CHAPTER III

Social and Economic Trends
The Rural Areas

The Setting

Basically Transnistria was an agrarian province. Except for Odessa it had no large towns; its residents were overwhelmingly of peasant stock; most of its land was used for agriculture; and the great majority of its population, as late as 1940, gained its livelihood from the land.1* By far the largest crop was maize; wheat, barley, and rye were also of some importance. Potatoes and sugar beets played a smaller role. Sunflowers excelled in this region, and soy-bean cultivation was rapidly growing. Fruit, wine, and tobacco were among the more unusual cultures. A good many of the "industrial" installations of the province were geared to the processing or canning of produce, fruit, and fish. Before the war, agriculture had, of course, been organized along the standard Soviet lines: most of it in kolkhozes (collective farms) and some (especially cattle-breeding, experimental fruit and vegetable stations, and apiaries) in state farms.2*

The German invasion had, as could be expected, wrought havoc with agriculture. Mobilization had already cut deep into the adult male age groups, which already had been proportionately smaller that female and younger groups. However, farm had raked low on the scale of Soviet priorities for evacuation. The only ones, in addition to the draftees, to leave the farms were, by and large, managers and other officials, militia officers, and occasionally, bookkeepers and agronomists. At least half the rural population remained.

Before their retreat, Soviet efforts had revolved around the evacuation or destruction of livestock and machinery. It has been estimated that at least half the area's cattle were being moved east. However, because of speed of the German advance and the deliberate slow-down tactic at times pursued by the kolkhoz personnel (often young farm boys, ten to twelve years of age), who reluctantly accompanied the eastward trek of livestock, many of the herds were overtaken by the Axis troops, particularly on the western bank of the Bug River. Some cattle got across, some perished, but enough remained, and virtually all collectives whose livestock had been removed sent special "catchers," as soon as the Romanians or Germans arrived, to retrieve the herds.3*

Machinery losses were more disastrous. Over half the mechanized equipment, including tractors, had been evacuated or wrecked.

Because of the large-scale kind of agriculture in much of the area, mechanization was essential to successful and timely harvesting and plowing. Moreover, lack of transportation impeded the shipment of produce to grain elevators (and some of them had been wrecked). Lack of storage space in the village (due to the Soviet zagot collection system) produced immediate problems.

With much of the administration gone, with Soviet compulsions and control removed, and confusion about future plans and requirements of the new authorities rampant, there set in -at crucial time of year for paralyzing effect on the farmers' will or ability to work.

The Romanian authorities had no immediate wish to institute thorough-going changes in the agricultural system or property relations. Men like Alexianu argued that it was technically impossible to abolish collective farms; Romanian pressure for maximum output put a premium on maintaining the status quo. Reform would have entailed confusion and slow-down of farm work. Any alternative system was assumed to be less authoritarian and less well geared to the collection of produce-it was felt simpler to collect from a few central points than from a large number of individual peasant households. The basic features of the kolkhoz were, therefore, retained, through some relaxations were introduced.4* In this respect Romanian policy closely paralleled what was done in German-held areas of the USSR.

The Germans sought to retain a hand in the running of Transnistrian agriculture-to which, strictly speaking , they were in no wise entitled, but fir which a precedent existed in the dispatch of German agricultural advisers to Bucivina and Bessarabia. It took direct intervention by German Ambassador Killinger with Antonescu to secure, on November 11,1941, Romanian consent to this German interference, and one German agriculture adviser was assigned as a technical specialist to each judet and prefecture (i.e., 13 plus 64 men). This was less than the German had hoped for -they wanted to have at least one and perhaps two men in each rayon-but it gave them both insight and a measure of control. The German advisers periodically held conference among themselves. On their performance and political impact, unfortunately, no information has come on light.5*

It is exceedingly difficult to ascertain rural attitudes in Transnistria, because neither contemporary documents nor any first-hand informants could be found. From what material is available one gather that, during the initial weeks of flux and chaos, Soviet peasant reactions in Transnistria were by and large identical with those expressed in German-held areas.6* The Germans, like Romanians, wanted to leave everything as it was and wanted the farmers to go with their work, especially the work of harvesting. But the kolkhoz population often, apparently, took things into their own hands and began dividing collective property. Near Iampol', the Germans reported having succeeded in "re-establishing" the kolkhoz; it had been dissolved by its members as soon as the Red Army left. In the village of Ol'shanka, the first occupation troops found that grain, horses, cows, and flour bags had been divided among the members of the village; the two machines and six oxen continued to be collectively owned and the land had not been partitioned. In Dimitrashkovka, which had nearly 900 families, the village had spontaneously "assembled" and elected an elder(starosta) before the arrival of the German adviser. A German inspector found during extensive trip through Transnistria in November,1941, that "it is reported unanimously that the Romanian administration has not succeeded in preventing the dissolution of the collective in many villages.7*

A Romanian expert and ex-Minister admitted in print that "the peasants desire a return to individual property and voluntarily renounce collectivism, yet paradoxically, because of the lack of inventory, one must for the time being maintain the norms established by the Bolshevik regime." Indeed, even in Volkdeutsche villages German officials who initially took charge were constrained to rule that peasants be "forced to co-operate" in farm work, and to revive the old Bolshevik maxim "he does not work does not eat." The initial Romanian directive, as will be seen, demanded "collective harvesting," though it was admitted that "not every member of the kolkhoz could see this."8*

The policy of maintaining the kolkhoz was pushed by the time the "pacification" of Transnistria was completed, the system was outwardly in operation. The new collection and delivery system was, however, far less thorough and the controls instituted by the Romanians were inevitably far laxer than what had prevailed under Soviet rule. The peasants "got away" with far more than had before, in such ways as falsifying reports, hiding grain, and evading work. Yet outwardly the change was simply a new network that took place of the defunct Soviet one.

Plus ca change

First arrangements were makeshift. In one case,20% of the harvested grain was given in August to farm members, as an advance on their share, which was to be determined more fully at the later date; the balance was to be stored. In another, the Germans report, "the Romanians have determined that 25% of the grain be turned over to the army and 75% be left to the peasants" - this was considerably, even drastically, less than Soviet demands. (In this particular village, Romanian troops, apparently without official consent, sanctioned the partitioning of the collective farm by the peasants and even allowed individual harvesting by each household.) Probably because of some general directive, the most common plan was to divide the produce evenly between State and Farm-peasants were to deliver 50% of the harvest to the authorities -at the time, the Romanian army-and keep the rest for themselves.9*

A basic directive of Army General Dimitrescu to the local population in August,1941, included the proviso that (1) farm work was obligatory for the rural population, and (2) half the harvest belonged to the kolkhoz, the other half to the state (army). The government pledged itself not to requisition without payment - a ludicrous promise in view of continual abuse and looting. It contained the first substantial alleviation of kolkhoz conditions.

Agricultural labor may do farm work either as individuals or grouped in the collective farm. If (they prefer to work individually) kolkhoz property of its members, who in turn must deliver a certain share (directly) to the state (army).10*

This directive was of symbolic rather than practical significance. Romanian enforcement was weak and sporadic; abuses were widespread among peasants and official alike. In practice, the army took what it could. When confronted with "no- requisition-without -pay" proclamations and therefore compelled to adopt a more orderly process, the 50% due the army was converted into a device for looting; one Romanian unit after another came around to collect the "fifty per cent" time and again. Since the Romanian army had no organized supply system and was told to live off the land, this behavior was understandable, but certainly not calculated to make the peasantry like the Romanians.11*

Within a few weeks, however, a semblance of order was established, and the army moved on. A new agrarian system for Transnistria is defined in the first Antonescu decree, issued August 19. In it the civil governor is ordered to assure harvesting and storage of the harvest; to make inventories of collective and state farm property; to divide the harvest between state and population according to a fixed ratio; and to leave the cattle of the collective and state farms temporarily in the care of individual peasant families Alexianu thereupon issued proclamation according to which

(1) the collective farms were to be maintained, and arbitrary partition was forbidden; (2) after deduction of seed reserves and payment (in grain) of service charges for the use of machinery, the grain was to be divided in equal parts between the peasants and the state.12*

Some changes were made in Decree #55 of March 14,1942: the collectives were renamed co-operatives and were divided into smaller "work communities." In effect this made each former brigade (of about twenty families) a separate kolkhoz, which about 200 hectares of land. According to one writer:

...the main features of the kolkhoz form of agriculture prevailing there were retained but collectivization was relaxed by arranging the kolhokhzy into work groups of ten farm families each. The dead and live inventories of each kolkhoz were divided and allocated to the work groups, which received shares in the kolkhoz fields. In other words, the large kolkhozy of whole villages were broken up into small kolkhozy of ten families each.

This resembled German practice in some parts of the Ukraine, where five, eight, or ten households were jointly given land and equipment, though these units were not given formal juridical or administrative status. The Transnistrian system, a contemporary article explained, was "flexible," varying from area to area; this, one must assume, accounts for the different numbers of householders included in the new small collectives. The writer quotes one village mayor as saying:

It was necessary to work by a plan... in order to secure maximal yield. The whole community was divided into twelve groups, and each group was given a piece of land depending in size on the number of horses it had at its disposal. In addition, our community received 200 hectares for use from neighboring Ukrainian village (which presumably lacked either manpower or machinery), so that we had to work an area of 1109 hectares with 75 horses. The area was fully plowed and sown...13*

Decree #55 eliminated some of the formality and bureaucratic overhead. It abolished the trudoden' system (bookkeeping "work days"), by which compensation was based on units determined by the time spent and the nature of the work done. It was replaced by a direct sharing of peasant households in the produce of the land they worked ( now a smaller area than in the larger Soviet collective). While the abolition of the trudodni was clearly popular, difficulties over the "fair" division of land and the working out of sowing plans for each new share, since the quality of the soil and the crops to be planted had to be considered . The general principle that came to prevail was that greater performance warranted greater rewards.

Other changes equally popular with the Soviet peasant were getting the right freely to dispose of yiss "fifty per cent" of the harvest, to grow fruit and vegetables without restrictions, and to engage in unlimited small-scale cattle breeding. There is no evidence that the side of private plots increased, as they did in the German-occupied areas. Contemporary observers point primarily to the larger share of harvest retained by the peasant as a incentive to greater effort. Even after taxes14* the 1941-1942 delivery demands of Romanians were smaller that those of the Soviets, and were, moreover, less efficiently collected. The consensus is that in 1942 the rural population of Transnistria was better off than before the war.15*

Difficulties arose because a high proportion of the administrative and technical staffs had left; most kolkhoz chairmen were gone; of the 11,000 agronomists in Transnistria only 1,000 were on jobs ( though many more were assumed to be hiding within the province). The initial German instructions called for continued employment of former kolkhoz directors, "since they know the area best." The Romanians were loath to take such political changes; moreover, only a few of the managers remained, and because of peasant hostility, they could not always be left in office. New elder (starosty) were usually appointed or elected-generally by an informal process, which varied from village to village. The Romanians often preferred ( and sometimes the peasants themselves advanced) a former victim of Soviet repression or kulak; many who had been bookkeepers or agronomists under the Soviet shifted from specialized technical work to management and administration-there was a similar trend to urban industry. In general, however, the caliber of farm managers remained poor; in 1942 there were complains that the unsatisfactory productivity of farms was due, at least in part to the inadequacy of the new supervisors.16* Unfortunately, because of lack data, it is impossible to determine the importance of this and other factors in accounting for the low productivity of agriculture.

Transportation remained a problem to the end; indeed it had been a problem (though perhaps in milder form)for the Soviets. Most storage facilities for grain were located along rail lines, and the railroads were scarcely operating. Local elevators and barns were often insufficient to hold the harvest, and others that might have been used were inaccessible. because the Soviets had destroyed or evacuated so many vehicles. The harvesting itself was endangered by the removal or destruction of tractors and other mechanized equipment. The Machine Tractor Station (MTS) had been among the first rural installation to be evacuated. The tractor shortage, which at first sight seemed to acute, turned out to be less crucial than might de surmised. A good many tractors were repaired with spare parts found at remaining depots or taken from wrecked vehicles; the local population apparently took considerable interest and pride in this work. The Romanians succeeded in reopening the Odessa GINAP agricultural machinery plant; this was operated by the Romanian Ford Company and was at least able to repair and keep up existing machinery. Several hundred tractors were bought abroad, primarily in Germany, by Alexianu's administration. All this helped overcome the shortage of mechanized equipment, and by mid-1943 some seventy tractor stations were again in operation.

Before the war, Soviet machine-tractor stations had been centers for the political control of the countryside; these tractor station s lost their political functions under Romanians. Often owned by nearby village, they continued to perform their economic functions. There were but few protests from the peasants against pooling tractors and other machinery., and the Romanians found the MTS useful and economical. What would have happened to them, especially with expanding private farming, must remain a matter of speculation.

The demands from other areas for farm machinery had some curious repercussions. In August, 1941,
Antonescu told the Germans he could not possibly spare Romanian tractors for Transnistria, as the restoration of Bessarabian agriculture had priority. In late 1942 the tractor shortage in Old Romania was apparently so severe that the authorities even withdrew 1,876 of the best tractors from Transnistria; inevitably the 1943 harvest there declined. At the same time ,however, individual Romanian businessmen were shipping in agricultural machinery and offering it for sale to Transnistria. The conflict between these two policies was never reconciled. Actually the shortage of tractors does not seem to have been too severe.17* By the fall of 1942, new tractor drivers were started in Odessa. In the last half-year of occupation (1943-1944) the situation improved further because the Germans, evacuating some of the eastern-most areas they had seized, shipped back agricultural equipment to Transnistria. But when the Germans retreated though Transnistria their evacuation of machinery was at least as ruthless as had been the Soviet; after reoccupation Moscow could rightly blame the Axis for the severe decline in mechanization on Transnistria farms.18*

Fuel might here been a serious problem. During the first months of the occupation, the shortage of fuel oil for agricultural machinery actually did severely curtail its use. In German-held areas fuel continued scarce and source of tension throughout the war. Transnistria, however, was fortunate in the Romania, of all the European countries, was relatively rich in oil, once the transportation bottleneck was overcome, could supply without particular difficulty, the rather considerable quantities needed for the operation of the Transnistrian economy (over 2,000freight cars of 15 tons each, for the spring of 1942 alone).19*

The Peasantry

The peasant population seems, as a whole adjusted rather rapidly to the new conditions . The "New Order" probably affected them less than it did city-dwellers, and some of changes it wrought appear to have been in harmony with their aspiration. Even in the first weeks of occupation willingness to work was reported fair or better before -a sharp contrast to what the Germans experienced farther north and east. When genuine incentives were offered or real improvement in economic conditions was apparent, the peasants worked with a will. No peasant information have been located; the fact that well-informed urban informants had no knowledge of specific peasant grievances is itself an index to the relative absence of violent rural unrest. This certainly was not true of the refugees from German-controlled areas of the USSR, where the kolkhoz issue was hotly fought and remained paramount.20*

What the city-dweller saw was an upsurge of trade between town and county, and greater activity on thr free market, to which the peasants would bring their own products. Even during the first weeks some peasants ventured to face the economic chaos and offered potatoes, flour, and bread, at first in barter, sought textiles, shoes, and other consumer goods. They might accept silver and gold or metal ware. At times they would accept Soviet money, but them would charge considerably higher prices ( rumor had it that the Germans would confiscate all rubles or exchange them for new legal tender. Until the monetary reform discussed below, however, the familiar ruble was accepted more readily than either marks or lei.

Soon peasants ( often acting as middlemen for some of their neighbors, so that not every household had to sell its own produce) regularly brought goods to the markets, and returned with shirts or shoes or perhaps a shovel or sickle. even a hat or a watch.21* As a refugee recall:

I had no difficulty getting on train whose cars were marked "Zhmerinka to Odessa." After a while the train started. There were many passengers and everyone had an agricultural-commercial" look. The car was piled high with bags and boxes, and with basket containing chickens. In my compartment a man had a bag with small pig which squealed throughout the entire journey. The closer we got to Odessa the more people crowded into the car. Soon it became impossible to get out. Both platform were stacked with goods. On one there were several kegs of vine, on the other a few life sheep.22*

The standard of living of the peasantry went up at first as a result of the change of system. Peasants were not only able to conceal some of the produce and appropriate some of the former kolkhoz property, but delivery norms were lower, the equivalent obtainable in consumer goods was higher, and collection was less efficient than under Soviet rule. In 1941-1942 the peasants were better off than just prior to the war. In 1943, however, the situation changed. It is well described in a summary report of the German consul general in Odessa:

The situation of the collective farmers has deteriorated by comparison with the last year. The collectives' deliveries in kind to the Romanians were at first somewhat lower than those collected by Bolsheviks. In addition, the Romanian organization for their collection was functioning more poorly that the Soviet had and therefore the peasants could easily lie to the Romanians. In the meanwhile, the Romanian administration has improved the collection system and, in violation of earlier pledges, has felt obliged, in view of the military situation, to raise the delivery norms. The new quotas are particularly keenly felt in the delivery of sheep, hogs, and fowl. Not only the collective but the individual collective member must now also pay...
Of late, the Romanians also go from house to house and confiscate without pay tobacco, wine, and eggs. Still something is left to the peasant, even if it isn't much. For what he has left he can charge much higher prices...

These higher prices were the result of an inflationary spiral that developed after Stalingrad. The German consul concluded that, as of late February, 1943:

Economically the peasants are dissatisfied because the Romanians demand higher deliveries, often treat the peasants unfairly and arbitrarily, and because the settlement of accounts with the kolkhozes often does not work out. However, politically they fear the return of the Soviets.23*

Information from other sources on the whole confirms his view. The consensus is that even in 1943 the peasants were no worse off, and were still perhaps a little better, than before the war.24* But the basis features of the collective farm remained unchanged. A government decree had sanctioned the "departure" or separation of individual peasants from the kolkhoz, with land and cattle of their own. A number of peasants had established their own otrub (holding)-in substance, the revival of pre-collectivization holdings. This does not seem to have been a widespread practice-the scarcity of information about it suggests as much. But the peasants wanted more, and their pressure probably influenced Antonescu in mid-1943. Wishing to make a grand geste toward the Transnistrian peasantry, Antonescu decreed a reform which went further in the direction of private agriculture than anything permitted therefore.25* This decree, signed by him on June 15,1943, at Vorontsov Palace in Odessa, and proclaimed as a token of Romanian appreciation for "disciplined and understanding" behavior of the population, provided, ai Article I, for the assignment of land for cultivation by individual peasant households:

(1) The Transnistian farm land is turned over for individual cultivation to all residents who (a) have been working with their special zeal on the land assigned them in "work brigades"; (b) who have delivered through the village communities, their share of products from the livestock turned over to them, i.e., within the framework provided for the maintenance of the occupation army, for the pay of administrative expenditures, and for new investment; (c) who all through this time have evinced a correct behavior toward army and administration.
(2) For the soil turned over for individual cultivation a yearly tariff in kind or in cash shall be paid, the sum to be determined according to the needs of the administration and the development of that region
(3) The residents are obliged.... to plant crops communally according to the plans set by the agronomists
(4) The plot given each resident... shall be in accordance with his family and social burdens, the size of the community's land holdings, and the number of residents claiming to obtain parts of it...26*

The decree was perhaps intentionally vague about whether private property was or was not being established. The impression given is that land was merely assigned for cultivation and exploitation, but was to remain subject to regulation; mandatory cropping plans were retained, but, unlike Soviet plans, were to be worked out locally by agricultural specialists. The decree was important more as a symbol than a real departure in Transnistrian farming. The whole problem of the kolkhoz, so acute elsewhere in the USSR, somewhat managed to be subordinated to other issues in Transnistria, where parts of the collective system were maintained and others abolished or amended (see Chapter VIII)
The status of the sovkhozes (state farms) was even simpler. Here the problem of private ownership did not arise. Sovkhozes were transferred directly to Romanian state ownership, operating under the Agricultural Directorate as experimental and model farms, especially in cattle-breeding, vine and fruit growing. In the Lustdorf area, for instance, the wine-processing sovkhoz "Chervonnyi Khutor" had been preserved from evacuation by the agronomist; this agronomist became the farm's director under the new regime. While details on the operation of state farms are lacking, there do not seem to have been any abnormal tensions,27*

For a survey of forestry in Transnistria, see Bukarester Tageblatt, March 9,1943. On fishing, see Florin Andrei, "Die Fischerei in Transnistrien," ibid., October 5,1943. Fishing had been organized in collective and state farms, too. An informant who lived in fishing village near Odessa for first weeks following the siege recalls that at first there was a definite sense of relief that Soviet controls were over; as one colorful fisherman told him, "konchilsia bardak"-"the bordello is over." The fishermen's hopes for rapid improvement in their conditions were dashed, however, by the war damage to the hatcheries and the idleness of the nearby canning and processing plants, which had taken their catch off the fishermen's hands in the past. As a result, they were now often stuck with an excess supply. which in turn drove prices down. Inevitably disillusionment set in, caused largely by material conditions The informant, who was not wholly conversant with the details, remembered that the fishermen sought the end of the collective but not of all co-operation. For instance, joint ownership and use of equipment and inventory, including nets and even boats, was accepted. Some individual fishermen became independent-vydelilis'-but most banded together in a form of artel', or cooperative (interview E.) The Romanians, on their part, sponsored four new fishing preserves.

The Harvest

The measure of farm work is, of course, the harvest. Unfortunately the available statistics on agricultural production are highly contradictory and incomplete; some of its errors and omissions in Romanian data were pointed out in contemporary German analyses. Of a potential 2,5 million hectares or so total crop land in Transnistria over 2 million were plowed in 1941, before the occupation. Only about 1,750,000 (or less) were harvested-more in the north than in the south. Some 90% of the wheat acreage was harvested, but only 40% of the harvest was threshed, the threshing of the rest being hopefully postponed until 1942.However, as the figures below indicate, the 1941 harvest was rather good, and the substantial share of it which went to the Romanians made a decisive difference to them in assuring the feeding in the armed forces. The planting in the fall of 1941 was, however, miserable. In some areas (e.g., Odessa) it amounted to 5% of the acreage, at best (e. g., in Mogilev-Podol'sk) 20%. The rain set in early and was intense. Fuel was lacking, particularly in districts distant from the Romanian border and from trunk rail lines. Disorganization was still extensive. The results were correspondingly poor.

In terms of acreage, things improved in the following year. In spring, 1942, the plan called for sowing on nearly 2 million hectares of crop land, and in 1943, nearly 2 1/4 million. Not quite so much was accomplished,28*, however, both total yield and , in a number of instances, yield er hectare went up again 29* in 1943 over the preceding year. While yield per acre remained nearly for such major crops as maize, sunflowers, and beets, the manpower available to produce it was far less in 1942-1943 than before the war ( in 1940), and there was also less farm machinery. The yield of wheat and rye declined; the reasons for this decline do not emerge from the source material available. The most stupendous increase in yield was in potatoes-approximately twice as many were grown in 1942-1943 as in 1940-1941.

In general, crop yields were not fully satisfactory to either the local population or the authorities; both were convinced that, given more time and propitious conditions, the yield could be increased. 30* While exact comparisons are impossible, the data suggest that trends in Transnistria roughly paralleled in German-occupied areas of the USSR, with perhaps a somewhat more significant increase in yield per capita of farm labor in Transnistria.

The Transnistria experience of Soviet agriculture was too brief and too contradictory to permit of clesrcut conclusions. It confirmed that, as of 1941, the was among the Soviet peasantry widespread hostility to some of the salient features of the kolkhoz system. It emphasized the importance of incentives for peasant production and marketing-and also the possibility of improving both in relatively short span of time. But it also indicated that other issues could take precedence over the solution of the agrarian problem.

Table 1. Crop Statistics (a) (in thousands of tons)

(a) Based on Woermann, Europaishe Ernahrungswirtschaft in Zahlen, vol2, Berlin,1944, cited in Karl Brandt et al. Management of Agriculture.... Stanford University Press, Stanford,1955, pp.217, 219.

Table 2. Crop yield in Transnistria (a) (in kilograms per hectare: approximate)

(a) Based on Woermann, op. cit.; Alfred Sztuka "Wirtshafliche Grundlagen..."; Osteneuropa -Jahrbuch 1942, Breslau, p.213; and Codrescu, op. cit.
(b) Figures as given in Sztuka, op. cit, and Codrescu, op. cit.
(c) Figures computed by author an basis od Woermann.

The Urban Areas

An examination of the fate of the Soviet urban society involves questions lie at the core of this study: how did different socio-economic groups fare and adjust after the removal of the Soviet controls and institutions; what groups, if any, displayed economic initiative; what forms did economic initiative take, and were enterprises successful; were there any changes in the relative status of socio-economic groups?

Only urban society in Odessa itself is here examined, and only in terms of its larger groupings. Evidence on industrial labor is scare; most of the information available pertains to professional and other white-collar classes, economic entrepreneurs, and political collaborators.

In marked contrast to German-held areas, there was little or no migration of urban residents from Odessa to the countryside, partly because of Romanian effort to prevent it, but mainly because in Transnistria rural areas were no better off than cities. The standard of living in most German-held areas because suddenly higher in the country than in the cities, because food failed to reach the cities, consumer goods disappeared from them, and agricultural reforms increased rural productivity. Even during the first winter of Romanian rule, Odessa was better off than kolkhozes; thereafter conditions in Odessa improved and there was certainly then no economic incentive to leave the city.

The housing situation in Odessa affected all classes. There had been a death of adequate housing, but because of evacuations, flights, arrests, and exterminations there were now a number of vacancies. Some office buildings had been destroyed or badly damaged and some new agencies required space; but there was more and better office space available than previously.

The municipal Housing Directorate had charge of assigning such units. The Inventory Directorate was responsible for belongings and furniture found in abandoned apartments and houses; what was confiscated and compensation made to owners. Because so much had been "appropriated" without official sanction during the first days of occupation, a special commission was established to appraise all equipment, and establish equitable procedures for the return of stolen property. All that happened was that the Romanians made off with the best of everything. Some furniture was stored in public warehouses, were it could be issued on official requisition or sold to individuals. Free apartment were assigned by primaria as a political reward for collaboration. City and government employees received good dwellings which they could not have afforded under Soviet conditions as half the "nominal" rent; better housing was assumed to satisfy long unsatisfied "bourgeois" longings.

For the rest of the population, rent regulation made the apartment situation somewhat worse. Instead of the rather uniform and almost normal Soviet rents, a graduated system of rent payment was instituted; rents were now determined by the floor occupied, the quality of the apartment, its size, and the section of the town in which it was located. Though not really onerous, rent became a greater item in the resident's budget that it had been, A number of people acquired, build, or shared private dwellings, e.g., in the suburbs, and there was some talk of cooperative housing projects (though no evidence of any having been build)32*

Antonescu's decree of June 15,1943, was intended as a major propaganda stroke and sought to depict the Romanian authorities as attuned to popular wishes. In it urban complaints are mirrored. Article 6 was greeted with some genuine acclaim: "All urban residents... shall be entitled to a house with a garden or an apartment." It was vague enough to permit the assumption that such property would be owned by the individual family. In practice, only Romanian citizens (including Russia emigres) could acquire real estate. Actually there was neither time nor inclination to implement it. Article 7 stipulated that the size of the house or apartment should depend on the size of the family and " the profession and social necessities of life" of the owner. This would have perpetuated and
institutionalized social inequality. It apparently represented a conscious effort to assure the intelligentsia, the collaborating white-collar groups, and the new economic elite, of the permanence of their privileged status. This provision, too, remained unenforced. Article 8 provided that former owners were to have priority on pre-revolutionary dwellings except when Romanian or Transinistrian staffs were using them; again, this was vague enough to arouse opposition, as it did not specify whether there was or was not to be compensation; actually compensation was made in at least a few cases.33*

A fair amount of construction was undertaken under Transnistrian auspices. Many of the bigger and better dwellings were repaired. The facades on thoroughfares were repainted, surfaces were redone, gravel was spread around the public parks, and flower beds planted in the squares. Much of this, however, could be put under the rubric of conspicuous consumption-or waste; a minimum of work went into new construction and repair of workers' or other low-rent housing.34*

The "New NEP"

Perhaps the most striking single phenomenon of the Transnistrian period was the upsurge of commercial activity. All social and age strata of the population, though in varying degree, participated in it. After the first months of chaos and hardship, small restaurants and shops of all sorts burgeoned forth. Twenty years earlier the era of the New Economic Policy (NEP) had succeeded War Communism , and it is not amiss to call this a new NEP. An ethos of private retail trade became dominant but the framework of a state-controlled economy retained; an acquisitive society emerged but many Bolshevik values, practices, and routines persisted.

Trade had entirely broken down when the Soviets left; stocks were depleted, stores had been raided or destroyed, the sale of agricultural products had been suspended, and cash was scarce.35* In the early period of the occupation these conditions were reflected in a mushrooming of so-called commissioners stores. There were substantially junk hops. Because most residents (especially the unemployed) were in great need of cash, store owners were able to get all kinds of things-from pianos, old samovars, and family silver to moth-eaten furs-at prices far below normal. The margin of profit from selling them to opulent residents was often considerable, especially as many of the "new rich" had no notion of what a fair price should be. Goods had sometimes been procured through looting, and their price therefore constituted pure profit. Sometimes- and this was their original purpose-commissioners stores would accept people's belongings and pocket a handsome "commission" for selling them.36*

An author has given a description of a commissioners store:

A brand-new sign over the door, reading in French "Sevres." The two window overcrowded with old china vases, watches, dishes, jewelry, a piece of silk, furs, icons, lamps, a microscope, musical instrument, old books...and inside, in semi-darkness, ancient furniture, a harpsichord, dresses, shoes...

Refugees recall that many women who had been "nothing but housewives" opened commissioners stores, a few even coming to own several of them.

The boom did not last long. Basically, the stores were a symptom of an unhealthy and unstable economy. Bu the fall of 1942, when the acute need for cash had passed, the stockpiles of goods abandoned by evacuees and Jew had been sold, the importance of these transactions declined; there was a considerable drop in the turnover of commissioners stores, and many were reorganized into shops of other kinds.37*

Most enterprises were what sociologists call "tertiary", or service, activities: restaurants and the Russian equivalent of snack bars, cafes, baths, laundries, hairdressers, hotels, shoe and watch repair shops, movies, theaters, and the like. There was a sudden rash of luncheonettes-the Romanian name, bodega, was soon taken over. Commonly, for instance, several women join forces with Romanian officer or Vorlksdeutscher resident as co-owners or lessees of store or restaurant (on hotels, movies, and theaters, see Chapter V). Here and there a business would fall, but on the whole they proved successful and, within limits, rewarding.38*

It is interesting to speculate on why the overwhelming number of enterprises were in the tertiary field
39* The most plausible explanation is that it was the easiest field to enter. The government owned much of the manufacturing; raw material were scarce; and many of the new "entrepreneurs" lacked manual or vocational skills' it was logical for them, therefore, to go into service activities. One might add another hypothesis. While some new entrepreneurs produced necessities or near-necessities, many shops and services provided luxuries or at least unessential conveniences, by local standards. Possibly the stores selling Directorate styles furniture, the restaurant with its gypsy violinist, and the merchant selling foreign silk stockings were all responding to deep-seated longing for :"bourgeois" comforts and conveniences, and also to the general desire for normalcy, abundance, and conspicuous wealth.

There were, of course, some "productive" enterprises. Locksmiths, shoemakers, mechanics -men with individual skills, artisans 40* or technicians-opened their own shops. In the market a peasant sold vegetable oil (generally sunflower oil) which was bought in considerable quantities by German soldiers, who sent it to the Reich; next to this stand was a private cooperative 41* producing tin cans in which the oil could be shipped. Another artel, or voluntary co-operative run on the business principles, produced wicks, for primus burners. A few former mechanics and smiths formed a workshop to produce cigarette lighters and nails. Bakeries and pastry shops were quite successful; several refugees claim that the appetites fours and sweet rolls were better in Transnistria than anywhere else. Stands, booths, and kiosk of all descriptions and sizes dotted the major thoroughfares. Kataev in his novel published in Moscow after the war described ( rather derisively, to be sure) a street scene in 1941-1942 Odessa:

Here and there fat women with huge earnings, hats, and mittens stood behind wooden counters (on the street) and sold homemade baked goods, homemade candles, Italian lemons, and some sort of jam in jars with multicolored labels.42*

Elsewhere Kataev has his protagonist wire to the Soviet side a report on condition in Odessa in the winter of 1941-1942. Naturally, this is supposed to be the dispatch of trusted Communist, composed post facto a Soviet author; yet even it reflects the economic hustle and bustle:

One observers the activization of private trade. Many stands, tents, etc., have appeared; trade is conducted by "former people" (i.e., pre-revolutionary merchants) who have come out of their holes. On Deribasovskaia ( a main street) there are several commissioner stores, which make a sad impression. There is a flood of businessmen (from Romania), many changers, speculators...

Such was the "reactionary" life that sprang up a few short months after the Soviet authorities left.
According to Kataev and refugee informants, commercial activity had picked up by the spring of 1942.43* In the course that year, food was more abundant than in the difficult first months, and goods were "imported" in great bulk. By December, a German visitor from Kiev commented admiringly on the good restaurants in Odessa-one could get appetizers, vodka, yeal cutlets, and beefsteak -and in disbelief on the food stores full of sausages and hams.44* And in 1943, foreign correspondents in Odessa would invariably comment on the number of snack bars, fur and jewelry stores, and cafes on and near Deribasovskaia. A department store was opened on Deribasovskaia in late 1943. On the street, women and children would sell sweets and poppy rolls. "If one could afford it, one could live very welI."45*

Not too surprisingly, in connection with this activity there was a good deal of speculation, abuse, and black marketing. Some engaged in fantastic exchanges of currency.46* Peculiar characters suddenly began appearing on certain street corners-much as in the rest of "capitalist" Europe-offering to buy or sell gold, silver, rubles, even dollars and pounds sterling. Strictly speaking, there was no black market, as prices were relatively uncontrolled. However, certain imports and exports were concealed from public records-largely so as to circumvent official restrictions and avoid paying duty. In addition, a number bodegas sold drugs, alcoholic beverages, and barbiturates "under the counters "without a license. Because of their very nature, not much is known about these transactions; none of the available sources could provide details. It may be worth noting, however, that, because they probably had had "practice" under the Soviets, many of the new "entrepreneurs" were able to conceal some of their operations from officials quite successfull.47*

All evidence suggests amazing commercial activity, remarkable in scope and success.48* Ingenuity, flexibility, initiative, and business acumen were displayed bt many who had never experience with "capitalist" enterprise or private trade. The figures on the number of enterprises differ widely-perhaps of differences in the categories used-and range from a minimum of 1,500 private and 110 municipal stores in Odessa, reported in early 1942, to a maximum of 6,000 private shops, reported in early 1943.

Considering the special conditions under which this development took place, the available statistics are quite striking. As of June 30,1942, 9,665 applications had been made for licenses for business or workshops by individuals or groups in Odessa. Of course, 7,465 had been investigated ( many of the others were alternate applications or duplications), and a total of 3,536 licenses had been issued for retail trade and 926 for workshops. On June 30,1942, 1629 enterprises were actually functioning (in addition to municipal stores and government plants). In addition, there were seven public markets in operation, and two others about to open. The largest of these, Novyi Bazar, had 199 meat stands, 117 dairy stands,12 municipal stores, 11 metal manufacturing and repair shops (mostly for containers and cans), and 7 snack bars; on the market square outside, there were 215 stands, including 50 selling vegetables. The other markets were smaller, but still had significant number of sellers.49*

The Romanians did not create the economic activity in Odessa. They merely directed it. Though accepting state control, they sought to promote private economy. Pursuing a middle course, they avoided both full capitalism and collectivism. One knowledgeable informant asserts that they gambled that the people would manage to secure food and other necessities if the physical and institutional framework for providing it was maintained or restored. The public markets, for example, were promptly re-opened. (This gamble turned out well; by the spring of 1942, there was no food shortage, and by 1943, Odessa was living-by Soviet standards, and excepting a sizeable underprivileged category-in relative plenty.) The Romanians encouraged trade and other private activities by abolishing maximum prices-permitting sellers(especially peasants) to change any price they wished for their products-and by granting a tax exemption for the entire first year to any new business licensed in Transnistria.

Licensed were required for the conduct of business. This gave the Primaria a chance to exercise control whenever desired. Even more important, licenses provided funds and gave officials a golden opportunity to promote their own interests. Even before the end of 1941, a group in Odessa primaria managed to make themselves co-owners of certain restaurants, to which they routed all official catering and entertainment The section issuing licenses would often balk until bribed or otherwise "satisfied," it became customary to make an official's wife or friend a co-owner or stockholder (paischik) in an enterprise in order to secure a license.

All these "complications" became part of the routine; though strongly resented, they did not noticeable inhibit business activities. In fact, so profitable were Transnistrian enterprises that, in 1943, the authorities set up taxes and fees designed to "milk" them of three-quarters of their profits; this money was to be used for road construction and other public purposes. The comprehensive Antonescu decree of June,1943, confirmed freedom of trade (Article 14), subject to such regulation as might be subsequently issued, rather meaningless pronouncement. Thus, on the whole, Romanian policy helped the growth of small-scale business and commerce, though not always in a fair and equitable manner.50*

The only two Soviet writers, not Odessa residents, to publish abroad their impressions of wartime Transnistria both stress how important economic initiative was for the revival of the area. One calls it, bit exaggeratedly, a miracle of free private initiative; the other says of the Romanians:

This first, and perhaps important thing they did to grant everyone complete freedom of private initiative in trade and commerce...(As a result) the several city markets were overflowing with food at attractive prices, especially compared with the rest of occupied Russia... 51*

The New Elite

The political and economic changes wrought by the substitution of Transnistrian for Soviet authorities brought in their wake a change in social stratification-partly planned by the new regime, by largely a spontaneous development reflecting organic processes in Soviet society.

One may appropriately speak of the emergence of a new privileged stratum in Odessa. It consisted of two distinct elements: (a) a kind of nouveaux riches who surged upward in a socially mobile society because of their "commercial" successes; and (b) an elite whose privileged position was based on political collaboration with the new authorities.52*

The "commercial elite," a significant but not numerically large class, caught the spirit of the Romanian conqueror and applied to similar acquisitive ends their Soviet-bred experience. A few been "failure", 53* many more had been khoziastvenniki (supply managers, minor planning officials, subordinate administrative or other white-collar workers); other had no pertinent experience whatever. There were those had training and experience antedating the Soviet era and those administrative-economic skills had been developed under the Five-Year Plans. Both proved equally capable of adjusting to and making the most of the new situation.

Not every storekeeper became a member of the new elite. The ordinary, small-scale businessman or woman did not; he was looked upon by the fellow-citizens with some respect and curiosity. The commercial elite was made up of few "overly successful," the "unhealthily wealthy"( terms used by refugee informants). They provoked the resentment of the mass, a resentment that is paradoxical, for the "commercial elite" had merely realized what most of the white-collar stratum would have liked to have achieved. The elite above all sought comfortable, abundant, secure "middle-class" living, and also the token and conspicuous consumption that are commonly associated in the West with wealth. A Ukrainian bookkeeper in two years became a rich " entrepreneur" thanks to jewelry store he opened. An Armenian, before the war a storekeeper in a trust, got to own five shops. Now both owned large apartments; their ladies wore diamonds and gold; they gave expensive parties to which the "cream" of society-Romanian officials, officers, and leading collaborators-were invited; vodka and champagne were consumed in stupendous quantities; debauchery spread . Daughters of the elite would go out with Romanian officers; to study voice at the Conservatory was the fashion. At opera, the ladies wore nail polish and huge rings on their fingers, and corsets under their finery. A refugee novelist has described an Odessa nouveau riche who had come to own two stores, a bakery, shares in hotel, and various other undertakings. At party he gave the mansion glittered with glassware; an orchestra played; huge chandeliers decorated each room; servants abounded, as did French perfume, Italian fruit, "classical" furniture, and rich hors d'oeuvres.54*

Quite clearly, only a very few "arrived" sufficiently to afford such a life, and all accounts make quite obvious the people's awareness of the social injustice such a mad distribution of wealth constituted .
Popular responses to this new elite were divided. One response-which may conventionally be labeled "leftist"-rejected it as unjust, capitalist, unhealthy, immoral, or undignified. The other response-"rightists," one may say-rejected it but primarily out of frustration and envy, basically desiring to join the elevated and carefree set of the "successful" or their children, the Odessa version of jeunesse doree. Many of the potential exponents of the first may be assumed to have left eastward with the Soviets. The characteristic response was the second; the white-collar group that stayed generally itself strove for "bourgeois" comforts.

The "political elite" is a bit more elusive and more heterogeneous. Not every collaborator could be considered of the elite, and the motives of collaborators were various. The political elite, strictly speaking, included (!) a few top careerist out to make the most of the new situation, for instance, as heads of directorates, and (2) men who, like the editors of the dailies, one of the vice-mayors, or a few of the university deans, occupied responsible positions and were sought after by the authorities as well as by seeker of favors. Many of this latter class were tongue-in-cheek about whole Transnistrian regime.

What strikes the analyst seeking to define the collaborator group more precisely is the great preponderance of males between forty and fifty years of age.

Perhaps this was because men younger than forty had to a large extent between evacuated or mobilized; of those who remained most were not qualified for responsible administrative or political jobs Also , generally, pro- Communism appears to have been more deeply rooted in the younger age group; this was especially true at the university. Intellectuals above fifty, from a combination of motives, were apparently reluctant to embark on full-fledged collaboration. Some were just plain afraid. Others were enough to harbor no more ambition, preferring to sit it out. Also these older men, who had received their training before the Revolution, gave evidence of feeling moral restraints and a Russian ( not Soviet) patriotism, which militated against their working "for the foe".

What remained was the middle group-men in their forties. Some were "non-political" and would have operated under any regime that permitted them to pursue their work and improve standard of living; some had been frustrated in their hopes for promotion by Soviet conditions, and now relished the opportunities for advancement which opened up with the departure of Soviet incumbents and the establishment of a new regime. Implicit in their approach was a certain absence of ethnical scruple-an amorality, rather than immorality, perhaps induced by Soviet life.55* They were commonly rewarded both with higher positions- as professors, section heads in the administration, or managers-and higher living standards, because of getting priority in apartment assignments and the special low cost "governor's rations" to which all official personnel entitled.56*

These members of the intelligentsia who refused to collaborate and were unable to profit from the commercial boom, were of course much worse off than before. There were such men, especially among the older intellectual-for example, Kataev prototype of the old Russian professor, Svetlovidov, or, in real life, Gotalov-Gottlieb. This venerable scholar had contributed to the original Russian edition of the Brockhaus encyclopedia, had later taught in Odessa, but refused to teach under Romanians ( it could not be ascertained whether he was of Jewish origin). There were other professors who refused to sent their children to Transnistrian lyceum (See Chapter IV).

These were exceptions. To the average citizen they merely demonstrated that steadfastness in principles resulted in hardship and hazard. It was easy to rationalize that collaboration was a necessity, that was mot an endorsement of the new regime; some even argued that it was one's duty to take official positions so as to neutralize and countervail " the rascals."57*

Industry , Management, and Labor

The Romanian approach to Soviet industry differed fundamentally from that of the Germans. There was no razing of industry, no "colonial" schemes and no effort to export labor from Soviet territory to the mother country.58* On the contrary, plans were made to repair damaged plant whenever the Soviet removal of equipment had not made this impossible. Smaller enterprises were often supervised by a directorate of the municipality or judet ( i. g., the Engineering -Technical Directorate ran the stone quarries, the Food Directorate ran the processing and canning plants, etc.) The larger enterprises-plants or shops with over one hundred workers-remained in government hand. Refugees testify that the people ( or at least urban groups concerned)objected to denationalizing large plants and public utilities.59*

One of the first organized by the Technical Directorate, in late 1941, was the resurfacing of Odessa's streets, the cleaning of barricades, wreckage, and debris, and the repair of the sewer system.

These tasks were both necessary and possible; the repair of industrial facilities proved far more difficult. Few raw materials were found in Odessa and they were of little value. Invariably. the most important machines and tools, had been evacuated; of what was left, the key parts were missing, wrecked, or hidden. Most plants, the Romanians and Germans found, could not easily be reopened.60*

As a result, policies for the resumption of Transnistrian industry emphasized the smaller, especially processing, installations rather than heavy industry. During the first year of occupation, considerable headway was made. In mid-1942, a German officer inspecting the province found:

... industry everywhere under construction. Dairies, mills, soap facilities are in operation. Along the coast fish is being canned. A good deal of caviar is being netted, and fishing is being furthered. The Ford plant in Odessa is in very good shape; it repairs tractors and captured trucks.

(Romanian Ford had been entrusted with the direction of a large Odessa agricultural machinery plant.) An article of the same period spoke of about one hundred plants in Odessa being back in operation; the items produced included canned foods, sausage, brushes, textiles, beer, vinegar, glass, soap, phosphate, scales, and cotton. By mid-1942, the Odessa tobacco factory was running out one million cigarettes a day, which were either shipped to Romania or else sold throughout Transnistria in special government stores that also sold stamps and other government monopoly products such as salt and wine. In 1943, the tobacco crop was so good that the Romanian government bought 3,5 million kilogram (3,5 tons?) of tobacco in Transnistria.61* The same picture of extensive reconstruction emerges from the statistics published by the Transnistrian government on the first anniversary of Odessa capture (issued for use at Transnistria exhibit in Bucharest).62* These figures do not indicate the degree of destruction and repair, and the number of plants reopened, it should be remembered, is a most inadequate index of economic activity. Most or all of the huge plants remained closed or operated only in small sections: these were the ones that had been evacuated or wrecked, and these were the ones that accounted for most of Odessa's industrial activity.63*

Still reconstruction continued. Alexianu repeatedly stressed the need for higher output. By July,1943-roughly the peak-651 out of a total of 946 prewar factories in Transnistria were again in operation. The remainder stayed not repaired .64*

Transportation remained a separate a severe problem, as it had been under Soviets. There was a shortage of freight cars and locomotives; the Dnestr bridges had been destroyed, and fuel shipment from Ploesti had to be routed over Lvov and Tiraspol'. By November,1941, pontoon bridges were constructed but proved inadequate. Sa late as mid1943 there were complaints that rail transport between Romania and Transnnistria was unsatisfactory. It took 21 hours to travel the 600 kilometer stretch from Bucharest to Odessa (though Iasi and Chisinau). Under the Romanian-German convention of Tighina, the German shared the administration and operation of the trunk lines. Thus they operated the Odessa Lvov line, while the Romanian ran the Odessa-Birzula line. Freight rates charged on the railroad from Romania to Transnistria were raised in April,1943, to about three time what were in Romania proper. Most of the workers on the railroads were the same as under the Soviets.

To speed transportation, a regular two-hour run was established by the Romanian air line, LARES, between Galati and Odessa. The Romanian Red Cross operated three buses daily between Nikolav and Odessa; trunk, mostly, Wehrmacht vehicles, commonly covered the distance of 120 km, with wounded and furloughs, in three hours. After some intensive work, the first 100 kilometer of a new Tiraspol'-Odessa highway were opened on October 17,1943.

Only some 14 lines (over 100 kilometers) of the Odessa trolley and tram system were put back into operation. During the peak month of April,1942, almost half million persons were transported on streetcars, whereupon the Romanians raised the streetcar rate. Sometimes streetcars would run as much as several hours apart.

A colorful phenomenon in Odessa was the private izvoshchik (cab driver), who reappeared with his horse, cart, and other paraphernalia. Surprisingly, he would invariably own his own horse (though it remains a mystery how he acquired it), and a German observer found the horses better looking than those in Bucharest. For a fee and sizable tip, the izvoshchik would take you to any part of town at a leisurely pace, but with comparatively little risk.

The port of Odessa was, of course, thoroughly demolished at the end of the siege. Detailed investigation reveal the need for extensive salvage and repair operation; the German undertook to assist in this, since the sought to use the harbor to ship oil to the Crimea and Northern Caucasus; about 10,000 tons of stones and wreckage were found in the port. Among the sunken ships was the 6,000 ton "Isla de Gran Canaria," a Spanish vessel which had been renamed "Pskov" at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Wharves and loading installations had been demolished and large stretches blown up. As late as mid-1943, the port made a sad impression on visiting newsmen. Some port facilities were put back into use, but not the break-water or lighthouse.65*

A obvious problem was the reorganization of industrial management. Except where Romanian officials were placed in charge (or where, as with the Ford Company, a plant was entrusted to a Romanian corporation), residents were recruited for managerial positions. Virtually all Soviet managers had left or disappeared-most of them, one may surmise, evacuated eastward before the Red Army's retreat Where were new managers to be found? the evidence is most inadequate, but what there is suggests that specialists and technicians-engineers, bookkeepers, agronomists, planning officials, chiefs in individual shops-stepped into the shoes of departed managers. The directors of the Odessa electric power station, leather plant, brewery, and the port deep-freeze warehouse were all Soviet engineers. The same thing had happened in rural areas; technicians and agronomists moved up to become kolkhoz managers or directors of MTS.66* For most this was a step up to a higher bracket, and presumably satisfying to their pent-up ambitions for promotion. Under Soviet conditions the technician had ranked far below the managers class in status and material rewards. In the selection of the new managers genuine skill and ability to ingratiate oneself both played a part-just as they had under Soviet rule.

There is unfortunately no information on the efficiency of these fresh recruits to managerial positions. Since most were put in charge of smaller operations, their tasks were not so stupendous as to be insuperable or altogether baffling. Those with exceptional ability or ambition had an opportunity to go into business for themselves.

As indicated earlier, the sources on the fate and attitudes of labor are particularly poor. Most workers in heavy industry and most skilled workers had been either evacuated or drafted by the Soviet, or had switched to other kinds of work.

In November,1941, most industrial labor was unemployed: out of 20,000 peacetime workers in the seven major plants of Odessa, only 400 to 500 could be employed.67* Oddly, two refugees report, a number of workers reported to their place of work after the Romanians arrived as if nothing had happened .For some time chaos prevailed; salaries were not paid in money but in bread and other goods; only after the currency reform of late 1941 did the cash payment begin, or rather cash payments against salaries due. Cash advances on wages owed varied from 25 to 100 marks, and no definite scale of wages and salaries was set. Gradually wage payment straightened out by spring,1942, became regular.68*

All reports agree that labor was the worst off all social classes. One gathers that anti -Soviet feeling was least intense, last widespread, and least articulate among workers. And in comparison with the prewar conditions, labor fared worse than either intelligentsia or peasantry. At the time of Stalingrad when a severe inflation set in , prices of food, textiles, shoes, and fuel rose sharply.

The ones who suffer from it (commented the German consul in Odessa) are those with fixed incomes, particularly the workers. The situation is aggravated by the war-conditioned lack of coal and other material, which are now beyond reach for the workers, who under the Soviets regularly received their coal during the winter.

This material condition of workers in Transnistria is today worse than under the Soviets.69*
According to refugees, the hostility of labor toward the Romanians also arose from the Romanian policy of consciously fostering an elite of non-manual workers and perpetuating social inequality. Though not officially enunciated, this policy was reflected in the behavior of Romanian officials. They addressed workers as gospodin (Mister) rather than as grazhdanin (Citizen), had them stand at attention when talking, and in general made sure to indicate the workers' inferiority in rights and status.70*

At least on paper, an effort was belatedly made to rectify the situation in the Antonescu decree of June,1943.71* Workers (both manual and white-collar) were to benefit from their efforts in three ways:

(a) all branches exceeding their production plan were to receive 25% of the surplus for distribution among the workers; (b) premiums in cash and in kind were to be issued in plants where, though no excess production was achieved, unusual efforts or exertion had been required; and (c) premiums were to be granted to workers in plants newly put into operation or restored to production.72* But by then, it was too late to tip the scales and improve Odessa labor's estimate of the Romanians. The workers were worse off, and in 1943 the Romanians were losing. Here was one group which did look forward-though not wholeheartedly or with complete unanimity-to the Soviet's return.

Money, Prices, and Standards of Living

A good deal of confusion resulted from Romanian uncertainty about the kind of currency o be established in Transnistria. The Romanians seem to have made no preparations. The Germans had introduced the currency they used in all other occupied areas-special marks, know as Reichkreditkassenscheine (known for short as RKKS) issued and exchangeable at special banks, traded for Reicsmark when traveling to Germany and at least theoretically their equivalent. The Romanians brought with them regular Romanian lei. Marks, lei, and Soviet rubles thus circulated concurrently, the population preferring rubles and marks to lei. The Transnistrian government did not issue its own currency.73* With the Soviet retreat, a scramble to get rid of rubles at maximum prices began (though some saved their rubles, "just in case"). An official ratio among the currencies was established, with 1 RKKS equivalent to 10 rubles or 60 lei- ratio similar to that introduced by the German elsewhere on occupied Soviet soil.74*

The chaos continued for weeks. Apparently the Trasnistrian authorities could not reach any decision. It was held undignified for a Romanian territory to have a German currency; yet Bucharest was intent on keeping a solid barrier between the Romanian and the Transnistrian economies, an end to which maintaining marks in Transnistria contributed. In September,1941, the Romanian actually began exchanging rubles for RKKS. Over 10,000 marks had been issued when, on orders from Antonescu, the entire exchange was halted. After six more weeks of procrastination (and probably disputes in Bucharest and some Romania-German correspondence), it was finally ingloriously, decided to keep the marks. The RKKS became the sole legal tender. All over the province exchange points were opened which issued RKKS for rubles, up to a limit of 1,000 rubles per family. Larger sums (including Soviet government funds hidden or stolen by individuals in the final collapse) were exchanged through pull or bribes.

An impending disappearance of the ruble had been rumored for sufficiently long to make peasants who brought food to town prefer to receive other goods to rubles; if they accepted rubles, they charged considerably higher prices, but at least they got their "fair price." The workers and the white-collar categories suffered most from the currency chaos. Even the Odessa Primaria paid no cash wages until the currency reform, issuing instead rations to its employees., When finally, in December,1941, the exchange took place, it was accompanied by considerable confusion. The primaria ordered the exchange at the rate of 20 (not 10) rubles to the mark. An admittedly hostile German observer has depicted the scene, but it agrees in essentials with other reports of it:

In reality only a fraction got to the exchanging, and this in spite of waiting in line in the frost from 6 a.m. to dusk. The queue of 200-300 persons in front of the exchange points is a daily occurrence. Before Christmas this business had to be stopped for lack of funds. Thus the whole currency problem hangs in the air.

There was extensive abuse.

... Romanian guards as well as civilians are selling "coupons", i.e., sequential waiting numbers .Often exchanges are made (privately) at the rate of 1"40 and 1:50. In the Christmas shopping one ran into rates as high as 1:70 on the market.

German soldiers who received their pay in the rate 1:10 were , of course deeply involved in black market valuta operations.75* One form of abuse was finally made official. Shortage of funds led residents to sell valuable and gold. The Romanian government had its agents buy gold, first undercover and then publicly. In the end, the Finance Section of the Odessa Primaria openly purchased gold at the median market price, i.e., in effect legalizing the black-market price. People were surprised at how much gold there was around. At first, people sold their gold because they needed money, but gradually resentment against Romanian purchased grew and produced a drop in number of transactions; another reason for this drop was monetary reform, which came just at this time.76*

With rubles thus out of circulation and marks made legal tender, Romanian currency was left in an awkward position, made more so by official inconsistency. The use of lei was prohibited and their import into Transnistria several punished. Though available on the black market( where "shady characters" traded even British and American valuta), it had declined in relative value by late 1942. The situation remained awkward. After the fall,1942, harvest Bucharest took a big step and legalized the lei, to help integrate the Romanian and Trasnistrian economies (or at least such was official explanation ). The order proved to be a farce and the source of considerable confusion; by the end of 1942, death sentences were again put in the books for trade in lei, and there were no subsequent attempts to eliminate the RKKS.77*

In the winter of 1943-1944, with the end of the occupation in sight, the RKKS in turn dropped in value. Instead of commanding 60 lei. it could now be traded for ten or twelve. The Romanians did nothing.

The shortage of funds also led to the establishment of municipal pawnshop in Odessa. The Finance Directorate instituted and directed it. It operated as lombard, or mutual-aid project, issuing loans in return for articles left as collateral. The Primaria was persuaded to give credit to start it. Officially it was instituted as a good-gesture; its former director states that some of the patriotic, liberal intelligentsia welcomed it as a device to keep objects of art and other goods out of Romania hands. The total credit of the enterprise reached 600,000 marks; it made a total of nearly 20,000 grants (or loans). The director was a local resident, but the bookkeeper and interpreter assigned to him was a Romanian. The by-laws provided for monthly actions of forfeits goods: actually no auctions took place, and loans were often extended or renewed (Mikhail Manuilov, "Odessa during World War II" (MS in Russian), Research on the USSR, New York, 1952, pp.74ff; Novoe Slovo,#78, September 29,1943) to offset this except for their staff and for collaborators. Salaries and wages for Transnistrian employees were raised to enable them to produce more goods. In February-March, 1944, rubles reappeared here and there, and people began to turn down paper money. Faith in money fluctuated with faith in the regime.78*

Prices followed the ups and down s of political events. Since private trade existed alongside government and municipal enterprises, two sets of prices developed-not unlike the state and market prices under Soviet rule, and hence not a source of confusion to the Soviet citizen. While official prices were, by definition, regulated, free market prices were uncontrolled. The absence of maximum prices was considered an incentive to business. Market prices were supposed to be at least in the same general order of magnitude as state prices, but a considerable gap developed between the two set of prices. Since the issue of rations in state or municipal stores was restricted, other sellers naturally asked as much as they could without losing business. Thus (at an unspecified date, apparently in 1943) prices compared as follows:

1 kilogram of sugar, rationed: 3RKKS
non-rationed 20RKKS
1kilogram of butter, state store 6RKKS
private store 30RKKS
Cigarettes, municipal store rations: 100 for 4RKKS
non-rationed, private 20 for 1RKKS

It is generally agreed that in the course of 1942 prices declined as the availability of good increased. After the 1942 fall harvest they were at their lowest, and-a source genuine relief to city-dwellers-there no more food lines to wait in. In December,1942, a traveler described in amazement the ample supply of goods; on the market he bought sausage at 8 and lard at 22 RKKS a kilogram. A lunch in a modest restaurant cost 3 to 4 RKKS, while in a good restaurant, including appetizer and vodka run to 25 RKKS.79*

From the winter of 1942-1943 on, prices rose sharply; as usual, when "crises" occurred, the peasants had responded with considerable sensitivity and speed to the changing political-military situation by withholding produce-thus driving prices higher. Moreover, winter weather prevented some of them from bringing their products to the city. Milk jumped to 3.50 RKKS a liter; butter rose to 55 RKKS on the open market; an egg now cost a mark.80* Prices continued to rise as the situation deteriorated further, and (presumably late in the summer of 1943) butter cost 90, bacon 80, sugar 40, and bread 10 RKKS a kilogram. In the final days of the occupation, with all supplies cut off, a crazy inflation naturally set up, with a single loaf a bread begin sold for 300 marks.81*

What is striking is the normal, almost predictable "capitalist" behavior of price and currency fluctuations. The same concatenations that occasion ups and downs in other economies-and in societies whose people were presumably enured to such experience-caused inflationary or deflationary trends in Transnistria. Given the general wartime situation, the fluctuation in prices was entirely "normal." The price changed tended of course, to depress the standard of living of most residents, even when goods became more available. In the city, the toughest time was the first months and winter. Transportation shortages seriously curtailed food shipments; pharmaceuticals, kitchenware, and school equipment were in very short supply. The municipality established public canteens for all persons with more or less official status or connections, and food issued, as has been seen, in lieu of wages. Needless to say, nothing was brought in from Romania to relieve the situation.
Improvement same, as noted in other fields, in the course of 1942, and, while prices climbed in 1943, so did the stocks of goods-food and other-available in Odessa. A refugee traveling from the North Caucasus who found himself in Zhmerinka, in Northern Transnistria, recalled later:

...There was something in Zhmerinka which distinguished it from all the other towns of Russia and Ukraine under German occupation: an abundance of food in the market. Naturally no sanitary or hygienic standards could be applied to this market. But the food was out of all proportion to the population of Zhmerinka.
There was fat, so rare in the Ukraine. There was butter, bacon, vegetable oil, meat -which we had almost forgotten existed: pork, chicken, goose-and many other things that made our eyes pop. Moreover, it was inexpensive. We bought a lot more than we needed, enough for a week...82*

Gradually this food would be moved to Odessa or sold locally. Even in Novemver,1943, when prices had risen beyond the purchasing power of many citizens, report agree, " one could get anything" if one paid the price.83*

It is true that consumer goods were less readily available than food grown within the province, and shortages in textiles and shoes continued severe during the entire occupation.84* With "contacts" and perhaps bargaining ability, however, one could usually find "everything" from French perfume to Italian citrus fruit. The problem was to have enough money. More money (and additional ration permits) could be had by holding several jobs. Having several jobs simultaneously was a widespread practice, especially among Odessa intellectuals-it was a practice not unknown to Soviet citizens through not one usually cherished by them.

Income, prices, not availability of goods fluctuated, but the general level was not drastically different from Soviet levels. The standard of living of the intelligentsia, by and large, did not change greatly. Some were decidedly better off; other lived more poorly. The "new elite," by definition, was a privileged group; so were the Volksdeutsche.85* Workers tended to be a little worse off materially than they had been before the war, but the daily wage of 4-8 RKKS for a eight-hour day did permit them to make ends meet so long as rationed food, and especially bread, at relatively low prices, was available in sufficient quantities; the rural population, as discussed earlier, on the whole raised its standard of living at least in 1942-11943. Considering the low level at which the peasant had existed prior to the war, the improvement was by no means striking.86*

In Odessa itself, many who had lived well before the war had left the city. Only a small minority of the city's population improved their standard of living, a minority important, however, for the political, economic, cultural, and administrative physiognomy of the city. For most residents, Romanian rule-considering that "this was war"-spelled no major change. The two major food crises were the first winter and the eve of the German retreat; the best periods followed the harvest of 1942 and 1943.
As will be shown, changes in political attitude on the part of the population can not be directly and immediately related to material well-being.

The Criminal Fringe

Mention must be made of the enormous increase in crime and near-criminal activities. Perhaps as inevitable consequence or war and lot a change of control systems, crime of all kinds, from drunkenness to murder, increased. Informants who were by no means teetotalers recall in amazement the stupendous quantities consumed in Odessa, apparently in response to uncertainties and hazards of the time. People drank everything from homemade samogon to Romanian tuica(plum brandy); bodegas would sell alcoholic beverages without permits; imported liquors could be secured for a price. Even intellectuals, a professor remembers, took to drinking far more than ever before. In Anan'ev the mayor and two his police officers had to be fired because the "exceeded their official functions" while under the influence of liquor."87*

A more serious phenomenon has already been discussed: the staggering growth of draft, bribery, and embezzlement. A product of the Romanians' ethical outlook and practice, of what Soviet life had taught about "maneuver," and of the breakdown of controls, it was way of life, return-as Odessa residents put it-from the socialist economy to primitive accumulation. Denunciations, illegal trade operations, and similar practices have also been alluded to.88*

These were indices to a general decline of morals, which inevitably led to a growth of criminality. Criminal elements, previously held in rein, now operated virtually unchecked. Odessa, a large port city with a rather dubious reputation, had perhaps more than the usual quota of such elements, and also many who were not strictly criminal but who operated on the fringe of illegality. Their number was increased considerably by the growth of unemployment. Intellectuals and farm workers were, for all intents and purposes, fully employed, but many industrial workers were unemployed. Certain others found themselves unemployed; some janitors and superintendents, for example, were replaced by informants of the Siguranta (just as they themselves had often served the NKVD ). The youth was largely demoralized and undisciplined, as will be seen below; with school attendance no longer compulsory and many pressures on parents, hooliganism rapidly grew to menacing proportions- at rend intensified by the poor living conditions under which some (for instance, college students) were compelled to exist. Perhaps the feeling of insecurity was more intense among this younger group, which the new authorities neglected, which their elders often considered a "lost" generation, and which had never experienced anything but Soviet rule.89*

Banditry became particularly bad during the last year or half-year of the occupation. The Romanians were weakening; the integrity of local property was of little concern to them; earlier curfew hours left malfeasants more time and opportunity; the greater activity of Soviet partisans made many tend to confuse partisan and criminal operations; and as time progressed, increasing numbers were led to "submerge" from public view into a peculiar criminal underground. From the summer of 1943 on, newspapers were full of stories about convictions by the "Military Field Tribunal of the City of Odessa" for such offenses as concealing weapons, abetting criminals, and assault and battery. Women did not dare go on the street after nightfall. In October,1943, Alexianu ordered the arrest of all beggars for "re-education," in what amounted to a concentration camp. Even casual visitors noticed the yelling newspaper boys, beggars, and "precocious youngsters" of all sorts on streets like Deribasovskaia. The counterpart of the hooligans of the Soviet period, these actual or potential hoodlums (often among them boys who had been perfectly "good" until a year or two earlier) were an integral part of the city scene.

The were exceptions. For instance, an orphan whose father had been exiled and whose mother had vanished during the religious persecutions, rose from a teen-age bezprizornyi (waif) to a "respectable" life. He became a shoeshine boy; working outside the German army hostel, he would get a mark for a shine (50 pfenning for "permanent" customers), and with this would buy bread and grapes. There was nothing "wrong" with the boy, nothing "reprehensible," though his future was bleak and his education and "social life" were inadequate.90* Such instances were rare. For most common was a deterioration into membership in the illegal, semi-criminal fringe.91*

Social Change and Economic Initiative: Summing Up

Quite naturally, social mobility increased in Transnistria. Certain social strata were deliberately removed; the livelihood of still others ( e.g., bureaucracy, heavy industry) disappeared. In the reshuffling a new elite and a new "cellar' of the social pyramid were created. Specific policies of the new authorities fostered the development of the elite, but essentially it was an organic outgrowth of the situation. There were in the elite people who had possessed status but lost it st the time at the Revolution of 1917, or who, in the period of incomplete Soviet control, but constituted a kind of middle class of tradesmen, or who were members of the other outcast strata-kulaks, clergy, etc. There was another group, people reared under the Soviets, whose administrative and economic stazh (work experience) was limited to a Communists conditions, and who had had no contact with a non-Communist world. The ability of "Soviet products" to achieve success may need stressing-most were not political appointees; they "arrived" thanks to their own economic initiative.

The evidence in Transnistria of initiative, particularly notable in trade, but also in skilled work, tellingly disposed the hypotheses of "inertness" in the least this area of Soviet life.92*

One may speculate about why are so many reports that conditions improved in wartime Odessa. For one thing, most refugee were themselves members of the new elite (otherwise they probably neither could have left) But four other factors come to mind.

(1) Because of the evacuation, army draft, and the transportation to Romania of the prisoners of war, there were fewer people to feed than in peacetime. More food was available per capita, and this helped avert a famine.

(2) Because of the political and military situation, Transnistria naturally exported less to other parts of Russia, and thus had more to consume locally.

(3) The reduction of population, for the reasons enumerated above, and the removal of the Jews also helped cut the severe unemployment that would otherwise have set in.

(4) The standard of living and status of many improved because they shifted to a higher bracket, rather than as the result of changing standards within their old bracket. For instance, the wartime promotion of many technicians to managerial positions (which gave them official rations as well as prestige) constituted a unique advancement; it came about thanks to the great number of vacancies created by the departure of submergence of the Soviet managerial stratum.

All four considerations suggest that things would not have been nearly so good, even for relatively well-off groups, if the population of Odessa had not declined.
______________
1* 70% of all the land in Transnistria was farmland (3,800,000 hectares), another 7% (290,000 ha) was pasture. Forest covered only 5%, and private plots, fruit and vineyard, and dwellings accounted for the rest (Der Deutsche in Transnistrien vol.2,#19, May 16,1943; "Transnistrien liefert bereits fur Rumanien," Krakauer Zeitung, September 12, 1943). But it has been recently said that "the natural fertility of the soil in the province of Transnistria cannot be fully used of the insufficiency of rainfall." The reason it always had quantity of food available for delivery" was that it was not so densely populated as other parts of the Ukraine (Slavko Zagorov et al., The Agricultural Economy of the Danubian Countries, Stanford University Press, Stanford,1955,p.261).

2* Cf. Fritz Poppenberger, "Das Land am Ostufer des Djestrs," Deutsche Ukraine-Zeitung, September 12, 1942; and W.A.B., "Transnistriien als Teil Rumaniens," Munchner Neueste Nachrichten, September 4/5, 1943.

3* A census of animals conducted in Transnistria in December, 1941, showed a drastic decline in the hog population (presumable because the Soviet authorities shot large numbers before leaving) The decline in sheep and oxen was less striking, yet also of some importance. Unfortunately, one source gives the December, 1941, data in percentages of the jUly 1,1955, census figures, while another gives some comparable absolute figures without indicating any trends between 1935 and 1941
Horses:78% of 1935 stock; or 205,000
Cattle:72% or 375,000
Sheep 73% or 278,000
Hogs: 35% or 180,000
(Wirtschaftsdienst, hamburg, vol.27,1942, p.783; Florian Codrescu, "Transnistria," Excelsior, Bucharest, October 25, 1942) Considerable quantities of cattle and sheep were also delivered to the Romanian army or shipped westward across Dnestr (See Odessa v velikoi otechestvennoi voine, hereafter cited as OVOV, Odessa, 1947-1953,vol.2, p.57.

4* Alfred Sztuka, op., cit.; Karl Brandt et al. "Management of Agriculture..., Stanford University Press, Stanford,1953,p.228; Ferdinando Chiarelli, in La Voce d'Italia, Rome. November 9,1941, translated in Rumanisches Blut fur das neue Europa, p.173; "Transnistrien liefert bereits fur Rumanien," Krakauer Zeitung, September 12,1943.

5* Verbindungsstab der Deutschen Wehrmacht fur Transnistrien, Abt.La, "Berict uber die Lage der Landwirtschaft in Transnistrien," January 31,1942, CRS, Wi/ID, 2.1174; OKVR, Ihnen, "Tatigkeitsbericht fur die Zeit vom 15.XI-15.XII.," December 15, 1941, CRS, DHMR 76152; Vierjahresplan, Geschafsgruppe Ernahrung, Generalreferent Georg Reichart, "Bericht uber den Erfassung landwirtschaftlicher Erzeugnisse und der Bestellugsarbeiten in Transnistrien...," November 15, 1941, CRS,Wi/ID 58; Killinger, wire to Auswartiges Amt, Berlin,November 11,1941, CRS, Wi/ID 58.

6* The author has sought to analyze the latter in an earlier paper (Alexander Dallin and Gerhard I. Weinberd, :The peasantry as a Source of Soviet Vulnerability: Experiences in World War II," War Documentation Project,1955.

7* AOK II,IV Wi, op. cit.; Reichart, op. cit.; Koruck 553, "Ernteeinbringung." August 5,1941,CRS, Koruck 20383/7.

8* Nicolae D. Cornateanu, L'organisation de Lagriculture roumaine en tempts de guerre, Bucharest,1943,p.57; "Schutzmassnahmen...," op. cit.; Ew. Hermann Maurer, "Enfahrungs und Tatigkeitsbericht," August 13-28,1941, CRS, EAR 99/47.

9* It seems that this system corresponded roughly to practice common in the area before World War I, when the landed gentry left the peasant half the returns, provided he used his own horses, and one-third if he used the pomeshchik's horses.

10* Friedrich Theodor Prinz zu Syn und Wittgenstein, "Bericht uber meine Fahrt nach Russland in der Zeit vom 25.8.-1.9.1941," CRS,Wi/ID.58; Wirtschaftsstab Ost, Chefgruppe La, "Berict/Auftrag von KVC Riecke," August 23,1941,CRS,Wi/Id 116; General Petre Dumitescu, "Anweisung," August 1941 (German trans. of Romanian original),CRS, AOK II,35774/6.

11* SD Report 100,SD report 113, November 14,1941.

12* Richtlinien zur Verwaltung der Provinz Transnistrien," August 19, 1941(German trans. of Romanian original), CRS,AOK II,22409; Reichrart, op. cit.

13* Wirtschaftsstab Ost, "Monatsbericht," April 1942,p.32, CRS, EAP 99/57; "Transnistrien liefrt bereits fur Rumanien," Krakauer Zeitung, September 12, 1943; Brandt, op. cit., p.228; Der Deutsche in Transnistrien, vol.1# 9, September13, 1942, and vol.2, #29, July 25, 1943; Neuer Tag, Prague, May 17,1942.

14* The various Soviet taxes were nominally replaced by a "single tax" on the land, amounting to 5 marks (i.e., 300lei) per hectare, regardless of quality; half the tax was payable in kind, the other half in cash. There were also special levies: 1% of the total harvest( before it was divided between government and peasant) went for social security; 10% for fodder, and 10% for administration of the co-operative. The household also had to sacrifice part of its harvest for the seed to pay for the use of machinery ("Die aufbaurarbeit in Transnistrien," Frankfurter Zeitung, November 12,1942).

15* Krakauer Zeitung, op. cit,; Sztuka, op. cit.; German Consulate, Odessa, dispatch, February 26,1943; AA, reel 1273, frames 342512-15.

16* AOK II,IV, Wi, op. cit.; "Schutzmassnahmen..." op. cit.; VSt Transnistrien, Abt. Ia, op. cit.' Krakauer Zeitung, op. cit.; Sudostecho, November 21,1941.

17* German Legation, Bucharest, to Ha Pol IV b, September 15, 1941,AA,CRS, Wi/ID 2.1174; Brandt, op. cit., p. 238; Bukarester Tagblatt, August 19, 1943; Tverskoi SD Report 100; PrinzWittgenstein, op. cit.; AOK II, IV Wi (summary report, to title), April 15, 1942, CRS, Wi/ID 2.580; Krakauer Zeitung, op. cit.; Reichart, op. cit .; VSt transnistrien, Abt,La, op. cit.; Der nahe Osten, Istambul, vol.13, #12, June 15, 1943, p.281; OVOV, vol.2, pp. 62,69.

18* Universul, Bucharest, August 5,1942; V. Gordienko, "Odesshchina nakanune uborki urozhaia," Izvestiia, Moscow, July 6, 1944; Berger to Himmler, October 22, 1943, CRS EAP 161b-12/335.

19* SD Report 100; Fritz Zierke, "Jenseits des Dnjestr," Vilkischer Beobachter, July 20,1943; VSt Transbistrien, Abt.La, op. cit.


20* Beauftragte des Chefs des SiPo u. SD, op. cit.; VSt Transnistrien , Abt. La, op. cit.; interviews A and B.

21* Tverskoi; Manuilov, p.56; Prinz Wittgenstein, op. cit.

22* Vladimir Petrov, My retreat from Russia, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1950, p.200.

23* German Consulate, Odessa, op. cit.

24* However, in August,1943, the service charge for milling and other services was raised considerably, namely to 20% on wheat and rye, and 15% on other grains. Two months later it was raised to 40% on wheat and rye, and 30% on other grains (Odesskaia gazeta, #183, August 10, 1943; Molva #260, October 16,1943; OVOV, vol.2, p.17.

25* In will be noted, however, for that it came within two weeks of the German decree proclaiming (on paper) the establishment of private land property in occupied Russia.

26* Tverskoi; Molva, Odessa,#159, June 18, 1943; German Consulate, Odessa, Neue Innenpolitik in Transnistrien," June 21,1943, AA, reel 1273, frames 342476-81; Mamukov, p.23. It is conceivable that the above text is not precise, as it results from multiple translation: the English translated from a German version made from an official Russian text published as a translation of the Romanian decree.

27* Krakauer Zitung, op. cit.; Der Deutsche in Transnistrien, vol.1,#12, October 4,1942; Munchner Neueste Nachrichten, op. cit.

28* A report divides the cultivated area as follows:
Cereal-1,537,762
Oleiferous-93,285
Legumious-41,967
Tubers and root crops-131,341
Textile plants-230,850
( Florian Codrescu, "Transnistria, "Excelsior, Bucharest, October 25, 1942.

29* In terms of the goals which the authorities set themselves, the yield was rather good, and only a bit poorer than in the areas of Romania proper. As of June 30, 1942, for instance, the agricultural plan had been carried out as follows:
Bessarabia-97,7%
Old Romania-93,8%
Transnistria-92,7%
(Universul, Bucharest, July 3, 1942).

30* Cornateanu, op. cit.,p.59; Richart, op. cit.; VSt Transnistrien. Abt.La, op.cit.; Romania, Trei ani de guvernare, Imprimeria Nationala, 1943, Buchrest, p.133; Major Bartsch, "Bericht uber die Frontreise des Marschalls Antonescu," Lune, 1942, CRS,DHMR 27638/15; Ion Gheorghe, Rumaniens Weg zum Satellienstaat, Wersermuhl, Wels,1952, p.192; Major Jochim, "So arbeiten wir in Rosenfeld", Der Deutsche in Transnistrien, vol.1,#9, September 13,1942; Argus, Bucharest, July 2, 1943.

31* Interview A; "Agricultura sovietica in Transnistria," Ogorul Romanese, December1,1941, condensed in Economia romana, Bucharest ,vol.24.1942, #1, p.40.

32* Interviews A, C and E; Manuilov, pp. 67-69.

33* Antonescu decree, June 15, 1943, Molva, #159, June 18,1943? See also Chapter V of this study.

34* Interview E.

35* Sztuka, op. cit., pp.211-213; SD Report 100; Manuilov, pp.70-72.

36* This was the usual role of the commissioners store in German-held areas, and suggests a poorer and more primitive economy
( less cash in calculation, more barter) than in Odessa where commissioner stores were a combination of second -hand store, pawn shop, and antique shop.

37* Interviews C and E; Petr Ershov, "Strannyi konets," pp.69ff.

38* Manuilov; pp.86; interviews C and E.

39* Much of the business activity cannot be considered tertiary, however, in the sense of having been non-essential. Until 1943, much of it was concerned with food processing or retailing.

40* As indicated in another chapter, there was a severe shortage of artisans as a result of the removal of Jews to special reservations. Thus, in Anan'ev, 100% of all glaziers and 80% of all carpenters had been Jews.

41* The Romanians frowned on the formation of large co-operatives, permitting only one Moldavian consumers' co-operative, but tolerated small co-operative workshops.

42* Interview E; Petrov, My Retreat from Russia, p.200; Kataev, op. cit., p.204.

43* Kataev, op. cit., pp.230,386.

44* In October,1943, a new market was opened having been rebuild at the expense of the merchant and salesmen operating there. (Interviews A ,E; Ia. Peterle, "Odessa-stolitsa Transnistrii," Novoe russkoe slovo, New York, June 1,1952; Bucharester Tageblatt, October 22,1943.

45* Bukarester Tageblatt, October 19,1943; Ernst Bauer, "Odessa -die Stadt hinter der Front," Neue Ordnung, Zagreb, November 2,1943; AA, Pol XIII, "Ein Gewahrsmann meldet...," AA, reel 5079, frames E 292536ff.

46* Cf. the following scene in Lvov: "I needed gold, in coins 'We have Swiss francs, 29 franc pieces. 'How much?' 1400 marks 'That was on the expensive side, but there was still a point in taking them. We could make a 30% profit in Odessa." (Vladimir Petrov, My Retreat from Russia, Yale University Press, New Haven,1950,p.210.

47* Peterle, op. cit.; interviews A and C; Kataev, op. cit., p. 230; Manuilov, p.87.

48* One should consider, in addition, the "foreign trade" conducted in Transnistria, much of it illicit, both by residents and others, especially Romanian merchants and officials. Serious obstacles to trade were the transportation bottleneck and the wartime shortages in other European countries which reduced of scope of trade even after foreign representatives- such as a Finnish trade mission-visited Odessa. A number of Romanian tradesmen established themselves or branch offices in Odessa for moths. Imports, especially from Italy and Germany, included lemons, oranges, candy, textiles, glassware; some coal was brought from the German-occupied Donets basin. The exports and imports, stringently regulated by the Romanians, were important as token rather than because of their actual scope or value. The most profitable operations probably remained officially unrecorded. All this, of course, took place in addition to official Romanian and German requisitions and sale of food delivered to the state by the Transnistrian authorities in Romania proper at a discount. Trade, and particularly foreign trade, activities were supervised by a central agency, the Oficiul Central al Comertulu, in Tiraspol', a equivalent more or less to a government chamber of commerce.
(I.G. farben, "Transnistrien: Gebiet, Bevorkerung und Wirtschaft," 1942).

49* Romanischer Wirtschaftsspiegel, Bucharest, Vo.7 (1942) #16, p.23; and E.I Mamukov, "Rumynskaia okkupatsii Odessy i Transnistrii v 1941-1944 gg," (MS), Institute for the Study of the USSR, 1955, pp.40-41; hereafter cited as Mamukov, The breakdown for actually operating enterprises in Odessa as June30,1942, was as follows (cf. Novoe Slovo,# 59, July 22,1942);
Food stores and gastronomy (179); cafes, snack bars, bufety (436); baked-goods shops (18) commissioner stores (54); department stores, haberdasheries (8); dairy shops (40) hotels and hostels(8); kiosks (35); commercial middlemen(6); sausage manufacture (8) bread bakeries (45); housing repair and construction (3); leather-goods manufacture (9); mechanics and locksmiths (110); blacksmiths (34); photographic shops and studios (15); electric repair shops (25); barbers and hairdressers (112); shoe repair manufacture and repair (17); tailors (14); carpenters (12); others, miscellaneous (267).

50* Manuilov, p.70; Tverskoi; Bukarester Tageblatt, November 2,1943; interview A; Peterle, op. cit.; Sdf.von Berg,"Lagebericht aus Odessa," January,1942, AA, reel 2066, frames 448876-80; Molva, op. cit.; Sztuka, op. cit.; gh, "Transnistrien: Das Werk des Gouverneurs Alexianu," Das Reich, Berlin, August1,1943.

51* Deutsche Ukraine Zeitung, January 10, 1943; Karl J. Muller, "Das Land zwischen Dnjestr and Bug," ibid., July 26, 1942; interview E; Petrov, op. cit., p.203; Nikolai Revr, Solttse voskhodit na zapade,Novoe slovo, Buenos Aires,1950, pp.263-264.

52* The "managerial elite," to the extent that it existed, is described below in connection with industrial enterprises.

53* Kataev paints a satirical portrait of a prototype of the new zhulik (swindler): a former NEP man, then a home-production artisan, then a superintendent of housing project, who under the Romanians opened a commissioners store dealing in goods looted from the apartments of evacuees.(Valentin Kataev, Za vlast' sovetov, Moscow,1949, p.394).

54* Peterle, op. cit.; interviews A and C; Manuilov, p.92; Ershov, pp.69,81,91ff.

55* It should be apparent that these are generalizations to which there are a of individual exceptions.

56* For purposes ration allocation , the category of officials included all university instructors and all lawyers who were members of the special "bureau", or union, of the Odessa advokatura. This bureau, with some 400 members, was officially connected with the primaria. Most lawyers did no law work since martial law remained in effect and most indigenous lawyers could not plead in Romanian before the courts-martial. This opened an opportunity for some Romanian lawyers to establish lucrative practices in Odessa. Most civil cases were decided by the prefects without benefit of judicial due process. Actually by mid-1943 Soviet family, inheritance, and civil law was accepted in practice by the Romanians, though not formalized. (Interview A; Tverskoi; and gh,"Transnistrien: Das Werk des Couverneurs Alexianu," Das Reich, August 1,1943). The indigenous members of the local police cannot be considered members of the elite, though they enjoyed considerable prerogativies in arbitrary conduct and immunity from prosecution for abuse and looting. It may be significant that the Russian who joined the indigenous police (like the Russian who worked for the Romanians as a censor or as a Siguranta informant) was looked upon as something of a traitor. This was not at all the attitude toward other and "more innocuous" collaborators (Interviews B,C).

57* Interviews A and B; Manuilov, pp.62-65.

58* As matter of fact, when the German request for forced labor from Transnistria was turned down in the spring of 1942, the argument given was the need for manpower for industrial construction within Transnistria (Gen Wi Ost, "Reisenbericht....8.-16.6.42," CRS, Wi/ID 2.408).

59* Tverskoi; Manuilov, pp.67,70; interview F; Mamukov, p.23.

60* Odessa, Serviciul de presa si propaganda a Municipiului Odesa, Ein Jahr rumanische Verwaltung,1943, abstract in CRS, EAP 99/87; Wo Transnistrien "Tatigkeitsbericht," November 30,1941, CRS, Wi/ID. 200; OKW Wi Ru Amt/Wi IVa, "Orientierung uber die wehrwirtschaftlich Bedeutung der besetzen russischen Gebiete, #5," July 28, 1941, CRS, WiD.196.

61* Aufbau in Transnistrien, "Wirtschaftsdienst, Humburg, vo.27,1942, p.783; Berliner Borsenzeitung, December 28, 1943; Rumanischer Wirtschaftsspigel, Buchrest, vol.7,1942, #16, pp.22-23; Der neue Tag, Prague, Novemberr 26,1942, cited in New Digest, January, 1943.

62* Transnistrian Industry (Romanian Data) as of October,1942 (incomplete)

("Die Aufbauarbeit in Transnistrien , Frankfurter Zeitung, November 10,1942; and Universul, Bucharest, October 18,1942).

63* hn,"Die Aufbauarbeit in Transnistrien," Frankfurter Zeitung, Novenber 10, 1942; Major Bartsch,"Bericht uber des Marschalls Antonescu," June,1942, CRS DHMR 27638/15; Sztuka, op. cit.

64* Bukarester Tageblatt, January 22, 1943; Kausch, "Rumaniens Anteil: Die Aufbau in Transnistrien,: Deutsche Zeitunf im Osland, Riga, August 17, 1943.

65* Ihnen, op. cit.; Zierke, "Jenseits des Dnjestr," op. cit., July 20,1943; Kausch, op. cit.;Reichart, op. cit.; Karl J. Muller, op. cit.; Gen Wi Ost, "Reisebericht.... 8.-16.6.42," CRS, Wi/Id 2.4008; Bukarester Tageblatt, January 13, June 10, October 1 &22, 1943; German-Romanian railroad agreement, March 25, 1942, CRS, H 12/621; Hans Schumacher, "Im Gouvernement Transnistrien," Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, October 14, 1943; Friedrich Koepp, "An der Bugbrucke," Revaler Zeitung , Tallin, November 13, 1942; Kausch, "Bericht uber die Reise," June 26, 1943, Occ E4-11, YIVO, pp. 18-20; OKW/Wehrmachttrasportleitung Ost, "Hafenanlagen in Odessa," November 10, 1941, CRS Wi/ID 2.1199b; Der nahe Osten, vol 13, #1, p.206.

66* Interviews A and C; Tverskoi; Manuilov, pp.58-59.

67* WO Transnistrien, op. cit.

68* Manuilov, pp.58-59; Tverskoi. One source states that "average salaries at the start of occupation were 100 marks monthly and later rose to 200 and 300 marks," but fails to indicate either dates or level of occupation or skill involved (Richard E. Lauterbach, These Are Russians, Harper& Brothers, New York,1945,p.85).

69* A curious and perhaps unexpected development was the report resentment of wage laborers against artisans, who could freely raise their prices-thus both increasing their own real income (something the workers could not do) and demanding a larger share of the workers' earnings for the same services.

70* German Consulate, Odessa, dispatch, February 26,1943, AA, reel 1273, frames 342512-15; interviews A and B; Ershov, op/ cit., pp.149-151.

71* An earlier decree had raised the wages and salaries of certain categories, primarily technical personnel, by 35%-40% as of February 1,1943 (Vl.Boretskii, "Zhizh'v Odesse. Novoe Slovo,#22, Berlin, March 17,1943).

72* Molva, op. cit.

73* Transnistria did, however, issue its own stamps (monatschefte fur auswartige Politik, December,1941,p.1026).

74* LIV .A .K., Ic, to AOK II, Ic/AO, August, 1941, CRS LIV AK 15420/9; SD Report 100; Bukarester Tageblatt, October 20, 1941.

75* German Legation, Bucharest, op. cit.; Manuilov, pp.56-57, 64; Ershov, op. cit., p.75; Ihnen, op. cit; Franz Riedl "Aufbau am Dnjestr," Berliner Borsenzeitung, December 9,1942; Sdf. von Berg, "Lafebericht aus Odessa," January,1942, AA reel 2066, frames 448876-80.

76* Manuilov, pp.72-74.

77* A contemporary document summarized the flow of money as follows:

Total of RKKS received by Romanian Ministry of Finance from the Germans - 60,000,000 RKKS

Distributed as follows:
Transnistrian Government expenditures - 27,000,000
Exchanchage of rubles - 15,000,000
Payment to troops on active service - 18,000,000
------------
60, 000,000

Fund procured though exchange of RKKS for Romanian lei: 73,981,968 RKKS
-------------------
133, 981, 968 RKKS

RKKA procured by exchange of currency and unused 55,698,006
RKKS procured from German authorities and used in payment 60, 000, 000
----------------
115,698,006

Balance from exchange operations: 18,283,962 RKKS

( Situatia monetara in Transnistria la 10 martie 1943" (no author or source))

78* Riedl, op. cit.;interviews A,E; O.W.Mullr, op. cit.; Frankfurter Zeitung , op.cit.; VRR Kluber,"Leiwahrung in Transnistrien," Suedost-Echo,vol.12,#51, December 18,1942; Lemkin, Axis Rule,p.240; Der neue Osten,1943,#9,p.205.
In February, 1943, a Banca Transnistriei was estasblished as a central bankiing agency for the province to replace private soirces of credit. Autonomous in operation, the bank had a branch in each judet and a representative in each rayon. It received savings deposits at 3% and gave loans at 6% (Nachtrichten fur den Aussenbandel, November 23,1942; Argus, Bucharest, April 5,1943). No other banks existed to absorb the surplus money in circulation and thus help stem the rise in prices.

79* Bukarester Tageblatt, November 2, 1943; Tverskoi; interviews A and B; AA, "Ein Gewahrsman melder," op. cit.

80* According to a Romanian newspaper, sweets, through abundantly available, rose price feom about 5-6 marks to 14-18 marks, because the Transnistrian government auctioned sugar to the highest bidders. In part, this was merely a convenient pretext for raising prices.(Argus, Bucharest, December 11,1942, cited in New Digest, London, January,1943.

81* German Consulate, Odessa, op. cit.; interview E; The New York Times, April 22,1944; AOK 6, OQu/VII, "Abschlussbericht uber die Verwaltung Sudtransnistriens durch die Deutsche Wehmacht," May 3, 1944, CRS, AOK 6<59352/10; Lauterbach, op.cit.,p.85.

82* Odessa, Serviciul, op. cit.; Ihnen, op. cit,; Manuilovmp.56; Petrov, op. cit., p.199.

83* The rising cost of living spurred Alexianu in the spring of 1943 to grant a 50% increase in salary for all employees of the Transnistrian government and subordinate public institutions. (Curentul, Bucharest, April 18, 1943; Novoe Slovo, Berlin, May 30, 1943).

84* Bukarester Tageblatt, November 2,1943.

85* The Volksdeutsche were to receive cigarettes, liquor, salt, and matches by official issue. The rations to which were entitled exceeded those for the rest of the indigenous population, though no full ration tabulation has been found (Deutshe Ukraine-Zeitung, January 10,1943; Der Deutsche in Transnistrien,#7, August 29,1942) The most desirable category was the "governor's rations"(gubernatorski paiok),issued to most prominent collaborators, professors, and persons with official positions. Members of these privileged categories were often seen selling their "excess" on near-by black markets.(interview G.).

86* Sdf. von Berg, op. cit.; Reichard, op. cit.; Bauer, "Odessa-die Stadt hinter der Front," Neue Ordnung, Zagreb,#121, November 28,1943; O. K. Ananjev, "Lage in Ananjev" August 19,1941, and O.K. II/939, "Einsatz in Beresowka," August 15,1941, CRS, Koruck 20383/10; Manuilov, p.43.

87* O.K. Ananjew, op. cit., August 24, 1951, CRS, Koruck 20383/10; interviews A, C, and D. Kataev, op. cit.,pp.199,203.

88* Peterle, op. cit.; Manuilov, pp.55,90; interview A.

89* See also WO Transnistrien, op. cit.; Manuilov,p.106.

90* "Ein Bespisorni arbeiter sich herauf," Bukarester Tageblatt, October 14,1943, "Stadt in Rauch und Rlammen," ibid, October 16,1943; W.W., "Kommst du auf die Deribas?" ibid., October 19,1943; Horatiu Ionescu and Florin Andrei, "Aus Ruinen erhebt sich neues Odessa," ibid., November 2,1943; Alice Auerbach,"Mein Wiedersehen mit Odessa," ibid. ,November 5,1943; "Poimka snaiki molodykh grabitelei," Molva, #130,May 12, 1943; Deutsche Akademic Munchen, Lectorat Odessa, CRS, DAM 112.

91* Time and again efforts were made to encourage charity to help the unemployed and indigent. The churches opened soup kitchens for the poor, and contribution from the newly-rich layer, through the churches, were publicized in the local newspapers. In July, 1942, Pantea, the primar, made an appeal for contributions to help the poor. Its total yield was 132,867 marks, including a donation of 40,000 by the primaria, 25,000 netted by municipal lottery, and 14,000 though collection boxes (Manuilov, pp, 44-51).

92* This reinforced by the evidence on the considerable sensitivity of the new economy, e.g., in price changes reflecting minor new impulses such as the arrival of German troops, events at the front, or the downfall of Mussolini. This "inertness" hypothesis, advanced in various forms in the West by honest scholars as well as political propagandists "explained" Russian or Soviet behavior in terms of passivity which prompts an acceptance of any authority or social and political environment and implies the absence or atrophy of individual initiative.