The Mihai Moroșanu Private Collection comprises various materials relating to the anti-regime activity of Mihai Moroșanu, one of the most famous Moldovan dissidents of the Soviet period, well-known for his staunch criticism of the regime and for his strong nationally oriented views. The collection consists of a number of personal files, interviews, photos and judicial materials relating to Moroșanu’s case, spanning the period from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Due to his uncompromising resistance to the Soviet regime, Moroșanu is one of the very few authentic dissident figures in the Moldovan context.  

The described materials are an example of the jurisdiction of the Ideological Commission and present its activities in the field of press and radio. In the preparatory materials for the session, a number of daily newspapers (Vjesnik, Borba, Večernji vjesnik, Slobodna Dalmacija, Glas Slavonije, Novi list) were analysed in general and then the coverage and quality of the topics and also the criticisms of theatre, film, literature, fine arts, music, education, adult education and cultural-mass work were specifically examined. The materials were then discussed at the session itself. It is important to note that the session was also attended by writers of the cultural columns of the aforementioned newspapers, thus directly addressing the criticisms and guidelines for future work.

The editorial boards of the newspapers were criticized for considerable ambiguity and vagueness in the field of culture and the arts and were asked to hire journalists specializing in a specific field of the art who would write from the socialist standpoint. Also, the members of the Ideological Commission believed that the press was pro-Western and uncritically served texts from the foreign press (an example after Camus's death, when "the press wrote a great deal, but without the trying to put the writer in his proper place in the literature, and especially given his socio-political position in the life of contemporary France"). Cinema sections were criticized for only transcribing descriptions of foreign films from foreign editions and writing sensationalist pieces about movie stars and movies, indulging the tastes of the widest audience (the blatant adulation for to the film "Some Like It Hot," for example). The Commission wanted the direction of writing to turn more toward achievements in the USSR and India, which the Commission’s members called "advanced directions and attempts" and the "struggle between old and new understandings." Film criticism, it was believed, should first and foremost provide a preliminary ideological rating of the film and take into consideration its social role.

Also, the Censorship Commission hardly permitted a tourist documentary for the domestic market, although not for the overseas because it is " bourgeois and shows our circumstances."

The members of the Commission also had a role as censors, which is shown by the example of Ivan Šibl, who excised a text by Nela Eržišnik from a television magazine because her work was considered "babbling of the most petit bourgeois kind." It should be said that "bourgeois" in the communist view implied a wide range of behaviours that deviated from the proclaimed one and which retained the characteristics communists associated with civil society traditions. That term, in fact, became an insult to whomever it was applied. For example, many things were in principle deemed as expressing the "petit bourgeois mentality": from greetings on the street such as "sir," "gentlemen," "kiss the hands," "m'lady," etc., instead of "comrade," through the use of protection and privilege, "hierarchical gathering," criticisms, servility toward foreigners, corruption and drunkenness, to more severe offenses and crimes.

In literary criticism, there was a call to change the way in which books by domestic authors are covered – so that criticism affectionately welcomes the works of domestic authors just “as it greets a multitude of works an often problematic foreign origin.”. As to art criticism, the view was expressed that genuine art criticism does not exist in the press, but that there were numerous problems: the professional, moral and creative quality of the critics, the ambiguities of aesthetic criteria and the issue of educating the artistic taste of the audience.

Although the document does not mention the persons who did not act in line with the required ideological course, it is an important indicator of the existence of cultural influences and activities in variance with  what was accepted and therefore unsuitable for the LCC Ideological Commission, which often criticized them. By 1995, the document was, along with the other records of socio-political organisations, a part of the Archive of the Institute of History of the Labour Movement of Croatia/Institute of Contemporary History. That year, in July, it was turned over to the Croatian State Archives (CSA) where it is kept today. The documents are accessible for use without any restrictions. 

Kazys Boruta started keeping a diary in the interwar Republic of Lithuania. He wrote it with intervals practically until his death. Only a very small part of the diary was published during Soviet times, in the last volume of his collected works. In the diary, he wrote very openly about the conflicts with his superiors in the Soviet Lithuanian Writers' Union, and about his relations with the authorities in general. The diary reflects the complicated situation of the rebellious artist in the Soviet regime, who tried to protect his personal and creative autonomy.

On 18 October 1961, after searching Arsenie Platon’s house, the police and KGB officials in Bălți discovered several notebooks and separate papers that contained various poems written by Platon during the previous several years. This aspiring poet had already published some of his literary productions in local and central periodicals. However, scattered among these texts were around ten poems with clear and occasionally radical anti-Soviet overtones. These poems fell into two broad categories. The first category comprised several texts criticising the social and economic policies of the regime and the chronic shortages of basic consumer goods, contrary to official propaganda (e.g., the short poem Radio, which contrasted the claims to material abundance emphasised by Soviet propaganda with the dire material situation of the ordinary people). The abuses of collective farm managers and the economic discrimination and inequity hidden behind the official façade of equality were additional targets for Platon’s critical acumen (as, for example, in the poem “The Soviet Peasant and the Collective Farm Chairmen” (“Țăranul sovietic și președinții de colhoz”), which mocked the privileges of the latter and extolled the honest but devalued work of the peasants). Some of the other poems (e.g., “Woman is Equal to Man” / “Femeia este egală cu bărbatul”) combined social, economic, and nationally based criticism in a forceful condemnation of the regime, calling for “escape from slavery” and for “burning [the Russian intruders] with fire and flames.” The second category of poems was openly nationalist with a strong anti-Russian thrust, e.g., the poem “A Longing” (“Un dor”), in which the author talked about his dream that he might “rise up, one holy morning, and start the fight / together with my Romanian brothers,/ To get my revenge, for I can no longer bear/ Seeing my Moldavia torn by wild boars.” In several other similar texts, Platon used strong language to refer to the Soviet regime, calling its representatives “red beasts” (fiare roșii) and “accursed butchers” (călăi blestemați). Platon also wrote two drafts of anti-regime proclamations, appealing to his “Bessarabian brothers” – “workers, peasants and intellectuals” – to “combine their forces” into “one single fist” in order to “smite the red beasts.” He also demanded “full freedom” for Moldavia, mentioning the suppression of religion and economic exploitation as the main grievances against the Soviet regime. Platon’s radical language and especially the draft leaflets, which were interpreted by his KGB investigators as highly subversive and potentially dangerous, virtually guaranteed his condemnation for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” The question of Platon’s literary and intellectual sources is particularly interesting. It seems that he was familiar – probably from his primary school years and further reading – with some basic models of classic and interwar Romanian literature, which shaped his vocabulary and references. His literary pursuits probably enhanced his national awareness and provided him with a suitable language to express his discontent with the regime. Although his poems are rather unsophisticated and lack literary value, they provide a fascinating example of an oppositional narrative “from below,” elaborated by a marginal individual seeking literary recognition. The original manuscripts were not destroyed by the KGB staff and are still part of Platon’s case file stored at the SIS Archive. 

This ad-hoc collection mainly consists of documents separated from the fonds of judicial files concerning persons subject to political repression during the communist regime which is currently stored in the Archive of the Intelligence and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova (formerly the KGB Archive). It focuses on the case of Arsenie Platon, a person of peasant background and an aspiring poet, who was tried and convicted in 1961 for displaying nationalist views and for conducting “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” among his friends and acquaintances. Platon’s “anti-Soviet” opinions were mostly expressed in a series of poems and short proclamations in which he criticised ethnic discrimination against the Moldavians and called for the overthrow of Soviet power. This case is emblematic for less widely known forms of grassroots cultural opposition, falling under the same broad category as the cases of Gheorghe Muruziuc and Zaharia Doncev. Platon’s file includes no further information about his fate after the end of his prison term.