Moldova’s sovereignty was challenged by Russian-speaking inhabitants on the left bank of the Dniester (Trans-Dniestria), and the Gagauz population concentrated in southern Moldova. The Gagauz crisis was successfully ended in December 1994 through a negotiated settlement that established an autonomous region, Gagauz-Yeri, within Moldova. The Trans-Dniestrian secession remains unresolved. Regional authorities declared indepenMOLDOVA AND MOLDOVANS dence in August 1990, forming the Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR). Since a brief civil war in 1992, Trans-Dniestrian President Igor Smirnov has led a highly authoritarian government in the region, with the tacit support of the Russian Federation.
Trans-Dniestria has been a central issue in Moldovan foreign affairs. While officially neutral, Russian troops supported the separatists in the 1992 conflict. In August 1994 the Russian and Moldovan governments agreed on the withdrawal of Russian forces from the region within three years; this, however, did not occur. The situation has been complicated by the presence of a substantial Russian weapons depot in Trans-Dniestria. Despite the Trans- Dniestria issue, Moldova entered the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on a limited basis in April 1994 and has maintained positive, if guarded, relations with Russia since then. In 2001, Moldova and the Russian Federation concluded a bilateral treaty that named Russia as guarantor of the Trans-Dniestrian peace settlement.
Moldova’s relationship with Romania has become increasingly difficult following independence. Romania was the first state to recognize Moldovan independence. Many Romanians supported unification with Moldova, which they consider an integral part of historic Romania. Romanian nationalists view Moldovan concessions to separatists and the Russian Federation as treason against the Romanian national ideal. This attitude led to a sharp decline in relations, especially following 1994 elections that brought more independence-oriented leaders to power in the capital city of Chi?sina?u. Following the return to power of the Moldovan Communist Party in 2001, hostile rhetoric from official Moldovan sources regarding Romanian interference in Moldovan affairs increased, as did the anger of Romanian nationalists over Moldova’s continued relationship with Russia.
The head of state of Moldova is the president of the Republic. The president is charged with guaranteeing the independence and unity, and overseeing the efficient functioning of public authorities. The president may be impeached by vote of two-thirds of the parliamentary deputies. The president can dissolve parliament if it is unable to form a government for a period of sixty days. The president names the prime minister following consultation with the parliamentary majority. Once selected, the prime minister forms a government and establishes a program, which is then submitted to parliament for a vote of confidence. Until 2000 the president was chosen through a direct popular election. In that year, following a long-lasting deadlock between the executive and legislative branches, parliament passed legislation according to which the president is elected by the parliament.
The government of Moldova is made up of a prime minister, two deputy prime ministers, and approximately twenty ministers. Parliament is given the power to dismiss the government or an individual member through a vote of no confidence by a majority vote.
Moldova has a unicameral legislature made up of 101 deputies elected to four-year terms by means of a direct universal vote. Legislators are elected through a proportional representation closed list system, with a six percent threshold for participation. In a move that distinguished it from the vast majority of proportional representation systems, the Moldovans adopted a single national electoral district. The parliament passes laws, may call for referendum, and exercises control over the executive as called for in the constitution.
Moldovan economic conditions deteriorated disastrously in the post-communist period. The collapse of its agricultural exports to Russia badly hurt the rural sector. Simultaneously, the secession of the territory on the left bank of the Dniester dislocated industrial production throughout the republic. Without any significant energy resources, Moldova accrued massive external debts for oil and natural gas imports. Finally, the economic decline was also a consequence of its leaders’ failure to provide any clear policy direction. A decade after independence, Moldova was poorer than any other country in Central Europe. See also: COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES; GAGAUZ; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; TRANS-DNIESTER REPUBLIC
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crowther, William. (1997). “The Politics of Democratization in Post-communist Moldova.” In Democratic Changes and Authoritarian Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, eds. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott. London: Cambridge University Press. Dryer, Donald, ed. (1996). Studies in Moldavian: The History, Culture, Language, and Contemporary Politics of the People of Moldova. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs.
King, Charles. (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
(1880-1986), Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician, often regarded as Stalin’s chief lieutenant.
Vyacheslav Molotov was born at Kukarka, No-linsk district, Vyatka province, on March 9, 1880. His father was the manager of the village store. Molotov’s real name was Skryabin; he was the second cousin of the composer and pianist Alexander Skryabin (1872-1915). After attending the village school, he was educated at Kazan Real School from 1902, and became involved in the 1905 Revolution in Nolinsk district, joining the Bolshevik Party in 1906. Engaged in revolutionary agitation in Kazan, particularly among student groups, he was arrested in 1909 and exiled to Vologda province.
In 1911, at the end of his period of exile, he enrolled first in the shipbuilding department but soon transferred to the economics department at St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. He continued his revolutionary agitation, again especially among student groups, and from 1912 was involved in the production of the early numbers of Pravda, to which he contributed a number of articles. It was at this time he first called himself Molotov (from the word for “hammer”) after the hero in Nikolai Pomyalovsky’s 1861 novel. In 1915, having been sent by the party to Moscow, he was again arrested and exiled to Irkutsk province, but escaped in 1916. Returning to St. Petersburg to continue his revolutionary activity, he was one of the leading Bolsheviks there in March 1917. He was prominent during the early weeks of the Russian Revolution, again working for Pravda and serving on the St. Petersburg Soviet, but retired into the background with the return of Lenin and other senior leaders from exile.
Molotov was involved but did not play a leading part in the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917. In March 1918 Molotov became chairman of the Sovnarkhoz (Economic Council) for the northern provinces, thus assuming responsibility for economic affairs in the Petrograd area. In 1919, during the civil war, he was in command of a river steamer charged with spreading Bolshevik propaganda in provinces newly liberated from the White armies. He then spent short spells as a party representative in Nizhny Novgorod and the Donbass.
Molotov now rapidly rose in the Bolshevik party. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1921, was first secretary from 1921 to 1922, preceding Josef Stalin’s appointment as General Secretary, and continued to work in the Secretariat until 1930, having become a full member of the Politburo in 1926. During this period he became associated with Stalin, fully supporting him in his struggles against the opposition and becoming Stalin’s chief agent in agricultural policy, particularly collectivization.
In December 1930, Molotov became chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), a post sometimes regarded as equivalent to prime minister, where he was responsible for the implementation of a planned economy and Stalinist industrialization and related economic and social polices. During the later 1930s he was fully identified with the Stalinist repressions, and for a short time in 1936 he was personally in danger for committing Stalin too openly to a pro-German foreign policy.
From May 1939 until 1949 Molotov was foreign minister. In August 1939 he was responsible for negotiating the notorious Nazi-Soviet pact. In May 1941, shortly before the outbreak of war, Stalin replaced him as Sovnarkom chairman. Molo-tov remained as vice-chairman, and during the war he was also deputy chairman of the State Defence Committee (GKO) with special responsibility for tank production, as well as foreign minister. He was responsible for negotiating the wartime alliance with the United States and Great Britain in 1942; with Stalin he represented the USSR at the major wartime international conferences. He then headed the Soviet delegation to the San Francisco conference of 1945 that established the United Nations organization. Representing the USSR at the United Nations and at postwar foreign ministers’ conferences until his dismissal as foreign minister in 1949, he earned a reputation as a blunt, determined, and vociferous opponent of Western policies.
After Stalin’s death, Molotov was again foreign minister, from 1953 to 1956, but his relations with Khrushchev
