Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Teodor Pavel: Wold War I and Revolutionary Options in Central-Eastern Europe: the Project of the "Insurrection" of Romania at the End of the Year 1917
Dr. Teodor Pavel adversary of tsarist Russia and a fighter for the liberation of Bassarabia and for the reunification of the Romanian provinces into a great Romania, saw no other solution than to lean upon a durable alliance with the Central European states. Having powerful democratic convictions, the antitsarist liberal C. Stere considered that “taking into consideration the geographical position, the personal union with Austria would be easier achieved”: Emperor Carol I of Habsburg or his son would become king of Romania and “so the Romanian block - the Ardeal-Great Romania - would be gathered under a single dynasty”11. We must notice that Stere tried to prevent “the big evil” at the end of the war by an immediate statal unification under the protection of the Central Powers. And for this one mustn't wait till the end of the war, but “after the liberation of Moldavia from the Russian ocupation, a provisional government could immediately be appointed and the dethroning of the present dynasty could be proclaimed. After this, a traditional plebiscite could be undertaken for the election of a new dynasty. The whole nation could enthusiastically welcome this new order. The peasant could be won by an agrarian reform, and a big part of the population which lived in towns [could be won] by the emancipation of the Jews, [ while] the intellectuals [ could be attracted] by the union of all Romanians under a single dynasty. If Bessarabia could enter, too, it would be better"11 12. Obviously, this chosen way was contrary to that of the country, which with its last material and human resources was gathered round the king and the government of national union I. C. Brătianu-Take Ionescu from Iassy. In the context of the February 1917 Russian revolution and that of the abdication of tsar Nicolae II in 1917, March 15th, a big part of the Romanian socialists especially the Marxist groups, sided with the idea of the removing king Ferdinand and of the proclamation of the republic in Romania. The idea derived from the republican spirit of the socialist program generally speaking, but it is also correlated with the antimonarchic action of the bolschevized Russian soldiers from Moldavia, especially from Iassy, as well as with the plans of “insurrection” of the enemy which were conceived by Berlin and carried out with the help of the bolschevic ally, 11 Ibidem. 12 C. Stere, memoriul adresat împăraţilor din Viena şi din Berlin, în martie 1917, reprodus sub titlul Un document senzaţional în afacerea trădătorului Constantin Stere (C. Stere, the Memoir addressed to the emperors from Vienna and Berlin in March 1917, reproduced under the title:”A sensational Document in the Affair of the Traitor Constantin Stere "), în Universul, Bucureşti, an XLII, nr. 143 din 28 iunie 1924, Cf. Ion Scurtu, op. cit., p. 39-40. 90
