The Role of Informers in the Political Police Enforcement of Soviet Policies on the Left and Right Banks of the Dniester, 1944-1952

• In Event: Moldova between Past and Present: Experiences and Views of Soviet and Romanian Rule

Abstract

The unification of the Moldavian SSR after 1944 brought together two regions with vastly different experiences of governance and especially of political policing: the left bank (levoberezh’e) of the Dniester, formerly the MASSR, and the right bank territories formerly under Romanian rule. This paper will examine the role of the left bank regions, especially of Tiraspol’, in the policing of the MSSR. Though there were many similarities in the informer network as it operated on the right bank and left bank territories, the historical political division influenced the administrative structure of the informer network. The records of informers on the left bank were kept separate from those of other Moldovan informers for a few years after 1944, and orders about informers were issued specially to the departments on the left bank. The political police in this region re-recruited numerous informers from the Soviet period, creating a more reliable network with a wartime experience with Romanian rule.

Author

• Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz, Harvard U