 However, he could not fully persuade his Soviet overseers, who merely recognized him as an "ad interim" party leader; his powerful rivals included Nikita Khrushchev, who regarded the PCM as an annex of the Ukrainian Communists.On 24 June 1942, Salogor received from Colonel Abayev a plan to organize partisan units in Bessarabia—described by historian Anton Moraru as "groups of terrorists and diversionists".After victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, the Red Army took the offensive, and Salogor became a more direct participant in military operations.