Union of Revolutionary Peasants of Bessarabia

an underground organization established in 1925 by Bessarabian Communists to unite fighting groups active in Bessarabia since the occupation of the region in 1918 by bourgeois landlord Rumania. A manifesto of the union’s organizational committee declared the union’s main tasks to be the alliance of the peasantry with the working class to liberate Bessarabia from Rumanian occupation, the establishment of a government of workers and peasants, and the unification of Bessarabia with the Moldavian Soviet Republic. The union put forth a program advocating struggle for the basic needs of the peasantry, equal rights, and the eradication of terror. The goals and functions of the union were approved by the Fourth and Fifth Congresses of the Communist Party of Rumania.

The union did much to win the peasants to the side of the Communists. It involved peasants in revolutionary action and encouraged workers to struggle against the occupiers and oppose preparation for war against the Soviet Union. In 1933 the union was disbanded. In 1934 its remaining units were reorganized as the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of Bessarabia From the Oppression of the Rumanian Occupiers.

Prominent members of the union included B. Borisov (Shut), A. Nikol’skii, K. Syrbu, A. Rubinshtein, I. Fortuna, S. Reveniale, Sh. Reidinboim, P. Botnaru, and P. Petrov.