Rumcherod
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The Russian abbreviation for the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of the Romanian Front, the Black Sea Fleet and Odessa Oblast. Created at the First Congress of Front and Oblast Soviets in Odessa in May–June 1917, it claimed authority over the Kherson, Bessarabia and Taurida governorates and parts of Podolia and Volhynia. Re-elected in December 1917 with a Bolshevik and Left SR majority, it became the highest authority of the Odessa Soviet Republic, fought the Romanian entry into Bessarabia in early 1918 and ceased to function in May.
In depth
The first Rumcherod, chaired by the right SR Lordkipanidze, had a majority of SRs and Mensheviks who supported the Provisional Government and the continuation of the war. Hostile to the October Revolution, it was dissolved on 16 December 1917 on the order of Nikolai Krylenko, the Sovnarkom’s commander-in-chief. The Second Congress, held in Odessa from 23 December 1917 to 5 January 1918, recognized Soviet power and elected a new Rumcherod of 180: 70 Bolsheviks, 55 Left SRs, 23 representatives of peasant organizations and 32 others, with Vladimir Yudovsky, formerly of the Petrograd Bolshevik committee, as chairman. Its newspaper, Golos revolyutsii (Voice of the Revolution), appeared from July 1917 to March 1918. Russian Wikipedia credits it with a large part in establishing Soviet power in south-western Ukraine and Moldavia in December 1917–January 1918.
From January to March 1918 the Rumcherod gave military support to the pro-Soviet forces in the Moldavian Democratic Republic; its Front Section (Frontotdel) entered Chișinău in January and fought the incoming Romanian troops. Together with a Sovnarkom collegium it negotiated with the Romanian government a protocol settling the conflict, signed by the Romanian side on 5 March and the Soviet side on 9 March — by Christian Rakovsky, Brashevan, Yudovsky and Mikhail Muravyov for the Soviets and Alexandru Averescu for Romania. Romania undertook to withdraw from Bessarabia within two months and to take no hostile action against Soviet Russia, but the agreement never took effect: on the same 5 March Romania had signed a treaty with the Central Powers that included the transfer of Bessarabia. As the German and Austrian armies advanced, the Rumcherod moved to Mykolaiv, Rostov-on-Don and in April to Yeysk, and in May 1918 it ceased to function; Yudovsky went to Moscow.