 However, the First Secretary also viewed Bessarabia as backward, identifying Moldovan women as a vector of religious conservatism.Based on this argument, he asked Malenkov to approve the establishment of regional female sections of the PCM.During the 1945 and 1946 Plenaries, he raised the issue of anti-Soviet resistance in the Moldavian SSR, which he saw as directly encouraged by the Orthodox Church and the Inochentists.