moldavian Interior Ministry in 1989-1990 when he allegedly refused
orders to fire crowds storming CPM headquarters in 1989.
Moreover, despite internal differences that have increased in office the PRCM
has remained remarkably unified, with only one serious split (in 1996, over whether
Voronin should stand as PCRM presidential candidate)18 and alternative leaders are
hard to identify. The unity is maintained not only through traditional communist
discipline and democratic centralism (the communist parliamentary fraction in 19982001 suffered no defections during a period of extreme political instability), but also
through the personal loyalty to Voronin of most of the main leaders and fraction
members (such as Stepaniuc, fraction head from 2005 Eugenia Ostapciuc, and Prime
Minister Vasile Tarlev). None of these are charismatic leaders with a public profile to
match the Communist president’s. Indeed, in office, intra-party criticism exists, but
party leaders and government members remain slavishly loyal.19
Like communists elsewhere who have managed to turn Kapital into capital,
the PCRM appears not oppose private property when it can be the beneficiary.
Moderate communists are openly supportive of the market economy.20 Certainly the
party has developed a co-operative, clientelistic relationship with business, and was
said to be well funded even prior to its electoral victory, with particular interests in the
15
Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Stanford, CA: Hoover
Institution Press 2000).
16
Interview with Stoicov.
17
Various respondents described him as crafty, capricious, emotional, brash “like a bulldozer”,
someone “who thinks like a policeman”, a “vozhd” (chief), and Tsar, who is apparently called “papa”
by his subordinates, and to whom it is difficult to bring bad news.
18
Valeriu Moşneaga 'Prezidentskie vybory v Moldove: opyt predshestvuyushikh (1991, 1996) i
perspektivy predstoyashchei (2000) izbiratel'nykh kampanii' in Valeriu Moşneaga (ed.) Elektoralnye
Tekhnologii I Prezidentskie Vybory (Chişinău: "CAPTES", 1998), pp. 57-75.
19
Author's Interview with Arcadie Barbarosie, Executive Director of Institutul de Politici Publice
(IPP), Chişinău, 8 October 2003.
20
Author’s interview with Victor Ciobanu, PCRM fraction parliamentary deputy, deputy chair of
parliamentary committee on the economy and Vladimir Doronin, PCRM parliamentary deputy and
PCRM Central Committee secretary, Chişinău 3 September 2003.
3
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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wine and tobacco sectors. Indeed, Voronin’s son Oleg, CEO of FinComBank, is one
of the country’s most prominent businessmen.21 Whilst “red businessmen” are not
novel elsewhere (viz. Gennady Semigin, one of the Russian Communist Party’s
former sponsors), the PCRM’s liaison with market economics seems to go much
further, perhaps because, unlike in Russia and Ukraine, the period of mass
privatization (in 1993-5) and land reform (in 1998-2000) occurred when the party was
a relatively minor force, and its opposition was ineffective, and because Voronin is
alleged to have developed business interests prior to his election as PCRM leader.
Although the party’s opponents are quick to brand the communist party as
authoritarian or even totalitarian22, the picture is clearly more complex. Indeed, there
are strong grounds for categorizing the PCRM as already a “semi-loyal” party prior to
winning power, rather than a thoroughly anti-democratic “disloyal” or “anti-system”
party. The concept of semi-loyalty is very difficult to isolate, since it is often a
transitional stage towards greater radicalism or fuller democratic commitments.
Nevertheless, a “semi-loyal” party might be defined as a party which possesses many
elements of a democratic pro-system-orientation (in terms of commitment to
constitutionalism, electoral procedure and non-violence), but one which is made
ambiguous through other commitments and practices (such as a dichotomy between
public democratic commitments and covert practices, and an aspiration for nondemocratic long-term goals that subvert short-term commitments).23
In the PCRM’s case, the ostensible democratic commitments can be seen both
in the aforementioned moderate rhetoric of the party program, its commitment to the
“parliamentary republic” as most answering the needs of popular power24 and the
leading role within the party of relative moderates who were increasingly becoming a
“organic opposition”--that is, tied by personal and financial links to the maintenance
of the post-Soviet regime.25 The communists’ parliamentary practice was more
ambiguous: often they were willing to compromise and negotiate (for instance
contributing three ministers and parliamentary support to the Braghiş government of
December 1999-January 2001), but the PCRM’s rhetoric and style was often less
consensual as it sought to portray itself as an outsider to the political elite and
protector of the people.26 Moreover, as long as the party programme retained the
building of socialism as a long-term goal, its opponents could assert that the party’s
ends remained undemocratic, and that its public respectability was a lie.
The rise and fall of Communist power
It is all too easy to see the PCRM’s revival simply as a causal reaction to Moldova’s
catastrophic post-Soviet economic decline, the vote of ‘a population at the brink of
21
E.g. “Voronin-samyi avtoritetny biznesmen”, Moldavskie vedomosti, (electronic version,
www.vedomosti.md), 5 October 2002.
22
Author’s interviews with Dumitru Braghiş, leader of party Moldova Noastra, Chişinău, 30
September 2003 and with Ambassador Ceslav Ciobanu, Washington, D.C. 1 December 2003.
23
Juan J., Linz and Alfred C. Stepan, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1978).
24
For example, Politicheskii otchet TsK PKRM chetvertomu (XXI) sezdu (2001). From PCRM website
(www.pcrm.md).
25
Richard Sakwa, “The Russian KPRF: The Powerlessness of the Powerful” in András Bozóki and
John T. Ishiyama (eds.) The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe, (Armonk:
M. E. Sharpe 2002), pp. 240-267.
26
For instance, by regularly voting against “anti-social” budgets. See D. Ionescu, “From Left to Right,
but not quite”, Transitions Online (www.tol.cz), 8 January 1999.
4
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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survival’ as former Romanian president Iliescu put it.27 Clearly, the economy is a vital
factor. Moldova is now the poorest state in Europe and amongst the poorest in the
CIS. In 2000, its official economy was barely one third of its 1991 size, and 60-70
percent of its population lived below the poverty line.28 In addition, the departure of
perhaps 600-800 thousand Moldovans to work abroad in Russia or Western Europe
(some 15% of the total population) has left an electorate of which perhaps one third
are pensioners, usually the poorest, most electorally disciplined, and most procommunist of all post-Soviet strata. As elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, there is a
‘socialist value culture’—strong nostalgia for the Soviet era economic securities and
state paternalism that has aided the return of the post-communist left.29 In addition,
the extreme economic polarisation suffered by Moldova would, a priori, appear to
provide little basis for a moderate social democratic successor party based on a strong
middle class.
However, the economy alone cannot be the full explanation: until 2001’s
‘great leap forward’, pro-communist sympathies appeared to have an electoral basis of
just over 30%, not vastly stronger than in Russia or Ukraine at that point (see Table
One). Comparatively speaking, there appears to be little direct correlation between the
depth of economic crisis and both the transformation and further success of former
communist parties elsewhere: for example the relatively prosperous Czech Republic
has a large but electorally unsuccessful communist party, but economically stricken
Lithuania produced an electorally successful social-democratic party in 1992.
Table 1: PCRM election performance
1995 (municipal, raion)
1996 presidential round
one (Voronin)
1998 (parliamentary)
1999 (county councils
and Chişinău municipal
council)
2001 (parliamentary)
2003
(district
and
municipal councils)
2005 (parliamentary)
Vote share
Seats
Turnout
16.32
10.23
206
N/a
60.02
68.13
30.01
37.82
40
118*
69.12
58.45
50.07
48.07
71
615
67.52
58.66
45.98
56
64.84
*As part of the “Communists, Agrarians and Socialists” bloc with ADPM and Party of Socialists
of Moldova. Source: ADEPT website (www.parties.e-democracy.md) on 11/7/05.
27
‘Bucharest, Tiraspol not Enthusiastic over Communist Victory’, RFE/RL Newsline, 28 February
2001.
28
Towards a Culture of Peace. National Human Development Report, Republic of Moldova.
(Chişinău: United Nations Development Fund, 2000).
29
P. T. Christensen ‘Socialism after Communism?: The Socioeconomic and Cultural Foundations of
Left Politics in Post-Soviet Russia’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1998, pp.
345-357; Stephen White’s February 2000 survey shows indicative figures such as a mere 6 %
exhibiting clear preference for the post-Soviet economic system, 58% supporting state ownership and
40% saying “job security” was the best feature of the Soviet system. See Stephen White, Public
Opinion in Moldova (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 2000).
5
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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Accordingly, the most influential explanations for successor party
transformation involve assessing the communist legacy, ‘critical moments’ during
transition, the political environment and elite agency, the last factors allegedly being
path-dependent on the first, with all factors contributing to the ability (or not) of a
former ruling party to exploit the travails of transition.30
Herbert Kitschelt’s influential approach asserts that pre-communist and early
communist experience is most important in producing a legacy of ‘patrimonial
communism’ in former Soviet states.31 Patrimonial communist regimes arose when
communists took over historically underdeveloped, agricultural and authoritarian
countries, with few strong social forces besides the peasantry and few democratic
traditions that might complicate the communist takeover. Such regimes were able to
adapt pre-communist forms of authority and through a hierarchical patronage-based
rule entrench themselves in society far more deeply than communist parties who
encountered organised opposition or democratic traditions. In the post-Soviet period,
patrimonial communism allegedly leads to forces emerging from the communist
regime being endowed with a ‘lop-sided power balance’--whereby ancien regime
forces preserve their positions through rules of the game that personalise power and
capitalise upon their existing networks and authority, whilst opposition challengers
are comparatively weak
A model which posits a similar deterministic legacy for over a dozen
communist regimes needs some qualification. Grzymala-Busse’s legacy-centred
approach focuses more on the post-war and pre-transition elite ‘portable skills’
(expertise in reform and negotiation with the opposition) and ‘usable pasts’ (a record
of positive communist achievements that resonates with the populace and can buttress
post-communist claims of governing competence.32 Ultimately, if for different
reasons, Grzymala-Busse agrees with Kitschelt over the main effects of ‘patrimonial
communism’: a patrimonial communist party engages less with society, has fewer
‘portable skills’ (in the sense of ability to negotiate with opponents and adapt to
democratic politics), but in compensation may not fully exit from power, and
maintains a ‘portable past’ based largely on a clientelistic appeal to its supporters.
This approach has problems: it largely disregards ideology, and assumes that elite
‘reformism’ and elite ‘skill’ are identical, implying leaders like Milosevic were
somehow ‘unskilled’ and unable to adapt to democracy, rather than adept and
opportunistic political manipulators. Ishiyama’s approach in contrast highlights how
the intra-party ideological struggle during transition (a struggle itself legacyinfluenced), will help define a party’s post-communist programmatic orientation.33
Even modified legacy approaches encounter the problem of which of many
legacies matters when, to whom, and how much. We can identify many broad features
of ‘patrimonial communism’ in contemporary Moldova, not just the prevalence of excommunists across the political spectrum, Voronin’s leadership style, and the
30
March, ‘Power and Opposition’ unpacks these explanations as they apply to successor parties in
more detail.
31
Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markowski and Gábor Tóka Post-Communist
Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press,1999)
32
Anna Grzymała-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist Parties in
East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
33
John T. Ishiyama, 'Communist Parties in Transition: Structures, Leaders, and Processes of
Democratization in Eastern Europe' Comparative Politics 27, 1995, pp. 147-66.
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Luke March
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corruption that continues to mar Post-Soviet Moldovan politics.34 However, how this
patrimonial legacy translates into the return of the PCRM is very complex.
Moldova certainly had minimal history of democracy or socialism prior to
Soviet times. Except during Moldovan statehood in the early middle ages, it was a
predominately agricultural region divided between contesting empires. In 1901-2,
Chisinau was the first place where Lenin’s Iskra had been published underground, but
prior to World War I, Bolshevik influence was weak in Bessarabia, the territory on the
west (right) bank of the river Nistru (Dnestr). From 1917-1940, Bessarabia was a
constituent part of Romania, itself an agricultural country where peasant populism
flourished. The Romanian Communist Party was exceedingly weak and divided.35
After World War II the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) was
born—a chimera created by grafting together Bessarabia with the former Moldavian
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR) on the east (left) bank of the Nistru
(the area called Transnistria) and ceding territory from both to Ukraine.36 The
MASSR was a thoroughly artificial creation, created in 1924 to press Moscow’s
continuing claim to neighbouring Bessarabia. Formerly part of Ukraine, it was
populated predominately by Slavs, and (unlike Bessarabia) had never been part of
Greater Romania.
After World War II the Soviets entrenched themselves deeply and quickly in
the post-war republic, aided by Moldova’s small size, relative economic
backwardness, war devastation, and deportations and collectivisation in the late 1940s
that mirrored the severity of Sovietisation in the Baltics. Since the MASSR had
already experienced collectivisation and industrialisation and had been a loyal outpost
of Stalinism between the wars, the left bank acted as the ‘atom of socialist
construction’ within the new state.37 Loyal and experienced cadres from the left bank
were thus preferred to suspect recruits from formerly ‘bourgeois’ Bessarabia, and
entrenched themselves as the new country’s thoroughly Russified elite.38
Symptomatically, Bessarabian communists, who had had been a loyal pro-Soviet
kernel of the Romanian Communist Party before World War II were not admitted into
the Moldovan Communist Party until after Stalin’s death.39
As a result the CPM became a ‘blind tool of Moscow’40, one of the most
Russified of any and completely integrated in the nomenklatura system. For figures
like Brezhnev and Chernenko, service in Moldova became an important rung in the
promotion ladder.41 Whereas most other republics were ruled by a member of the
titular nationality, until Petru Lucinschi in 1989 the CPM’s first secretaries had first
secretaries either from Ukraine or Transnistria, never Bessarabia. Communist
Moldova produced much ‘usable past’ as the USSR’s breadbasket and its main
vineyard and orchard’, which had been in the frontline against Fascism and thereafter
34
Nations in Transit 2005:Moldova, from www.freedomhouse.org.
Maria Manoliu-Manea The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina (Los Angeles,
Calif.: American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1983).
36
I prefer the correct Romanian Transnistria to the multiple Russian-Latin compounds in academic use
(‘Trans-dnestr’/-‘dniestria’ etc.) The Russian is Pridnestrov’e.
37
King, The Moldovans, p. 134.
38
King, The Moldovans pp. 98-100, Manoliu-Manea, The Tragic Plight of a Border Area.
39
S. Trapeznikov (ed), Istoriya MSSR (vol. 2) (Kishinev: Cartya Moldovenyaske. 1968), p. 388.
40
Nicholas Dima From Moldavia to Moldova: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute (Boulder,
Co.: East European Monographs , 1991).
41
Brezhnev was CPM first secretary in the early 1950s while Chernenko served in the party from 1948
to 1959. King, The Moldovans, p. 98.
35
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Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
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rapidly modernized.42 However, Brezhnev-era corruption was reflected in its
backwardness relative to much of the USSR—in levels of wealth, urbanisation,
industrialisation and life expectancy, it became more Central Asian than European.43
The stage might then have been set for the clientelistic elite to pre-empt and
control liberalisation, as in many other patrimonial communist transitions. Instead, the
demise of the CPM supports Kitschelt’s contentions, firstly that legacy-based effects
can be undermined by ‘unique exogenous historical shocks, idiosyncrasies of timing
and particular leadership choices‘, and secondly, that suppressed titular ethnic groups
can force even an entrenched communist party to negotiate or capitulate.44 In the
Moldovan case, the shocks administered to the communist party were provided both
by political mobilisation of the 65% ethnic Moldovan population, the influence of
adjacent Romania and the competing ambitions of elites on either side of the Nistru.
Although there was no outward sign of reform in the party until late 1987,
undercurrents were present from the 1960s in what King calls ‘the quiet Romanization
of Moldovan intellectuals’.45 In the interwar period, the MASSR had gone to
extraordinary lengths to deny Romania’s claim to Moldova through the insistence of
separate nations and cultures (most notably through the stipulation that ‘Moldovan’
was Slavic rather than Latin in origin, and periodic attempts to Slavicise the
language). But once both Moldova and Romania became Soviet satellites, the
insistence was far weaker, with Moldovan distinguished from Romanian chiefly
through its use of the Cyrillic alphabet, and Romanian literature became more
accessible to the cultural elite.
As elsewhere in the USSR, anti-communists used ‘slogans of cultural
renaissance and national solidarity’ to supplant the Soviet elite.46 In the CPM,
opportunistic communists such as CC secretary Mircea Snegur, representing a newer
Bessarabian elite who were more culturally and linguistically Moldovan, exploited
such nationalist slogans against the Russified cadres of Transnistria. Split by rivalries
and indecision, the Communist leadership took a markedly passive position that
helped radicalise the demands of Moldova’s informal movement, the ‘Democratic
Movement for the Support for Perestroika’ from environmental concerns, to the issue
of raising the status of the Moldovan language and restoring the Latin alphabet to the
Moldovan language and ultimately to sovereignty and an end to party rule.47
The CPM collapsed remarkably quickly as the national issue radicalised in
1989-90, particularly hastened by the revolution in Romania and the ready availability
of a new national literature just across the border. Essentially, three new social
movements emerged and the open participation of party leaders in these began its
marginalisation as a coherent institution. Foremost were the Pro-Romanians in the
42
Andrei Brezianu Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Moldova (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press,
2000). See also the self-congratulatory memoirs of Soviet leaders such as Semen Grossu, ‘Sovetskaya
Moldaviya: v edinoi bratskoi sem”e, (Moscow: Izdaltelst’vo politicheskoi literatury, 1982).
43
Charles King Post-Soviet Moldova: A Borderland in Transition (London: Russian and CIS
Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995).
44
Herbert Kitschelt 'Constraints and Opportunities in the Strategic Conduct of Post-Communist
Successor Parties: Regime Legacies as Causal Argument' in András Bozóki and John T. Ishiyama (ed.)
The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), pp.
14-40.
45
King, The Moldovans, p. 106.
46
King, Post-Soviet Moldova.
47
Crowther suggests that the passivity was a product both of the anti-perestroika stance of Grossu’s
supporters, and the wait-and-see attitude of reformist forces who were wishing to see him removed by
Moscow. See William Crowther 'The Politics of Ethno-National Mobilization: Nationalism and
Reform in Soviet Moldavia' Russian Review, vol. 50, 1990, pp.183-202.
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Popular Front of Moldova, increasingly supported in many of their cultural demands
by a second group of Moldovanists who endorsed Moldovan political autonomy (but
not necessarily union with Romania), including Communists such as Snegur. The
final group, representing Moldova’s 35% ethnic minorities (principally Ukrainian,
Russian and Gagauz), mobilised in defence of their cultures. Since they were heavily
Russified, they usually adopted a pro-Soviet orientation in reaction to panRomanianism, mobilising in pro-Soviet movements such as Unitate-Edinstvo and the
United Council of Work Collectives (OTSK) in Transnistria.
As elsewhere in the USSR, party unity was all but destroyed by the republican
elections of February-March 1990. The collaboration between the Popular Front and
dissident communists allowed them to dominate the Moldovan Supreme Soviet.
Snegur became chair of the Supreme Soviet, de facto republican President, and a
Popular Front government was installed after the communist one fell in May 1990.
The Komsomol and Pioneers movement were quickly abolished and the party found
itself in ‘opposition’.48
Party collapse was further complicated by ethnic and regional factors: the
CPM split ‘into a country-wide reformist wing and a regionally concentrated
conservative wing that consolidated its control over Transnistria and Comrat in
Gagauzia’.49 But even the countrywide wing was split: conservative party
intellectuals, urban Russian-speakers and members of the Chişinău apparat gravitated
to Unitate-Edinstvo. Although espousing ostensibly similar issues and both enjoying
the patronage of the pan-USSR Interfront movement co-ordinated from the Soyuz
group in the USSR Congress, the OTSK was organisationally and culturally distinct:
it was based on trade union and management structures (primarily in the industry
concentrated on the east bank) and avoided even the minimal party reform occurring
on the right bank. As the tensions between the pro-Romanian Chişinău government
and the pro-Soviet Transnistrians and Gagauz intensified, the latter groups boycotted
the Moldovan Supreme Soviet and moved towards separatism secession, leaving only
an attenuated party (40 out of 380 deputies) operating within the west bank political
system.
The leaders of the rump party sought rapid compromise to survive. Gorbachev
replaced Grossu with the pragmatic Lucinschi in late 1989. Lucinschi removed
Grossu appointees and held-round table talks with the opposition, firmly committing
the CPM to a path of democratisation in 1990-1.50 The last first secretary Grigore
Eremei’s election in February 1990 represented a partial return to late Gorbachevite
conservatism.51 However, a movement to social democratize the party was interrupted
by the August 1991 coup.52 Too late, the CPM condemned the putsch (the
Transnistrians, characteristically, supported it), and then cut its ties with the CPSU.53
This did not stop it suffering the fate of the CPSU throughout Soviet territory; it was
banned and its property sequestered.
From refoundation to respectability
48
‘Na plenume TsK Kompartii Moldovy’, Sovetskaya Moldaviya, 20 October 1990, p. 3.
Steven D. Roper, 'Regionalism in Moldova: The Case of Transnistria and Gagauzia' in James Hughes
and Gwendolyn Sasse (eds.) Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union (London: Frank Cass,
2002), pp. 101-12.
50
For example Sovetskaya Moldaviya, 3 April 1990, pp. 1-2.
51
Vladimir Socor ‘The Moldavian Communists: From Ruling to Opposition Party’, Report on the
USSR, April 5, 1991, pp. 15-21.
52
Information from Julianne Paunescu.
53
See Grigore Eremei, Fata nevazuta a puterii (Chisinau: Litera, 2003) pp. 229-236.
49
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Communist power appeared utterly finished within Moldova proper. However
the first precondition for the revival of the communists was the rapid decline of the
Popular Front. The Frontists embarked upon a ‘romantic platform’ embracing national
rebirth, democratic and market reform, a return to the West and a unification with
Romania.54 However, as elsewhere in the former USSR, leaders who were
predominately writers and intellectuals lacked leadership skills. Furthermore, their
radicalism on ethno-linguistic and historical questions (in particular the accent on
rapid union with Romania in 1990-2, a view which has consistently received marginal
support outside the intellectual sphere) helped provoke radical separatism from the
national minorities and exacerbated internal splits within the Front itself.
There was, however, a latent demand for the reconstitution of the communist
party with several ‘successor parties’ emerging to fill the vacuum. The violent conflict
with Transnistria in 1991-2 furthered the decline of the Popular Front, and engendered
a mainstream ‘right-bank consensus’ over national sovereignty, social solidarity and
peace. Former so-called ‘reform’ communists such as the chair of parliament
(Lucinschi), prime minister (Andrei Sangheli) and president (Snegur) again
dominated leadership positions, and they formed the Agrarian Democratic Party of
Moldova (ADPM) as a centre-left ‘party of power’ able to consolidate the country.
The ADPM was based predominately on collective farm structures, CPM rural district
committee 1st secretaries and rural ethnic Moldovans, whilst urban Russian-speakers
gravitated towards the more left-wing and Russocentric Unitate-Edinstvo movement
and the Socialist Party (this was founded in August 1992, and, as in Russia and
Ukraine, was largely a holding operation for communists who awaited a repeal of the
ban).
Several CPM local organisations still functioned, and although communists
joined the new left parties, others felt that this was betraying the cause.55 Rank-andfile communists appealed unsuccessfully to several former leaders before Vladimir
Voronin eventually agreed to return from Moscow (where he was in the MVD police
reserve) to contest the ban.56
Unlike in Russia, the ban on the Communists was instigated by the
parliamentary Presidium, not the President, which made the question of repeal
unrealistic until the pan-Romanian parliamentary majority declined in 1992-3.
However, the rise of the ADPM and international pressure for the adoption of a
democratic post-Soviet constitution provided a more propitious environment. After
the Procuracy had found there to be no grounds for linking the party to the August
1991 coup, the parliamentary presidium revoked the ban in late 1993. This fateful
decision appeared to be made for very short-term reasons that underestimated the
party’s future potential; presidium members sought to prove their own democratic
credentials, while ADPM leaders such as parliamentary speaker Lucinschi calculated
that the communists would drain away more leftist members of the Agrarian
Democratic Party, but would stay too weak to supplant it.57 Lucinschi may also have
believed that a social-democratized communist party could be a future ally.58
54
Igor Botan ‘Politicheskoe razvitie Respubliki Moldova za desyat’ let nezavisimosti’, Moldoscopie:
Probleme de analiza, Part XVII, 2001, pp. 21-38.
55
Interview with Victor Ciobanu.
56
Interview with Stoicov.
57
Information from Julianne Paunescu.
58
Moldavskie vedomosti, 20 November 2004, electronic version (www.vedomosti.md).
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The PCRM’s legal registration was ultimately only obtained in April 1994
after it had removed claims to the CPM’s property. Voronin was formally confirmed
as party leader at the first congress in December 1994, but the party could not
participate in the February 1994 parliamentary elections. Individual members did
participate in the ADPM (which gained 43% of the vote and a parliamentary majority)
and the ‘Socialist Party and Unitate-Edinstvo movement’ coalition (which ran on a
nostalgic programme opposing privatisation and defending Russian speakers, gaining
22% of the vote and 27 seats (the second largest fraction). Communists later formed a
seven-deputy communist fraction within the new parliament. By contesting regional
elections in 1995 and the presidential elections of 1996 (see Table One), the PCRM
gradually regained a foothold in post-Soviet politics.
We can already observe aspects of the ‘patrimonial communist’ legacy. For
example, the swift re-consolidation of much of the party elite around the Agrarian
Democratic Party in the early 1990s around a consensus and stability-based platform
demonstrates a ‘lop-sided power balance’ in favour of the former elite. The degree to
which this elite possessed ‘portable skills’ is to be debated. The nomenklatura
possesses pragmatism and centrism that are important factors in social stability, but
they are often only opportunistically democratic. Lucan Way’s description of
Moldova as a case of “pluralism by default”59 is perhaps a harsh judgment given the
pro-European orientation of most of the political elite and the durability (to date) of
Moldova’s procedural democracy despite abject poverty, but certainly captures the
“low level of civil responsibility” and “legal and moral anomie” of politicians whose
democratic credentials often went skin deep.60 Clearly though, the ADPM directly
helped the communists recover, not just by aiding the repeal of the ban but also by
completely collapsing in 1995-8, as presidential rivalries and infighting over the
spoils of the privatization process led both Snegur and Lucinschi to leave in 1995.
The Communists would never have had the chance to exploit the economic decline
had it not been for the complete meltdown of the principal centre-left force, successor
party and would-be party of power.
At the same time, we can pinpoint many contingent effects at critical
junctures, with path-dependent effects no less influential than legacy. The complex
inter-ethnic balance and Russian-Romanian historical-cultural divisions perhaps
always predicted a party split on an ethno-linguistic and regional basis, but the
radicalism of the Popular Front made this inevitable. For example, by arresting and
then releasing the Transnistrian leaders for supporting the August 1991 coup, the
Moldovan government made compromise all but impossible.61 Thereafter, the
decisive interference in the escalating conflict by the Russian 14th army was critical to
maintaining the de facto secession of the self-declared ‘Dnestr Moldovan Republic’
(Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika, PMR) from Moldova. Secession proved
a lasting blow to the country’s economy, with the loss of some 40 percent of
Moldova’s industrial potential, and a dependency on agricultural produce and CIS
links that eventually made the country very vulnerable to the August 1998 Russian
economic crisis, and in turn significantly eased the communists’ return in 2001.
This period had further long-term effects, however. From the outset, the
PCRM’s state-building approach indicated that it shared the ‘right-bank consensus’
and operated within the post-Soviet political system. On refounding, the party
59
Lucan A. Way 'Pluralism by Default in Moldova' Journal of Democracy, vol. 13 no. 4, 2002, pp 127141.
60
Towards a Culture of Peace.
61
King, The Moldovans pp
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declared that it supported a ‘realistic policy’ respecting all Moldova’s ethnic groups.
While sympathetic to the plight of the Transnistrian people, the PCRM supported a
‘sovereign, independent, united and indivisible state’. Symptomatically, its slogan
was ‘Republic, Popular Power and Socialism’.62
Moreover, the polarisation of ethno-regional conflict in the early 1990s had
the consequence of making an ethnic split the dominant cleavage in Moldovan
politics, while the communist-anti-communist cleavage was relatively weak, also
because former communists were scattered across the political spectrum.63 This
deprived anti-communism of much of the potency it has elsewhere in the CIS.
Moreover, since its major left-wing competitor Unitate-Edinstvo remained a
Russophone minority protest bloc, the PCRM’s vote appeared to lack barriers to
expanding as the ADPM disintegrated.
Overall, a whole host of short-term opposition decisions played into the
communists’ hands. Amongst the most important was the decision to re-legalise the
party.64 As in Russia and Ukraine, this allowed the party to re-emerge with a sense of
grievance and momentum. Moreover, that the party did not contest a national election
until 1998 meant that they could position themselves as outsiders to the political elite
with “clean hands”, a stance they made much of in 2001, when politicians’ integrity
was the dominant theme.65 As Voronin acknowledged, many people voted for the
communists as a protest vote rather than for its programme, arguably because all other
viable alternatives were exhausted.66
Other short-term factors which clearly impacted on the communists’ success
were the decision to move to a parliamentary republic on July 5, 2000, far less a
principled decision than a short-term “vote by the political class against Mr
Lucinschi”.67 Moreover, the increase in the electoral barrier in 2000 from 4% to 6%
excluded two smaller centrist parties getting over four percent (the Party of Rebirth
and Conciliation, and the Democratic Party). This meant that only two opposition
parties entered parliament, essentially magnifying the communists’ margin of victory,
and contributing to a 71-seat majority, which could form a government (52 seats),
elect a president (61 seats), and change the constitution (68 seats). Finally, the calling
of early elections in 2001 was caused by the centre and centre-right’s boycott of a
third parliamentary vote for president on 21 December 2000, because of their
unwillingness to countenance Voronin’s probable election. Ironically, if he had won
then, he would have been dependent on a parliament lacking a communist majority.
Of course, the parliamentary system itself has been blamed for the communist
victory.68 This is true in as much as a stronger presidential system (as in Russia or
Ukraine) prevents communist dominance in parliament translating into real legislative
or executive power. Moldova’s 1994 constitution, while formally semi-presidential,
was one of the more parliamentary in the Soviet bloc, with a strong constitutional
court partially selected by parliament and parliamentary oversight over government
62
“Dokumenty pervykh let”, Kommunist No. 30-31, 12 September 2003.
William Crowther 'The Politics of Democratization in Postcommunist Moldova' in Karen Dawisha
and Bruce Parrott (eds.) Democratic Changes and Authoritarian Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus
and Moldova, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 282-329.
64
Information from Julianne Paunescu.
65
Ronald J. Hill 'Moldova Votes Backwards: The 2001 Parliamentary Election' Journal of Communist
Studies and Transition Politics, vol. 17, no. 4, 2001, pp. 130-139.
66
PKRM: dva goda u vlasti , from PCRM website (www.pcrm.md), accessed 14/7/03; “Voronin Reelected Moldovan Communist Leader”, RFE/RL Newsline, Part II, 23 April 2001.
67
Economist Intelligence Unit Country Report: Moldova, August 2000, p. 35.
68
Way, “Pluralism by Default in Moldova”.
63
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combining with presidential right of issuing decrees and dissolving the legislature if it
were gridlocked. President Lucinschi had lamented that the 1994 constitution was
simply too democratic to be effective.69 Certainly, since leading politicians were
clearly connected to parties, unlike in more purely presidential systems, a decline in
the popularity of either contributed to parliamentary volatility, gridlock and the
turnover of governments. The instability of Moldova’s governments, with eight from
1991-2001 and three in the four years before the communists’ victory in 2001,
contributed to the air of palpable crisis.
Nevertheless, it was the particular form of parliamentarism, not the
parliamentary system per se that contributed to the communists’ electoral victory. For
example, the 1994 electoral system, a PR system based on a single national electoral
district, gave parties little incentive to form connections with local voters through
constituencies. Notably, 67 of 101 parliamentary deputies in 2005 were from
Chisinau.70 The communists, as the only party with a stable nation-wide local
organizational network (a legacy inherited from the CPM) turned this into a virtue in
1998 and 2001, concentrating on the “home-to-home, eye to eye” activity that other
parties generally ignored.71 Their 4000 activists distributed press free of charge.72
Having long aimed to put a party organization in every district, they had party
workers in 1000 of the country’s 1004 villages and claimed to have met virtually
every voter during the campaign.73
Voronin’s leadership maximized the party’s opportunities. The PCRM
manoeuvred in parliament in 1998-2001 to give its fraction power and visibility,
combining selective support and two no-confidence votes. Voronin was even
(unsuccessfully) nominated as PM by Lucinschi in 1999. The communists managed
the 2001 election campaign adeptly, concentrating on simple, direct promises to
voters, whilst other parties squabbled over more esoteric issues like EU expansion.
They articulated a strongly populist appeal that played directly to protest sentiments.
For instance their slogans were direct: “Order in the Country, Welfare in the Family”
and their promises were both simple (strengthening Moldova’s sovereignty and
statehood, ending corruption, realizing a new economic course), and neo-Soviet (price
controls, increased social guarantees, and a greater role for the state in the economy)
while their supporters distributed free provisions to voters.74 They relied heavily on
the personal appeal of Vladimir Voronin, who was head and shoulders in front of
other presidential contenders by 2001. Consequently, during the elections the PCRM
had managed to broaden its electoral constituency not just quantitatively but
qualitatively as economic concerns became predominant. It drew not just on former
Socialist, Unitate-Edinstvo and Agrarian votes, but also on disgruntled service sector
workers and industrial workers who had previously voted for the centre and moderate
right.75 Certainly, party membership figures suggested that, though the party still
over-represented the Russian-speaking minorities, ethnic Moldovans increasingly
69
Botan ‘Politicheskoe razvitie Respubliki Moldova.
ADEPT e-Journal, III year, no. 47, February 14 - March 6, 2005.
71
“Vlast--eto otvetstvennost” Kommunist 74, 2002. From PCRM website (www.pcrm.md),
72
Hill, “Moldova Votes Backwards”.
73
Moldova 2001: Parliamentary elections (2001). Report of the British Helsinki Human Rights
Group at www.bhhrg.org.
74
The party election manifesto was Vladimir Voronin: Vasha sudba-v vashikh rukakh, (PCRM: 2001).
75
Claus Neukirch, Moldovan Headaches: The Republic of Moldova 120 Days after the 2001
Parliamentary Elections (Hamburg: University of Hamburg, Centre for OSCE Research. Working
Paper 3, 2001). p. 9.
70
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supported it.76 In an election that was regarded as free and fair by international
observers, and with a large turnout, the victory of the Party of Communists was
clearly the “free will of the Moldovan people.”77
The party in power: pragmatism and populism
During the PCRM’s first term from March 2001 until February 2005, its
policy became remarkably contradictory, with number of U-turns, non-sequiturs and
unfulfilled policy commitments given its ostensible executive strength, which we can
summarize only relatively briefly here.78 We can identify a period of consistent reSovietisation until mid-2002, policy confusion thereafter until late 2003, and a more
evident, but still inconsistent pro-European direction thereafter.
The PCRM inherited conflicting incentives in office. Although the presidency
had been weakened by the 2000 constitutional reform, the fact that its holder was a
member of an overwhelmingly dominant parliamentary party, structured on the basis
of strict internal discipline, made Voronin a potentially powerful president able to put
his programme into action. Indeed, he relied on the largest governmental majority in
Moldova yet. On the other hand, the party faced a potential problem of political
inexperience, with most of its deputies only having served one term in parliamentary
opposition, and with a mere 30 out of 71 having served in the previous parliament.
Critics argued that the party had clearly not expected to win the elections by such a
huge majority and therefore many of its personnel were inadequately prepared for
governing.79 Moreover the party faced limited pressure to further develop democracy:
parliamentary opposition had been routed (with a mere 30 seats between them),
Moldovan civil society was notoriously weak and solving acute socio-economic
problems and achieving the unity of the state appeared the highest priorities in the
party’s platform, necessary, but not sufficient, for furthering democracy.
In domestic politics, zigzags were apparent within an overall trend towards
greater centralization, paternalism, and political tension. The government moved
swiftly to implement key planks of the communist electoral platform. The two most
controversial involved making Russian the second state language (as opposed to its
official status of “the language of interethnic communication”) and the proposal to
replace the textbook, “History of the Romanians” with the “History of Moldova” in
schools. Combined, these proposals provoked the biggest and longest demonstrations
since independence (allegedly of up to 100,000) in Chisinau in January-April 2002, to
which the communists responded to suspending the pan-Romanian ChristianDemocratic People’s Party (PPCD), the chief instigator of the protests. Both the two
proposals and the ban were rescinded after the intervention of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who instituted a Permanent Round Table
76
In January 2001, its membership composition was as follows: 52% Moldovan, 20% Ukrainian, 16%
Russian, 4% Gagauz, 3% Bulgarian and 5% other. This compares with 1989 figures of 47.8%
Moldovan 20.7% Ukrainian 22.2% Russian and 2.5% Jewish. See Natsionalnyi sostav Partii
Kommunistov Respubliki Moldova (na 1 yanvarya 2001 goda). From PCRM website www.pcrm.md,
and King The Moldovans, p. 99.
77
Neukirch, Moldovan Headaches, p. 5.
78
Freedom House’s annual Nations in Transit report is consistently critical of Moldova’s democratic
development. The Economist Intelligence Unit country report for Moldova is relatively upbeat. A
good, details analysis is Quinlan, ‘Back to the Future’.
79
Rumour has it that Voronin’s driver was named on the party list as an “engineer”.
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to promote regime-opposition dialogue, an initiative eventually largely ignored by the
governing party.80
Criticism of these policy proposals tends to ignore that these were communist
election pledges that a democratically elected government would feel obliged to fulfil,
and that they did have some public support (although less among the less Sovietised
younger generation).81 On the face of it the proposal to teach the “History of
Moldova” is eminently sensible: the “History of the Romanians” is the history of a
neighbouring state, which has furthermore been criticized as being ethnocentric and
ignoring both substantive differences between Romanian and Moldovan languages
and cultures and the sensitivities of the 35 percent ethnic minorities in Moldova.82
Each country has a right to its own history, and on this basis this proposal received
some support from the Council of Europe.
Nevertheless, the introduction of such policies in the very first year of
communist government suggested an insensitive and divisive style, a populist
demagoguery and an inability to overcome the reflexes of a protest party. For
example, both the PPCD and the Communists were viewed by domestic analysts as
radical anti-system parties, whose mutual antipathy maintained an atmosphere upon
which both thrived.83 Despite Voronin’s insistence that the party discard “the
syndrome of opposition-ness” on his election, the PCRM continued regularly to
accuse the PPCD intemperately as “terrorists” or agents of Romania.84 Although the
Romanian government’s paternalism towards Moldova, most evident in its rhetoric of
“two Romanian states” and the declared unionism of the PPCD provided some
comprehensible grounds for Moldovan sensitivity, the PCRM’s often disproportionate
response indicated a reliance on Romanophobic instincts and Soviet-style artificial
nation-building and cultural policy.
One key instance was the controversial Moldovan-Romanian dictionary
published in 2003 by the historian Vasile Stati. While one might concede that
Moldovans can call their language (a dialect of Romanian also spoken in regions of
Romania) what they wish, the dictionary failed to prove the existence of a separate
Moldovan language, reliant as it was on archaisms, regionalisms, and many words
also present in standard Romanian.85 Stati’s “History of Moldova” (intended as a
contribution to discussions over the new school curriculum), was as contentious as the
History of the Romanians it might replace.86 Party deputy chair Stepaniuc and the
party paper communist referred approvingly to the work of Stati. The government’s
hypersensitivity towards Romania was further shown by its refusal to register the
80
“2003 Electoral Year”, January 9, 2003, ADEPT website www.e-democracy.md.
For example 28 percent of adults supported the obligatory study of Russian in elementary and
secondary schools (with 65 percent wanting this to be optional). Granting Russian official status was a
very divisive question, supported and opposed by 46 percent equally (Jamestown Foundation Monitor,
Vol. 8, issue 79, April 23, 2002).
82
For example, the text envisages the defining characteristic of Romanians in both Romania and
Moldova as the aspiration towards national unification, with no mention of the Holocaust of Jews and
Roma under the Antonescu regime. See Vladimir Solonari, “Narrative, Identity, State: History
Teaching in Moldova”, East European Politics and Societies, vol.16, no. 2, pp. 414-445.
83
Interview with Valeriu Moşneaga, head of department of Political Science, Moldovan State
University, Chişinău, 7 September 2003.
84
Politicheskii otchet, RFE/RL Newsline Part II, 6, 36, 25 Feb 2002.
85
R. Amariei, “Romania, Moldova Tongue-Tied Over Treaty”, Transitions Online, 12 August 2003.
86
For example by stating that the population of interwar Bessarabia did not “for a minute” acquiesce in
their “annexation” by Romania, while seeing the years 1960-1990 as the “zenith” of the Moldovan
republic. See Vasile Stati, Istoriya Moldovy, (Chişinău, Tipogr Centrală, 2003), pp. 348, 385.
81
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minority pro-Romanian Bessarabian Orthodox Church, until the latter’s successful
appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in October 2001.87
One of the PCRM’s more successful policies was administrative-territorial
reform, replacing the 13 large judeţe (counties) introduced in 1998 with the Soviet
system of 32 smaller raioane (districts) that had existed hitherto. These reforms
incurred widespread condemnation, particularly from the Council of Europe (who had
helped finance the original reform), for limiting local autonomy and introducing a
“rigid vertical power mechanism”.88 Yet, these reforms were again an election
promise, and appeared popular, as they were justified on the basis of bringing
government closer to the people and cutting administrative burdens.
There was consistent evidence of repeated pressure on the free media, with
closures of critical outlets and noted intimidation against critical journalists in the
state-run television and radio company TeleRadio-Moldova. Industrial action by
TeleRadio-Moldova staff was resolved by government commitments to transform the
company into an independent public organization, commitments which were
repeatedly postponed. The government’s control over the electronic media was
particularly evident in the local elections of 2003, when state run media was openly
biased in favour of PCRM candidates, violating the electoral code. At the same time,
the government paid far less attention to print media, with its markedly smaller
circulation.89 Some more independent journalists claimed that such pressure had
previously existed, and that little essentially had changed.90
The most evident infringement on democracy with most long-term dangers,
however, was in the judicial sphere. Voronin increased his powers of appointment
over new judges, while there was widespread purging of the law enforcement sectors.
Ostensibly this was to root out corruption, but according to several commentators it
now allowed Voronin to “assume the prerogatives of a prosecutor or even a judge”.91
With the dismissal of the human rights ombudsman and attempts to limit the powers
of the Constitutional Court, it appeared that the “principle of the rule of law was under
challenge”.92
In the economic sphere, there were similar conflicting impulses. Rather
strangely for a communist party, the party fraction ratified joining the WTO in May
2001, after heavy criticism of the organization beforehand from leading communists
like Stepaniuc, and actually oversaw limited privatization of the wine and tobacco
sectors, although privatization of the larger state enterprises (such as Moldtelecom)
was delayed. At the same time, there was also sporadic re-nationalization (such as of
the Belgian owned Hotel Dacia in 2003 and the pharmaceutical company Farmaco in
2002), while court cases investigated the legality of sales to Moldova’s largest foreign
investors (for example, the Spanish-owned electricity company Union Fenosa), and
there were rumours of plans afoot to reverse the farm de-collectivization of the
87
While opposing this group’s registration on the grounds that it was a splinter organization, Chişinău
recognized other splinter groups such as the Orthodox Eparchy of the old Christian Liturgy of Chişinău
in 1995. See L. Turcescu and L Stan, “Church-state conflict in Moldova: the Bessarabian
Metropolitanate”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 36, 2003, pp. 443-465.
88
Nations in Transit 2003 (New York: Freedom House, 2003).
89
Dmitrii Chubashenko, “Shagrenevaya kozha Vladimira Voronina”, Moldavskie vedomosti, 10
September 2003: 1-2.
90
Author’s interviews with Alexander Tanaş, Chief Editor, Infotag News Agency and Oksana
Nestorova, correspondent for Kishinevskii obozrevate1, Chişinău, 4 September 2003.
91
‘2003 Electoral year’. From website of ADEPT (Association for Participatory Democracy--www.edemocracy.md), January 9, 2003.
92
Nations in Transit 2003.
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1990s.93 Having earlier decried the IMF and World Bank as “instruments of American
imperialism” the government engaged in dialogue with them, while ultimately failing
to get agreement over renewal of disbursements in 2002-3.94
In foreign affairs the contradictions were perhaps strongest. Having come to
power promising to make Russia Moldova’s strategic partner (with a deliberately
vague promise to examine the question of joining the Russia-Belarus Union), the
party had all the credentials of an anti-Western party. It had dissented from the
mainstream consensus of support for joining the EU, and was openly scornful of
several international institutions on coming to power.95 In April 2001, Voronin had
threatened to turn Moldova into “Europe’s Cuba” if there was a threat to communist
rule, while party leaders had been very critical of NATO’s Stability Pact.96 Relations
with Moscow (which, after initial reservation had staunchly backed the PCRM in its
first years) remained cordial up to the Kozak memorandum debacle of November
2003, while the government appeared to seek greater involvement in CIS structures
(for instance by attaining observer status on the Eurasian Economic Community
(EEC) in May 2002). However, within two years of coming to power, Voronin had
started to declare that EU integration was the country’s main strategic direction and
Moldova had even sent twelve engineers to Iraq in support of the US-led coalition, in
defiance of both public opinion and the party’s previous statements.
What then, was going on? A consistent strategy can be discerned. This is
Voronin’s wish, in a manner very reminiscent of Putin, whom he has verbally echoed
in his wish for a “dictatorship of law”97, to promote national consolidation of a very
divided society as a first step to resolving Moldova’s broader problems, both by
administrative fiat and by ensuring social consensus. Hence the need to resolve very
complex questions of identity and history, and the overriding aim of reintegrating
Transnistria within the Moldovan state. Support for the EU arguably gives the party
and government an overriding teleology it has hitherto lacked, while being
simultaneously potentially economically beneficial, and a project popular with the
young.
The policy inconsistencies were clearly exacerbated by the party “blinking” in
office and needing to correct its expectations—previously a radical opposition party
with just one term in a post-Soviet parliament, the PCRM was forced to adapt more in
its first few months in government than in its entire history hitherto. Particularly
indicative was the party’s approach to the Transnistrian conundrum. As a native
Transnistrian with a very personal stake in Moldovan integration (Voronin’s late
mother was a resident of Corjova, Dubăsari, in Transnistria), heading a traditionally
pro-Russian party, Voronin might have hoped to make some impact on Russian and
Transnistrian attitudes, and had promised this as one of the party’s over-riding aims.98
93
“Communists for restoring collective ownership in agriculture”, Moldova-Azi (www.azi.md),
November 13 2001.
94
“Moldovan Politics Labyrinth”. From website of ADEPT (Association for Participatory Democracy-www.e-democracy.md), November 18, 2002
95
Symptomatically, the PCRM did not sign a June 2000 document endorsing Moldova’s aspiration to
join the EU, signed by 23 parties and movements.
96
“Modernization of the Governing Party;” (2003). From website of ADEPT (Association for
Participatory Democracy--www.e-democracy.md). June 20 2003.
97
“Golodnoi chelovek ne mozhet byt svobodnym” (Speech of Vladimir Voronin to Moldovan
Parliament 1 Dec 2000). From PCRM website (www.pcrm.md).
98
Corjova is in Moldovan held territory, but only accessible through Transnistrian territory, so Voronin
was rarely to visit his mother from 2001 until her death in 2005.
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Instead, a renewed “cold peace” developed since late 2001 between Voronin
and PMR leader Igor Smirnov. This was at least partly personal, but also reflects the
lack of PMR and Russian interest in reaching a rapid solution. Voronin’s overtures to
the EU appeared initially partly a response to practical action by the EU: the EU’s
pressure on Ukraine to tighten customs controls on the Transnistrian border, and its
travel ban on top Transnistrian officials perhaps offered more hope of breaking the
deadlock than countless Russian disarmament promises. Elsewhere, government
rhetoric was laden with talk about the limits of the possible. Voronin included several
non-communists amongst the government and presidential staff. This aimed to
substantiate his promises of a technocratic non-communist administration, but was
perhaps equally driven by the absence of qualified communist personnel and the need
to consolidate his personal control.
Re-election: orange evolution
Understandably, the PCRM’s policy reversals invoked criticism of the leadership for
lack of attention to the party programme and “appeasement” in office.99. Opposition
papers such as Moldavskie vedomosti and Kommersant-Plus gleefully reported several
(so far abortive) attempts to form a true Leninist party, splits in the party’s
Komsomol, and predicted Voronin’s imminent demise as its communist and proRussian supporters defected.100
In the event, the party managed re-election with a slightly diminished share of
the vote (46%) and parliamentary fraction (56 seats) while campaigning on a platform
which bore little resemblance to its 2001 electoral platform.101 There was no mention
of the party’s most controversial policies such as promotion of Russia as a state
language (in fact in the months before election Voronin had jettisoned this as a policy
aim). In four sections entitled "New Quality of Life", "Economy Modernization",
"European Integration", and "Social Consolidation", the PCRM promised to turn
Moldova into a ‘rich country with wealthy people.’ Alluding to its record of high
social spending, the party presented an ambitious, populist range of targets, including
a three-fold rise in pensions and average salaries and doubling of the state budget.
The foreign policy reversal was obvious; Russia was still a strategic partner, but 2001
proposals to join the Russia Belarus Union were absent. Moreover, the campaign
proceeded in a context of tense relations with Russia. The administration attacked
Russia for interfering in the election campaign and expelled election observers
reputedly affiliated with Gleb Pavlovskii’s Foundation for Effective Policies for
allegedly trying to observe elections with incorrect documents and large cash sums.
Russia and Transnistria accused Voronin of selling out Moldova’s Russian-speaking
minorities, ruining relations with Russia, whilst the Russian Duma twice urged the
Russian government to penalize Moldova with economic sanctions.
How was the PCRM’s victory achieved? Most Western observers passed the
elections as free but not entirely fair, with government control over state media, and
public access to objective information particular problems favouring the governing
99
“Glasno i vserez”, Kommunist, no. 34, September 2001 from www.pcrm.md. See also Pravda, no.1
August 2003, produced in Chişinău.
100
E.g. M. Chekan, “Slovo v zashchitu pravdy sovetskoi istorii”, Moldavskie vedomosti, 6 September
2003.
101
‘With us Moldova will win!’, Platform of the Party of Communists for the 2005 Parliamentary
Elections, www.pcrm.md/index_en.html.
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party.102 CIS observers, who had been denied access to the country, and several
opposition forces such as the ‘Bloc Moldova Democrata’ (BDM) cried fraud, some
claiming that the West had essentially approved a fraudulent election for geopolitical
reasons, in order to stave off Moscow’s influence.103 Such accusations need to be
treated with caution: the PCRM’s result was lower and the BDM’s higher than most
opinion polls, indicating that any vote massaging might not have been in the
government’s favour. Indeed, Moscow’s direct and indirect pressure may have been
responsible for shaving up to 10% off the government’s rating. Russian media
campaigned vigorously against Voronin.104 Many Moldovans were threatened by the
prospects of paying more for gas and needing entry visas for travel to Russia. ProMoscow, pro-Transnistria blocs, principally the Patria-Rodina Voting Bloc, PatriaRodina Labour Union, and Ravnopravie (Equal Rights), claimed to defend national
minorities and uphold the principles the communists had allegedly betrayed. Although
they individually failed to enter parliament, collectively they gathered 8.72%, with, in
addition, astounding results in Communist strongholds populated by national
minorities, such as Gagauz-Yeri, where the Patria-Rodina Bloc increased its vote
from 4.7% in 2001 to 51.5% in 2005.
Afterwards, observers sought to answer why a ‘Maize revolution’ had failed to
occur in Moldova, when Moldovan opposition forces the BDM and PPCD
(especially) had mimicked the slogans and themes of the Ukrainian Orange
Revolution throughout the election campaign. In short, the pre-conditions were
largely absent, and the Orange scenario was more wish-fulfilment on the behalf of the
opposition than a realistic possibility. In contrast to Ukraine and Georgia, the
Moldovan regime was neither unpopular enough nor clumsy enough to commit
outright electoral fraud, whilst the opposition was too disunited to mount a credible
challenge.
Indeed the PCRM did remain generally popular, largely due to continued
economic growth (GDP growing 8.2 percent in the first quarter of 2005) and the
party’s relative success in paying off wage arrears and raising public sector salaries.
Moreover, certain aspects of the party’s policies which perplex external observers,
such as its complex relations with external donors and governments such as Romania
and Russia may, paradoxically, increase some Moldovans’ national pride and belief in
their own national self-sufficiency.105 Russia’s cumbersome interference in the
election campaign was often counterproductive. The impression that the chief
opposition, the BDM, was in hock to Russian interests prevented the pro-Romanian
PPCD making common cause with it (the PPCD spent as much time attacking the
BDM as the communists), and drove some Romanian-speaking voters to support the
PCRM.106 Particularly damaging to the BDM’s prospects was a "congress of
Moldovans in Russia" organized in February 2005 in Moscow, at which BDM leaders
were seen associating with notorious criminal Grigore Karamalak (nicknamed
"Bulgarul"), an association that may have partially confirmed corruption allegations
against BDM leader Serafim Urecheanu in voters’ eyes. Ultimately, BDM remained a
102
OSCE International Election Observation Mission, Parliamentary Election, Republic of Moldova-6
March 2005. Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions.
103
RFE/RL Newsline Vol. 9, No. 48, Part II, 14 March 2005
104
Julie Corwin, ‘Is Russian Media Hoping for Revolution in Moldova?’, RFE/RL Media Matters, Vol.
5, No. 6, 8 March 2005.
105
Infotag Daily News Bulletin, March 22, 2005.
106
Viktor Zhosu, ‘Vybory-2005: oshchushchenie dezha vyu. Khotya est’ nyuansy’, Moldavskie
vedomosti, 1 April 2005 (web-version, www.vedomosti.md).
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loose coalition, soon to unravel after the elections, while Urecheanu, the chief rival to
the communists appeared more like a Moldovan Yanukovych than a Yushchenko.107
Moreover, by running on a pro-European, anti-Russian platform, Voronin
stole the slogans of the ‘Orange Revolution’ with some aplomb. On April 20 his
government finally approved the EU-Moldova Action Plan. High profile meetings
with the ‘orange’ presidents of Romania, Ukraine and Georgia in the election run-up
cemented the view that Voronin aimed to put pro-EU rhetoric into practice. After
warnings from the European Parliament, Council of Europe and U.S. State
Department, the Communists slowed down their canvassing enough to persuade the
West that this was indeed the case.
The impression of an ‘orange evolution’ in Moldova was completed in the
sensational negotiations between Voronin, Iurie Rosca of the PPCD and dissident
BDM leaders after the election. These negotiations resulted in an unofficial ten-point
co-operation agreement whereby Voronin promised to initiate decentralizing reforms
to fulfil the Action Plan, such as privatizing the main state-run papers, Moldova
Suverana and Nezavisimaya Moldova, reducing government control of the media and
decentralising local government.108 Justifying his acceptance of the parliamentary
vice-chairmanship and support for his former arch-enemy, PPCD leader Iurie Rosca
claimed he sought to promote democracy and European integration through a new
consensus, while the CDPP leadership apparently sought to move the party from a
marginal anti-system force to a mainstream centre-right party.109 Needing five votes
to secure the 61 needed to be re-elected president and avoid the potential of repeat
elections, Voronin ultimately secured 75 (four more that in 2001, when the
communist fraction had been larger by 15), by obtaining votes from the PPCD and the
BDM dissidents. Although Vasile Tarlev was re-elected as Prime Minister, this was
still less a communist administration than before. Deputy Prime Minister Valerian
Cristea was the sole communist in the new government, while young non-communist
Marian Lupu was elected as parliamentary chair in place of communist Ostapciuc.
The PCRM, democracy and the new paradigm
In its first period in office the PCRM’s oversaw undeniable “democracy
deterioration”.110 The main positive aspect was that this could have been worse. The
dynamic in domestic politics was not an outright reversal of democratic freedoms, and
indeed in the latter half of the term there was stabilization, with infringement in some
areas offset by improvements in others.111 One of the most evident issues was the
authoritarian and opaque political style of the party and president. It is a great irony
that a parliamentary system with a dominant and centralized party produced an
extremely presidential form of rule. For example, government personnel were fired
with regularity and often without explanation. Appointment policies showed an echo
of the Brezhnevite policy of “cadres decide all”. One motivation for the
administrative-territorial reform was apparently to provide more jobs for party
107
The BDM was established in May 2004 as a coalition of the MNA, Democratic Party and Social
Liberal Party.
108
The conditions are laid out in full in Vladimir Socor, ‘Moldova's Voronin Reelected President with
Broad Democratic Support’ Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 2, Issue 66,Tuesday, April 5, 2005.
109
Infotag Daily News Bulletin, April 4, 2005; Vladimir Socor, ‘Moldova's Political Sea Change',
Monday, Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 2, Issue 70, April 11, 2005.
110
US NATO Committee Chairman Bruce Jackson quoted in “US NATO Committee Chairman on
Moldova”, RFE/RL Newsline, Part II, 6, 38. 27 February 2002.
111
Nations in Transit 2005:Moldova, from www.freedomhouse.org.
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loyalists. Some 30 per cent of the local administration was replaced in the process,
and the reintroduced Soviet-era administrative system conveniently mirrored the
structure of the PCRM’s regional organizations. The increased number of party
appointees in the judicial system meant little progress against corruption, and perhaps
not coincidentally Moldova’s corruption rating did not improve. According to critics,
personal loyalty to Voronin was the main criterion for government and party service
(with kompromat, easy to obtain for a former policeman like Voronin, allegedly used
to enforce this).112
The archetypal example of authoritarian and unaccountable government was
undoubtedly the crisis over the Kozak memorandum. A document that proposed to
radically reconfigure the whole nature of the Moldovan state, and which opponents
justifiably asserted could mean the de facto end of Moldova’s sovereignty, was
proposed after months of secretive shuttle diplomacy and non-existent public debate,
and aborted just as abruptly and mysteriously.113 This was hardly the only occasionpublic support for the federalization process in general was hardly increased by the
overall lack of consultation with the public and civil society. It was a severe
indictment of the robustness of Moldovan democracy and the strength of political
opposition, that at times only foreign pressure (such as the appeals to observe fair
elections during the 2005 election campaign) appeared to prevent the government
from further incursions on democracy.
The PCRM’s first term indicated the risks of government by an
unconsolidated “semi-loyal” party. Even if not consistently authoritarian, Linz notes
how semi-loyal parties may themselves provoke reciprocal distrust, and polarization
as often as completely disloyal parties and this was clearly the case in 2001-2.114 The
“communist” nature of the party was a continually polarizing issue: its commitments
to a communist identity and organization were only partially offset by relatively
pragmatic, moderate elements in tactics and ideology. This provoked distrust of the
“totalitarian” party from opponents (even when it carried out policies professed by
previous governments), and left it hostage to a maximalist party programme it only
selectively attempted to fulfil, thereby provoking the distrust of its supporters.
Optimistic prognoses are possible. The large vote for the communists in 2001
indicated at the least deep disenchantment with the political process, at the worst a
disaffection from democracy and an inclination towards authoritarianism.115 But one
of the roles attributed to successor parties is the inculcation of their supporters in the
values of the democratic regime.116 Despite the hazards of communist government, it
appears more constructive for long-term democratic consolidation if communists hold
office rather than remain as a “blocked opposition” as in Russia and Ukraine in the
1990s. There, presidents justified highly undemocratic policies on the basis of
112
Several interviewees mentioned this, particularly in the case of Prime Minister Tarlev, who
allegedly took kickbacks while boss of the Bucuria sweet factory, and is “vulnerable” to kompromat.
113
For the background see John Lowenhardt, “The OSCE, Moldova and Russian Diplomacy in 2003”
Eurojournal.org, April 2004). For Voronin’s view see: “Peisazh posle bitvy, ili Vaterloo Vladimira
Voronina”, Kishinevskii obozrevbatel’, 4 December 2003.
114
Linz and Stepan, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes.
115
In April 2002, an Institute of Public Policies survey found that 54 percent felt that Moldova needed
a one-party system, only ten percent a multiparty system (Jamestown Foundation Monitor, 8, 79, April
23, 2002). Cf. White, Public Opinion in Moldova 2000.
116
Alison Mahr and John D Nagle, 'Resurrection of the Successor Parties and Democratization in EastCentral Europe' Communist and post-Communist Studies, vol. 28, no. 4, 1995, pp. 393-410; Valerie
Bunce, 'The Return of the Left and Democratic Consolidation in Poland and Hungary', in Bozóki and
Ishiyama, The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe, pp. 303-322.
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avoiding the communist threat, while ghettoisation and permanent opposition gave the
parties neither much positive experience of democratic politics, nor any real incentive
to socialize their electorate in its norms. Moreover, the main impulses for change
were internal, rather than the significantly more unpredictable external challenges of
governing. At least with the PCRM in government, impoverished constituencies
achieved representation and possible policy-related benefits, and the party was forced
to adapt its ideology to practice.
Nevertheless, Bosco and Gaspar argue that in order to consolidate democracy,
successor parties, must ideally pass through a three-stage process.117 Initially, they
must themselves accept the democratic regime; secondly, they must be recognised as
having done so by other democratic players; finally they must put their new
orientation into practice in the new democracy, by playing a significant political role
(especially in government). Whereas the ‘new paradigm’ offers more convincing
proof that the PCRM is no longer a semi-loyal party than its entire first term, there
remain many problems to overcome before the PCRM might be regarded by
opponents and analysts alike as a truly democratic modern socialist party.
Initially, the pro-European orientation appeared a purely opportunistic,
populist claim, as the party adopted those ideas with wide resonance with the
Moldovan public (even espousing Orthodox Christian values) irrespective of
ideological principle.118 The adoption of ‘European Integration’ plays the role of an
integrative national teleology, which replaces the end goal of communism for the
PCRM, while playing a crucial role in defusing popular mobilisation during the
election campaign.
Clearly, the PCRM would have to put rhetoric into action. As many
commentators noted, the party’s domestic political direction in its first term showed
little evidence of importing European political values.119 Given the EU’s internal
troubles and continued Russian influence in the region, entry into the European Union
is barely a realistic project for the next 10-15 years, even if the Transnistrian question
is rapidly solved. Nevertheless, it does seem plausible, as Socor argues, that Voronin
has undergone such a personal epiphany, both through his disillusion with Moscow’s
attempts to "re-colonize" Moldova and his relatively constructive relationship with the
West that he is now a convinced European.120 Certainly, other observers see him as a
patriotic leader serious about his country’s international reputation, whilst the Council
of Europe saw him as a ‘good pupil’.121
Moldova will be a serious test case of the EU’s conditionality. However
instrumental initial EU orientation, the prospect of even distant membership does
have the ability to ‘lock in’ aspiring members to a virtuous circle of behaviour
offering the potential of greater permeation of democratic values into Moldovan
117
Anna Bosco and Carlos Gaspar, 'Four Actors in Search of a Role: The Southern European
Communist Parties' in Nikiforos Diamandouros and Richard Gunther (eds.) Parties, Politics and
Democracy in the New Southern Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
118
Igor Boţan, “Political Style”, ADEPT e-journal, No. 8, 5 June 2003, from www.e-democracy.md
119
Irina Severin, “Peter Passek; “Vybor dolzhen byt sdelan Moldovoi”, Moldavskie vedomosti, 15
October 2003, p. 2.
120
Socor, ‘Moldova's Political Sea Change'.
121
Fredo Arias-King, ‘2003 Annual Survey on Moldova: An Almost Decisive Year’, Transitions
Online (www.tol.cz), 15 April 2004.
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society.122 Since the idea of EU integration is shared across the political spectrum it
potentially offers a basis for national consolidation.
The problem of turning European rhetoric into reality is most evident when
looking at the problems confronting reform of the PCRM. The PCRM will not be the
only party to face problems: since signing up to the new consensus, the CDPP and
Social Liberal Party have been afflicted by internal splits because of their support for
the PCRM. However, as the governing party with dubious democratic credentials, the
reform of the PCRM is clearly most pivotal to Moldova’s future democratisation. In
the election aftermath, Voronin appeared to grasp the seriousness of this, stating that
the PCRM would change its name within the next two years, since it had already
become in essence a social-democratic organisation.123
It remains an open question both whether such reform will be undertaken and
whether it might be successful. So far the party has only taken incremental and
contradictory movements in the direction of serious policy reform, with more rhetoric
than action. Party leaders long claimed that the party espoused the best of social
democracy but denied that its strategic direction needed to be changed.124 Voronin
generally held up Chinese Communism as most authentic model for the PCRM to
emulate. A new direction and new programme were long promised, but despite
Voronin claiming it was the PCRM’s "strategic duty" "to assimilate the entire
ideological inheritance, political experience of communism, socialism, and European
social democracy," to become "a true, European-style left-wing party," in which the
ideas of socialism were inseparable from those of democracy and human rights, the
secretive December 2004 PCRM Congress undertook merely administrative measures
to consolidate discipline, demoting orthodox party members such as Stepaniuc, who
lost his position as Executive Secretary with a wide rejuvenation of party ranks.125
Most delegates apparently opposed changing the party’s name and symbols, reflecting
that the party’s new orientation did not (yet) run deep.126
In general, the omens for party reform are not good; history suggests that there
are only two paths out of communism—either retrenchment or transcendence. The
most electorally successful successor parties are those which have made a clean break
with their Marxist-Leninist past. This has usually involved a painful transition: the
loss of mass membership and leaders and electoral defeat(s) before resurgence. Those
parties which have attempted to muddle through without serious policy reform, such
as the Russian Communist Party. have suffered greater problems in the long-term.
One counter-example might be the Cypriot Progressive Party of Working People, a
former Marxist-Leninist Party that has managed to maintain popularity through
gradual policy reform, a strong governing record and charismatic leadership.127 It is
possible that by relying on Voronin’s charisma and strong leadership the PCRM can
once again buck wider trends, particularly now that many party hardliners have
122
This argument is also made in Eiki Berg and Wim Van Meurs, ‘Borders and Orders in Europe:
Limits of Nation- and State-Building in Estonia, Macedonia and Moldova’, Journal of Communist
Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 18, No, 4, 2002, pp. 51-74.
123
Moldavskie vedomosti, 25 March 2005, electronic version (www.vedomosti.md).
124
Moldova Country Report February 2003, London: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2003 p. 13.
125
‘Rezoluţia Congresului al V-lea (al XXII-lea) al Partidului Comunisţilor din Republica Moldova
privind raportul politic al Comitetului Central al PCRM Congresului şi sarcinile partidului.’ From
ADEPT website (www.parties.democracy.md) 17 December 2004.
126
Infotag Daily News Bulletin, Monday, December 13, 2004.
127
C. Christophorou, ‘Consolidation and Continuity through Change: Parliamentary Elections in
Cyprus, May 2001’, South European Society and Politics, vo1. 6, no. 2, 2001, pp. 97-118.
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already defected to competing left-wing blocs. However, to open up such thorny
questions to wider discussion would risk the party and parliamentary unity that
remained one of the PCRM’s strongest assets. Should pro-Russian blocs such as
Ravnopravie unite then they might pose a serious threat to a social-democratising
party. Perhaps only a future period in opposition could complete the intra-party
transition begun in office.
Conclusion
The return of the Moldovan communists confirms some of the expectations of
the existing literature on communist legacies, but also clearly illustrates the need to
account for national specifics, contingent events, and the role of political leadership.
The PCRM has been marked by the advantages and limitations of a patrimonial
communist heritage: organisational integrity, a stable constituency and identifiable
‘brand-name’ on one hand, a traditionalist membership, polarising political appeal and
limited incentives to strategic transformation on the other.
However, the period of social mobilisation in 1988-1992 was also crucial.
Although it failed to institutionalise a sustained and strong civil society, it sidelined
then split the party as elites were forced to address the rise of ethno-cultural assertion.
Moldova’s historical specificities and elite ambitions contributed to the party’s breakup on regional, linguistic and cultural lines, while the emergence of a reactionary
party-state in Transnistria helped consolidate the majority of the party elite in
Chisinau (including the PCRM) around the need for compromise and national
consolidation. Though the communist party was on the face of it an intrinsically
undemocratic organisation, members of the PCRM’s top leadership were not outright
reactionaries and had close ties with the former party elite in Chişinău, meaning that
their practice was always likely to be more pragmatic than their policies suggested.
However, since the party was banned at a crucial period and only re-entered the
national parliament in 1998 it could avoid association with many of policies professed
by the pre-1998 parliament, and avoid putting its policies to the test until its 2001
victory.
The severity of Moldova’s economic collapse, the governing parties’ inability
to reckon with the countries’ problems and the short-sighted move to a parliamentary
system were the vital contingencies immediately preceding the PCRM’s 2001
electoral success. The PCRM’s re-election in 2005 also owes far more to political
agency and contingency than any legacy-based approach: it presided over enough
policy achievements to remain popular, while Voronin maintained his broad
charismatic and populist appeal and firm dominance over his party. His pro-European
leanings diffused international and domestic criticism, whilst the opposition remained
too divided effectively to capitalise on significant discontent with party policies.
Communists being in power hardly meant that Moldova had voted for
communism, although it certainly indicated deep despair with the direction of postSoviet change. Nor were the most alarmist predictions of re-Sovietisation borne out,
despite a sympathetic line towards Russia and antagonism towards Romania being
constants in the new government’s foreign policy. Western observers’ concerns about
the party’s lack of democratic credentials had a strong basis, particularly in the party’s
personnel policy, attitude to the media and political style, although it proved
grudgingly receptive to Western pressure and approval, was less prone to infringe
freedoms in the economic sphere, and its foreign policy increasingly convincingly
24
Luke March
Eurojournal.org, September 2005
___________________________________________________________________________________
prioritised the European direction, albeit in contradiction to much of its domestic
policy.
Paradoxically, the return of communists to power by democratic means
offered some prospects for long-term democratic consolidation, not just by
entrenching the power of electoral turnover and strengthening executive power, but
also by providing a stronger impulse towards party policy and programmatic
transformation. In its first period in office the PCRM lacked both convinced and
convincing democratic intentions and a powerful domestic opposition, in the absence
of which constant international observation and support provided a greater corrective
to authoritarian inclinations. But after re-election in 2005, the PCRM faced
simultaneously a greater array of (albeit divided) political opponents, a weaker
parliamentary presence now short of a constitutional majority, and a greater consensus
over the country’s direction. Together these stimuli may give a greater impetus to
domestically inspired democratic change. The obstacles remain great however, within
the governing party this change has only just begun.
25