Occupation of the Baltic states
Part of Soviet colonialism in the Baltic states | |
Date | 15 June 1940 – 6 September 1991 |
---|---|
Location | Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania |
Participants | Estonia Latvia Lithuania Soviet Union Nazi Germany |
Outcome |
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Part of a series of articles on the |
Occupation of the Baltic states |
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The three independent
During the 1944–1991 Soviet occupation many people from Russia and other parts of the former USSR were settled in the three Baltic countries, while the local languages, religion and customs were suppressed.
The Baltic states' governments themselves,
However, the Soviet Union never formally acknowledged that its presence in the Baltics was an occupation or that it had annexed these states[28] and considered the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics three of its constituent republics. On the other hand, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic recognized in 1991 that the events of 1940 were an "annexation".[29]
Historically revisionist
Most Western governments maintained that Baltic sovereignty had not been legitimately overridden
Background
Early in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, called the
Following the end of the
Soviet occupation and annexation (1940–1941)
In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of direct military intervention, but still intended to rule through
On 16 June 1940, Latvia and Estonia also received ultimata. The Red Army occupied the two remaining Baltic states shortly thereafter. The Soviets dispatched
The Soviet Union immediately started to erect border fortifications along its newly acquired western border — the so-called Molotov Line.
German occupation (1941–1944)
Ostland province and the Holocaust
On 22 June 1941 the Germans
Baltic nationals within the Soviet forces
The Soviet administration had forcibly incorporated the Baltic national armies at the wake of the occupation in 1940. Most of the senior officers were arrested and many of them murdered.
An estimated 60,000 Lithuanians were drafted into the Red Army.[69] During 1940, on the basis of disbanded Lithuanian Army, Soviet authorities organized 29th Territorial Rifle Corps. Decrease in quality of life and service conditions, forceful indoctrination of Communist ideology, caused discontent of recently Sovietized military units. Soviet authorities responded with repressions against Lithuanian officers of the 29th Corps, arresting over 100 officers and soldiers and subsequently executing around 20 in Autumn 1940. By that time allegedly near 3,200 officers and soldiers of 29th Corps were considered "politically unreliable". Due to high tensions and soldiers' discontent the 26th Cavalry Regiment was disbanded. During the 1941 June deportations over 320 officers and soldiers of 29th Corps were arrested and deported to concentration camps or executed. The 29th Corps collapsed with the German invasion into Soviet Union: on June 25–26 a rebellion broke in its 184th Rifle Division. The other division of the 29th Corps, the 179th Rifle Division lost most of its soldiers during the retreat from Germans mostly to deserting of its soldiers. A total of less than 1,500 soldiers from initial strength of around 12,000 reached the area of Pskov by August 1941. By the second part of 1942, most of Lithuanians remaining in the Soviet ranks as well as male war refugees from Lithuania were organized into 16th Rifle Division during its second formation. 16th Rifle Division, despite officially called "Lithuanian" and mostly commanded by officers of Lithuanian origin, including Adolfas Urbšas, was ethnically very mixed, with up to 1/4 of its personnel made of Jews and thus being the largest Jew formation of Soviet Army. Popular joke of those years said that 16th Division is called Lithuanian, because there are 16 Lithuanians among its ranks.
The 7000-strong 22nd Estonian Territorial Rifle Corps got heavily beaten in the battles around Porkhov during the German invasion in summer 1941, as 2000 were killed or wounded in action, and 4500 surrendered. The 25,000—30,000 strong 8th Estonian Rifle Corps lost 3/4 of its troops in the Battle of Velikiye Luki in winter 1942/43. It participated in the capture of Tallinn in September 1944.[65] About 20,000 Lithuanians, 25,000 Estonians, and 5000 Latvians died in the ranks of the Red Army and labor battalions.[66][68]
Baltic nationals in the German forces
The Nazi administration also conscripted Baltic nationals into the German armies. The
Attempts to restore independence and the Soviet offensive of 1944
There were several attempts to restore
By 1 March 1944 the
Second Soviet occupation (1944–1991)
Resistance and deportations
After reoccupying the Baltic states, the Soviets implemented a program of
The Soviets had previously carried out mass deportations in 1940–41, but the deportations between 1944 and 1952 were even greater.[79] In March 1949 alone, the top Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals.[81]
The total number deported in 1944–55 has been estimated at over half a million: 124,000 in Estonia, 136,000 in Latvia and 245,000 in Lithuania.[citation needed]
The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees between 1945 and 1958 was 20,000, including 5,000 children.[82]
The deportees were allowed to return after
Industrialization and immigration
The Soviets made large
Ethnic Estonians constituted 88 percent before the war, but in 1970 the figure dropped to 60 percent. Ethnic Latvians constituted 75 percent, but the figure dropped 57 percent in 1970 and further down to 50.7 percent in 1989. In contrast, the drop in Lithuania was only 4 percent.[85] Baltic communists had supported and participated the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. However, many of them were killed during the Great Purge in the 1930s. The new regimes of 1944 were established mostly by native communists who had fought in the Red Army. However, the Soviets also imported ethnic Russians to fill political, administrative and managerial posts.[87]
Restorations of independence
The
On 11 March 1990 the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet
By mid-June, after unsuccessful
Withdrawal of Russian troops and decommissioning the radars
The Russian Federation assumed the burden and the subsequent withdrawal of the occupation force, consisting of about 150,000 former Soviet, now Russian, troops stationed in the Baltic states.[101] In 1992 there were still 120,000 Russian troops there,[102] as well as a large number of military pensioners, particularly in Estonia and Latvia.
During the period of negotiations, Russia hoped to retain facilities such as the Liepāja naval base, the Skrunda anti-ballistic missile radar station, the Ventspils space-monitoring station in Latvia and the Paldiski submarine base in Estonia, as well as transit rights to Kaliningrad through Lithuania.
Contention arose when Russia threatened to keep its troops where they were. Moscow tied its concessions to specific legislation guaranteeing the civil rights of ethnic Russians, which was seen as an implied threat in the West, in the U.N. General Assembly and by Baltic leaders, who viewed it as Russian imperialism.[102]
Lithuania was the first to see complete the withdrawal of Russian troops—on 31 August 1993[103]—owing in part to the Kaliningrad issue.[102]
Subsequent agreements to withdraw troops from Latvia were signed on 30 April 1994, and from Estonia on 26 July 1994.
Civilian toll
The estimated human costs of Nazi and Soviet occupations are presented in the table below.[111]
Period/action | Estonia | Latvia | Lithuania |
---|---|---|---|
Population | 1,126,413 (1934) | 1,905,000 (1935) | 2,575,400 (1938) |
First Soviet Occupation | |||
June 1941 deportation
|
9,267
(2,409 executed) |
15,424
(9,400 died en route) |
17,500 |
Victims of repressions
(arrest, torture, political trials imprisonment or other sanctions) |
8,000 | 21,000 | 12,900 |
Extrajudicial executions | 2,000 | Not known | 3,000 |
Nazi Occupation | |||
Mass killing of local minorities | 992 Jews
300 Roma |
70,000 Jews
1,900 Roma |
196,000 Jews
~4,000 Roma |
Killing of Jews from outside | 8,000 | 20,000 | Not known |
Killing of other civilians | 7,000 | 16,300 | 45,000 |
Forced labour | 3,000 | 16,800 | 36,500 |
Second Soviet Occupation | |||
Operation Priboi
1948–49 |
1949: 20,702
3,000 died en route |
1949: 42,231
8,000 died en route |
1948: 41,000
1949: 32,735 |
Other deportations between 1945 and 1956 | 650 | 1,700 | 59,200 |
Arrests and political imprisonment | 30,000
11,000 perished |
32,000 | 186,000 |
Post-war partisans killed or imprisoned | 8,468
4,000 killed |
8,000
3,000 killed |
21,500 |
Aftermath
The Soviet Union and its successors have never paid reparations to the Baltic states.[112]
In the years following the reestablishment of Baltic independence, tensions have remained between indigenous Balts and Russian-speaking population in Estonia and Latvia. The UN noted the discriminatory position of the non-citizens in Latvia[113] and Human Rights Watch contended that the policy of Estonia towards its non-citizens was discriminatory.[114] According to Peter Elswege, a lack of attention to the rights of Russian-speaking and stateless individuals in the Baltic states has been noted by some experts, although all international organisations agree that no forms of systematic discrimination towards the Russian-speaking and often stateless population can be observed.[115]
In 1993, Estonia was noted for having problems concerning the successful integration of some who were
According to Israeli author Yaël Ronen of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, illegal regimes typically take measures to change the demographic structure of the territory held by the regime, usually via two methods: the forced removal of the local population and transfer their own populations into the territory.[119] He cites the case of the Baltic states as an example of where this phenomenon has occurred, with the deportations of 1949 combined with large waves of immigration in 1945–50 and 1961–70.[119] When the illegal regime transitioned to a lawful regime in 1991, the status of these settlers became an issue.[119]
Author Aliide Naylor notes the lingering legacy of Soviet modernist architecture in the region, with many iconic Soviet structures in the Baltic states falling into disrepair or being demolished completely. There are ongoing debates surrounding their future.[120]
State continuity of the Baltic states
The Baltic claim of continuity with the pre-war republics has been accepted by most Western powers.[121] As a consequence of the policy of non-recognition of the Soviet seizure of these countries,[25][26] combined with the resistance by the Baltic people to the Soviet regime, the uninterrupted functioning of rudimentary state organs in exile in combination with the fundamental legal principle of ex injuria jus non oritur, that no legal benefit can be derived from an illegal act, the seizure of the Baltic states was judged to be illegal[122] thus sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law.[123]
The official position of Russia, which chose in 1991 to be the legal and direct successor of the USSR,[124] is that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the Soviet Union freely and of their own accord in 1940, and, with the dissolution of the USSR, these countries became newly created entities in 1991. Russia's stance is based upon the desire to avoid financial liability, since acknowledging the Soviet occupation would set the stage for future compensation claims from the Baltic states.[125]
Soviet and Russian historiography
Soviet historians saw the 1940 annexation as a voluntary entry into the USSR by the Balts.
Soviet point of view
Prior to perestroika, the Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols and viewed the events of 1939–40 as follows:[129]
- the government of the Soviet Union suggested that the governments of the Baltic countries conclude mutual assistance treaties between the countries.
- Pressure from working people forced the governments of the Baltic countries to accept this suggestion. The pacts were then signed[130]
- These pacts allowed the USSR to station a limited number of Red Army units in the Baltic countries.[131]
- Economic difficulties and dissatisfaction of the populace with Baltic government policies had impeded fulfilment of the pacts, and the populace revolted against the Baltic governments' political orientation towards Germany in a revolution in June 1940.
- To guarantee fulfilment of the pact additional military units entered the Baltic countries, welcomed by workers, who demanded the resignations of the governments.
- In June workers demonstrated under the leadership of the Communist parties of the Baltic countries.
- The fascist governments were overthrown, and workers' governments formed.
- In July 1940, elections for Baltic parliaments were held.
- The "Working People's Unions", created by the Communist parties, received the majority of the votes.[132]
- The parliaments adopted declarations restoring Soviet powers in Baltic countries and proclaimed the Soviet Socialist Republics. Declarations of Estonia's, Latvia's and Lithuania's wishes to join the Supreme Soviet of the USSRwas petitioned accordingly.
- The requests were approved by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
The Stalin-edited Falsifiers of History, published in 1948, says the June 1940 invasions were needed because "[p]acts had been concluded with the Baltic States, but there were as yet no Soviet troops there capable of holding the defences".[133] It also states regarding those invasions that "[o]nly enemies of democracy or people who had lost their senses could describe those actions of the Soviet Government as aggression".[134]
In the reassessment of Soviet history during perestroika, the USSR condemned the 1939 secret protocol between itself and Germany that led to the invasion and occupations in the Baltic countries.[129]
Russian historiography in the post-Soviet era
During the Soviet era, there was relatively little interest in the history of the Baltic states, which historians generally treated as a single entity due to the uniformity of Soviet policy in these territories.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, two general camps have evolved in Russian historiography. One, the liberal-democratic (либерально-демократическое), condemns Stalin's actions and the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact and does not consider the Baltic states as having joined the USSR voluntarily. The other, the national-patriotic (национально-патриотическое), contends that the
Soviet-Russian historian Vilnis Sīpols argues that Stalin's ultimatums of 1940 were defensive measures taken against of the German threat and had no connection with the 'socialist revolutions' in the Baltic states.[135] The arguments that the USSR had to annex the Baltic states in order to defend the security of those countries and to avoid German invasion into the three republics can also be found in the college textbook "The Modern History of Fatherland".[136]
Sergey Chernichenko, a jurist and vice-president of the Russian Association of International Law, argues there was no declared state of war between the Baltic states and the Soviet Union in 1940, and that Soviet troops occupied the Baltic states with their agreement, and also that USSR violation of prior treaty provisions did not constitute occupation. Subsequent annexation was neither an act of aggression nor forcible and was completely legal according to international law as of 1940. Accusations of "deportation" of Baltic nationals by the Soviet Union are therefore baseless, he says, as individuals cannot be deported within their own country. He claims the Waffen-SS was being convicted at Nuremberg as a criminal organization and their commemoration in the "openly encouraged pro-Nazi" (откровенно поощряются пронацистские) Baltics as heroes seeking to liberate the Baltics from the Soviets) is an act of "nationalistic blindness" (националистическое ослепление). With regard to the current situation in the Baltics, Chernichenko contends the "theory of occupation" is the official thesis used to justify the "discrimination of Russian-speaking inhabitants" in Estonia and Latvia and prophesies the three Baltic governments will fail in their "attempt to rewrite history".[137]
According to the revisionist historian Oleg Platonov "from the point of view of the national interests of Russia, unification was historically just, as it returned to the composition of the state ancient Russian lands, albeit partially inhabited by other peoples". The Molotov–Ribbentrop pact and protocols, including the dismemberment of Poland, merely redressed the tearing away from Russia of its historical territories by "anti-Russian revolution" and "foreign intervention".[138]
On the other hand, Professor and Dean of the School of International Relations and Vice-Rector of Saint Petersburg State University, Konstantin K. Khudoley views the 1940 annexation of the Baltic states as involuntary. He considers the elections were not free and fair and the decisions of the newly elected parliaments to join the Soviet Union cannot be considered legitimate as these decisions were not approved by the upper chambers of the parliaments of the respective Baltic states. He also contends that the annexation of the Baltic states had no military value in defence of possible German aggression, as it bolstered anti-Soviet public opinion in future allies Britain and the US and turned the native populations against the Soviet Union: the subsequent guerrilla movement in the Baltic states after the Second World War caused domestic problems for the Soviet Union.[139]
Position of the Russian Federation
With the advent of Perestroika and its reassessment of Soviet history, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1989 condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Germany and the Soviet Union that had led to the division of Eastern Europe and the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries.[citation needed]
While this action did not state the Soviet presence in the Baltics was an occupation, the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and Republic of Lithuania affirmed so in a subsequent agreement in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia, in the preamble of its 29 July 1991, "Treaty Between the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and the Republic of Lithuania on the Basis for Relations between States", declared that once the USSR had eliminated the consequences of the 1940 annexation which violated Lithuania's sovereignty, Lithuania–Russia relations would further improve.[40]
However, Russia's current official position directly contradicts its earlier rapprochement with Lithuania[140] as well as its signature of membership to the Council of Europe, where it agreed to the obligations and commitments including "iv. as regards the compensation for those persons deported from the occupied Baltic states and the descendants of deportees, as stated in Opinion No. 193 (1996), paragraph 7.xii, to settle these issues as quickly as possible....".[38][141] The Russian government and state officials maintain now that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate[142] and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis.[143] They assert that the Soviet troops initially entered the Baltic countries in 1940 following agreements and the consent of the Baltic governments. Their position is that the USSR was not in a state of war or engaged in combat activities on the territories of the three Baltic states, therefore, the word "occupation" cannot be used.[144] "The assertions about [the] 'occupation' by the Soviet Union and the related claims ignore all legal, historical and political realities, and are therefore utterly groundless".—Russian Foreign Ministry.
This particular Russian viewpoint is called the "Myth of 1939–40" by international affairs professor David Mendeloff,[145] who states that the assertion that Soviet Union neither "occupied" the Baltic states in 1939 nor "annexed" them the following year is widely held and deeply embedded in Russian historical consciousness.[146]
Treaties affecting USSR–Baltic relations
The Baltic states proclaimed independence after the signing of the Armistice, and Bolshevik Russia invaded at the end of 1918.[147] Izvestia wrote in its 25 December 1918, issue: "Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are directly on the road from Russia to Western Europe and therefore a hindrance to our revolutions... This separating wall has to be destroyed". Bolshevik Russia, however, did not gain control of the Baltic States and in 1920 concluded peace treaties with all three of them. Subsequently, at the initiative of the Soviet Union,[148] additional non-aggression treaties were concluded with all three Baltic States:
- Peace treaties
- Non-aggression treaties
- Kellogg-Briand Pact and Litvinov's Pact
- The Convention for the Definition of Aggression
- The Pacts of Mutual Assistance
- Treaties the USSR signed between 1940 and 1945
Timeline
See also
- Kersten Committee
- January 1991 events in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, resulting in deaths and injuries
- Museum of Occupations, Tallinn, a project by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation
- Occupations of Latvia
- Population transfer in the Soviet Union
- Russia involvement in regime change
- State continuity of the Baltic states
- Territorial changes of the Baltic states
- United States resolution on the 90th anniversary of the Latvian Republic
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Further reading
- Yaacov Falkov, "Between the Nazi Hammer and the Soviet Anvil: The Untold Story of the Red Guerrillas in the Baltic Region, 1941–1945", in Chris Murray (ed.), Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War: Forgotten Fronts (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 96–119, ISBN 978-1138612945
- Aliide Naylor, The Shadow in the East
- Regarding the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. – Full text, English
- The Global Museum on Communism about the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union.
- The Occupation museum of Latvia
- GULAG 113 – Canadian film about Estonians mobilized into the Red Army 1941 and forced into labour in the GULAG
- Soviet Aggression Against the Baltic States by (Latvian Supreme Court justice) Augusts Rumpeters — Short and thoroughly annotated dissertation on Soviet-Baltic treaties and relations. 1974. Full text
- Situation in Soviet occupied Estonia in 1955–1956. Manivald Räästas, Eduard Õun. 1956.
Academic and media articles
- Mälksoo, Lauri (2000). Professor Uluots, the Estonian Government in Exile and the Continuity of the Republic of Estonia in International Law. Nordic Journal of International Law 69.3, 289–316.
- Non-Recognition in the Courts: The Ships of the Baltic Republics by Herbert W. Briggs. In The American Journal of International Law Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1943), pp. 585–596.
- Alfred Erich Senn What Happened in Lithuania in 1940?(PDF)
- The Soviet Occupation of the Baltic States, by Russian Review, 1955
- The Steel Curtain, Time Magazine, 14 April 1947
- The Iron Heel, Time Magazine, 14 December 1953
External links
- A radio drama about the occupation is presented in "John Alma Johnny and Myra Archived 11 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine", a presentation from Destination Freedom