Communism for the 21st Century-The Moldovan Experiment

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Communism for the Twenty-first Century: The Moldovan ExperimentTheodor Tudoroiu

Online publication date: 20 May 2011

To cite this Article Tudoroiu, Theodor(2011) 'Communism for the Twenty-first Century: The Moldovan Experiment',Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 27: 2, 291 321

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Communism for the Twenty-first Century:

The Moldovan Experiment

T H E O D O R T U D O R O I U

For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Partyof Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive pol-

itical skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engagedin a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004 5 and an ideological transformationin 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communistsuccessor party. During eight years in office, 2001 9, it led a semi-consolidatedauthoritarian regime similar to the neo-communist constructs of Ion Iliescu inRomania and Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria. The crisis of 2009 weakened the party,however, with defections of leading communists to other parties. Moldova has thusreturned to a situation of pluralism by default and a hybrid political regime, inwhich the communists, though weakened, remain a potent political force.

Since Luke Marchs series of articles half a decade ago, little attention has

been given to the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, yet the

complex and dramatic political events of the past two years demand a reassess-

ment of this partys profile and impact on Moldovan politics. This is the goal

of the present article, which places developments in Moldova in the context of

the international communist movement since the collapse of communist

regimes in the last quarter of the twentieth century.1

I argue that, despite itspolitical reorientation of 20045 and its ideological transformation of 2008,

the party led by Vladimir Voronin remains a superficially reformed, non-

transmuted communist successor party. Between 2001 and 2009, it led a

semi-consolidated authoritarian regime similar to the Romanian and Bulgarian

neo-communist constructs of Ion Iliescu (1990 96) and Zhan Videnov

(1995 97). However, the crisis of 2009 weakened the party, allowing

Moldova to return to a situation of pluralism by default and a hybrid political

regime. In the foreseeable future, the Communists will continue to be one of

Theodor Tudoroiu is an associate researcher at the Centre for International Peace and SecurityStudies, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.27, No.2, June 2011, pp.291321ISSN 1352-3279 print/1743-9116 onlineDOI: 10.1080/13523279.2011.564101# 2011 Taylor & Francis


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the countrys most important political forces, but it is highly unlikely that they

will be able to regain full control of the Moldovan polity.

A Family No More: The Communist Successor Parties

Communist successor parties were defined by John Ishiyama as parties that

were formerly the governing parties in the communist regime and that inher-

ited the preponderance of the former ruling parties resources and personnel.2

Anna Maria Grzymala-Busse preferred to point to the formal descendants of

the communist parties, namely the main political parties that arose from

the ruling communist parties in 1989 and that explicitly claim their successor

status.3

Such parties were identified by Grigore Pop-Eleches along three

dimensions that have often but not always been highly correlated:institutional continuity; leadership and personnel continuity; and ideological

continuity. Their post-communist development usually involved considerable

ideological struggles, the replacement of the partys top leadership, and some-

times an open split between the reformers and the hard-liners. However, the

institutional continuity has never been contested, much of the leadership of

the reformed parties came from the middle echelons of the former communist

parties, and these parties usually chose left-of-centre political platforms.4 A

term frequently associated with communist successor parties is regeneration.

It refers to gaining long-term access to governmental power, that is, thecapacity to compete successfully for and enter democratic government.5

This capacity consists of programmatic responsiveness, popular support for

the party, and acceptance by the other parliamentary parties. A party needs

to fulfil all three criteria in order to gain long-term access to power in a

parliamentary system.6

Regeneration took place in some Central European states as early as the

first half of the 1990s. In that region, the most successful successor parties

have been those that managed to become electorally attractive by adopting

convincingly social-democratic programmes. In Hungary, Poland and Slove-nia, such parties spent a remarkably short period in opposition before being

re-elected to power thanks to their conversion to democracy and their

support for market reforms.7 This has led to a burgeoning literature assessing

the communist successor parties adaptation strategies; party elite intervention

in the process of adaptation; and the way pre-transition conditions affect the

post-transition adaptation.8 Two main explanations have been put forward

for the successful return to the political scene of the successors to the formerly

dominant communist parties. The first, labelled by Ishiyama the internalist

perspective, stresses the importance of the internal organizational reforms.

It contends that the communist successor parties have succeeded because of

organizational adaptations that allowed them to compete successfully in the

292 J O U RN A L O F CO MMU N I S T S T U D I E S A N D T RA N S I T I O N P O L I T I CS


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newly competitive environment. This is considered a better predictor of

success than declines in the socio-economic condition of the population,

rises in popular nostalgia for the past, or openings created by political insti-

tutions.9 For example, Grzymala-Busse noted the importance of centralization

that allowed the elites to respond to the robust competition and to the fluid

post-communist electorates. Centralized parties could more readily orches-

trate electoral campaigns that effectively disseminated the partys message,

and hand-pick party candidates by enforcing cohesion and privileging top

leaders in decision-making within the party. Centralization also promoted

party discipline in parliament where such unity and cohesion made for

formidable parliamentary players.10 Similarly, Ishiyama concluded that the

more the successor party was dominated by office-holders and less reliant

on a mass membership for political support in the years immediately followingthe transition, the more successful the party was later.11 Organizational adap-

tation was found to result from several factors. The previous communist

regime type, the strength of the constitutional presidency, and the features

of the electoral system were the best predictors of party organizational type

among the communist successor parties.12

The role of the elites was also

important, as they ranged from the stereotypical fossilized bureaucracy

with little interest in genuine representation or engagement to pragmatic

elites, willing to negotiate with the societies they governed and to implement

economic and political liberalization. Successful regeneration dependedlargely on the elites portable skills (the expertise and administrative experi-

ences gained under the previous regime) and their usable pasts (the historical

record of party accomplishments to which they could point).13 The internal-

ist perspective holds that the more liberal and internally pluralist the previous

communist regime, the more likely that a reform leadership ultimately took

control of the party. This reformist party leadership assimilated the finer

points of democratic competition and recruited talented mid-level leaders

and candidates who organized a party that could win a competitive election.

Parties that grew out of regimes that had a tradition of internal contestation,interest articulation and bureaucratic institutionalization were therefore

better equipped to adapt to the new competitive conditions of the post-commu-

nist era and more successful than those that grew out of less liberal regimes.14

The alternative, externalist perspective holds that the relative political

success of the communist successor parties has been due to the features of

the political environment, particularly the nostalgia factor and the structure

of competition facing the successor parties. The nostalgia argument states

that declining living standards during the transition phase made many

people yearn for a return to the more secure communist past, hence increasing

the degree of voter support for the communist successor parties.15 Successor

parties have also taken advantage of a political environment where weak

C O M M U N I S M F O R T H E T W E N T Y - FI R S T C E N T U R Y 293


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competitors made systematically strategic mistakes. This weakness is in fact

one of the legacies of the previous, communist regime. The more repressive

and less open the communist systems, the more successful the communist

successor parties were, because repressive communist regimes could entrench

themselves and thus effectively preclude the emergence of the challenge of

an independent structure of intellectuals or middle-class professionals. A

communist successor party emerging from such a regime could be more

successful in adapting to new competitive conditions, not because of the

partys organizational characteristics, but because its opponents were weak

and disorganized.16 In sum, externalists assert that the former communists

have mobilized feelings of discontent and disenchantment and have used

their considerable organizational apparatus and their adversaries weakness

to lever themselves towards societal respectability.

17

With respect to the ideology of the successor parties, in countries such as

Poland, Hungary and Lithuania the former communists returned as social-

democrats willing to adapt to Western systems of capitalism and democracy.

They followed the continental European social democracys shift away from

its Marxist roots to acceptance of both the post-World War II West European

model of a social market economy and region-wide economic integration.18

But in certain post-communist (and especially Commonwealth of Independent

States CIS) states, the successor communist parties remained Marxist

Leninist in ideology, statists in public policy, and programmaticallycommitted to working towards the radiant future of communism so persist-

ently heralded in the Soviet past. Their party programmes are frequently anti-

Western, anti-capitalist, and focused on the gradual restoration of the USSR.19

However, the alternative of social-democracy versus Marxism Leninism

does not exhaust the spectrum of communist successor parties ideologies.

Slobodan Milosevic is a well-known example of a communist leader who

chose to play the ultra-nationalist card. Consequently, Andras Bozoki and

John Ishiyama analysed the adaptation strategies of the communist successor

parties on the basis of two independent dimensions: first, they assessed theparties movement from communism to social democracy, distinguishing

between non-reformed and reformed parties (whether the party clung to an

orthodox communist identity or transformed itself into a pragmatic reformist

party); and they identified non-transmuted and transmuted parties on the basis

of the movement from internationalism to nationalism (a process of moving

the party from the undemocratic left towards the undemocratic right).20

An explanation of these different trajectories is based on the idea that the

nature of the previous regime influenced considerably the successor parties

ability to adapt their structures to the democratic competition. The more

liberal regimes such as Poland and Hungary allowed the communist

leaders to acquire more experience of interest articulation and dealing with



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independent political forces. In turn, this facilitated their rapid adaptation to a

multi-party system and their conversion to social democracy as a way to

increase the electoral support of their parties.21

Herbert Kitschelts three-

part typology of communist regimes (patrimonial, bureaucratic-authoritarian,

and national consensus communism)22 was used to show how the features of

previous organizational legacies vitally affected the character of political party

development and to explain to a large extent the different trajectories followed

by the communist successor parties.23 This, however, can be biased by the

existence of major ethnic cleavages. Like Milosevic, the former communists

can choose to adopt ultra-nationalist political programmes meant to instru-

mentalize ethnic tensions. Transmuting is also probable in countries deeply

affected by the loss of their previous great power status, such as Russia.

Taras Kuzio has stressed the importance of the presence of national minoritiesand the type of nationalism. He noted that where the post-communist tran-

sitions were dominated by civic nationalism, successful democratization and

Euro-Atlantic integration was the result; by contrast, ethnic, Soviet and

great power nationalisms generated ethnic conflict, post-conflict stagnation,

and autocratic regimes.24

Kuzio also mentioned the influence of the European

Union in offering membership inducements that encouraged democratization

a reminder of the fact that all the above-mentioned elements must be

assessed in combination with the complex set of internal and external

factors that have influenced the democratization and democratic consolidationof the post-communist states. This subject is too vast to be addressed here, but

it is clear that the strategies of the communist successor parties can be hardly

identical under democratic and authoritarian regimes.

For comparison, it is useful to look briefly at two unreformed, non-

transmuted communist successor parties that regenerated during the first half

of the 1990s and created two semi-consolidated authoritarian regimes:25 The

first was the Romanian communist successor party, successively called the

National Salvation Front, the Democratic National Salvation Front, the Party

of Social Democracy in Romania and the Social Democratic Party.26 Inearly 1990, its ideology was supposed to be close to human-faced commun-

ism; later, some confused social-democrat orientation was claimed, yet it is

generally accepted that it remained until 1996 one of the least reformed

former communist parties. It came to or rather stayed in power through

a coup detat in December 1989 masterminded by Ion Iliescu against the

incumbent dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. After winning the May 1990 elections,

it brutally suppressed protest movements using the violent marches on Buchar-

est of the secret police-led miners. When, after the 1992 elections, it lost its par-

liamentary majority, it accepted political support from another neo-communist

and two ultra-nationalist parties, reinforcing the anti-democratic trends of

a regime still hostile to liberal democracy, a market economy and a



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pro-Western foreign policy.27 The disrespect of political rights and civil liber-

ties was accompanied by constant efforts to hamper the development of the

market economy and to facilitate the survival of a large state-owned sector.

A pro-Moscow foreign policy was promoted. The semi-consolidated authori-

tarian regime was dismantled only in 1996, when Iliescu lost the presidential

and parliamentary elections.

In neighbouring Bulgaria, under the leadership of the young and charis-

matic Zhan Videnov, the Bulgarian communist successor party in December

1994 won a landslide victory that created the first stable government since

the fall of communism.28 The party (the Bulgarian Socialist Party BSP)

was controlled by its conservative, unreformed branch in such a way that

analysts claimed that BSP was a genuine communist party29

and the least

reformed of its kind between the Oder and the Dniester.

30

A semi-consolidatedauthoritarian regime similar to that of Iliescu was installed. Openly opposed to

economic reforms and a pro-Western foreign policy, Videnov adopted a

platform of a further slowing down of the transition process and a recovery

of some aspects of the totalitarian system;31 there was a clear deterioration

of political rights and civil liberties; economic policies were diametrically

opposed to IMF and the European Union recommendations. In particular,

because of their vital social functions, the government supported the state

sector and its companies on the verge of bankruptcy.32

This backfired and an

extremely severe economic and financial crisis forced Videnov out of thegovernment in December 1996. In the April 1997 parliamentary election, the

party won only 22 per cent of the votes,33

which ended the short-lived author-

itarian regime and finally forced the Bulgarian Socialists to contemplate

reforming their party.

It is clear that, despite their unreformed, non-transmuted character, the

Romanian and Bulgarian successor parties and the semi-consolidated author-

itarian regimes they created cannot be assessed as simply communist. Both the

discourse and the actions of these parties show an adaptation to the conditions

of limited political competition. Their goals are more modest than those ofclassical communism: they do not seek to create a totalitarian regime:

instead, they apparently accept an authoritarian regime, at least in the initial

phase. Furthermore, even the start of such a regime results from an electoral

process rather than the classical revolutionary approach. In the words of

Jane Leftwich Curry and Joan Urban, having lost their former monopoly on

power, these parties began pursuing the parliamentary approach to social-

ism, regardless of how they now define socialism.34 A good description of

the semi-consolidated authoritarian regimes created by such parties was

made by Emil Constantinescu, Romanias president, 1996 2000, in an

article in Le Monde on 22 February 1997. He knew the subject well because

it was his own electoral victory that put an end to Iliescus regime:



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We are not talking about classical communism . . . but rather of a form

that is both old . . . and new because of its goal, which is to preserve all

that can be preserved, both in men and structures, of the old regime: as

many as possible of the large enterprises, as many monopolies as poss-

ible, especially in the areas of energy and agriculture, as many of the

political and economic leaders as possible, and as much as possible of

an isolationist and anti-Western mythology, ready to halt all openings

towards Europe and the rest of the world.35

This limited non-revolutionary, non-totalitarian preservation and the restor-

ation effort is clearly different from the old-style communism. Hence I

prefer to label the unreformed, non-transmuted communist successor parties

neo-communist. Their implicit or explicit relationship with traditional

communism can be a useful political and electoral instrument, but does notcorrectly describe their present political programme. A neo-communist

party can therefore be defined formally as a communist successor party

whose goal is the creation of a post-communist authoritarian regime preser-

ving or restoring communist structures, methods and personnel on the basis

of a specific ideology that includes the promotion of redistributive social

and economic policies, while avoiding the use of nationalism as the major

instrument of political mobilization.

Interestingly, during the 1990s no neo-communist party in the CIS was

able to become the dominant political force. At least in part, this is because

this position was occupied by parties of power representing an amorphous

and non-ideological group consisting of a non-party president, a politicized

bureaucracy, and a depoliticized government closely linked to non-official

groups.36 Such parties had emerged as kryshy (criminal slang for political

roofs) for big business, ruling elites and regional clans.37 A good example is

the informal power-sharing body supporting Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraines

President, 1991 94). Since then, the situation of most CIS communist succes-

sor parties has not improved. But in Moldova, constant electoral progress inthe second half of the 1990s led the party of Vladimir Voronin to win the

2001 parliamentary elections. For the first time since the fall of communism,

a CIS successor party was again in power.

Moldova in the Labyrinth: The 1990s

From the very beginning, independent Moldova has been plagued by many

serious problems. The most sensitive is undoubtedly the national identity

itself. Even today, the ideological debate concerning the Moldovan identity

remains an extremely complex and yet unsolved matter.38 Things were

further complicated by the 1992 civil war in Transnistria and that regions



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secession. Second, a traumatic economic downfall turned Moldova into the

poorest European country,39 prompting up to 900,000 of the roughly four

million Moldovans to seek work abroad,40

transforming the small state into a

society with a disproportionately large number of old people and children.

The former have frequently imposed their conservative electoral choice

while the self-exiled active Moldovans have been unable to contribute to politi-

cal life. Third, political infighting became the norm within the ruling elite.

Factionalism and institutional disorder undermined the policy-making. This

aggravated Moldovas economic situation, further diminishing the living stan-

dard and producing a growing sense of social crisis.41 Surprisingly, there was

a positive consequence of all these problems: the government was too polarized

and the state too weak to monopolize political control in an international

environment dominated by democratic powers. As Lucan A. Way showed inhis pluralism by default analysis, the incapacity of the incumbent powers,

rather than robust civil society, strong democratic institutions, or democratic

leadership, allowed Moldovan politics to remain competitive.42 However,

this does not mean that the Moldovan political system in 19922001 was

genuinely democratic. According to the assessment of Freedom House, it

was a hybrid regime, which are defined as

electoral democracies that meet only minimum standards for the selec-

tion of national leaders. Democratic institutions are fragile and substan-

tial challenges to the protection of political rights and civil liberties

exist. The potential for sustainable, liberal democracy is unclear.43

Indeed, the Moldovan polity has not evolved towards democracy.

The Communist Party of Moldova was banned in the wake of the Soviet

coup of August 1991.44

In 1993, Vladimir Voronin returned from Moscow

and became the head of an Initiative Committee campaigning for the creation

of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova. The founding event

was the conference held on 22 October 1993, but the party was officially regis-

tered only on 27 April 1994, soon after the parliamentary election.45 At its firstengagement in a parliamentary election, in 1998, the Party of the Communists

was voted for by 30 per cent of the electorate, winning 40 of the 101 seats; the

other three parliamentary parties united in the governing Alliance for Democ-

racy and Reform. But Voronins party became the most important Moldovan

party and used its position in parliament to criticize vigorously the factional

disputes within the government coalition and the growing rift between presi-

dent and parliament.46 In December 1998, President Petru Lucinschi even

nominated Voronin as head of a coalition government; however, only 48 of

the needed 52 votes could be secured and the plan failed.47 Trying to take

advantage of the governmental instability, Lucinschi in March 1999 launched

a constitutional reform meant to strengthen his own position by replacing the



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semi-presidential system with a strong presidential one. His rivals including

the communists succeeded in blocking the reform, and in July 2000 they

created a parliamentary regime with an indirectly elected president. In

December, no presidential candidate was able to reach the required three-

fifths majority, parliament was dissolved and early elections were called for

25 February 2001,48

resulting in a landslide victory for the communists and

the beginning of their eight-year rule.

Voronins Moldova

The 2001 elections gave the communists 71 out of 101 parliamentary seats.

Voronin was easily elected president, and an authoritarian trend became

visible almost immediately. The communist electoral platform promised thereturn of Soviet symbols and questioned previously adopted economic

reforms.49

The new government took some very unpopular decisions on

sensitive matters such as making Russian-language instruction mandatory

for lower-grade pupils, provoking massive public protest that triggered brutal

official repression. Teachers and parents of pupils involved in anti-communist

demonstrations were threatened with dismissal; the main opposition party

was banned from political activity for a month. Such anti-democratic measures

generated highly negative domestic and international responses. Apparently, the

new regime did not consider itself strong enough to face the possible politicaland economic consequences, so it cancelled the most contested measures, but

continued to promote anti-reformism and re-Sovietization in other, less

visible domains.50 This limited responsiveness to societal and international

demands was similar to Iliescus politics of ambiguity,51 which remained an

important feature of communist rule until the April 2009 election, identifying

Voronins political construct as a semi-consolidated authoritarian regime

similar to the Romanian and Bulgarian ones and very different from the

brutal dictatorships of former Soviet Central Asia.

But ambiguity does not mean democracy. The regime was characterized bythe overlap between state and Communist Party structures and by the concen-

tration of all the levers of power in the hands of the president and a small circle

of intimates. There were limitations and infringements of basic rights and free-

doms of citizens; the communists controlled public and most private mass

media and harassed the few independent ones; the judiciary was subordinated

to political power; the regime also subordinated and seized an important part of

the business environment.52 This undemocratic evolution is confirmed by the

Freedom House quantitative assessment of political rights and civil liberties

in Moldova, which shows a gradual improvement from 1993 to 1998, when

the 3.0 limit of the partly free category was reached (1 stands for complete

freedom and 7 for no freedom at all). The situation stabilized at that level,



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but the communists coming to power was immediately followed by a worsen-

ing of the score; it stabilized again at the partly free level of 3.5 before the

final degradation of 2008, when it reached 4.0.53

Nevertheless, the regime did not evolve towards consolidated authoritar-

ianism,54 and this moderation allowed actions that helped the communists

limit domestic challenges and international criticism. The most visible was

the surprising shift in Moldovas foreign policy. Voronins initial political

programme was openly pro-Russian, with an eye to the settlement of the

Transnistrian crisis; but in 2003, the Moscow-promoted Kozak Memoran-

dum made a very negative impression on the Moldovan public. Later that

year, the Kremlin and its closest economic partners blocked Moldovas acces-

sion to the planned Common Economic Space,55

prompting the communist

leader to take advantage of the new CIS political geography and abandonhis pro-Russian orientation.56 The coloured revolutions were challenging

Moscows regional influence, while the European Union was launching its

ambitious European Neighbourhood Policy. Adapting to the new circum-

stances, the Moldovan communists took an openly pro-European Union

stance, and a partnership was forged with the organizer of the 2002 protests,

the pro-Romanian Christian Democratic Popular Party (CDPP). With the

2005 election in view, Voronins party adopted a programme diametrically

opposed to that of 2001, dominated by strong commitment to reform, democ-

racy and EU accession.57

The support of the Christian Democrats seemed toguarantee the communists good faith, and the journal Demokratizatsiya

even entitled an interview with Iurie Rosca, the CDPP leader, Moldovas

Orange Evolution.58 Moldovan society was impressed by the change: it

chose to forget the previous authoritarian practices and voted for the commu-

nists. The partys second term, however, brought little effective change. The

EUMoldova Action Plan that incarnated the regimes European ambitions

was plagued by very serious failures of implementation.59 Moreover, the

defeat at the 2007 local election made Voronin realize that the very foundation

of his power was affected by the openness to the West.60 Consequently, in20078, he imposed new restrictions on the press and the political parties

and reoriented his foreign policy towards Russia. By early 2009, the authori-

tarian trends were so visible that civic activists in Chisinau began to speak of a

Putin-style power vertical.61 Even at that stage, however, the regime of the

Moldovan communists remained a semi-consolidated authoritarian one, so it

could not be identified with the Kremlins clearly consolidated authoritarian

regime: unlike its Russian model, the Moldovan power vertical remained

very imperfect. Yet the failure to respect the 2005 democratic promises was

obvious. In this context, it is interesting to look at the Western attitude

towards this development. Fundamentally, the European Union and the

USA did not want to encourage the transformation of the self-proclaimed



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pro-Western Voronin into a new anti-Western Lukashenka, so their support

for Moldova and its increasingly undemocratic regime in early 2009 was as

important as in 2006: there was no question of explicit measures to curb the

authoritarian drift. The most extreme illustration of this is the case of

Kalman Mizsei, the EU Special Representative for Moldova, discussed

below. The Wests continuing support was used by the communists to legiti-

mize their regime despite growing criticism from opposition parties and the

civic sector, demonstrating both Voronins political and diplomatic skills

and his ability to use the regional rivalry between Brussels and Moscow to

his own advantage.

Crisis, Fall, and Perspectives

The 5 April 2009 parliamentary elections were won by the communists, with 60

parliamentary seats. The next day, the International Election Observation

Mission a joint undertaking of the Organization for Security and Co-

operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human

Rights, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of

the Council of Europe (PACE), and the European Parliament organized a

press conference and released a statement of preliminary findings and

conclusions, assessing the election as meeting many of the OSCE and

Council of Europe commitments: the count was assessed positively; theCentral Election Commission operated in an overall professional and transpar-

ent manner.62

The same day, the European Commissioner for External

Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner,

congratulated President Voronin for the orderly, peaceful, and pluralistic

election.63

However, Moldovan opposition parties and civil society activists

did not share this optimistic view: for them, only large-scale rigging could

explain the victory of the communists who, according to pre-election polls,

had the support of only 3540 per cent of the electorate.64

Large-scale youth

protest started during the evening of 6 April and reached mass proportionsthe next day. Encouraged by police passivity, protesters assaulted and occupied

the presidency building and the parliament. The anti-communist activists disso-

ciated themselves from the violent actions, claiming that these were in fact

instigated by Voronins agents provocateurs in order to justify the ensuing

brutal repression, while the communists attributed the violence to the opposi-

tion parties acting within a Romanian-orchestrated coup detat. The Romanian

ambassador and journalists were immediately expelled, and visas were imposed

on Romanian citizens entering Moldova.65

Over the following days, the police

arrested nearly 700 participants in the protests; more than 300 suffered beatings,

sleep deprivation and verbal abuse; two died in custody66 as the police allegedly

tried to make them confess that the violence was instigated by the Moldovan



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opposition and Romanian agents. Only in July 2009 did the General Prosecutor

of Moldova admit that Romania was not involved;67 consequently, Voronin and

his advisers stopped mentioning the neighbouring countrys involvement.68

But a statement of the Central Committee of the Party of Communists of the

Republic of Moldova issued on 6 April 2010, one year after the events,

renewed previous statements accusing the Democrat Liberal and Liberal

parties of not accepting their defeat in democratic elections and choosing the

way of a criminal adventure, through a coup detat. While the government

did not use force, the opposition followed a diabolical logic, based on cowar-

dice, cruelty and irresponsibility and organized pogroms.69 For their part,

opposition sources claimed that in April 2009, the heavy-handed repression

created an atmosphere of general fear, with some protesters even going into

hiding. In any case, the communists finally brought the situation fully undercontrol and used their electoral victory to form the new government.

Voronins management of the crisis highlights two interesting features.

The first concerns the effectiveness of the repression. The regime had never

suppressed a protest movement of this scale, yet its actions initiated on the

evening of 7 April and continued during the following days were complex,

carefully prepared and well executed. It is of little importance whether the

initial passivity of the police was due, as the opposition claimed, to a commu-

nist plan meant to encourage violence or simply to surprise. When the repres-

sive actions were launched, a movement that was potentially similar to thebeginning of a coloured revolution was completely eliminated in a single

day. Moreover, the discourse legitimizing the repressive measures including

references to coup detat, foreign plot and pogroms was credible enough to

ensure the continuing support of an important part of the population (as

suggested by the results of the July 2009 election70

) and even the benevolent

neutrality of at least one important international observer. The latter point is

related to the previous efforts of the communists to attract Western support,

mentioned above. Western states and international organizations tried con-

stantly to prevent the Voronin regime from taking a Belarus-style course.The attitude of the International Election Observation Mission, which assessed

the election positively without even awaiting the announcement of the results,

was attributed by opposition sources to the pro-communist bias of its leaders.

The main targets were Marianne Mikko of Estonia, the head of the European

Parliament delegation, who had worked for a communist newspaper during the

Soviet era and frequently criticized Romanias involvement in Moldova; the

British head of the delegation of the PACE, David Wilshire, an advocate of

Russia in its 2008 war against Georgia and a strong supporter of the

January 2008 candidacy of Mikhail Margelov, one of Putins proteges, to

the presidency of PACE; and Kalman Mizsei.71 All were accused of being

sympathizers of the Kremlin and Voronins accomplices.72

This was



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undoubtedly an exaggeration. Eventually, Mikko and Wilshire became very

critical of the brutal methods used by the repression forces. It is likely that

their initial attitude was simply intended to avoid alienating Voronin as

continuing good relations with the West could only limit the communists

anti-democratic drift. The actions of Kalman Mizsei, the European Unions

special representative, illustrate the same approach, but besides trying to pre-

serve a solid partnership between Brussels and Chisinau, he also had in view

the EUs higher regional interests. Realizing that a decisive contribution to the

settlement of the Transnistrian problem would have considerably increased

the prestige of the European Union in Moldova and the CIS, he concentrated

his efforts on this objective. An obvious precondition for the success of his

actions was political stability in Chisinau; consequently, he supported the

communist regime before, during and after the April 2009 crisis. In fact, heeven tried to temper the EU ambassadors criticism of police violence,73

and stated that challenging the results of the vote and holding new elections

would have had negative consequences by preventing the government from

fighting the effects of the world economic crisis.74 In an article on 5 May

2009, the EU special representative criticized the violation by the police of

elementary human rights and the governments use of terms such as crim-

inals and fascists against the opposition; but he equally condemned the

abusive language of the opposition and asked it to stop unsubstantiated

allegations about the course of events on April 7 and wild exaggerationsabout the nature of the elections.75 Essentially, he saw a balance between

the communists feeling that the opposition wanted to steal their victory

with illegal means and the opposition side wounds over the alleged election

abuses as well as over policy violations.76 Later, he also tried to persuade the

opposition parties to give the communists the vote they needed to elect a

president and remain in power.77 It is not surprising that, during their research

visit in Chisinau, Cristian Ghinea and Sergiu Panainte were amazed by the

lack of trust and by the frustration manifested by the opposition and by

the anti-Voronin journalists and activists against Kalman Mizsei.78 Thesame researchers claimed that even the Chisinau and Brussels EU Commis-

sion staff shared critical views of Mizseis position.79

But from Voronins

point of view, the stance of the special representative only confirmed the

regimes ability to play international rivalries in its own interest.

Paradoxically, the communists were less skilled in taking advantage of their

electoral victory. With 60 parliamentary seats, they could not secure the

majority of 61 votes needed to elect the countrys president; and no opposition

MP could be persuaded to change sides.80

Undoubtedly, this was Voronins

biggest failure since coming to power, mainly caused by the radicalization of

the opposition parties by the April events. In fact, these events polarized the

entire Moldovan society and left no room for a compromise similar to the



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2005 alliance between the communists and the Christian Democrats. In this

context, no member of the parliamentary opposition could contemplate individ-

ual treason without seriously compromising his or her public image.

Consequently, the communists decided to call early elections on 29 July

2009. These confirmed their status of the most important Moldovan party,

but their number of seats diminished to 48. A further 13 seats were secured

by the Democrat Party of Moldova, led by Marian Lupu, a former prominent

communist. President of the parliament between 2005 and 2009, Lupu was

expected to replace Zinaida Greceani as prime minister, but in December

2008 Voronin had not included him in the composition of the Supreme Security

Council. The rift deepened and in early June 2009, Lupu left the party, stating

that it was impossible to reform it from within. He joined the Democrat Party

that in April 2009 had received only 2.97 per cent of the votes and failed topass the electoral threshold.81 In the early July election, its support increased

to 12.54 per cent,82

its fortunes most probably boosted by communist voters

dissatisfied with Voronins absolute control of his party and perhaps with his

heavy-handed management of the April crisis. Together, the communists and

Lupus party secured 61 parliamentary seats, enough to form a new government

and elect a president. But animosity between the two leaders Voronin even

called Lupu a traitor led the Democrat Party to join the Alliance for

European Integration (AEI) that also included the Our Moldova Alliance,

the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Democrat Party of Moldova. With 53 seats,it managed to form a coalition government headed by Vladimir Filat, the

Romanian-educated leader of the Liberal Democrat Party. The new president

of parliament, Mihai Ghimpu (a former founding member of the Popular

Front, now head of the Liberal Party) became Moldovas acting president

while Marian Lupu became the AEI presidential candidate.83

The new govern-

ment adopted a resolutely pro-democracy and pro-Western programme and

undertook efforts to attract EU support.

Still the ruling alliance lacked eight votes to elect a president, so the

communists called for new early parliamentary elections. The governingcoalition passed a law imposing a one-year interval between two consecutive

early elections and used this delay to prepare a constitutional reform modify-

ing the election of the president. Heated debate ensued, mainly because the

AEI wanted to change the constitution by referendum but without holding

new parliamentary elections. The communists opposed this plan, claiming it

to be unconstitutional. Their position received important Western support,

when on 12 March 2010 the Venice Commission (the European Commission

for Democracy Through Law of the Council of Europe) gave its legal opinion

on this matter as requested by Moldovas president in December 2009.84 The

main conclusion was that the Republic of Moldova should hold early

parliamentary elections and abandon the idea of organizing a constitutional



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referendum.85 This was only an advisory opinion, but the president of the

European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, together with other

European officials asked Moldova to implement the Venice Commissions

recommendations.86 Under pressure also from some of its members, the AEI

finally had to accept new early parliamentary elections good news for the

communists as the world economic crisis had worsened the Moldovans

socio-economic situation. Voronins associates blamed the new government,

adding that their own social policies represented a more appropriate response

to the crisis. The elections could also solve another problem for the communists:

on 15 December 2009, five of their MPs led by Vladimir Turcan left the party,

rejected communist demands to resign from parliament, and in February 2010

joined the extra-parliamentary party United Moldova, which sought recog-

nition as an independent parliamentary group.

87

However, United Moldovahad little chance to follow the example of Lupus Democrat Party and attract

a significant part of the communist electorate; it would probably not pass the

electoral threshold, and so allow the communists to recover the seats of the

five defectors. Consequently, Voronin looked forward to new elections. By

contrast, the AEI had no interest in a new electoral contest before the results

of its reforms became visible. In these circumstances, the European Unions

strong support for the Venice Commissions recommendations simply gave

Voronin a chance to return to power. If this was the result of an abstract,

idealistic preference for the most democratic solution, it contrasted sharplywith Kalman Mizseis pragmatic approach of 2009. Ironically, in both cases,

the EU stance favoured the communists in their struggle against Moldovas

democratic political forces.

The internal dynamic of the ruling coalition also favoured Voronins party.

Since Marian Lupu still shared many of the convictions of his former commu-

nist colleagues, tensions increased between the Democrat Party and its liberal

allies, over not only economic and social policies but also fundamental

matters such as the Moldovan identity and relations with Russia. The Liberal

acting President Mihai Ghimpu famously stated in 2008, I am not pro-Romanian. I am Romanian88 and refused to attend the Moscow military

parade on 9 May 2010.89

Later, without consulting the other members of the

alliance, he undertook a number of actions that created tensions with Russia.

Lupu, on the other side, stated: there are persons who identify themselves as

Romanians. But I identify myself as Moldovan and I have this right.90

He

advocated close relations with Moscow and made constant efforts to build a

special relationship between his party and Putins Yedinaya Rossiya.91 In

addition, the prospect of new elections engendered electoral competition

between all the four parties that palpably harmed the cohesion of the AEI.

Another flaw of the AEI government was represented by the relatively

modest results of its reforms. The coalition was very heterogeneous and



17/32

sometimes genuine reformers had to team up with conservative former Soviet

activists. Furthermore, the AEIs ability to promote major changes was ham-

pered by several factors, including its limited parliamentary representation,

the lack of legitimacy of the Liberal head of state (merely acting president),

and the uncertainties surrounding the new early elections. Consequently,

the public administration, the police and the judiciary resisted reform and

continued to be dominated by the inertia and conservatism of the Voronin

era. Many Moldovans were discouraged by this situation. Most importantly,

they included the youth that represented the engine of the April 2009 protests

and enthusiastically supported political change and the ambitious plans of

the new government. A September 2010 opinion poll showed that 35 per

cent of young Moldovans believed that the AIE had betrayed its voters.92

The decrease in the Alliances support was suggested by the referendum on5 September 2010 on the election of the president by a popular vote: the

turnout fell short of the 33 per cent needed to validate the communist-

boycotted referendum.93 This was a very serious defeat of the ruling coalition

which was forced to call early parliamentary elections on 28 November 2010.

However, the communists favourable prospects were jeopardized by

mistakes made during their electoral campaign. For example, Voronin aggres-

sively accused the government of having flooded Moldovan villages on

orders from Bucharest to protect the Romanian city of Galati from the

sudden rise of the River Prut; Acting President Ghimpu showed immediatelythat Galati was situated on the Danube upstream of the PrutDanube conflu-

ence and so could not be flooded by the Prut.94

Something more serious

happened six days before the election: Artur Resetnicov, the former head of

the Moldovan Information and Security Service and a protege of Voronin,

claimed to have been kidnapped by agents of the ruling parties, who tortured

him in order to obtain evidence incriminating the communist leader.

Resetnicovs statements and behaviour were rather strange and contradictory,

giving the general impression that the communists themselves had orche-

strated the episode, hoping to attract more votes.95 The opposite happened:they lost six parliamentary seats. In the rival camp, the Our Moldova

Alliance failed to pass the electoral threshold, while the Liberal Party lost

three seats. But the Liberal Democrat Party of Moldova and Lupus Democrat

Party won 14 and 2 additional seats, respectively.96 In sum, the situation was

not fundamentally different from that following the previous elections. The

key political force was again the Democrat Party, which undertook parallel

negotiations with the communists and the former AEI members. Then came

an unexpected turn on 5 December: the head of the Russian presidential

administration, Sergei Naryshkin, visited Chisinau and met Lupu and

Voronin, allegedly trying to broker an agreement between them.97 However,

on 30 December 2010, the three former AEI parties created a new ruling



18/32

coalition,98 and the situation of 200910 was repeated: the Alliances 59 MPs

were enough to form a government. It was approved by parliament on 14

January 2011 with Vladimir Filat as prime minister. Marian Lupu became

president of the parliament and therefore acting president; the coalition still

needs two more votes in order to elect the countrys president.

The prospects are now just as unclear as a year earlier. The new AEI might

get the support of two communist defectors, but this is unlikely. In fact, even if it

happens, the tensions between the three parties were so significant during the

electoral campaign and the post-election negotiations that the survival of the

Alliance is uncertain. Two different scenarios seem more probable. Nego-

tiations (and disputes) over several months might result in (1) failure to reach

an AEIcommunist agreement, and new early elections, probably between

December 2011 and February 2012; or (2) a compromise leading to communistsupport for the election of a president under the present system or for reform of

this system. The Alliance had initially suggested that, in exchange for their

support, the Communists might receive one of the three positions of deputy

prime minister. From Voronins viewpoint, this is naturally too little and

more consistent concessions should be considered; however, the Party of

Communists would eventually use those positions to hamper or block the

AEIs actions. There is also the possibility of electing a compromise neutral

president, but his subsequent political choices might be biased, which makes

this solution very difficult. Moreover, if the new president favours only oneof the AEI partners, the survival of the coalition is uncertain. In short,

Moldovas political instability will very probably continue in the foreseeable

future. Meanwhile, the Communists are in no position to return to power

even though the rule of their adversaries is plagued by major uncertainties.

Communist Leadership and Organization

From the very beginning, Voronin imposed himself as the uncontested leader

of the new party. The story of his life is a perfect illustration of the Homosovieticus experiment. Vladimir Voronin was born in 1941 in a Romanian

Moldovan family in the Transnistrian village of Corjova. His grandfather,

Isidor Sarbu, was a mayor of the Romanian administration during the 1942

44 occupation of the region. Deported by the Soviet authorities to Siberia

together with his brothers (who died there), Sarbu escaped, returned to

Romania, and became an anti-communist guerrilla fighter in the Oas

Mountains. One of his daughters, Domnica Sarbu, Voronins aunt who raised

him during his early childhood, also took refuge in Romania where she died

in 2004.99 But Vladimir Voronin stayed in Soviet Moldavia and grew up as a

Soviet citizen. At 20, he became the manager of the village bakery in Criuleni.

He entered politics and followed a perfect cursus honorum in the communist



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party and Moldovas Soviet administration. During 198990, he was a major

general and the republics internal affairs minister.100 Choosing to put aside

his familys anti-Soviet past, he became a sincere supporter of communism

and the USSR. After the latters dismantlement, he shifted his allegiance to

independent Moldova. An outspoken adept of Moldovanism, Voronin has

frequently stated his conviction that the Soviet era was the brightest period of

the Moldovan peoples history. This genuine admiration and nostalgia for the

USSR put him in a good position to exploit the similar sentiments of his impo-

verished countrymen (in November 2009, 48.6 per cent of the Moldovans were

regretting the collapse of the Soviet Union while only 32.4 per cent did not101).

An authoritarian, paternalistic figure, Voronin has constantly been in firm

control of his party. He prevented potential rivals from acquiring too much

power and placed his proteges in key positions. A principal objective was toprevent the emergence of an influential prime minister who could question

his authority: hence the rather weak Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev (20018;

an ethnic Bulgarian and a man who is used to be always the second102) was

replaced by the even less influential Zinaida Greceani. Sharing a family

history similar to that of the president, she was born in Siberia, where her

RomanianMoldovan parents had been deported by the Soviet authorities;

her brother died there.103 More importantly, her weight within the party was

close to zero, which explains why as prime minister she undertook only

actions that had the presidents full approval. In 2009, Greceani became thecommunists candidate for the presidency; critics view[ed] this rotation as a

thinly veiled effort by Voronin to keep the levers of power under his

control.104 An alternative candidate might have been the president of the

parliament, Marian Lupu,105 but, as noted above, in December 2008, Voronin

excluded him from the Supreme Security Council, perceiving him as an increas-

ingly dangerous competitor whose ambitions and following were incompatible

with Voronins total control of the party. Lupus defection in June 2009 and the

subsequent increase of almost 10 per cent of the votes for his party of adoption

suggest that the president had good reasons to fear his influence. An equally pro-minent figure has been Mark Tkaciuk, the partys brain. University-educated

in Britain and Russia, this former historian became the partys ideologue and

Voronins main adviser in the second part of the last decade. But, unlike

Lupu, he chose close co-operation with the president and avoided the slightest

sign of challenge. At least in part, this may reflect his ethnic background: a

Russian-speaker with a Ukrainian father and an Armenian mother, Tkaciuk

has hardly the profile of a successful candidate to Moldovas supreme leader-

ship. He has made an excellent eminence grise whose heavy influence over

Moldovan politics during 20059 can hardly be denied.106

Lupu and Tkaciuk are not the only outstanding politicians of an otherwise

monolithic party. During the early 2000s, there was a hard-line wing led by



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Victor Stepaniuc (party deputy chairman and fraction leader) and Vadim

Misin (deputy speaker of parliament). They were more openly nostalgic

towards the USSR, reverent towards the MarxistLeninist heritage, suppor-

tive of Russia, and critical of the market economy.107 The opposing Eurocom-

munist trend was represented by Andrei Neguta and Iurie Stoicov. Unity was

preserved thanks to Voronins uncontested leadership and highly authoritarian

governing style. As an example, the partys official ideologist in 20015 was

Stoicov, but in practice he shared this role with Stepaniuc under the direct

control of Voronin.108

In the words of Arcadie Barbarosie, all party leaders

and government members were slavishly loyal to the president.109 Still,

even this did not completely eliminate the danger of losing their positions if

the president deemed it necessary. At the December 2004 Congress, the influ-

ential Victor Stepaniuc ceased to be the partys executive secretary. In early2008, he came back as deputy prime minister and was briefly perceived by

his colleagues as a possible Moldovan Dmitrii Medvedev;110

however,

Voronin did not appreciate this suggestion, and in December 2009, Stepaniuc

was one of the defectors who accompanied Vladimir Turcan.111 This shows

how the diverging trends within the Party of the Communists were kept in

check by Voronin until 2009. It was the presidents inability to find a solution

to the post-April 2009 parliamentary stalemate that created, for the first time,

the conditions of serious internal disputes that resulted in the defections of

Lupu and, later, Turcan. Yet, after December 2009 Voronin was able torestore his control. The Turcan groups failure to gain parliamentary represen-

tation in the November 2010 election can only discourage further defections

and help the communist leader maintain his firm grip on the party.

It can be concluded that intelligent manoeuvring allowed Voronin to block

the rise of dangerous rivals and to retain full control of the party, whose unity

was remarkably well preserved until 2009. But unity does not mean homogen-

eity. The partys members and electorate include very different categories. The

May 2010 Barometer of Public Opinion showed that 37.9 per cent of Moldovans

trusted the communists. The male:female (36.439.1 per cent) and urban:-rural (38.837.2 per cent) ratios were balanced. In terms of age, however,

47.5 per cent of those over 60 favoured the communists compared with only

30.7 per cent for those aged 1829, 38.8 per cent for the 3044 group, and

37.3 per cent for Moldovans aged 4559. The imbalance was even more

visible in terms of ethnicity. Voronins party was preferred by 30.9 per cent

of the MoldovansRomanians, 65.8 per cent of the ethnic Russians, and 70.8

per cent of the Ukrainians. More low-educated Moldovans (46.5 per cent)

chose the communists than their middle- (39.3 per cent) and higher-educated

(28.2 per cent) countrymen. Similarly, support rates were different when

assessed on the basis of the respondents socio-economic level: 41.6 per cent

for low, 38.5 per cent for middle, and 31.9 per cent for high.112

In fact, the



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first major social group to support the communists is represented by older indi-

viduals who were the losers in the post-1992 transition. A younger but equally

poor and relatively low-educated social group can be also identified. In both

cases, the choice of a left-wing party that promises a return to the relative pros-

perity of the Soviet era is quite logical. However, there is also the much less

numerous, but nevertheless important category of businessmen who had little

in common with the communists initial goals but understood rapidly the econ-

omic advantages of teaming with the winners, especially under an authoritarian

regime; one example is the presidents own son, Oleg Voronin.113

Finally,

Russian-speaking voters also tend to prefer Voronins party regardless of

their social position. Accommodating the diverging interests of these groups

has been a difficult task, as is reflected in the communists heterogeneous

political programme (see below).In terms of organization, Voronins skilful control of his rivals was paralleled

by the efficient management of the party and its actions. This was already visible

during the 2001 electoral campaign, when both know-how and human resources

(4,000 activists)114 were available because the party was able to rebuild in part

the pre-1992 communist structures. Things further improved when the commu-

nists took power and started to build their very coherent regime. In the first years,

government personnel were fired with regularity and without explanation; both

the party and the president adopted an authoritarian and opaque political

style.115

This imposed rigid discipline and allowed the construction of theimperfect but nevertheless effective communist power vertical.

The communists were equally successful in their foreign policy and, more

precisely, in manipulating the external actors that decisively influenced

Moldovas situation. In 2001, Chisinau became openly pro-Russian; by 2005,

it was 100 per cent pro-Brussels. In 2009, it was again Kremlin-friendly, but

the European Union did everything in its power to ignore the change. Even

after the brutal repression of April 2009, the EU special representative for

Moldova remained the communists loyal defender. When power was lost, the

president of the European Commission put pressure on the AEI to acceptearly parliamentary elections that could restore communist rule. Few post-

Soviet leaders can show similar results. Moldova is typically presented as a

weak country at the mercy of Russia, insufficiently supported by Brussels, and

having to cope with Romanian ambiguity. Yet Voronin succeeded in playing

regional rivalries to his own advantage and might use them again to recapture

control of the country.

Ideology and Practice

In 2001, the communists programme was a fine example of orthodox

Marxism Leninism. Presented as the heir to Moldovas Soviet-era communist



22/32

party, the reborn party pursued the ultimate goal of communism. Its short-term

objectives included internationalism, welfare, state control over banks, at least

partial re-collectivization, working-class participation in public adminis-

tration, and a voluntary and renewed union of post-Soviet republics.116 The

transition to a classless communist society was planned in two stages.

During the first, the general democratic one, the party would work with other

progressive forces while preserving the multi-layered economy. The

second stage would impose the preponderance of the socialist structure in

the economy and its orientation to maximally satisfying workers needs.117

The programme included commitments to reformed socialism, political

rights and freedoms, and entrepreneurship (except in the strategic branches

of industry), but no explicit commitment to democracy. The partys slogan

was Republic, Popular Power, and Socialism.

118

Luke March noted a prag-matism that prevented effective actions that were meant to turn many of

these ideological principles into political practice. Developing the concept of

a semi-loyal party,119 he identified communist ostensible democratic

commitments and claimed that by 20045 Voronins party, while not yet

fully democratic, was nevertheless evolving into a nominally communist

social populist party with a charismatic leader able to manoeuvre the

partys position opportunistically and exploit its opportunities.120

Still, the communists December 2004 Congress brought no significant

ideological change; only at the March 2008 Congress were a new statuteand programme adopted. Even in its new ideological incarnation the Party

of Communists of the Republic of Moldova remains the lawful successor

and heir of the ideas and traditions of the [Soviet-era] Communist Party of

Moldavia. As such, it represents the interest of the workers, peasants, intel-

lectuals, students, unemployed, and retired people; the inclusion of the last

two categories, however, is a clear adaptation to contemporary electoral

constraints. A similar point can be made with respect to the present doctrine.

The party is guided by the MarxistLeninist theory, taking into account its

evolution and. . .

the experience of the international movement of communistsand workers.121 This experience obviously includes the dismantling of the

totalitarian system and the need to adapt to new political conditions. Indeed,

the partys new political programme has an entire section on PCRM Left

Party of a New Type.122 Referring to changes of strategy and conceptual

points of reference, it hails the Western leftist parties whose activity deter-

mined the triumphant march of European democracy.123 The mission of

the Moldovan communists is to actively assimilate the ideological inheritance

and the political experience of European communism and socialism, while

democracy and human rights are inseparable parts of the high social standards

we are trying to reach.124 The effort to mirror the political platform of a

standard West European socialist or social-democratic party is obvious.



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Furthermore, the present main goal of the party has nothing to do with classi-

cal communism: it is to ensure Moldovas passage from an agrarian economy

and bureaucratic capitalism to the post-industrial society based on knowl-

edge, competence, technology, and a high level of the quality of living and

a democratic culture.125 Five tasks ensue: building a social state; creating

a favourable business environment and an open economy; creating a

multi-level democracy; improving the functioning of the state structures;

and enforcing the countrys security.126

It is not difficult to note that there is little connection between the partys

name and ideology. The latter, elaborated by ideologues such as Mark

Tkaciuk under the close supervision of Voronin himself, is a rather hetero-

geneous construct responding to three equally heterogeneous constraints.

First, as already mentioned, much of the Communists electorate is representedby the losers of the transition, including unemployed and retired persons. They

are nostalgic for the Soviet period and need promises of a high degree of social

protection. Second, Western support is ensured by an emphasis on democracy

and human rights; also, frequent reference is made to West European leftist

parties in the hope of using them as advocates in their respective countries

and also in the European Parliament and other international forums. Third,

there is the delicate matter of reconciling the communist character of the

party with the existence of members of the communist leadership who

became immensely rich. The prime example is Oleg Voronin, the presidentsson, whose fortune is estimated probably exaggeratedly at 2 billion US

dollars (in comparison, Moldovas GDP is 6 billion). It includes banks, most

of the sugar industry, insurance, building, transport, the grain trade, real

estate and tourism companies.127 While Oleg Voronin is by far Moldovas

richest citizen, he is hardly the only prosperous communist, a fact that gener-

ated intense criticism from the opposition and the civic sector. Yet Voronin

Senior has insisted in many of his speeches on the fact that his party exists

for all Moldovans, poor and rich. The opening of the section Our Values,

on the very first page of the 2008 programme, reads we do not plead for theinterests of the poor we fight poverty. We do not fight wealth we fight

to ensure that wealth and well-being stem from lawful income.128

Still,

during Voronins rule, the task of creating a favourable business environ-

ment benefited mostly the already prosperous businessmen in his own party.

In any case, the biggest problem is the obvious difference between the

partys ideology and its practice. Setting aside its self-assumed Soviet commu-

nist heritage, Voronins party presents itself as a genuine representative of

European social democracy. For such a party, however, democracy and

human rights should have been fundamental goals; instead, Moldovas com-

munists built an authoritarian regime. The new ideological orientation was

adopted officially in March 2008 yet it was precisely during 20078 that



24/32

new restrictions on the press and political parties were imposed.129 One year

later, these European social-democrats let their police torture at least 300

young opponents, an action Voronin has never condemned. At a more

general level, the desired image of a modern, Westernized pro-democracy

party shares very little with the real party that preserves most of the Soviet

ways of thinking and acting. One can receive the opposite image of that of

the early 2000s. The programme is social-democratic; but undemocratic

pragmatism makes it irrelevant for all practical purposes. Even the most

benevolent observer could hardly put the Party of Communists of the Republic

of Moldova in the same category as the Polish or Hungarian communist

successor parties. On the contrary, there are obvious similarities with the

parties of Videnov (1994 97), and especially Iliescu (1990 96). At that

time, the former Romanian communists also presented themselves as a social-democratic party while praising democracy and respect for human rights. But,

like Voronin, they did not hesitate to use large-scale violence against political

opponents. Disrespect for human rights, efforts to control the media and

infiltration of rival political parties were common. Today, it is generally accepted

that Iliescus party was hardly reformed and his regime was a semi-consolidated

authoritarian one. Given the undeniable similarities, it is difficult to deny that

the Moldovan communists party is only a superficially reformed communist

successor party that during 2001 9 created and ruled a semi-consolidated

authoritarian regime. Both the party and the regime can be labelled neo-communist in the sense given to this term in the present article.

A special point should be made concerning the non-transmuted character

of Voronins party. The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova is an

open adept of Moldovanism, which is a form of nationalism. Iliescu also

inherited from the pre-1989 era an anti-Hungarian nationalist discourse,

which he used to legitimate his own authoritarian regime. However, this

nationalism did not go as far as those of Meciar, Milosevic or Tudjman. Its

role was instrumental and represented only a secondary feature of the

Romanian neo-communist regime. Voronin involuntarily imitates Iliescu.Moldovanism is simply a Soviet inheritance turned into a legitimating

instrument. Its use remains limited enough to prevent the transformation of

the party into an ultra-nationalist, transmuted one. It can be concluded that

the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova is a superficially

reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party.

Six Final Questions

There are six main questions that an article of this nature cannot ignore. The

first concerns the very beginning of the Moldovan communist successor

party: why Voronins communists started as an unreformed party instead of



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following the Polish or Lithuanian examples. The basic answer was given by

Herbert Kitschelts theory. Using it, Luke March showed convincingly how

the Soviet-era patrimonial communism explains much of the general context

for party origins, political profile and the political capital possessed by the

Moldovan successor party.130 The patrimonial communist heritage included

organizational integrity, a stable constituency, an identifiable brand-name,

a traditionalist membership, a polarizing political appeal, and limited incen-

tives to strategic transformation.131 Consequently, the initial profile of the

party was a clearly unreformed one.

The second question is why did they not evolve towards genuine social-

democracy? The 20045 change and 2008 ideological shift were pragmatic

steps with clear tactical objectives. Under Moldovas specific electoral

conditions, the initial political formula of the communists was too successfulto necessitate fundamental adjustments. Moreover, despite their pragmatism,

many of the communist leaders including Voronin have been quite

conservative in their personal views. Consequently, a superficial reform was

deemed sufficient. Indeed, past elections do not suggest that a genuinely

social-democratic party would have performed better.

The third question is simply why did the communists come to power?

Leaving aside short-term explanations, it is generally accepted that the main

precondition was the failure of the Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova,

the local centre-left party of power.132

In other CIS republics, such partiesrepresented the main obstacle that blocked the political rise of the communist

successor parties. When this problem disappeared, the communists were able

to exploit Moldovans growing sense of social crisis and the general dissa-

tisfaction created by the elite political infighting due to both internalist

and externalist factors. On the one hand, they had better organization and

leadership. Party centralization implied higher cohesion and party discipline.

Both portable skills gained in the previous regime and usable pasts

favoured them. Most importantly, Voronins personal authority and political

skills were largely superior to those of his adversaries. On the other hand,the nostalgia argument was very important given the traumatic post-Soviet

socio-economic situation. Also, the competitor parties were weak and,

frequently, poorly organized even in terms of electoral matters.

The fourth question is why did the communists stay in power? They ruled

from 2001 to 2009 mainly because (1) they were well-organized, cohesive and

disciplined; (2) they had a competent leadership and a supreme leader who

commanded respect; (3) they adopted a pragmatic approach in most domains;

(4) they used authoritarian instruments allowing them to exploit state resources

in their own interest and to weaken their opponents; (5) in 20045, they gave

the impression of a fundamental ideological and geopolitical reorientation

that ensured critical external (EU) and domestic (CDPP) support.



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The fifth question is more difficult: why did the communists lose power?

One answer might be that they simply had bad luck. In April 2009, only one

more MP would have allowed them to rule for four more years. Things get

more complicated, however, when the subsequent evolution of the party is

scrutinized. Voronin was temporarily delegitimized and his decisions were

challenged. He reasserted his control, but providing his rivals with at least

modest concessions would have been wiser. Lupus defection lost the party

a significant part of its electorate and, implicitly, the early elections. Only

then did the communists lose power. Therefore, it can be said that the main

explanation is Voronins stubbornness for not accommodating the political

ambitions of his communist rivals. The defection of the Turcan group, in

December 2009, suggests that Voronin learned little from the previous experi-

ence not unnatural, perhaps, for an ageing authoritarian leader. More impor-tantly, it shows that the communists success formula has clear limits. It

worked as long as the supreme leader could effectively control all his rivals,

but it was blocked by the growing tension between this authoritarian approach

and one leading to a more pluralistic intra-party environment. In other words,

after eight years in power, the communists can function correctly only as an

authoritarian-led party ruling an authoritarian regime. Serious external compe-

tition created important internal disputes that resulted in a major crisis.

The final, obvious question concerns the future of the Moldovan commu-

nists as a leading political force. I have presented my assessment of the conse-quences of the November 2010 elections. In the future, it is likely that Voronins

party could return to power only through an alliance with Lupu. The post-July

2009 situation is that of a renewed plurality by default; the communists are now

too weak to impose an undemocratic regime. This is a relatively unstable

balance that, in the long run, will lead Moldova either to genuine democratiza-

tion or to renewed authoritarianism. But it is probable that the plurality by

default will last for some time. The present hybrid regime will probably

evolve in a way similar to that of 19932001, with the communists as an

important but not dominant political actor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

NOTES

1. In the following pages, the term communists designates the members of the Party ofCommunists of the Republic of Moldova simply because this is the way they call themselves;neo-communism is used as a term with a specific signification it is in no way a synonymfor or similar to classical Marxism Leninism (communism) and lacks any totalitariandimension.

C O M M U N I S M F O R T H E T W E N T Y - F I R S T C E N T U R Y 315


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2. John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political Success of the Communist SuccessorParties, Social Science Quarterly, Vol.82, No.4 (2001), pp.84464 (p.845).

3. Anna Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of CommunistSuccessor Parties in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2002), p.14; italics added.

4. Grigore Pop-Eleches, A Party for All Seasons: Electoral Adaptation of Romanian Commu-nist Successor Parties, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.41, No.4 (2008),pp.46579 (p.467).

5. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past, p.14.6. Ibid.7. Dan Hough, Learning From the West: Policy Transfer and Programmatic Change in the

Communist Successor Parties of Eastern and Central Europe, Journal of CommunistStudies and Transition Politics, Vol.21, No.1 (2005), pp.1 15 (pp.3 5).

8. Tatiana Rizova, Post-Authoritarian Metamorphoses: The Adaptation of Successor Parties toDemocracy, paper presented at the conference 19902005: Democracy and its Develop-ment, Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, 26 Feb. 2005.

9. Ishiyama, Party Organization, pp.844 and 846.10. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past, p.7.11. Ishiyama, Party Organization, p.844.12. John T. Ishiyama, The Communist Successor Parties and Party Organizational Develop-

ment in Post-Communist Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Vol.52, No.1 (1999),pp.87112 (p.87).

13. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past, p.5.14. Ishiyama, Party Organization, p.847.15. Ibid., pp.846 7.16. Ibid., p.848.17. Hough, Learning from the West, p.4.18. Jane Leftwich Curry and JoanUrban (eds.), The Left Transformed in Postcommunist Societies:

The Cases of East-Central Europe, Russia, and Ukraine (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield,2003), pp.2 3.

19. Ibid.20. Andras Bozoki and John T. Ishiyama (eds.), The Communist-Successor Parties of Central

and Eastern Europe (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), p.6.21. Hough, Learning from the West, p.3; Ishiyama, Party Organization, pp.846 7.22. Herbert Kitsch

Documents

Communism for the 21st Century-The Moldovan Experiment