The events in Tatarbunar
They illustrate how a segment of the civilian population may join an anti state movement without possessing full knowledge of the forces at play.
Steliu Lambru, 01.06.2026, 14:00
The events that unfolded in Tatarbunar, in the fall of 1924 constitute a textbook case of state sponsored terrorism. They also illustrate how a segment of the civilian population may join an anti state movement without possessing full knowledge of the forces at play. Tatarbunar has remained emblematic of the way bilateral relations can deteriorate when two neighboring states neither recognize nor respect one another.
During the night of 15–16 September 1924, several dozen armed individuals crossed the Dniester River from the Soviet Union and seized control of the commune of Tatarbunar. Telephone lines were cut, sentries were posted at every entrance to the settlement, and red flags were raised. Armed bands began terrorizing the local population and established improvised Soviet authorities. The government in Bucharest dispatched the army, and the rebellion was crushed within a few days. Several hundred rebels were killed, and another 120 were taken prisoner. In the subsequent trial, 287 individuals were indicted, and 85 received sentences ranging from six months to six years. Two were sentenced to fifteen years, and one to life imprisonment. The rebellion was condemned even by the Socialist Party of Romania.
How did matters reach this point? Military historian Petre Out, explains: “I refer especially to the internal and, above all, international context that shaped the events of September and October 1924. Everything begins in 1918, with the union of Bessarabia with Romania, with the intervention of the Romanian army in January 1918 in support of the Sfatul Țării (a parliament like assembly), whose legitimacy was contested by its adversaries and even by some who were not necessarily adversaries but neutrals. Soviet Russia – since the Soviet Union itself was established only later, at the end of 1922 – refused to recognize the union of Bessarabia with Romania in any form. In Paris, Soviet Russia was neither invited nor present at the peace conference. Instead, a delegation of Russian émigrés was invited, and they acted against the recognition of Bessarabia’s union with Romania.”
As ideology demanded, the Soviet Union sought to extend the revolution across the globe: “In the fervor of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik seizure of power, the doctrine of world revolution was born. Trotsky was its principal ideologue, though other Soviet leaders also embraced it. They argued that the imperialist war had to be transformed into a civil war and, from there, into a revolutionary one, with the revolution spreading across the world. In this context, between 2 and 6 March 1919, the Third International was created, conceived as a global communist party meant to lead the proletariat to the final victory of the Bolshevik revolution. We know today of the revolutions in Germany and Hungary, of social movements in France and elsewhere. The consequences of the war were devastating even for the victors, not only for the defeated. And the International set out to wage a hybrid war – a term very familiar today – against the countries of Central, Eastern, and even Western Europe.”
Soviet aggressiveness continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s, although diplomacy eventually brought periods of relative calm: “These convulsions continued in many countries. I would note that the events at Tatarbunar and those of October, followed by the creation of a Moldovan republic on the left bank of the Dniester as a means of pressure against Romania, were the penultimate spasms of the Third International. The final pulse occurred in the Baltic States – in Estonia, in 1924 – an attempted revolution, so to speak. Later, Stalin, who consolidated power after Lenin’s death, adopted the doctrine of socialism in one country: we must strengthen ourselves first, and only afterward consider further action. By the mid 1930s, the Soviet Union shifted from vehemently contesting the Paris Peace Conference settlement to defending the territorial status quo.”
Petre Otu also sought an explanation for the so called Russian “hunger for space”: “I have asked myself where this extraordinary inclination of the Russian Empire toward that small patch of land called Bessarabia originates. There is an old theory that wherever the Russian sets foot, he never leaves. But a second theory concerns geopolitics. There are strategic corridors of penetration from Western Europe into Eastern Europe, Western Europe being described by Paul Valéry and others as a kind of peninsula of Asia. There is the northern corridor, the Baltic corridor, the Central European corridor, used by Napoleon, by Charles XII, and by the Red Army in the Second World War – the Danube corridor, and the maritime corridor through the straits. The territory of Bessarabia, together with Belarus and part of Poland, forms a set of pivot zones that allow movement from one strategic direction to another. Thus, this inclination toward Bessarabia can also be explained geopolitically.”
The events of Tatarbunar in 1924 belong to the past, yet their reverberations remain strong today. For the past is never merely past – it is also present. (EE)
