According to Lucian Boia, Arbore's public stances under the actual German occupation were surprisingly toned down. His one article for "Lumina" (November 1917) reviewed the Russian issue in quite different terms, prophesying that a multinational federation could be effected around the Russian Provisional Government. His 1918 public lectures on Bessarabia were focused on geographic and statistical information—"one would have expected more", Boia notes. Arbore was more outspoken during the interwar period: his December 1918 speech demanded the guarantee of minority rights in Greater Romania, saluted the policies of Soviet Russia as a liberating force, and predicted a Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. On the occasion, Arbore also demanded the release of Socialist Party activists held in Romanian custody, as well as the freeing of Transylvanian collaborationist Slavici.