Mobilising the Masses: Explaining the Rapid Rise of Worker Activism in Transnistria in the Late 1980s

Abstract

Between August and September 1989, Russian-speaking workers in Moldova went on strike against a series of laws that made Moldovan the sole official language of the republic. While workers from across the republic participated, it was only in the Transnistrian region that a group such as the United Soviet of Work Collectives (OSTK) was able to use the strikes to usurp power. This article questions why the strikes destabilised the Transnistrian region but not the other predominantly Russian-speaking regions that participated. The author argues that there were three reasons for this. Firstly, local political elites in Transnistria were largely inactive, creating a power vacuum the OSTK was willing and able to fill. Secondly, the OSTK launched an effective propaganda campaign aimed at undermining people’s trust in existing institutions. Finally, the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Transnistria were more hostile to Moldovan cultural demands than their counterparts elsewhere in the republic.

Keywords

• transnistria
• moldova
• strikes
• propaganda
• separatism