ABSTRACT
On October 31, 1990, Moldavians demonstrating against the intervention of Soviet MVD troops in the increasingly tense confrontation between competing nationalist movements in their republic mobbed checkpoints between Romania and the Soviet Republic of Moldova. This chapter seeks to elucidate the conditions surrounding Moldova’s current crisis. It sets out the historical circumstances which underlay the current nationalist upsurge and traces the political changes that culminated in the transition from Communist party rule to an independent government in which the Moldavian Popular Front exercises a decisive voice. As ethnic-Romanian agitation escalated during 1989, the minority organizations responded with counter demonstrations. The Popular Front’s promotion of an agenda perceived by minority populations to be expressly Romanian nationalist in character inexorably factionalized Moldova’s population. The introduction of USSR ministry of internal affairs troops and strenuous, if belated, efforts by the Moldavian government managed to forestall any fatal confrontation in the Gagauz region.
