Moldavian Progressive Party Partidul Progresist Moldovenesc | |
|---|---|
| President | Emanoil Catelli |
| Co-chairman | Nicolae Ciornei |
| Founded | March/April 1917 |
| Dissolved | c. July 1917 |
| Merged into | National Moldavian Party |
| Headquarters | 95 Bolshaya Arnautskaya and 159 Nezhinskaya, Odesa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Provisional Government |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Colors | Blue, Yellow, Red (Romanian tricolor) |
| Party flag | |
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The Moldavian Progressive Party (Romanian: Partidul Progresist Moldovenesc, PPM, or Partidul Moldovenesc Progresist, Russian: Молдавская Прогрессивная Партия, Ukrainian: Молдовська Прогресивна Партія) was a short-lived political organization advancing the political interests of Romanians and "Moldavians". It nominally represented the region of Bessarabia, but was primarily active in Odesa, in the Russian Provisional Government's Kherson Governorate. Its core constituency was a large group of Romanian-speaking soldiers in the Russian Army; it was also closely aligned with the older National Moldavian Party (PNM) of Chișinău, though it advanced some left-wing policies that were entirely its own.
The PPM was established some weeks after the February Revolution of 1917, after efforts made by Emanoil Catelli. The circumstances of its creation are debated, though, by all accounts, its creation involved networking with political leaders from Bessarabia and the Kingdom of Romania. Catelli served as the party's first and only chairman; Nicolae Ciornei was his right-hand man. Their commitment to progressivism, and economic focus on agrarianism, reflected the will of its constituency, made up of soldiers with a peasant background. As such, the group's advocacy of land reform was not fully welcomed by the PNM, which never included it in its (otherwise almost identical) statutes. Both groups took up Romanian nationalism, supporting ethnic autonomy within a democratic Russia, and also issuing a set of nativist demands. Catelli rejected the notion that Moldavians were anything more than a subgroup of the Romanians, and advocated for concrete measures to overturn Russification.
The PPM became highly visible in Odesan society during the Labor Day celebrations, when, with support from the PNM, it reportedly became the largest of the factions marching at Kulykove Pole. In parallel, it began a process of merging into the PNM. It remained active as the latter's section inside the Ukrainian People's Republic, a regime which it rejected—advocating instead for continued union with the Russian Republic. The region's political future was left in question after the October Revolution; Catelli himself made his way back into Bessarabia, becoming a founding figure of a polity called "Moldavian Democratic Republic". In 1918, this state united with Romania, and Catelli emerged as a Romanian politician, aligned with the National Liberals.