New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

4.3 Elite manipulation
N.E.C. Yearbook 2001-2002
In order to understand a national movement and its consequences, it
is very important to analyze the behavior of the elite during the stages of
national agitation. The perspective of elite manipulation is regarded with
suspicion by some theoreticians, but in the case of Moldova it provides a
very powerful explanation. 75
During the Soviet period, the Moldovan political elite was made up
of members of the Communist Party from Transnistria. 76 Until 1989, no
leader from Basarabia held the position of first secretary of the Communist
Party as the Kremlin supposed personnel from Transnistra to be more
reliable than their counterparts from Basarabia, part of “bourgeois
Romania”. In this case, it can be said that this is a classic example of
“blocked elite”. 77
In 1989, a new local elite that had been educated in the same
communist regime emerged as champions of a cultural renaissance. They
intended to take the place of the transnistrean elite. For the Moldovan
elite, acceptance of a cultural nationalist was permissible for a short
period in order that they acquire the vacant places in the state
administration. This elite manipulation explains why the Union with
Romania did not come about, despite the strong claims of the unionists.
As it is known, this perspective was used by Ernest Gellner in order to
explain the case of “one nation – two states”.
If a nation has 2 states, it follows that their glorious unification will reduce
the number of prime-ministers, presidents, directors of academies, managers
of football teams, etc., by a factor of n. For every person in such a position,
n-1 people will lose the position. All these n-1 will be the losers in unification,
even if, as a whole, the nation makes gains. And, while there is no doubt
that it is better to be a big boss than a small boss, the difference between
these positions is not as important as that of between being a boss, no
matter how big or small, and not being a boss at all. 78
4.4 Mass support in national revival
Researchers of nationalism and national movements agree that,
regardless of the nature of the social group in which so called “national
consciousness” may first appear, the masses are the last to be affected by
it. 79 The main interest of the researcher is to analyze the ways in which
the political and intellectual elite, the minorité agassante, gains mass
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