Communist Party of Bukovina

Communist Party of Bukovina Partidul Comunist din Bucovina Комуністична партія Буковини
Abbreviation	KPB
Founded	November 1918
Dissolved	1926 (1926)
Merged into	Communist Party of Romania
Ideology	Communism Left-wing nationalism (Ukrainian) Separatism
Political position	Far-left
International affiliation	Comintern
Politics of Romania Political parties Elections

The Communist Party of Bukovina (KPB) (in Ukrainian: Комуністична партія Буковини, КПБ, in Romanian: Partidul Comunist din Bucovina) was a clandestine political party in interwar Romania. Led by S. I. Kanyuk, its purpose was the secession of Bukovina from Romania and its unification with the Ukrainian SSR.

History

The first communist cells in Bukovina arose in March — April 1917. In 1918, they expanded in Chernivtsi, Zastavna, Vyzhnytsia, Kitsman, Siret, Radautz, Suceava, Gura Humorului, Dorna Watra, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Putyla, Vashkivtsi, Doroshivtsi, Stanivtsi and other places. At the beginning of November 1918 they united into the Communist Party of Bukovina. The Central Committee was elected, headed by S. I. Kanyuk. A clandestine party, the CPB carried out significant agitation work among the workers and soldiers of Bukovina. The party also participated in the Khotyn Uprising.

In August 1919, the party joined the Comintern. On March 17, 1921, the party began to publish its newspaper, called Hromada. The party received financial aid from the Communist Party of Ukraine and it had ties to with the clandestine Communist Party of Eastern Galicia in Poland. It had around 1,000 members in 1921. The same year, the Romanian authorities carried a series of arrests against the Bukovinan communists, confiscated newspapers (Socialistul and Lupta) in Rușii-Mănăstioara, Vama, Frasin, Stulpicani, Pojorâta and Iacobeni. The 1st May celebrations were authorized in Cernăuți, Vășcăuți, Storojineț, Zastavna, Vijnița and Rădăuți, with the conditions that no uprisings, socialists inscriptions or red flags may be used.

According to a 1922 document, the communist movement in the Kingdom of Romania – including Bukovina – had to be organised into 3 local committees: the main committee (which received direct instructions from the Comintern offices in Sofia and Vienna), the youth committee and the military committee. Moreover, a significant surge in espionage activities, carried out by both Soviet agents and Romanian communists, was documented in the region of Bukovina. This led to a trial in Cernăuți, where the following communists were prosecuted and imprisoned in August 1923 for crimes against the security of the Romanian State: Salamon Chigel, Alex Labici, Isidor Rosenwald, Priva Greissel, Vladimir Bihari, Jacob Wilner, and Arthur Preis.

In 1924, the Romanian authorities banned communist activities. Nonetheless, the party remained active. The Communist Party of Bukovina organised protests against the 1921 Land Reform and against the Romanianization of the Ukrainian schools in Bukovina.

An important founding member and leader was Wolf Stern, the border of Soviet GRU general Manfred Stern, who will later become an academic in East Germany.

At the request of the Comintern, the Communist Party of Bukovina was merged into the Communist Party of Romania (PCdR) in 1926, becoming the Bukovina regional branch of the PCdR. Its members reorganized into the legal Vyzvolennia party in 1929.