Moldovan resistance during World War II
The Moldovan resistance during World War II opposed Axis-aligned Romania and Nazi Germany, as part of the larger Soviet partisan movement. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), presently Moldova, had been created in August 1940 after a Soviet annexation, and retaken by Romania during Operation Barbarossa. Moldovan resistance straddled across a new administrative border: in 1941–1944, Bessarabia was reincorporated within Romania as a semi-autonomous governorate, while areas across the Dnister were administered into a separate Transnistria Governorate. Shortly after the German–Romanian invasion of June–July 1941, the Communist Party of Moldavia (PCM) ordered the creation of a partisan network. The order was largely ineffective in creating an organized movement due to the rapid disintegration of Soviet territorial structures in Bessarabia. Some early organizers opted to abandon their posts, and Soviet attempts to infiltrate experienced partisans across the front line were often annihilated by the Special Intelligence Service. Nevertheless, partisan formations were still able to stage large-scale attacks on the Romanian infrastructure, at Bender and elsewhere. While Romanian documents identified categories of locals influenced by communist ideas as a passive component of the resistance, various modern commentators point to the overall unpopularity of communism in Bessarabia as accounting for the movement's marginality.

Nikita Salogor, the PCM Junior Secretary, was assigned to the task of establishing a partisan branch in Bessarabia and Transnistria from his headquarters in Leninsk. Linked to the PCM and the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, the emerging guerilla force was multinational, with Romanians or Moldovans generally underrepresented; while some partisan groups were always active against the Romanian Army in Bessarabia, until 1944 most of the Moldovan-designated units of the Central Headquarters fought against the "Wehrmacht" and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in "Reichskommissariat Ukraine". Their commandants included Vasily Andreyev, Ivan Aleshin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Frolov, and Gherasim Rudi.

From 1943, with the turn of tides on the Eastern Front, partisan activity increased, as did its repression by Romanian and German forces. Two Romanian counterintelligence units, Centers B and H, were moved to Bessarabia to assist in the effort. Northern Bessarabia fell to the Soviets during the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive of early 1944, which exposed the south to further penetration by the SMERSH, and saw Moldovan partisan units moving in to assist the Red Army. Following the Soviet advance into Romania, the MSSR was fully reestablished, and the SMERSH could begin hunting down those Moldovans who had participated in the anti-partisan effort. This clash also witnessed massacres of captured partisans by the retreating Axis armies, at camps set up in Tiraspol and Rîbnița. 

Soviet historiography and propaganda writing acclaimed Moldovan anti-Nazi resistance, which features in Alexander Fadeyev's "Young Guard". Various anti- and post-Soviet authors have revisited that image, in some cases describing the partisans as terrorists. Some enduring controversies exist about the role of minorities, and especially those Bessarabian Jews who were targeted by the Holocaust, and whose contribution was generally overshadowed in Soviet sources. By contrast, Romanian writer Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu introduced polemical claims according to which all partisan groups were primarily Jewish.
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Romania
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Nazi Germany
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Soviet partisan movement
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Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
LOC
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Moldova
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Soviet annexation
EVE
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Operation Barbarossa
EVE
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new administrative border
UNK
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Bessarabia
MEDIA
None
as a semi-autonomous governorate
UNK
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LOC
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Transnistria Governorate
LOC
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Communist Party of Moldavia
ORG
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Special Intelligence Service
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Bender
LOC
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Nikita Salogor
PER
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Leninsk
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Moldovans
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Romanian Army
ORG
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Wehrmacht
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Ukrainian Insurgent Army
MEDIA
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Reichskommissariat Ukraine
LOC
None
Ivan Aleshin
UNK
None
Nikolai Mikhailovich Frolov
UNK
Q10835544
Gherasim Rudi
PER
Q189266
Eastern Front
LOC
Q701719
Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive
EVE
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SMERSH
ORG
Q251395
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Soviet historiography
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Q60128
Alexander Fadeyev
PER
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Young Guard
ORG
Q5869624
Bessarabian Jews
UNK
Q696662
Holocaust
UNK
Q1127989
Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu
PER
Q4345918
Moldovan resistance during World War II
UNK
1940-08-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
August 1940
DATE
1941-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1941
DATE
1941-07-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
July 1941
DATE
1944-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1944
DATE
1943-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1943
DATE
1944-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1944
DATE
+1944^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1944
NUMBER
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country
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location
author