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

embassies from Stockholm', Copenhagen and Constantinople were the most active in the fulfilment of this mission. The nuclei of collaborators and informers developed round them were discretely financed by the “Reichsbank” through the different bank firms (“Max Warburg et Co.”, “Nija Banken” and their branch offices in the capitals of the respective countries). In order to gain favourable results, different groups of antitsarist emigration, from representatives of the national-democratic movements of the non-Russian peoples (Finnish, Estonians, Letons, Lithuanians, Polish, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians etc) to the internationalist socialists of Lenin were morally and materially encouraged. The encouragement of the anti-tsarist democratic movements will bear fruit through the starting of the Russian revolution in February 1917, ended with the overthrowing of tsarism and the setting up of the republic and of Kerenski government. The removing Russia from the war in November 1917 is the work of the Bolshevik group led by Lenin and Trotzki, persons who later signed the peace from Brest-Litovsk (on March 3rd 1918), as a reward given to them because of their support given by Berlin in the taking over the power by the Soviets in Petrograd and Moscow.

Once started, the revolution followed its inexorable way. The two decrees, “The decree on Peace” and “The decree upon land”, October 26lh/November 8th, and “The Declaration of the Right of the Russian Peoples to their Selfdetermination'’ (November T'/4th) till their “separation from the state” generate extensive democratic changes in the direction of the disintegration and federalization of the autocratic empire25. Among the peoples who claimed their right to lead a free and democratic life are to be found also the Romanians of Bessarabia. If the Kerenski government and that of the People's Commisaries were ready to recognize the right to selfdetermination to the big nations of the former empire, not the same thing happened to the small national entities among which were the Romanians from Bessarabia, to which this right was vehemently contested. This was the real hidden motive of the gradual deterioration of the Romanian-Russian relations after December 1917 till the final breaking off at the beginning of 1918. Its best known moments were the arresting of the members of the Romanian Embassy from Petrograd and the confiscation of

25 The marxist historiography overbided their values from an unilateral perspective. Their re-reading is necessary; the text of the documents in: V. I. Lenin, Opere complete (Complete Works), vol. 35, ed. a Il-a, Bucureşti, 1965, p.13-15 a. foil. For confrontation, see J. Kreppei, Der Friede im Osten: Noten. Manifestate. Botschaften. Reden. Erkläruneen, Verhandlungsprotokolle und Friedensverträge mit der Ukraine. Russland und Rumänien.Wien. 1918, p. 1-3, 68 a. Foil.

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