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{{Short description|none}} | |||
{{otheruses4|the period of possession of the Baltic states by the ]|occupation by ]|Nazi occupation of the Baltics}} | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}} | |||
{{Infobox event | |||
|event=Occupation of the Baltic states | |||
|partof= ] and the ] | |||
|image=File:Nyet, nyet, Soviet (11).jpg | |||
|caption=A protest sign from the 1970s calling on the United Nations to abolish ] | |||
|date={{start and end dates|1940|6|15|1991|9|6|df=y}}{{-}}'''Military presence:''' {{start and end dates|1939|9|28|1994|8|31|df=y}} | |||
|location=<!--Baltic States-->Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania | |||
|result= | |||
* ] and ] of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (1940) | |||
* ] and incorporation of the Baltic countries into the ] (1941) | |||
* ] (1944) | |||
* Restoration of Baltic countries' independence during the ] (1990–91) | |||
| participants = {{EST}}{{Clear}}{{LAT}}{{Clear}}{{LIT}}<hr>{{flagcountry|USSR}}{{efn|(1940–1941; from 1944)}}{{Clear}}<hr>{{flag|Nazi Germany}}{{efn|(1941–1945)}} | |||
}} | |||
{{Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states sidebar}} | |||
The '''occupation of the Baltic states''' was a period of ] of | |||
], ] and ] by the ] from 1940 until its ]. For a brief period, ] occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. | |||
The initial ] began in June 1940 under the ], made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 before the outbreak of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taagepera |first=Rein |title=Estonia: return to independence |publisher=Westview Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0813311999 |page=58}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ziemele |first=Ineta |year=2003 |title=State Continuity, Succession and Responsibility: Reparations to the Baltic States and their Peoples? |journal=Baltic Yearbook of International Law |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff |volume=3 |pages=165–190 |doi=10.1163/221158903x00072}}</ref> The three independent ] were annexed as constituent ] in August 1940. Most ] did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kaplan |first1=Robert B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GqwoQqPHQTIC&pg=PA79 |title=Language Planning and Policy in Europe: The Baltic States, Ireland and Italy |last2=Baldauf |first2=Richard B. Jr. |date=2008 |publisher=Multilingual Matters |isbn=978-1847690289 |pages=79 |language=en |quote=Most Western countries had not recognised the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union, a stance that irritated the Soviets without ever becoming a major point of conflict. |access-date=2 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210505/https://books.google.com/books?id=GqwoQqPHQTIC&pg=PA79 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="kavass">{{Cite book |last=Kavass |first=Igor I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_LRAAAAAIAAJ|title=Baltic States |publisher=W. S. Hein |year=1972 |isbn=978-0930342418 |quote=The forcible military occupation and subsequent annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union remains to this day (written in 1972) one of the serious unsolved issues of international law |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210522/https://books.google.com/books?id=_LRAAAAAIAAJ|archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> In July 1941, the ] took place, just weeks after its ]. The Third Reich incorporated them into its '']''. In 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states as a result of the ]'s ], trapping the remaining ] in the ] until their formal surrender in May 1945.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Norman |title=The Oxford companion to World War II |publisher=Oxford University Press |others=Michael Richard Daniell Foot |year=2001 |isbn=978-0198604464 |editor-last=Dear |editor-first=Ian |page=85}}</ref> | |||
<!--Latvian ] ] first described the Soviet takeover of Latvia as ''occupatio bellicara'' and ''occupatio pacifica'' in his 27 October 1943 memorandum to the British Foreign Ministry.<ref>Public Record Office, Foreign Office — 371, File Nr. 337/36769, Nr. 7175, p. 94.—100.</ref> The Soviet "annexation occupation" or occupation '']''<ref name="Mälksoo2003">], p. 193.</ref> of the Baltic states lasted until the three countries regained sovereignty in August 1991.--> | |||
During the ] 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 in an "extremely violent and traumatic" occupation.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://chacr.org.uk/2020/07/06/6-july-2020-how-russian-disinformation-targets-the-former-soviet-bloc-around-wwii-anniversaries/ | title=How Russian Disinformation Targets the Former Soviet Bloc Around WWII Anniversaries - CHACR | date=6 July 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vardys |first=Vytas Stanley |title=Soviet Colonialism in the Baltic States: A Note on the Nature of Modern Colonialism |url=https://www.lituanus.org/1964/64_2_01_Vardys.html |journal=] |volume=10 |issue=2 |date=Summer 1964 |issn=0024-5089 |access-date=25 February 2023 |archive-date=9 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211109162257/https://www.lituanus.org/1964/64_2_01_Vardys.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Colonization of the three Baltic countries included mass executions, ] and ] of the native population. | |||
The '''occupation of Baltic states''' generally refers to the ] of the ] (], ], and ]) first by the ], then ], and again by the Soviets during ], and to the Soviet presence in the ] from 1945 until the re-establishment of their independence. <ref> The World Book Encyclopedia ISBN-10: 0716601036 </ref><ref> The History of the Baltic States by Kevin O'Connor ISBN-10: 0313323550 </ref> <ref>{{cite journal | last=Saburova | first=Irina | title=The Soviet Occupation of the Baltic States | journal=] | volume=14 | issue=1 | date=] | pages=36-49 }}</ref><ref>See, for instance, position expressed by European Parliament, which condemned "the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact, and continues." {{cite journal | last=European Parliament | title=Resolution on the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania | journal=Official Journal of the European Communities | volume=C 42/78 | date=January 13, ] | url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg}}</ref><ref>"After the German occupation in 1941-44, Estonia remained occupied by the Soviet Union until the restoration of its independence in 1991." {{cite court |litigants=KOLK AND KISLYIY v. ESTONIA |court=] |vol= |reporter= |opinion= |pinpoint= |date=17 January 2006 |url=http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=792672&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649 | |||
}}</ref> | |||
While there has been a broad international consensus that the Baltic states were illegally occupied and annexed,<ref name="OPL"/><ref name=estemb/><ref name="europarl.europa.eu"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="DE"/><ref name="malksoo"/> the Soviet Union never acknowledged that they were forcefully taken over.<ref name="Marek1968"/> The post-Soviet ] maintains the claim that the incorporations of Baltic states was in accordance with ],<ref>{{Cite book | |||
Many countries and governments including the United States did not recognize the seizure of Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania by the USSR ]. Such countries recognized Estonian/Latvian/Lithuanian diplomats and consuls who still functioned in many countries in the name of their former governments. These aging diplomats persisted in this anomalous situation until the ultimate restoration of Baltic independence.<ref>Diplomats Without a Country: Baltic Diplomacy, International Law, and the Cold War by James T. McHugh , James S. Pacy, Page 2. ISBN-10: 0313318786</ref> | |||
|last=Combs |first=Dick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9twRiRKd6wC&pg=PA258 |title=Inside The Soviet Alternate Universe |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2008 | |||
|isbn=978-0271033556 |pages=258, 259 |quote=The Putin administration has stubbornly refused to admit the fact of Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia following World War II, although Putin has acknowledged that in 1989, during Gorbachev's reign, the Soviet parliament officially denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which led to the forcible incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union. | |||
|access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210514/https://books.google.com/books?id=U9twRiRKd6wC&pg=PA258 |archive-date=10 February 2023 | |||
|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bugajski |first=Janusz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOeeyIT6B4wC&pg=PA109 |title=Cold peace |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2004 |isbn=0275983625 | |||
|page=109 | |||
|quote=Russian officials persistently claim that the Baltic states entered the USSR voluntarily and legally at the close of World War II and failed to acknowledge that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were under Soviet occupation for fifty years. | |||
|access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210506/https://books.google.com/books?id=YOeeyIT6B4wC&pg=PA109 |archive-date=10 February 2023 | |||
|url-status=live}}</ref> and school textbooks state that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union after home-grown popular ]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cole | |||
|first=Elizabeth A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWDs3Q3sKQ0C&pg=PA233 |title=Teaching the violent past: history education and reconciliation |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield | |||
|year=2007 |isbn=978-0742551435 |pages=233–234}}</ref> As most Western governments maintained that Baltic sovereignty had not been legitimately overridden,<ref name="quiley"> | |||
{{Cite book | |||
|last=Quiley | |||
|first=John |title=International and national law in Russia and Eastern Europe |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers | |||
|year=2001 | |||
|isbn=9041116540 | |||
|editor-last=Ginsburgs |editor-first=George |page=327 | |||
|trans-title=Volume 49 of Law in Eastern Europe |chapter=Baltic Russians: Entitled Inhabitants or Unlawful Settlers? | |||
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9zJrKRkSiEMC&pg=PA327}}</ref> they thus continued to recognise the Baltic states as sovereign political entities represented by the ], which functioned in Washington and elsewhere as ].<ref> | |||
{{Cite journal |year=1987 |title=Baltic article |journal=The World & I |publisher=Washington Times Corp |volume=2 |issue=3 |page=692}} | |||
*{{Cite book | |||
|last1=Shtromas |first1=Alexander |title=Totalitarianism and the prospects for world order: closing the door on the twentieth century |last2=Faulkner |first2=Robert K. |last3=Mahoney | |||
|first3=Daniel J. |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2003 | |||
|isbn=978-0739105337 |series=Applications of political theory | |||
|page=263 | |||
|chapter=Soviet Conquest of the Baltic states | |||
}}</ref> | |||
The Baltic states regained ''de facto'' independence in 1991 during the ]. Russia started to withdraw its troops from the ] starting with Lithuania in August 1993. However, it was a violent process and Soviet forces killed several Latvians and Lithuanians.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/10/03/suing-gorbachev | title=Suing Gorbachev 31 years after the USSR's collapse, a group of Lithuanians sought to hold its last leader to account }}</ref> The full withdrawal of troops deployed by Moscow ended in August 1994.{{cn|date=May 2024}} Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 by decommissioning the ] radar station in Latvia. The dismantled installations were repatriated to Russia and the site returned to Latvian control, with the last Russian soldier leaving Baltic soil in October 1999.<ref> {{webarchive | |||
The ] and officials continue to maintain that the Soviet annexation of the ] was legitimate<ref>{{cite news | author = BBC News|Europe | title = Russia denies Baltic 'occupation' | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4517683.stm | accessdate = 09-03-2007 }}</ref> and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis.<ref>{{cite news | author = BBC News|Europe | title = Bush denounces Soviet domination | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4521663.stm | accessdate = 09-03-2007 }}</ref> They state that the Soviet troops had entered the Baltics in 1940 following the agreements and with the consent of the then governments of the Baltic countries.<ref>http://www.newsfromrussia.com/main/2005/05/05/59605.html</ref> | |||
|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130601180901/http://www.balticsworldwide.com/the-weekly-crier-199910/ | |||
|date= 2013-06-01 }} Baltics Worldwide. Accessed 11 June 2013.</ref><ref>"" '']''. 22 October 1999.</ref> | |||
{{TOC limit}} | |||
==Soviet occupation, 1940-1941== | |||
==Background== | |||
], ], commemorating government members killed by communist terror]] | |||
{{main|Background of the occupation of the Baltic states}} | |||
], with later adjustments]] | |||
Early in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, called the ]. The pact contained a secret protocol by which the states of ] and ] were divided into German and Soviet "]".<ref name="mrtext"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141114231303/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html |date=14 November 2014 }}, executed August 23, 1939</ref> In the north, ], ] and ] were assigned to the Soviet sphere.<ref name="mrtext" /> Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the ], ] and ]s going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west.<ref name="mrtext" /> Lithuania, adjacent to ], would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned the majority of Lithuanian territory to the Soviet Union.<ref name="christie">Christie, Kenneth, ''Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy'', RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, {{ISBN|0700715991}}</ref> Under the secret protocol, Lithuania would regain its historical capital ], previously subjugated during the inter-war period by ]. | |||
Following the end of the ] on 6 October, the Soviets pressured Finland and the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance treaties. The Soviets questioned the neutrality of Estonia after the ] on 18 September. On 24 September, the Estonian foreign minister was given an ]: The Soviets demanded a treaty of mutual assistance to establish military bases in Estonia.<ref name="Salmon30">]. p. 110.</ref><ref name="The Baltic States Page 24">The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by David J. Smith, Page 24, {{ISBN|0415285801}}</ref> The Estonians were coerced to accept naval, air and army bases on two Estonian islands and at the port of ].<ref name="Salmon30" /> The corresponding agreement was signed on 28 September 1939. Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939. The agreements permitted the Soviet Union to establish military bases on the Baltic states' territory for the duration of the European war<ref name="The Baltic States Page 24" /> and to station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in ], 30,000 in ] and 20,000 in ] starting October 1939. | |||
Shortly before the beginning of ], on August 23, 1939, ] and the ] signed an ostensible ] known as the ]. In the of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union divided up Eastern Europe into ] in ], ], ], ] (and, according to a later adjustment, ]) fell in the Soviet zone. ] was to be partitioned in the event of its "political re-arrangement." | |||
==Soviet occupation and annexation (1940–1941)== | |||
After the ], which was occupied and partitioned between the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the latter Union started pressuring Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to accept Soviet military bases on their soil by massing troops upon their respective borders. Eventually all states except Finland signed pacts of "defense and mutual assistance", which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops into military bases on their territory for the duration of the European war:<ref> The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by David J. Smith, Page 24, ISBN-10: 0415285801 </ref> 25,000 Soviet soldiers into ], 30,000 into ], and 20,000 into ] in October ]. | |||
{{Main|Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)}} | |||
] enter the territory of ] during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940.]] | |||
In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of direct military intervention, but still intended to rule through ]s.<ref name="Salmon33">]. p. 113.</ref> Their model was the ], a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the ].<ref name="Salmon32">]. p. 112.</ref> The Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments. In May 1940, the Germans ], which was overrun and occupied a month later. In late May and early June 1940, the Baltic states were accused of military collaboration against the Soviet Union by holding meetings the previous winter.<ref name="PB">{{Cite book |last=Buttar |first=Prit |title=Between Giants |date=2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury USA |isbn=978-1780961637}}</ref>{{rp|43}} On 15 June 1940, the Lithuanian government was extorted to ] and permit the entry of an unspecified number of Soviet troops. President ] proposed armed resistance to the Soviets but the government refused,<ref>{{cite book | |||
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6RGlHunGIXMC | |||
|title=Undigested Past: The Holocaust in Lithuania | |||
|author=Robert van Voren | year= 2011|isbn=9789401200707|publisher=Brill}}</ref> proposing their own candidate to lead the regime.<ref name="Salmon33" /> However, the Soviets refused this proposal and sent ] to take charge while the Red Army occupied the state.<ref name="Salmon34">]. p. 114.</ref> | |||
] | |||
On 16 June 1940, Latvia and Estonia also received ultimata. The Red Army occupied the two remaining Baltic states shortly thereafter. The Soviets dispatched ] to oversee the takeover of Latvia and ] to Estonia. On 18 and 21 June 1940, new "]" governments were formed in each Baltic country, made up of Communists and ]s.<ref name="Salmon34" /> Under Soviet surveillance, the new governments arranged ]s for new "people's assemblies." Voters were presented with a single list, and no opposition movements were allowed to file candidates. To get the required turnout to 99.6%, votes were forged.<ref name="PB" />{{rp|46}} A month later when the new assemblies met their sole item of business for each of them was a resolution to join the Soviet Union. In each case, the resolution passed by ]. The ] duly accepted the requests in August, thus sanctioning them under Soviet law. ] was incorporated into the Soviet Union on 3 August, ] on 5 August, and ] on 6 August 1940.<ref name="Salmon34" /> The ] presidents of Estonia and Latvia, ] and ], were deported to the USSR and imprisoned. They died later in ]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Turtola |first=Martti |title=Presidentti Konstantin Päts. Suomi ja Viro eri teillä |publisher=Keuruu |year=2003}}</ref> and ] respectively. In June 1941, the new Soviet governments carried out ]s of "]". Estonia alone lost an estimated 60,000 citizens.<ref name="PB" />{{rp|48}} Consequently, many Balts initially greeted the Germans as liberators when they ] a week later.<ref name="GernerHedlund-b1">]. p. 59.</ref> | |||
], 1940. Posters in Russian say: ''We demand the full accession to the USSR!''.]] | |||
In support of local ] ] organisers, soviet troops exited from their military bases in June 1940 and issued the Baltic governments ultimatums. The following days hundreds of thousands of additional Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania across the borders. These additional Soviet military forces far outnumbered the armies of each country <ref name="Black book"> ]; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis & Kramer, Mark (1999). ''The ]: Crimes, Terror, Repression''. ]. ISBN 0-674-07608-7. </ref>. The Baltic governments decided: given the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the countries made a decision not to resist, to avoid bloodshed and open war. <ref>The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania p.19 ISBN-10: 0415285801</ref> The occupation of the Baltic states was rendered "official" by communist ] in each country supported by the Soviet troops. <ref>Estonia: Identity and Independence by Jean-Jacques Subrenat, David Cousins, Alexander Harding, Richard C. Waterhouse ISBN-10: 9042008903</ref> | |||
The Soviet Union immediately started to erect border fortifications along its newly acquired western border — the so-called ]. | |||
==German occupation (1941–1945)== | |||
The repressions followed with the mass ] carried out by the Soviets. On 11 October ], ] gave the order to "stamp out anti-Soviet and antisocialist elements" in the countries.{{Fact|date=April 2007}} The Soviet military police made their first arrests <ref name="Black book"/>. | |||
{{Main|German occupation of the Baltic states during World War II}} | |||
===Ostland province and the Holocaust=== | |||
After moving ] units into the Baltic states, the Soviet Union tried to occupy Finland by force in the ] of 1940, but had to settle for annexing ] and renting an isolated base in ] at the southwestern cape of mainland Finland. | |||
{{see also|The Holocaust in Estonia|The Holocaust in Latvia|The Holocaust in Lithuania}} | |||
], committed by the Soviet NKVD on 24–25 June 1941]] | |||
On 22 June 1941 the Germans ]. The Baltic states, recently Sovietized by threats, force, and fraud, generally welcomed the German armed forces.<ref name="Salmon_d1">]. p. 115.</ref> In Lithuania, a revolt broke out and an independent provisional government was established. As the German armies approached ] and ], attempts to reestablish national governments were made. Baltic citizens hoped that the Germans would reestablish Baltic independence. Such hopes soon evaporated and Baltic cooperation became less forthright or ceased altogether.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Baltic states – region, Europe |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-37264/Baltic-states |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611102707/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-37264/Baltic-states |archive-date=11 June 2008 |access-date=23 June 2022 |website=britannica.com}}</ref> The Germans aimed to annex the Baltic territories into the ] where "suitable elements" would be assimilated and "unsuitable elements" exterminated. In practice, the implementation of occupation policy was more complex; for administrative convenience the Baltic states were included with ] in the ].<ref name="Salmon_e1">]. p. 116.</ref> The area was governed by ] who was obsessed with bureaucratic regulations.<ref name="Salmon_e1" /> The Baltic area was the only eastern region intended to become a full province of the Third Reich.<ref name="Salmon_e2">]. p. 117.</ref>]'' execution in Lithuania|left]] ] to the peoples of the three Baltic countries differed between Nazi authorities. In practice, racial policies were directed not against the majority of Balts but rather against the ]. Large numbers of Jews were living in the major cities, notably in ], ] and ]. The German ] slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews; ], assigned to the Baltic area, was the most effective of four units.<ref name="Salmon_e2" /> German policy forced the Jews into ]. In 1943 ] ordered his forces to liquidate the ghettos and to transfer the survivors to ]. Some Latvians and Lithuanian conscripts collaborated actively in the killing of Jews, and the Nazis managed to provoke ]s locally, especially in Lithuania.<ref name="Salmon_e3">]. p. 118.</ref> Only about 75 percent of ] and 10 percent of ] and ] survived the war. However, for the majority of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the German rule was less harsh than Soviet rule had been, and it was less brutal than German occupations elsewhere in eastern Europe.<ref name="Salmon_e4">]. p. 119.</ref> Local ]s performed administrative tasks and schools were permitted to function. However, most people were denied the right to own land or businesses.<ref name="Salmon_e5" /> | |||
The spring of 1940 saw the German ] as well as a ] through the ] to ]. Direct Soviet aggression against the Baltic countries occurred between 14-17 June, 1940, when the world’s attention was focused on the military actions in Western Europe, where ] fell to the Germans on 14 June. | |||
===Baltic nationals within the Soviet forces=== | |||
Threatening an invasion and accusing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania of violating the terms of mutual assistance pacts as well as forming a conspiracy against the Soviet Union, the latter presented ultimatums, demanding new concessions, which included the replacement of governments and allowing an unlimited number of troops to enter the three countries.<ref> For Lithuania see, for instance, {{cite journal | quotes = NO | author = Thomas Remeikis | year = 1975 | title = The decision of the Lithuanian government to accept the Soviet ultimatum of June 14, 1940 | journal = LITUANUS, Lithuanian Quarterly journal of Arts and Sciences | volume = 21 | issue = No.4 - Winter 1975 | url = http://www.lituanus.org/1975/75_4_02.htm | accessdate = 03-03-2007 }}</ref><ref>see report of Latvian Chargé d'affaires, Fricis Kociņš, regarding the talks with Soviet Foreign Commissar Molotov in {{cite book | last = I.Grava-Kreituse, I.Feldmanis, J.Goldmanis, A.Stranga. | title = Latvijas okupācija un aneksija 1939-1940: Dokumenti un materiāli. ''(The Occupation and Annexation of Latvia: 1939-1940. Documents and Materials.)'' | year = 1995 | language = latvian | pages= 348-350 | url = http://www.historia.lv/alfabets/L/la/okupac/dokumenti/kocins/1940.21.06..htm }}</ref><ref>for Estonia see, for instance, {{cite journal | quotes = NO | author = Tanel Kerikmäe, Hannes Vallikivi | year = 2000 | title = State Continuity in the Light of Estonian Treaties Concluded before World War II | journal = Juridica International | pages = 30-39 | issue = I 2000 | url = http://www.juridica.ee/international_en.php?document=en/international/2000/1/22575.ART.0.pub.php | accessdate = 03-03-2007 }}</ref><ref> The World Book Encyclopedia ISBN-10: 0716601036 </ref> | |||
] in ], ] (1941)]] | |||
In the conditions of international isolation, the governments acceded to demands without offering any military resistance, and within a few days, the countries were invaded and occupied by several hundred thousand<ref>nearly 650,000 according to {{cite book |last=Kenneth Christie, Robert Cribb |title=Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy |url = http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0700715991&id=liV7upFWBb8C&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&sig=EEeRpxGm9rGcZCT3B5dxPHpQiPQ#PPA79,M1 |year=2002 |publisher=RoutledgeCurzon |location= |isbn=0700715991 |pages = 83}}</ref> soldiers of the Red Army. A few days later, led by Stalin’s close associates,<ref>in addition to the envoys accredited in Baltic countries, Soviet government sent the following special emissaries: to Lithuania: Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs ]; to Latvia: ], the representative of the Council of Ministers; to Estonia: Regional Party Leader of Leningrad ]. {{cite web |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/nsr/nsr-05.html#14 |title=Analytical list of documents, V. Friction in the Baltic States and Balkans, ]-], ] |accessdate=2007-03-03 |format=html |work= Telegram of German Ambassador in the Soviet Union (]) to the German Foreign Office }}</ref> the local communist supporters and those brought in from Russia, proclaimed new "people's governments" in the three occupied countries. In the following month, mock parliamentary elections were conducted by local ] loyal to the Soviet Union and all non-communist candidates were disqualified.<ref name=AOTMSN>''Attitudes of the Major Soviet Nationalities'', Center for International Studies, ], 1973</ref> The election results were completely fabricated: the Soviet press service released them early, with the result that they had already appeared in print in a ] newspaper a full 24 hours before the polls closed.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mangulis |first=Visvaldis |title=Latvia in the Wars of the 20th Century |url=http://www.historia.lv/publikacijas/gramat/mangulis/magulis_saturs.htm |year=1983 |publisher=Princeton Junction: Cognition Books |isbn=0912881003 |chapter=VIII. September 1939 to June 1941 |chapterurl = http://www.historia.lv/publikacijas/gramat/mangulis/08.nod.htm }}</ref><ref name="TSOL">Švābe, Arveds. ''The Story of Latvia''. Latvian National Foundation. Stockholm. 1949.</ref> The result was that all three Baltic states had communist majorities in their parliaments, and in August, despite claims prior to the elections that no such action would be taken,<ref name=AOTMSN /> they unanimously petitioned the Soviet government to join the Soviet Union. The petitions were granted and the three republics were formally ] by the Soviet Union. | |||
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.<ref name="ents">{{Cite book |title=Eesti. Üld. |publisher=Eesti entsüklopeedia |year=2002 |volume=11 |pages=311–323 |chapter=Nõukogude ja Saksa okupatsioon (1940–1991)}}</ref> During the German invasion, the Soviets conducted a forced general mobilisation that took place in violation of the ]. Under the ], this act of violence is seen as a grave breach and war crime, because the mobilised men were treated as arrestants from the very beginning. In comparison with the general mobilisation proclaimed in the Soviet Union, the age range was extended by 9 years in the Baltics; all reserve officers were also taken. The aim was to deport all men capable to fight to Russia, where they were sent to ]. Almost half of them perished because of the transportation conditions, slave labour, hunger, diseases, and the repressive measures of the ].<ref name=ents/><ref name="white">{{Cite book |last=Estonian State Commission on Examination of Policies of Repression |title=The White Book: Losses inflicted on the Estonian nation by occupation regimes. 1940–1991 |publisher=Estonian Encyclopedia Publishers |year=2005 |page=15 |chapter=Human Losses |chapter-url=http://www.just.ee/orb.aw/class=file/action=preview/id=12709/TheWhiteBook.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130114130824/http://www.just.ee/orb.aw/class%3Dfile/action%3Dpreview/id%3D12709/TheWhiteBook.pdf |archive-date=2013-01-14 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In addition, ] were formed under the command of the NKVD.<ref name="paavle">{{Cite book |last=], Peeter Kaasik |title=Estonia 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity |title-link=Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity |year=2006 |editor-last=] |location=Tallinn |pages=469–493 |chapter=Destruction battalions in Estonia in 1941 |editor-last2=Meelis Maripuu |editor-last3=Indrek Paavle}}</ref> Hence, Baltic nationals fought in both German and Soviet army ranks. There was the 201st Latvian Rifle Division. The 308th Latvian Rifle Division was awarded the Red Banner Order after the expulsion of the Germans from Riga in the autumn of 1944.<ref name=statiev/> | |||
] in the summer of 1943]] | |||
An estimated 60,000 Lithuanians were drafted into the Red Army.<ref>Romuald J. Misiunas, Rein Taagepera. Baltic Years of Dependence 1940—1990. Tallinn, 1997, p. 32</ref> 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 ]s 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 ] during its second formation. 16th Rifle Division, despite officially called "Lithuanian" and mostly commanded by officers of Lithuanian origin, including ], 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 ] during the German invasion in summer 1941, as 2000 were killed or wounded in action, and 4500 surrendered. The 25,000—30,000 strong ] lost 3/4 of its troops in the ] in winter 1942/43. It participated in the ] in September 1944.<ref name=ents/> About 20,000 Lithuanians, 25,000 Estonians, and 5000 Latvians died in the ranks of the Red Army and labor battalions.<ref name=white/><ref name="statiev">Alexander Statiev. ''The Soviet counterinsurgency in the western borderlands''. Cambridge University Press, 2010. p. 77</ref> | |||
Immediately after the elections, ] units under the leadership of ] arrested more than 15,000 "hostile elements" and members of their families <ref name="Black book"/>. In the first year of Soviet occupation, from June 1940 to June 1941, the number confirmed executed, conscripted, or deported is ''minimally'' estimated at 124,467: 59,732 in Estonia, 34,250 in Latvia, and 30,485 in Lithuania.<ref>Dunsdorfs, Edgars. ''The Baltic Dilemma''. Speller & Sons, New York. 1975</ref> This included 8 former heads of state and 38 ministers from Estonia, 3 former heads of state and 15 ministers from Latvia, and the current president, 5 prime ministers and 24 other ministers from Lithuania.<ref>Küng, Andres. ''Communism and Crimes against Humanity in the Baltic States''. 1999 </ref> | |||
The last large-scale cleansing operation was planned for the night of 27-28 June ]. It was delayed for several years by the the German invasion (]) <ref name="Black book"/>. According to historian ], the selective deportations from the Baltic States represented the policy of "the ''decapitation'' of the nation by removing its spokesmen", "as was later evidently to be the motive for the ]" <ref> </ref> | |||
===Baltic nationals in the German forces=== | |||
Between July and August 1940, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian envoys to the ] and the ] made official protests against Soviet occupation and annexation of their countries. The United States,<ref>see, for instance, {{cite web | authorlink = ] | title=Concurrent Resolution of the House and Senate: H. CON. RES. 128 | quote=''xpressing the sense of Congress that the Government of the Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.'' | date=], ] | url=http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:hc128rfs.txt.pdf | accessdate=2006-12-09 }}</ref> in accordance with the principles of the ] (]' Declaration of ], ]<ref>Then acting U.S. Secretary of State, Sumner Wells described Soviet activities in the Baltic states as: ''"the devious process whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - were to be deliberately annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbors."''</ref><ref name="TSOL" />), as well as most other Western countries<ref>{{cite journal | last=Dehousse | first=Renaud | title=The International Practice of the European Communities: Current Survey | journal=European Journal of International Law | volume=4 | issue=1 | date=] | pages=141 | url= http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol4/No1/sr1.html | accessdate=2006-12-09 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last=European Parliament | title=Resolution on the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania | journal=Official Journal of the European Communities | volume=C 42/78 | date=], ] | url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg }} ''"whereas the Soviet annexations of the three Baltic States still has not been formally recognized by most European States and the USA, ], the United Kingdom, ] and the ] still adhere to the concept of the Baltic States"''.</ref> never formally recognized the annexation, but did not directly interfere with Soviet control. The Baltic States continued their ] existence in accordance with ]<ref>{{cite journal | last=Van Elsuwege | first=P. | title=State Continuity and its Consequences: The Case of the Baltic States | journal=Leiden Journal of International Law | volume=16 | date=] | pages=377-388 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last= Malksoo | first= Lauri | title=Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR | journal=The American Journal of International Law | volume=99 | issue=3 | date=] | pages=734-736 }}</ref>. Diplomatic and consular representations of the ] continued to function between 1940 - 1991 in some Western countries (], ], ]).<ref>{{cite journal | last= Juda | first= Lawrence | title=United States' nonrecognition of the Soviet Union's annexation of the Baltic States: Politics and law | journal=] | volume=6 | issue=4 | date=] | pages=272-290 }}</ref> Members of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian diplomatic services in Western countries continued to formulate and express the official opinion of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and protected the interests of these countries and their citizens abroad between 1940–1991, i.e., until the restoration of independence of the ]. | |||
] parade through Riga before deploying to the Eastern Front. December 1943.]] | |||
The Nazi administration also conscripted Baltic nationals into the German armies. The ], composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. The LTDF reached a size of roughly 10,000 men. Its goal was to fight the approaching Red Army, provide security and conduct anti-partisan operations within the territory claimed by Lithuanians. After brief engagements against ] and ] partisans, the force self-disbanded.<ref name="bubnys">{{Cite book |last=Bubnys |first=Arūnas |title=Vokiečių okupuota Lietuva (1941–1944) |publisher=] |year=1998 |isbn=9986757126 |location=Vilnius |pages=409–423 |author-link=Arūnas Bubnys}}</ref> Its leaders were arrested and sent to ],<ref name=MM/> and many of members were executed by the Nazis.<ref name="MM">{{Cite journal |last=Mackevičius |first=Mečislovas |date=Winter 1986 |title=Lithuanian resistance to German mobilization attempts 1941–1944 |url=http://www.lituanus.org/1986/86_4_02.htm |url-status=live |journal=Lituanus |volume=4 |issue=32 |issn=0024-5089 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805202443/http://www.lituanus.org/1986/86_4_02.htm |archive-date=5 August 2019 |access-date=19 September 2013}}</ref> ], created in 1943, consisted of two conscripted divisions of the Waffen-SS. On 1 July 1944 the Latvian Legion had 87,550 men. Another 23,000 Latvians were serving as Wehrmacht "auxiliaries".<ref name="legion2">{{Cite book |last=Mangulis |first=Visvaldis |url=https://archive.org/details/latviainwarsof200000mang |title=Latvia in the Wars of the 20th Century |publisher=Cognition Books |year=1983 |isbn=0912881003 |location=Princeton Junction, NJ |oclc=10073361}}</ref> Among other battles, they participated in the ], in the ] fighting, the defence of the ], at the ] for Hill "93,4" and in the ]. The ] was formed in January 1944 through conscription. Consisting of 38,000 men, it took part in the ], the ], the ], and ]. | |||
===Attempts to restore independence and the Soviet offensive of 1944=== | |||
The events in the Baltic Republics were not isolated. In Finland and the ]n peninsula the great powers demanded ] infringing their neutrality or sovereignty: Germany had pressured ] to grant transit rights for material and personnel transportation between Norway and ports of southern Sweden during the fighting in Norway, and achieved this after Norway's defeat. Immediately thereafter, the Soviet Union began to pressure Finland for transfer rights over land between the Hanko naval base and the Soviet border, established as a Finnish concession in the ], as well as for control of the ] nickel mine. | |||
{{Main|Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (1944)}} | |||
] lead the disarmed soldiers of the ] in Kaunas.]] | |||
There were several attempts to restore ] during the occupation. On 22 June 1941 the ] two days before the ''Wehrmacht'' arrived in Kaunas, where the Germans then allowed a ] to function for over a month.<ref name="Salmon_e5">]. p. 120.</ref> The ] was set up as an underground organisation in 1943, but it was destroyed by the '']'' in 1945. In Estonia in 1941, ] proposed restoration of independence; later, by 1944, he had become a key figure in the secret ]. In September 1944, Uluots briefly became acting president of independent Estonia.<ref name="Salmon_c1">]. p. 121.</ref> Unlike the ] and the ], the Baltic states had no ] located in the West. Consequently, Great Britain and the United States lacked any interest in the Baltic cause while the war against Germany remained undecided.<ref name="Salmon_c1" /> The discovery of the ] in 1943 and callous conduct towards the ] in 1944 had cast shadows on relations; nevertheless, all three victors still displayed solidarity at the ] in 1945.<ref name="Salmon_c2">]. p. 123.</ref> | |||
By 1 March 1944 the ] was over and Soviet troops were ].<ref name="Bellamy1">]. p. 621.</ref> The Soviets launched the ], a twofold military-political operation to rout German forces, on 14 September. On 16 September the ] issued a plan in which Estonian forces would cover the German withdrawal.<ref name="Bellamy2">]. p. 622.</ref> The Soviets soon reached the Estonian capital Tallinn, where the ]'s first mission was to stop anyone escaping from the state; however, many refugees did manage to escape to the West. The NKVD also targeted the members of the ].<ref name="Bellamy3">]. p. 623.</ref> German and Latvian forces remained trapped in the Courland Pocket until the end of the war, capitulating on 10 May 1945. | |||
In August, Finland granted transfer rights to German troops traveling between Northern Norway and ports of the ] in a diplomatic effort to improve relations with Nazi Germany that had been chilly since the mid-1930s, due to ideological differences, which was clearly demonstrated when the Third Reich sided with the Soviet Union during the Winter War. Finland now managed to increase the political contacts with Germany, which were seen as the only hope against Soviet occupation. In September, Finland and the Soviet Union came to an agreement on Hanko transitations. When the Soviet foreign minister, ], in November 1940, requested German acceptance and passive support for invasion of Finland, Hitler declined as he saw Finland as a potential ally in the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union. The negotiations for the Petsamo mines stalled for several months, until indirect German support allowed the Finns to let those negotiations lapse. | |||
==Second Soviet occupation (1944–1991)== | |||
===Official position of the Russian government=== | |||
{{Main|Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991)|Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1944)}} | |||
] and officials however continue to maintain that the Soviet annexation of the ] was legitimate<ref>{{cite news | author = BBC News|Europe | title = Russia denies Baltic 'occupation' | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4517683.stm | accessdate = 09-03-2007 }}</ref> and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis<ref>{{cite news | author = BBC News|Europe | title = Bush denounces Soviet domination | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4521663.stm | accessdate = 09-03-2007 }}</ref><ref>http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/Current/Jurgeleviciute.pdf.</ref>. They state that the Soviet troops had entered the Baltics in 1940 following the agreements and with the consent of the then governments of the Baltic republics. They maintain that the USSR was not in a state of war and was not waging any combat activities on the territory of the three Baltic states, therefore, the argument goes, the word 'occupation' can not be used <ref>http://www.newsfromrussia.com/main/2005/05/05/59601.html</ref> | |||
<ref>http://www.newsfromrussia.com/main/2005/05/05/59605.html</ref>. "The assertions about 'occupation' by the Soviet Union and the related claims ignore all legal, historical and political realities, and are therefore utterly groundless." (Russian Foreign Ministry)<ref>http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070118/59322624.html</ref> | |||
===Resistance and deportations=== | |||
Russia maintains that Soviet forces liberated the ] from Nazi occupation <ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4521663.stm</ref>, despite the fact that the first "liberation" occured one year prior to the Nazi occupation itself. | |||
] created by the Soviet ]]] | |||
] in 1945]] | |||
After reoccupying the Baltic states, the Soviets implemented a program of ], which was achieved through large-scale ] rather than by overt attacks on culture, religion or freedom of expression.<ref name="Salmon_b1">]. p. 126.</ref> The Soviets carried out massive ]s to eliminate any resistance to ] or support of ].<ref name="Salmon_b2" /> Baltic partisans, such as the ], continued to resist Soviet rule through armed struggle for a number of years.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Petersen |first=Roger |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/resistance-and-rebellion/BAD296E1F4C650C44C9F82BB15F09B76 |title=Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780511612725 |series=Studies in Rationality and Social Change |year=2001 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511612725}}</ref> | |||
The Soviets had previously carried out mass deportations in 1940–41, but the deportations between 1944 and 1952 were even greater.<ref name="Salmon_b2" /> In March 1949 alone, the top Soviet authorities organised ] of 90,000 Baltic nationals.<ref name="heinrihs">{{Cite journal |last1=Strods |first1=Heinrihs |last2=Kott, Matthew |year=2002 |title=The File on Operation 'Priboi': A Re-Assessment of the Mass Deportations of 1949 |url=http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?id=v39u012674tmk1jj |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Baltic Studies |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=1–36 |doi=10.1080/01629770100000191 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200529132128/https://metapress.com/?id=v39u012674tmk1jj |archive-date=29 May 2020 |access-date=2008-03-25 |s2cid=143180209}} {{cite journal |title=Erratum |journal=Journal of Baltic Studies |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=241 |url=http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0162-9778&volume=33&issue=2&spage=241 |access-date=2008-03-25 |doi=10.1080/01629770200000071 |year=2002 |s2cid=216140280 |archive-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329182722/http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0162-9778&volume=33&issue=2&spage=241 |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
==Treaties affecting USSR-Baltic relations== | |||
The total number deported in 1944–55 has been estimated at over half a million: 124,000 in ], 136,000 in Latvia and 245,000 in Lithuania.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}} | |||
===Treaties in effect between the USSR and the Baltics prior to 1940=== | |||
The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees between 1945 and 1958 was 20,000, including 5,000 children.<ref>International Commission For the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130601173600/http://www.komisija.lt/Files/www.komisija.lt/File/Tyrimu_baze/II%20Sovietine%20okupacija%20I%20etapas/Nusikaltimai/Tremimai/ENG/Conclusions%20ENG.pdf |date=2013-06-01 }}, paragraph 14</ref> | |||
See also ]. | |||
The deportees were allowed to return after ]'s ] in 1956 denouncing the excesses of ], however many did not survive their years of exile in ].<ref name="Salmon_b2">]. p. 129.</ref> After the war, the Soviets ] for the Baltic republics. ] gained the regions of Vilnius and Klaipėda while the ] annexed territory from the eastern parts of ] (5% of prewar territory) and ] (2%).<ref name="Salmon_b2" /> | |||
After the Baltics states proclaimed independence, ] invaded at the end of ]{{fact}}, ] publishing in its ], ] 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." Bolshevist Russia, however, did not gain control of the Baltics and in 1920 concluded peace treaties with all three states: | |||
===Industrialization and immigration=== | |||
* Estonia, on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, Vol. XI, pp. 29-71.</ref> | |||
The Soviets made large ]s for energy resources and the manufacture of industrial and agricultural products. The purpose was to integrate the Baltic economies into the larger Soviet economic sphere.<ref name="Salmon_b3">]. p. 130.</ref> In all three republics, manufacturing industry was developed resulting in some of the best industrial complexes in the sphere of electronics and textile production. The rural economy suffered from the lack of investments and the collectivization.<ref name="Salmon_b4">]. p. 131.</ref> Baltic urban areas had been damaged during wartime and it took ten years to recuperate housing losses. New constructions were often of poor quality and ethnic Russian immigrants were favored in housing.<ref name="Salmon_b5">]. p. 132.</ref> Estonia and Latvia received large-scale immigration of industrial workers from other parts of the Soviet Union that changed the ] dramatically. Lithuania also received immigration but on a smaller scale.<ref name="Salmon_b3" /> | |||
* Lithuania, on ], ]<ref>Receuil de traités conclus par la Lithuanie avec les pays étrangérs, Vol. I, Kaunas, 1930, pp. 30-45.</ref> | |||
], the leader of the ] from 1940 to 1974<ref>{{Cite book |last=Motyl |first=Alexander J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pvHRNNk9hHEC&pg=PA494 |title=Encyclopedia of Nationalism, Two-Volume Set |date=2000 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=0080545246 |pages=494–495 |access-date=20 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210507/https://books.google.com/books?id=pvHRNNk9hHEC&pg=PA494 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>]] | |||
* Latvia, on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, 1920-21, No. 67, pp. 213-231.</ref> | |||
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.<ref name="Salmon_b5" /> Baltic communists had supported and participated the 1917 ] in Russia. However, many of them were killed during the ] in the 1930s. The new regimes of 1944 were established mostly by native communists who had fought in the ]. However, the Soviets also imported ethnic Russians to fill political, administrative and managerial posts.<ref name="Salmon_b10">]. p. 139.</ref> | |||
===Restorations of independence=== | |||
In these treaties, Bolshevist Russia renounced "''for eternity''"<ref>the Peace Treaty with Estonia and Latvia, para. 2., Peace Treaty with Lithuania, para. 1.</ref> all sovereign rights over these three peoples and territories which formerly belonged to Russia. | |||
], January 1990]] | |||
The ] brought the crisis of the Soviet system. The new Soviet leader ] came to power in 1985 and responded with ] and ]. They were attempts to reform the Soviet system from above to avoid revolution from below. The reforms occasioned the reawakening of nationalism in the Baltic republics.<ref name="Salmon_b13">]. p. 147.</ref> The first major demonstrations against the environment were ] in November 1986 and the following spring in ]. Small successful protests encouraged key individuals and by the end of 1988 the reform wing had gained the decisive positions in the Baltic republics.<ref name="Salmon_b14">]. p. 149.</ref> At the same time, coalitions of reformists and populist ].<ref name="Salmon_b15">]. p. 150.</ref> The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic made the ] the ] again in January 1989, and similar legislation was passed in Latvia and Lithuania soon after. The Baltic republics declared their aim for sovereignty: Estonia in November 1988, Lithuania in May 1989 and Latvia in July 1989.<ref name="Salmon_b16">]. p. 151.</ref> The ], that took place on 23 August 1989, became the biggest manifestation of opposition to the Soviet rule.<ref name="Salmon_b19">]. p. 154.</ref> In December 1989, the ] condemned the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol as "legally untenable and invalid."<ref>{{Cite news |date=25 December 1989 |title=Upheaval in the East; Soviet Congress Condemns '39 Pact That Led to Annexation of Baltics |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/25/world/upheaval-east-soviet-congress-condemns-39-pact-that-led-annexation-baltics.html |url-status=live |access-date=17 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504185003/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/25/world/upheaval-east-soviet-congress-condemns-39-pact-that-led-annexation-baltics.html |archive-date=4 May 2021|quote=The Congress condemned the secret protocols to the 1939 Soviet-German Nonaggression Treaty, which included a map delineating Soviet and German areas of interest, as 'legally untenable and invalid from the moment they were signed.'}}</ref> | |||
]]] | |||
Subsequently, at the initiative of the Soviet Union<ref>Prof. Dr. G. von Rauch "Die Baltischen Staaten und Sowjetrussland 1919-1939", Europa Archiv No. 17 (1954), p. 6865.</ref>, additional non-aggression treaties were concluded with all three Baltic States: | |||
On 11 March 1990 the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet ].<ref name="Salmon_b20">]. p. 158.</ref> Pro-independence candidates had received an overwhelming majority in the Supreme Soviet elections held earlier that year.<ref name="Salmon_b22">]. p. 160.</ref> On 30 March 1990, seeing full restoration of independence not yet feasible due to large Soviet presence, the Estonian Supreme Soviet declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and announced the start of a transitional period to independence. On 4 May 1990, the Latvian Supreme Soviet made a similar declaration.<ref name="Salmon_b23">]. p. 162.</ref> The Soviet Union immediately condemned all three declarations as illegal, saying that they had to go through the process of secession outlined in the ]. However, the Baltic states argued that the entire occupation process violated both international law and their own law. Therefore, they argued, they were merely reasserting an independence that still existed under international law. | |||
By mid-June, after unsuccessful ], the Soviets started negotiations with Lithuania and the other two Baltic republics. The Soviets had a bigger challenge elsewhere, as the Russian Federal Republic ] in June.<ref name="Salmon_b25">]. p. 164.</ref> Simultaneously the Baltic republics also started to negotiate directly with the Russian Federal Republic.<ref name="Salmon_b25" /> After the failed negotiations the Soviets made a dramatic but failed attempt to break the deadlock and sent in military troops killing twenty and injuring hundreds of civilians in what became known as the "]" in Lithuania and "]" in Latvia during January 1991.<ref name="Salmon_b27">]. p. 187.</ref> In August 1991, the hard-line members ] of the Soviet Union. A day after the coup on 21 August, the Estonians proclaimed full independence, after an ] was held in ] on 3 March 1991,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Nohlen |first1=Dieter |title=Elections in Europe: A data handbook |last2=Stöver |first2=Philip |year=2010 |isbn=978-3832956097 |pages=567|publisher=Nomos }}</ref> alongside a ] in ] the same month. It was approved by 78.4% of voters with an 82.9% turnout. Independence was restored by the Estonian Supreme Council on the night of 20 August.<ref name=":0" /> The Latvian parliament made similar a declaration on the same day. The coup failed but the ] became unavoidable.<ref name="Salmon_b28">]. p. 189.</ref> After the coup collapsed, the Soviet government recognised the independence of all three Baltic states on 6 September 1991. | |||
* Lithuania, on ], ]<ref>Receuil des traités conclus par la Lithuanie avec les pays étrangés, Vol. I, Kaunas, 1930, pp. 429-435.</ref> | |||
* Latvia, on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, 1934, No. 3408, pp. 123-125 and 127</ref> | |||
* Estonia on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, Vol. CXXXI, pp. 297-307.</ref> | |||
===Withdrawal of Russian troops and decommissioning the radars=== | |||
The contracting parties undertook to refrain from acts of aggression against one another, and from any acts of violence directed against the territorial integrity and inviolability or the political independence of the other contracting party. Furthermore, they agreed to submit all disputes regardless of origin which could not be settled diplomatically to a formal conciliation in a joint committee.<ref>Arts. I and IV of the Non-Aggression Treaties with Latvia and Estonia, and Arts. III and V of the Non-Aggression Treaty with Lithuania.</ref> | |||
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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Holoboff |first1=Elaine M. |url=https://archive.org/details/statebuildingmil05parr/page/112 |title=National Security in the Baltic States |last2=Bruce Parrott |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1995 |isbn=1563243601 |page= |chapter=Reversing Soviet Military Occupation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rhKYfA5x3eYC&pg=PA112}}</ref> In 1992 there were still 120,000 Russian troops there,<ref name="compatriot">Simonsen, S. Compatriot Games: Explaining the 'Diaspora Linkage' in Russia's Military Withdrawal from the Baltic States. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 53, No. 5. 2001</ref> 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 ] naval base, the ] anti-ballistic missile radar station, the ] space-monitoring station in Latvia and the ] submarine base in Estonia, as well as transit rights to ] through Lithuania. | |||
As a follow-on to the adoption of the ] on ], ], the Soviet Union signed a protocol confirming adherence to the terms of the Pact with its neighbors: Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Romania on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, 1929, No. 2028.</ref>. Lithuania declared its adherence to the pact and protocol soon thereafter, on ], ]. In signing, the contracting parties agreed: | |||
* to condemn war as a recourse to solving conflict and to renounce it as an instrument of policy, and | |||
* that all conflicts and disputes be settled only by peaceful means<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, 1928, No. 2137.</ref>. | |||
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.<ref name="compatriot" /> | |||
On ], ], the Soviet Union concluded with its neighbors, including the Baltics, the Convention for the Definition of Aggression.<ref>League of Nations Treaty Series, 1934, No. 3391.</ref> Article II defines forms of aggression, for example, "invasion by its armed forces with or without a declaration of war of the territory of another State." Article II then states that "no political, military, economic or other considerations may serve as an excuse or justification for the aggression referred to in Article II." And while the annex to Article III lists conceivable reasons for intervention in a neighboring state, it also stipulates that "the High Contracting Parties further agree to recognize that the present convention ''can never legitimate any violations of International Law that may be implied in the circumstances comprised in the above list''." | |||
Lithuania was the first to see complete the withdrawal of Russian troops—on 31 August 1993<ref>Holoboff, p 113</ref>—owing in part to the Kaliningrad issue.<ref name="compatriot" /> | |||
The Pacts of Mutual Assistance also affirmed the sovereign rights of the Baltic states. Using the Pact of Mutual Assistance with Latvia as an example, signed on ], ]<ref>League of Nations Treaties Series No. 4656/39, pp. 385-387.</ref>, Article V of the Pact declares: "The enforcement of the present Pact may in no way impair the sovereign rights of the Contracting Parties, more especially with regard to their political structure, economic and social systems, and military measures." | |||
Subsequent agreements to withdraw troops from Latvia were signed on 30 April 1994, and from Estonia on 26 July 1994.<ref name="Holoboff, p 114">Holoboff, p 114</ref> Continued linkage on the part of Russia resulted in a threat by the U.S. Senate in mid-July to halt all aid to Russia in case the forces were not withdrawn by the end of August.<ref name="Holoboff, p 114" /> Final withdrawal was completed on 31 August 1994.<ref name="Salmon_b29">]. p. 191.</ref> Some Russian troops remained stationed in Estonia in ] until the Russian military base was dismantled and the nuclear reactors suspended operations on 26 September 1995.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309011500/https://vp1992-2001.president.ee/eng/k6ned/K6ne.asp?ID=9336 |date=9 March 2021 }} ], the president of Estonia (1992–2001). 26 September 1995.</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303212427/http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=9984&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=209 |date=3 March 2016 }} ]. 27 September 1995.</ref> Russia operated the ] radar station until it was decommissioned on 31 August 1998. The Russian Government then had to dismantle and remove the radar equipment; this work was completed by October 1999 when the site was returned to Latvia.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120229195807/http://www.am.gov.lv/en/copenhagen/news/latvian-news/template/?pg=1562 |date=29 February 2012 }} Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in Copenhagen, 31 October 1999. Accessed 22 July 2013.</ref> The last Russian soldier left the region that month, marking a symbolic end to the Russian military presence on Baltic soil.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210524/https://books.google.com/books?id=7Yg-9Np1abwC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=skrunda+returned+to+latvia&source=bl&ots=Vi5CvrAiBH&sig=31Lo5yqw90LfrrVhPq6Ie0TMGbM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pkytUeCjGavA4APl_IDADw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBzhk#v=onepage&q=skrunda%20returned%20to%20latvia&f=false |date=10 February 2023 }} ]. January 5, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2013.</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210508/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYy46_X2WS8C&pg=PA198&dq=skrunda-1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_6LsUfL5K8fj4APbiIGwDQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=skrunda-1&f=false |date=10 February 2023 }} Ian Jeffries. 2004. Retrieved July 21, 2013.</ref> | |||
===Treaties the USSR signed between 1940 and 1945=== | |||
==Civilian toll== | |||
The Soviet Union joined the ] of ], ] by resolution, signed in London on ], ].<ref>B. Meissner, Die Sowjetunion, die Baltischen Staaten und das Volkerrecht, 1956, pp. 119-120.</ref> Resolution maintained that: | |||
], ].<br>{{coord|54|41|18.9|N|25|16|14.0|E|display=inline}}.]] | |||
During the ] and ] occupations 605,000 inhabitants of the three countries in total were either killed or deported (135,000 Estonians, 170,000 Latvians and 320,000 Lithuanians). Their properties and personal belonging were confiscated and given to newly arrived colonists – ]s, ], ] personnel, as well as functionaries of the ].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abene |first1=Aija |last2=Prikulis |first2=Juris |url=https://www.inese-vaidere.lv/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/loib_gramata_148x210mm_web.pdf#page=21 |title=Damage caused by the Soviet Union in the Baltic States: International conference materials |publisher=E-forma |date=2017 |location=] |isbn=978-9934-8363-1-2 |pages=20–21 |access-date=25 February 2023 |archive-date=2 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902000430/https://www.inese-vaidere.lv/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/loib_gramata_148x210mm_web.pdf#page=21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> | |||
The estimated human costs of the occupations are presented in the table below.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pettai |first=Vello |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WD-iBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 |title=Transitional and Retrospective Justice in the Baltic States |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-1107049499 |page=55 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210509/https://books.google.com/books?id=WD-iBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
* desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and | |||
* its wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.<ref>Louis L. Snyder, Fifty Major Documents of the Twentieth Century, 1955, p. 92.</ref> | |||
{|class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align: right" | |||
The Soviet Union signed the ] of ], ], which confirmed adherence to the Atlantic charter. | |||
|- | |||
!Period/action | |||
!Estonia | |||
!Latvia | |||
!Lithuania | |||
|- | |||
|Population | |||
|1,126,413 (1934) | |||
|1,905,000 (1935) | |||
|2,575,400 (1938) | |||
|- | |||
|'''First Soviet Occupation''' | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|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 | |||
|] | |||
1,900 Roma | |||
|] | |||
~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''' | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
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 signed the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe of ], ], in which Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt jointly declare for the restablishment of order in Europe according to the principle of the Atlantic Charter "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live, the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations." The Yalta declaration further states that "to foster the conditions in which the liberated peoples may exercise these rights, the three governments will join ... among others to facilitate where necessary the holding of free elections."<ref>Foreign Relations of the United States, The Conference at Malta and Yalta, Washington, 1955, p. 977.</ref> | |||
{{See also|Baltic Russians|Non-citizens (Latvia)|Non-citizens (Estonia)}} | |||
The Soviet Union and its successors have never paid reparations to the Baltic states.<ref>{{Cite web |last=ERR |date=2015-11-05 |title=Justice minister goes behind PM's back to sign declaration about reparations for Soviet occupation |url=https://news.err.ee/117139/justice-minister-goes-behind-pm-s-back-to-sign-declaration-about-reparations-for-soviet-occupation |access-date=2023-04-08 |website=ERR |language=en}}</ref> | |||
Finally, the Soviet Union signed the Charter of the United Nations on ], ], which in Article I Part 2 states that one of the "purposes of the United Nations is to develop friendly relations among nations based on ''respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples''." | |||
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<ref>{{cite web |title=Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination |url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/287844 |website=UN |date=1999 |access-date=19 February 2024}}</ref> and ] contended that the policy of Estonia towards its non-citizens was discriminatory.<ref>{{cite web |title=Human Rights Watch submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child concerning Estonia |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/21/human-rights-watch-submission-committee-rights-child-concerning-estonia |website=Human Rights Watch |date=21 November 2016 |access-date=8 February 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=van Elsuwege |first=Peter |title=Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia: problems of integration at the threshold of the European Union |url=http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=19689 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130524085118/http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=19689 |archive-date=24 May 2013 |access-date=26 June 2011 |website=European Centre for Minority Issues |page=54}}</ref> | |||
], the first ethnic Russian mayor of ], in independent ]]] | |||
In 1993, Estonia was noted for having problems concerning the successful integration of some who were ]s at the time Estonia gained independence.<ref name="humarightswatch1">{{Cite web |year=1993 |title=Integrating Estonia's Non-Citizen Minority |url=https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1993/10/01/integrating-estonia-s-non-citizen-minority |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819082919/http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1993/10/01/integrating-estonia-s-non-citizen-minority |archive-date=19 August 2014 |access-date=2009-06-05 |publisher=]}}</ref> The requirements for getting citizenship in Estonia were considered "relatively liberal" in 1996.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ludwikowski |first=Rett R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qw8o0_c0m74C&pg=PA87 |title=Constitution-making in the region of former Soviet dominance |publisher=Duke University Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0822318026 |page=87 |access-date=25 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210508/https://books.google.com/books?id=qw8o0_c0m74C&pg=PA87 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to a 2008 report of Special Rapporteur on racism to ] the representatives of the Russian speaking communities in Estonia say the most important form of discrimination in Estonia is not ethnic, but rather language-based (Para. 56). The rapporteur made several recommendations, including strengthening the Chancellor of Justice,{{clarify|date=February 2024}} making it easier for persons of undefined nationality to obtain citizenship, and opening a discussion on language policy to elaborate strategies better reflecting the multilingual character of the society (paras. 89–92).<ref name="DE" /> Estonia has been criticized by the UN ] strong emphasis on Estonian language in the state ]; usage of ] for promoting Estonian language; restrictions of the usage of minority language in ]; low level of minority ] in political life; persistently high number of persons with ], etc.<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 September 2010 |title=Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Estonia |url=http://www.bayefsky.com/pdf/estonia_t4_cerd_77.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329184607/http://www.bayefsky.com/pdf/estonia_t4_cerd_77.pdf |archive-date=29 March 2018 |access-date=2011-02-10 |publisher=UN ]}}</ref> | |||
According to Israeli author {{ill|Yaël Ronen|he|יעל רונן (משפטנית)}} of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the ], 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.<ref name="ronen">{{Cite book |last=Yaël |first=Ronen |title=British Year Book of International Law 2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |others=Vaughan Lowe |year=2010 |isbn=978-0199580392 |editor-last=Crawford |editor-first=James |pages=194–265 |chapter=Status of Settlers Implanted by Illegal Territorial Regimes |access-date=25 October 2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXF68uF3AD4C&pg=PA194 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210510/https://books.google.com/books?id=yXF68uF3AD4C&pg=PA194 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name="ronen" /> When the illegal regime transitioned to a lawful regime in 1991, the status of these ] became an issue.<ref name="ronen" /> | |||
==Soviet re-occupation, 1944-1991== | |||
{{Expand-section|date=March 2007}} | |||
{{main|Estonian SSR}} | |||
{{main|Latvian SSR}} | |||
{{main|Lithuanian SSR}} | |||
The Soviet Union reoccupied the Baltic states as part of the ], a two fold military-political operation to rout German forces and the "liberation of the Soviet Baltic peoples"<ref name=Muriev>Д. Муриев, ''Описание подготовки и проведения балтийской операции 1944 года'', Военно-исторический журнал, сентябрь 1984. Translation available, D. Muriyev, ''Preparations, Conduct of 1944 Baltic Operation Described'', ''Military History Journal'' (USSR Report, Military affairs), 1984-9, pp. 22-28</ref> beginning in summer-autumn 1944, lasting until the capitulation of German and Latvian forces in ] in May 1945, and they were gradually absorbed into Soviet Union. On 12 January 1949 the Soviet Council of Ministers issued a decree "on the expulsion and deportation" from Baltic states of "all kulaks and their families, the families of bandits and nationalists", and others <ref name="Black book"/>. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been deported from the Baltic in ]-]. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to ]. 10 percent of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labor camps. <ref name="Black book"/> | |||
Author ] 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Soviet Modernism's Enduring Baltic Legacy |url=https://jacobin.com/2021/02/soviet-modernism-baltic-architecture |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220903155438/https://jacobin.com/2021/02/soviet-modernism-baltic-architecture |archive-date=3 September 2022 |access-date=2022-09-03 |website=jacobin.com |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
== Historical considerations == | |||
In Northern Europe, the fate of small countries during World War II varied considerably. ] and ] were occupied by Germany; Sweden had to make some concessions but with skillful foreign policy and a credible military it was able to stay out of the war. Both Denmark and Norway reverted to democracy after the Nazi capitulation. | |||
==Legal and historical perspectives== | |||
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were again occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union and only regained their independence nearly fifty years later in the aftermath of the ]. Finland, which geographically was in a less advantageous position than Sweden, had to endure two wars: the (] and the ]) with territorial losses, and had to bend its foreign policy in favor of the Soviet Union after the war (]), but it remained independent, ] and maintained a democratic political system after World War II. | |||
The Baltic states' governments themselves,<ref name="OPL"> {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071123015238/http://www.am.gov.lv/en/latvia/history/occupation-aspects/ |date= 2007-11-23 }} at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia</ref><ref name=estemb>{{Cite web |date=2008-09-22 |title=22 September 1944 from one occupation to another |url=http://www.estemb.org/estonia/history/aid-775 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630105553/http://www.estemb.org/estonia/history/aid-775 |archive-date=30 June 2018 |access-date=2009-05-01 |publisher=Estonian Embassy in Washington |quote=For Estonia, World War II did not end, ''de facto'', until 31 August 1994, with the final withdrawal of former Soviet troops from Estonian soil.}}</ref> the United States<ref name=Feldbrugge>{{Cite book |last1=Feldbrugge |first1=Ferdinand |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j7gBESqTciYC&pg=PA461 |title=Encyclopedia of Soviet law |last2=Gerard Pieter van den Berg |last3=William B. Simons |publisher=Brill |year=1985 |isbn=9024730759 |page=461 |quote=On March 26, 1949, the US Department of State issued a circular letter stating that the Baltic countries were still independent nations with their own diplomatic representatives and consuls. |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210506/https://books.google.com/books?id=j7gBESqTciYC&pg=PA461 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Fried>{{Cite web |last=Fried |first=Daniel |date=June 14, 2007 |title=U.S.-Baltic Relations: Celebrating 85 Years of Friendship |url=http://merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/EUR/State/86539.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819185542/http://merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/EUR/State/86539.pdf |archive-date=August 19, 2012 |access-date=2009-04-29 |quote=From Sumner Wells' declaration of July 23, 1940, that we would not recognize the occupation. We housed the exiled Baltic diplomatic delegations. We accredited their diplomats. We flew their flags in the State Department's Hall of Flags. We never recognized in deed or word or symbol the illegal occupation of their lands.}}</ref> and its courts of law,<ref name=Lauterpacht>{{Cite book |last1=Lauterpacht |first1=E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=biAQiRhDsb0C&pg=PA62 |title=International Law Reports |last2=C. J. Greenwood |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1967 |isbn=0521463807 |pages=62–63 |quote=The Court said: (256 N.Y.S.2d 196) "The Government of the United States has never recognized the forceful occupation of Estonia and Latvia by the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics nor does it recognize the absorption and incorporation of Latvia and Estonia into the Union of Soviet Socialist republics. The legality of the acts, laws and decrees of the puppet regimes set up in those countries by the USSR is not recognized by the United States, diplomatic or consular officers are not maintained in either Estonia or Latvia and full recognition is given to the Legations of Estonia and Latvia established and maintained here by the Governments in exile of those countries |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210506/https://books.google.com/books?id=biAQiRhDsb0C&pg=PA62 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> the ],<ref name="europarl.europa.eu"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929233021/http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2F%2FEP%2F%2FNONSGML+MOTION+B6-2007-0215+0+DOC+PDF+V0%2F%2FEN |date=29 September 2018 }} by the ], B6-0215/2007, 21.5.2007; . Retrieved 1 January 2010.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dehousse |first=Renaud |year=1993 |title=The International Practice of the European Communities: Current Survey |url=http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol4/No1/sr1.html |journal=European Journal of International Law |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=141 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.ejil.a035821 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927233741/http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol4/No1/sr1.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=2007-09-27 |access-date=2006-12-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=European Parliament |date=January 13, 1983 |title=Resolution on the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania |url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg |url-status=live |journal=Official Journal of the European Communities |series=C |volume=42/78 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628204557/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg |archive-date=28 June 2011 |access-date=2 March 2007}}</ref> the ]<ref name="ReferenceA">]</ref> and the ]<ref name="DE">{{Cite web |date=2008-02-20 |title=Distr. General A/HRC/7/19/Add.2 17 March 2008 Original: English, Human Rights Council Seventh session Agenda item 9: Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance, Follow-up to and Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action – Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, Addendum, Mission to Estonia |url=http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/117/59/PDF/G0811759.pdf |access-date=2009-06-07 |website=Documents on Estonia |publisher=] |archive-date=30 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140330142916/http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/117/59/PDF/G0811759.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> have all stated that these three countries were invaded, occupied and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union under provisions of the 1939 ].<ref name="malksoo">{{Cite book |last=Mälksoo, Lauri |title=Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR |publisher=Brill |year=2003 |isbn=9041121773 |location=Leiden & Boston}}</ref> There followed occupation by ] and then again occupation by the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991.<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 May 2005 |title=Russia and Estonia agree borders |work=BBC |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4559187.stm |url-status=live |access-date=April 29, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412010528/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4559187.stm |archive-date=12 April 2020 |quote=Five decades of almost unbroken Soviet occupation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ended in 1991}}</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030731063641/http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket%2FXcelerate%2FShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1019233911509 |date=31 July 2003 }} at UK Foreign Office</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Saburova |first=Irina |year=1955 |title=The Soviet Occupation of the Baltic States |journal=] |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=36–49 |doi=10.2307/126075 |jstor=126075}}</ref><ref>See, for instance, the position expressed by the European Parliament, which condemned "the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact, and continues." {{Cite journal |last=European Parliament |date=January 13, 1983 |title=Resolution on the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania |url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg |url-status=live |journal=Official Journal of the European Communities |series=C |volume=42/78 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628204557/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Europarliament13011983.jpg |archive-date=28 June 2011 |access-date=2 March 2007}}</ref><ref>"After the German occupation in 1941–44, Estonia remained occupied by the Soviet Union until the restoration of its independence in 1991." {{cite court |litigants= Kolk and Kislyiy v. Estonia |court= ] |vol= |reporter= |opinion= |pinpoint= |date= 17 January 2006 |url= http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=792672&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649 }}</ref> This policy of non-recognition has given rise to the principle of ], which holds that '']'', or as a matter of law, the Baltic states remained independent states under illegal occupation throughout the period from 1940 to 1991.<ref name="smith">David James Smith, ''Estonia: independence and European integration'', Routledge, 2001, {{ISBN| 0415267285}}, p. xix</ref><ref name="Parrott 1995">{{Cite book |last=Parrott |first=Bruce |url=https://archive.org/details/statebuildingmil05parr/page/112 |title=State building and military power in Russia and the new states of Eurasia |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1995 |isbn=1563243601 |pages= |chapter=Reversing Soviet Military Occupation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rhKYfA5x3eYC&pg=PA112}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Van Elsuwege |first=Peter |url=http://www.ecmi.de/uploads/tx_lfpubdb/working_paper_20.pdf |title=Russian-speaking minorities in Estonian and Latvia: Problems of integration at the threshold of the European Union |date=April 2004 |publisher=European Centre for Minority Issues |location=Flensburg Germany |page=2 |quote=The forcible incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union in 1940, on the basis of secret protocols to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, is considered to be null and void. Even though the Soviet Union occupied these countries for a period of fifty years, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania continued to exist as subjects of international law. |access-date=2013-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923233231/http://www.ecmi.de/uploads/tx_lfpubdb/working_paper_20.pdf |archive-date=2015-09-23 |url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
== Timeline== | |||
* December, 1938 Elections to the local council in ] result in ] obtaining an absolute majority (26 of 29 seats). | |||
However, the Soviet Union never formally acknowledged that its presence in the Baltics was an occupation or that it had annexed these states<ref name="Marek1968">]. p. 396. "Insofar as the Soviet Union claims that they are not directly annexed territories but autonomous bodies with a legal will of their own, they (The Baltic SSRs) must be considered puppet creations, exactly in the same way in which the Protectorate or Italian-dominated Albania have been classified as such. These puppet creations have been established on the territory of the independent Baltic states; they cover the same territory and include the same population."</ref> and considered the ], ] and ]s three of its ]. On the other hand, the ] recognized in 1991 that the events of 1940 were an "annexation".<ref>Zalimas, Dainius "Commentary to the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compensation of Damage Resulting from the Occupation of the USSR" – Baltic Yearbook of International Law. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, {{ISBN| 978-9004137462}}</ref> | |||
* ], 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, Lithuania compelled to cede Memel region. | |||
* ], 1939 ] signed. Pact places Estonia, Latvia and Finland in Soviet ]. | |||
Historically revisionist<ref name="Sokolov" /> Russian ] and school textbooks continue to maintain that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union after their each of their peoples carried out ]s independent of Soviet influence.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cole | |||
* ], 1939 Soviet Union demands mutual assistance pact and the establishment of military bases in Estonia. | |||
|first=Elizabeth A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWDs3Q3sKQ0C&pg=PA233 |title=Teaching the violent past: history education and reconciliation |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield | |||
* ], 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact amended pursuant to German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty; most of Lithuania falls into the Soviet sphere of influence. | |||
|year=2007 |isbn=978-0742551435 |pages=233–234}}</ref> The post-Soviet ] and its state officials insist that incorporation of the Baltic states was in accordance with ]<ref>{{Cite book | |||
* ], 1939 Estonia accepts Soviet military bases. | |||
|last=Combs |first=Dick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9twRiRKd6wC&pg=PA258 |title=Inside The Soviet Alternate Universe |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2008 | |||
* ], 1939 Soviet Union demands mutual assistance pact and establishment of military bases in Latvia. | |||
|isbn=978-0271033556 |pages=258, 259 |quote=The Putin administration has stubbornly refused to admit the fact of Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia following World War II, although Putin has acknowledged that in 1989, during Gorbachev's reign, the Soviet parliament officially denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which led to the forcible incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union. | |||
* ], 1939 Latvia accepts Soviet bases. | |||
|access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210514/https://books.google.com/books?id=U9twRiRKd6wC&pg=PA258 |archive-date=10 February 2023 | |||
* ], 1939 Soviet Union starts negotiations with Finland for bases and territory exchanges. | |||
|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bugajski |first=Janusz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOeeyIT6B4wC&pg=PA109 |title=Cold peace |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2004 |isbn=0275983625 | |||
* ], 1939 Lithuania accepts Soviet bases. | |||
|page=109 | |||
* ] ], 1939 NKVD issues ] for deportations of ] from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Russia. | |||
|quote=Russian officials persistently claim that the Baltic states entered the USSR voluntarily and legally at the close of World War II and failed to acknowledge that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were under Soviet occupation for fifty years. | |||
* ], 1939 First Red Army units enter Estonia. | |||
|access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210506/https://books.google.com/books?id=YOeeyIT6B4wC&pg=PA109 |archive-date=10 February 2023 | |||
* ], 1939 Finland rejects Soviet demands. | |||
|url-status=live}}</ref> and gained ''de jure'' recognition by the agreements made in the February 1945 ] and the July–August 1945 ]s and by the 1975 ],<ref name="midrf1"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329081725/http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.88902.html |date=29 March 2016 }}, grani.ru, May 2005</ref><ref name="midrf2"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060509120150/http://www.latvia.mid.ru/news/ru/050507.html |date=2006-05-09 }}, ], 7 May 2005</ref> which declared the inviolability of existing frontiers.<ref name="HidenMadeSmith2008">], ''Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War, The Baltic factor'', p. 90.</ref> However, this claim has been described by ] think tank ] as both "nefarious" and a "horrifying insult" — part of an intentional propaganda campaign to spread a myth of Baltic "incorporation".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://chacr.org.uk/2020/07/06/6-july-2020-how-russian-disinformation-targets-the-former-soviet-bloc-around-wwii-anniversaries/ | title=How Russian Disinformation Targets the Former Soviet Bloc Around WWII Anniversaries - CHACR | date=6 July 2020 }}</ref> | |||
* ], 1939 start of ] against Finland. | |||
Russia also agreed to Europe's demand to "assist persons deported from the occupied Baltic states" upon joining the ] in 1996.<ref>{{Cite journal | |||
* ], 1939 ], Soviet puppet government of Finland created in occupied Terijoki border county near Leningrad. | |||
|last=Zalimas |first=Dainius |date=2004-01-01 | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union "forgets" Terijoki government. | |||
|title=Commentary to the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compensation of Damage Resulting from the Occupation of the USSR |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7j82fTuPRr8C&pg=PA157 |journal=Baltic Yearbook of International Law |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |volume=3 |pages=97–164 |doi=10.1163/221158903x00063 |isbn=978-9004137462}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Parliamentary Assembly |year=1996 | |||
* ], 1940 ] ends with ]. | |||
|title=Opinion No. 193 (1996) on Russia's request for membership of the Council of Europe |url=http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/TA96/Eopi193.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110507061254/http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/ta96/EOPI193.htm |archive-date=7 May 2011 |access-date=22 May 2011 |publisher=Council of Europe}}</ref><ref name="CoEoccupied" /> Also, when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed a separate treaty with Lithuania in 1991, it acknowledged the 1940 annexation as a violation of Lithuanian sovereignty and recognised the ''de jure'' continuity of the Lithuanian state.<ref> | |||
* ], 1940 Germany invades Denmark and Norway. | |||
{{Cite journal |last=Zalimas | |||
* ], 1940 Germany occupies Norway. | |||
|first=Dainius | |||
* ], 1940 Paris falls to Germans. | |||
|date=2004-01-01 | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet air and naval blockade of Estonia starts. | |||
|title=Commentary to the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compensation of Damage Resulting from the Occupation of the USSR |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7j82fTuPRr8C&pg=PA116 |url-status=live |journal=Baltic Yearbook of International Law |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet air force shoots down Finnish passenger plane "]" flying from ] to ]. | |||
|volume=3 |pages=97–164 |doi=10.1163/221158903x00063 |isbn=978-9004137462 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210507/https://books.google.com/books?id=7j82fTuPRr8C&pg=PA116 |archive-date=10 February 2023 | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union gives ultimatum to Lithuania to form a new government and allow free access for Red Army. The president of Lithuania, ], proposes armed resistance but as he doesn't get support from government or armed forces, he decides to leave the country, so that he could not be used to legalise the occupation. | |||
|access-date=25 October 2015}}</ref><ref name="RussLithTreaty" /> | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union occupies Lithuania. President ] flees through Germany first to Switzerland then to USA, 1941, where he dies on ], 1944, in ]. Prime minister ] following Soviet demands tries to catch Smetona. ] lands in Kaunas to supervise process of annexation of Lithuania. | |||
* ], 1940 at 03:00 Soviet troops storm and capture Latvian border posts Masļenkos (Maslenkis) and Smaiļi. | |||
==State continuity of the Baltic states== | |||
* ], 1940 Similar ultimatums were given to Estonia and Latvia. | |||
{{Main|State continuity of the Baltic states}} | |||
* ], 1940 Prime minister of Lithuania ] removes ] from the post of president and illegally assumes presidency himself. | |||
* ], 1940 Estonia and Latvia gave in to the Soviet demands and are occupied. Prime minister of Lithuania ] assigns ] as new prime minister, resigns and is arrested. | |||
The Baltic claim of continuity with the pre-war republics has been accepted by most Western powers.<ref>Van Elsuwgege, p378</ref> As a consequence of the policy of non-recognition of the Soviet seizure of these countries,<ref name="smith" /><ref name="Parrott 1995" /> 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 '']'', that no legal benefit can be derived from an illegal act, the seizure of the Baltic states was judged to be illegal<ref>For a legal evaluation of the annexation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union, see K. Marek, ''Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law'' (1968), 383–91</ref> thus sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law.<ref>D. Zalimas, ''Legal and Political Issues on the Continuity of the Republic of Lithuania'', 1999, 4 Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review 111–12.</ref> | |||
* ], 1940 Sweden and Germany sign treaty allowing transfer of German soldiers from Norway using Swedish territory. | |||
* ], 1940 New Latvian government of Moscow-approved ministers is formed. | |||
The official position of Russia, which chose in 1991 to be the legal and direct successor of the USSR,<ref>Torbakov, I. ''Russia and its neighbors. Warring histories and historical responsibility.'' ''FIIA Comment''. Finnish Institute of International Affairs. 2010.</ref> 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.<ref>Gennady Charodeyev, ''Russia Rejects Latvia's Territorial Claim'', ], (CDPSP, Vol XLIV, No 12.), 20 March 1992, p.3</ref> | |||
* ], 1940 New Estonian government containing only left-wing activists is formed. Soviet Union arrange a number of Red Army backed demonstrations in several cities. | |||
* ], 1940 France surrenders. | |||
==Soviet and Russian historiography== | |||
* ], 1940 Sweden and Germany sign treaty allowing transfer of German war material between Norway and ports in Southern Sweden. | |||
{{Main|Baltic states in Soviet historiography}} | |||
* ], 1940, ] is created by Soviet Union at Riga, on the territories of theoretically still independent states | |||
Soviet historians saw the 1940 annexation as a voluntary entry into the USSR by the Balts.<ref>{{cite journal|page=61|title=Blank Spots in Collective Memory: A Case Study of Russia | |||
* ]-], 1940 Elections in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where non-communist candidates were disqualified, harassed and beaten. | |||
|author=James V. Wertsch | |||
* ], 1940 The acting president of Lithuania, ], is imprisoned and deported to ], Soviet Union. He dies ], 1955. | |||
|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science | |||
* ]-], 1940 New Estonian assembly transforms Estonia according to Soviet style. | |||
| volume= 617 |date=May 2008|jstor=25098013 | |||
* ], 1940 New Latvian ] accepts wide nationalisation and Sovietization decrees. | |||
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25098013}}</ref> ] promoted the interests of Russia and the USSR in the Baltic area, and it reflected the belief of most Russians that they had moral and historical rights to control and to ] the entire former Russian empire.<ref name="GernerHedlund-f1">]. p. 60.</ref> To Soviet historians, the 1940 annexation was not only a voluntary entry but was also the natural thing to do. This concept taught that the military security of mother Russia was solidified and that nothing could argue against it.<ref name="GernerHedlund-f2">]. p. 62.</ref> | |||
* ], 1940 The president of Latvia, ], is arrested and deported to Russia, never returning. He died in a prison in ] on ], ]. | |||
* ], 1940 Heads of Baltic diplomatic missions in London and Washington protest against Soviet occupation and annexation of their countries. | |||
===Soviet point of view=== | |||
* ], 1940 ]' (US Under-Secretary of State) Declaration. United States pursues the policy of non-recognition of annexation of the Baltic States '']''. Most other Western countries maintain similar position until restoration of Baltic states' sovereignty in 1991. | |||
Prior to ], the Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols and viewed the events of 1939–40 as follows:<ref name=guardian> | |||
* ], 1940 The president of Estonia, ], is imprisoned by NKVD and deported to Russia where he dies in the mental hospital of ] on ], 1956. | |||
{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/23/moscow-campaign-to-justify-molotov-ribbentrop-pact-sparks-outcry | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union annexes Lithuania. | |||
|title=Molotov-Ribbentrop: why is Moscow trying to justify Nazi pact?: Exhibition about Soviet-Nazi treaty, signed on 23 August 1939, seeks to turn spotlight on west's behaviour in 1930s |work=The Guardian | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union annexes Latvia. | |||
|author=Andrew Roth | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union annexes Estonia. | |||
|date=23 Aug 2019}}</ref> | |||
* ], 1940 Soviet Union gets troop and material transfer rights from Finland between ] and Soviet border. | |||
*the ] suggested that the governments of the Baltic countries conclude mutual assistance treaties between the countries. | |||
* ], 1940 Germany gets troop and material transfer rights from Finland between northern Norway and ports of ]. | |||
*Pressure from working people forced the governments of the Baltic countries to accept this suggestion. The pacts were then signed<ref>{{Cite web |title=Старые газеты : Библиотека : Пропагандист и агитатор РККА : №20, октябрь 1939г. |url=https://www.oldgazette.org/lib/propagit/20/03.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221111231335/https://www.oldgazette.org/lib/propagit/20/03.html |archive-date=11 November 2022 |access-date=11 November 2022 |website=www.oldgazette.org}}</ref> | |||
* ], 1940 Germany refuses Soviet Union demands for right to handle Finland as they will in negotiations in Berlin. | |||
*These pacts allowed the USSR to station a limited number of ] units in the Baltic countries.<ref>{{cite book| page=249 |chapter=Competing Histories: Soviet War Crimes in the Baltic States |author=Rain Liivoja |title=The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials |editor1=Kevin Jon Heller |editor2=Gerry Simpson |publisher=Oxford University Press 2013}}</ref> | |||
* ], The Russian SFSR penal code is applied to retroactively in Estonia, applying to acts committed before 21 June 1940. | |||
*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. | |||
* ], 1941 Soviet Union and Germany make an agreement for the late resettlement of ] from Latvia and Estonia. | |||
*To guarantee fulfilment of the pact additional military units entered the Baltic countries, welcomed by workers, who demanded the resignations of the governments. | |||
* ], 1941 First mass deportations from Estonia (10 000), Latvia (15 000) and Lithuania (18 000) to Siberia. | |||
*In June workers demonstrated under the leadership of the Communist parties of the Baltic countries. | |||
* ], 1941 The Governor of New York, ], declares 15 June to be Baltic States Day. | |||
*The fascist governments were overthrown, and workers' governments formed. | |||
* ], 1941 ], Germany invades Soviet Union. | |||
*In July 1940, elections for Baltic parliaments were held. | |||
* ]], 1941 ] | |||
*The "Working People's Unions", created by the Communist parties, received the majority of the votes.<ref name="GSE">]</ref> | |||
* ], 1941 ] starts between Finland and Soviet Union. | |||
*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 ] were adopted and the ] was petitioned accordingly. | |||
* ], 1941 General mobilisation is announced in the Soviet Union. | |||
*The requests were approved by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. | |||
* ], 1941 Mass deportations from Estonian islands. | |||
<!-- might want to salvage some--> | |||
* ], 1941 German forces reach Southern Estonia. | |||
The Stalin-edited '']'', published in 1948, says the June 1940 invasions were needed because "acts had been concluded with the Baltic States, but there were as yet no Soviet troops there capable of holding the defences".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=] |year=1948 |title=Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey) |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |pages= |id=272848 |place=Moscow |title-link=Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey)}}</ref> It also states regarding those invasions that "nly enemies of democracy or people who had lost their senses could describe those actions of the Soviet Government as aggression".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=] |year=1948 |title=Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey) |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |pages= |id=272848 |place=Moscow |title-link=Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey)}}</ref> | |||
* ], 1941 Soviet authorities leave Tartu after executing 199 political prisoners. | |||
* ], 1941 German forces reach Tartu. | |||
In the reassessment of Soviet history during ], the USSR condemned the 1939 secret protocol between itself and Germany that led to the invasion and occupations in the Baltic countries.<ref name=guardian /> | |||
* ], 1941 ] formed in Riga, ] appointed State Commissar. | |||
* ], 1941 Stalin seeks ]'s ''de jure'' recognition of the Soviet Union's new western border, Churchill does not respond. | |||
===Russian historiography in the post-Soviet era=== | |||
* ], 1941 ] and ] announce the ]. | |||
* ], 1941 Mainland Baltics now fully occupied by German forces. | |||
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. | |||
* ], 1941 ] visits Estonia. | |||
* ], 1941 US deputy Secretary of State, ], re-affirms the US policy in regard to non-recognition of Baltic annexation. | |||
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 ] was necessary to the security of the Soviet Union, that the Baltics' joining the USSR was the will of the proletariat—both in line with the politics of the Soviet period, "the 'need to ensure the security of the USSR', 'people's revolution' and 'joining voluntarily'"—and that supporters of Baltic independence were the operatives of western intelligence agencies seeking to topple the USSR.<ref name="Sokolov">cf. e.g. ]'s article offering an overview {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181017001725/http://www.airo-xxi.ru/2009-07-06-06-12-13/147-estonia01 |date=2018-10-17 }} (Estonia and the Baltic countries in the USSR (1940–1991) in Russian historiography). Accessed 30 January 2011.</ref> | |||
* ], 1941 ], the German State Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, enacts civil labour obligation for all 18 to 45 year old inhabitants of the occupied territories. | |||
* ], 1941 Within six months of German occupation, 10000 people, including 1000 Estonian Jews, are either imprisoned or executed. | |||
Soviet-Russian historian {{ill|Vilnis Sīpols|ru|Сиполс, Вилнис Янович}} 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.<ref>According to Sīpols, "in mid-July 1940 elections took place . In that way, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, that had been grabbed away from Russia as a result of foreign military intervention, joined her again, by the will of those peoples." – Сиполс В. Тайны дипломатические. Канун Великой Отечественной 1939–1941. Москва 1997. c. 242.</ref> 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".<ref>Новейшая история Отечества. XX век. Учебник для студентов вузов: в 2 т. /Под редакцией А.Ф. Киселева, Э.М. Щагина. М., 1998. c. 111</ref> | |||
* ], 1942 ] declares at the ] that Estonia is "Judenfrei". | |||
* ], 1942 ] comes into force in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but are only applied to ]. | |||
], 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 ] 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".<ref>С.В.Черниченко "Об "оккупации" Прибалтики и нарушении прав русскоязычного населения" – "Международная жизнь" (август 2004 года) – {{Cite web |title=Статья С.в.черниченко*, Опубликованная В Журнале "Международная Жизнь" (Август 2004 Года) Под Заголовком "Об "Оккупации" Прибалтики И Наруше |url=http://www.ln.mid.ru/ns-pobeda.nsf/b33502cdd8144475c3256eda0037e5fc/a9693d8763f70b92c3256f00001e65f2?OpenDocument |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090827031023/http://www.ln.mid.ru/ns-pobeda.nsf/b33502cdd8144475c3256eda0037e5fc/a9693d8763f70b92c3256f00001e65f2?OpenDocument |archive-date=2009-08-27 |access-date=2009-05-27}}</ref> | |||
* ], 1942 ] writes in his diary that the Baltic people are naive to believe that the Germans will allow them to re-establish national governments. | |||
* ], 1942 ] proposes plan to ] the Eastern Territories including establishing German settlements after the war. | |||
According to the revisionist historian ] "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".<ref>Олег Платонов. История русского народа в XX веке. Том 2. Available at http://lib.ru/PLATONOWO/russ3.txt {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221073113/http://lib.ru/PLATONOWO/russ3.txt |date=21 February 2020 }}</ref> | |||
* ], 1942 ] visits London, Great Britain refuses to recognise the legality of the new western border of the Soviet Union. | |||
On the other hand, Professor and Dean of the School of International Relations and Vice-Rector of ], ] views the 1940 annexation of the Baltic states as involuntary. He considers the elections were not free and fair and the decisions of the ] 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.<ref name="autogenerated3">], ''Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War, The Baltic factor'', pp. 56–73.</ref> | |||
===Position of the Russian Federation=== | |||
With the advent of ] and its reassessment of Soviet history, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1989 condemned the 1939 ] 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|date=February 2024}} | |||
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 ]. 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, ] would further improve.<ref name="RussLithTreaty">{{Cite web |title=Treaty between the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and the Republic of Lithuania on the Basis for Relations between States |url=http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/1998-1/Treaty.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722140152/http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/1998-1/Treaty.pdf |archive-date=22 July 2011}}</ref> | |||
However, Russia's current official position directly contradicts its earlier rapprochement with Lithuania<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411142716/http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/1999-4/Zalimas.pdf |date=April 11, 2008 }}</ref> as well as its signature of membership to the ], 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....".<ref name="CoEoccupied"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090401120515/http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/ta05/ERES1455.htm |date=2009-04-01 }}, at the CoE Parliamentary site, retrieved December 6, 2009</ref><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110507061254/http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/ta96/EOPI193.htm |date=2011-05-07 }}, at the ] Parliamentary site, retrieved December 6, 2009</ref> The Russian government and state officials maintain now that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate<ref>{{Cite news |date=5 May 2005 |title=Russia denies Baltic 'occupation' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4517683.stm |url-status=live |access-date=10 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620052742/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4517683.stm |archive-date=20 June 2017 |via=news.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis.<ref name="BDSD">{{Cite news |date=7 May 2005 |title=Bush denounces Soviet domination |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4521663.stm |url-status=live |access-date=10 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161212060650/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4521663.stm |archive-date=12 December 2016 |via=news.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> 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.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929110744/http://newsfromrussia.com/main/2005/05/05/59605.html |date=2007-09-29 }} ], May 2005.</ref> "The assertions about '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,<ref>{{cite thesis|title=Truth-telling and mythmaking in post-Soviet Russia: pernicious historical ideas, mass education, and interstate conflict | |||
|last=Mendeloff |first=David A.|year=1968 |url=https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/17498 |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|hdl=1721.1/17498 |type=Thesis }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mendeloff |first=David |title=Historical injustice and democratic transition in eastern Asia and northern Europe: ghosts at the table of democracy |publisher=] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0700715992 |editor-last=Kenneth |editor-first=Christie |pages=79–118 |chapter=Causes and Consequences of Historical Amnesia – The annexation of the Baltic states in post-Soviet Russian popular history and political memory |access-date=7 September 2017 |chapter-url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102940633 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210511/https://www.gale.com/databases/questia?a=o&d=102940633 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
==Treaties affecting USSR–Baltic relations== | |||
{{Main|Baltic–Soviet relations}} | |||
The Baltic states proclaimed independence after the signing of the Armistice, and ] invaded at the end of 1918.<ref>http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/communistnationssince1917/ch2.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201025641/http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/communistnationssince1917/ch2.html |date=1 December 2010 }} at University of Kansas, retrieved January 23, 2008</ref> '']'' 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,<ref>Prof. Dr. G. von Rauch "Die Baltischen Staaten und Sowjetrussland 1919–1939", Europa Archiv No. 17 (1954), p. 6865.</ref> additional non-aggression treaties were concluded with all three Baltic States: | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==Timeline== | |||
{{Main|Timeline of the occupation of the Baltic states}} | |||
== References == | |||
<div class="references-small"><references/></div> | |||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, resulting in deaths and injuries | |||
* ] | |||
* ], Tallinn, a project by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] | |||
* ] | * ] | ||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==Notes== | |||
{{noteslist}} | |||
==References== | |||
{{reflist}} | |||
==Bibliography== | |||
{{Refbegin|30em}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Aust |first=Anthony |title=Handbook of International Law |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0521530347 |ref=Aust2005}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Bellamy|first=Chris|title=Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War|year=2007|publisher=Alfred a Knopf Inc|isbn=978-0375410864|ref=Bellamy2007}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last1=Brecher |first1=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjY7aV_6FPwC&pg=PA596 |title=A Study of Crisis |last2=Jonathan Wilkenfeld |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0472108060 |pages=596 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210528/https://books.google.com/books?id=GjY7aV_6FPwC&pg=PA596 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Frucht |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C |title=Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2005 |isbn=978-1576078006 |pages=132 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230121122343/https://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C |archive-date=21 January 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book|last1=Gerner|first1=Kristian|last2=Hedlund|first2=Stefan|title=The Baltic States and the End of the Soviet Empire|year=1993|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415075701|ref=GernerHedlund1993}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last1=Hiden |first1=Johan |url=https://archive.org/details/balticnationseur00hide |title=The Baltic Nations and Europe |last2=Salmon |first2=Patrick |publisher=Longman |year=1994 |isbn=058225650X |edition=Revised |location=Harlow, England |ref=HidenSalmon1994 |author-link=John Hiden |author-link2=Patrick Salmon |orig-year=1991}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Hiden |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jx4JQycHtnkC |title=The Baltic question during the Cold War |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=978-0415371001 |editor-last=Vahur Made |ref=HidenMadeSmith2008 |access-date=9 September 2020 |editor-last2=David J. Smith |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210210510/https://books.google.com/books?id=jx4JQycHtnkC |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Mälksoo |first=Lauri |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5w6AQAAIAAJ |title=Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR |publisher=M. Nijhoff Publishers |year=2003 |isbn=9041121773 |ref=Mälksoo2003 |author-link=Lauri Mälksoo |access-date=25 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117153520/https://books.google.com/books?id=p5w6AQAAIAAJ |archive-date=17 January 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Marek |first=Krystyna |title=Identity and continuity of states in public international law |publisher=Libr. Droz |year=1968 |edition=2 |location=Geneva, Switzerland |ref=Marek1968 |author-link=Krystyna Marek |orig-year=1954}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last1=McHugh |first1=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRbdAwtxVIAC |title=Diplomats without a country: Baltic diplomacy, international law, and the Cold War |last2=James S. Pacy |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2001 |isbn=0313318786 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210211011/https://books.google.com/books?id=wRbdAwtxVIAC |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last1=Misiunas |first1=Romuald J. |url=https://archive.org/details/balticstatesyear00misi |title=The Baltic States, years of dependence, 1940–1990 |last2=Taagepera |first2=Rein |publisher=University of California Press |year=1993 |isbn=0520082281}} | |||
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* {{Cite book |last=Plakans |first=Andrejs |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p2nanp_wpnkC |title=Experiencing Totalitarianism: The Invasion and Occupation of Latvia by the USSR and Nazi Germany 1939–1991 |publisher=AuthorHouse |year=2007 |isbn=978-1434315731 |pages=596 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210211012/https://books.google.com/books?id=p2nanp_wpnkC |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Rislakki |first=Jukka |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXANj6Y_7goC |title=The Case for Latvia. Disinformation Campaigns Against a Small Nation |publisher=Rodopi |year=2008 |isbn=978-9042024243 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210211012/https://books.google.com/books?id=yXANj6Y_7goC |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Talmon |first=Stefan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scc8EboiJX8C |title=Recognition of governments in international law |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0198265733 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210211014/https://books.google.com/books?id=scc8EboiJX8C |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Tsygankov |first=Andrei P. |title=Russophobia |date=May 2009 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0230614185 |edition=1st |ref=russophobia |author-link=Andrei Tsygankov}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last1=Wyman |first1=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC |title=The World Reacts to the Holocaust |last2=Charles H. Rosenzveig |publisher=JHU Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0801849695 |pages=365–381 |access-date=9 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210211015/https://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC |archive-date=10 February 2023 |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Ziemele |first=Ineta |title=State Continuity and Nationality: The Baltic States and Russia |publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers |year=2005 |isbn=9004142959 |ref=Ziemele2005 |author-link=Ineta Ziemele}} | |||
{{Refend}} | |||
==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, ] | |||
* '''' – Full text, English | |||
* '''' about the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. | |||
* | |||
* '''' – Canadian film about Estonians mobilized into the Red Army 1941 and forced into labour in the GULAG | |||
* '''' 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). . '']'' 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. | |||
* ''''(PDF) | |||
* ''The Soviet Occupation of the Baltic States'', by ]. In '']'', 1955 | |||
* , '']'', 14 April 1947 | |||
* , '']'', 14 December 1953 | |||
==External links== | |||
==Further reading == | |||
* A ] about the occupation is presented in " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221111231300/http://otrrlibrary.org/OTRRLib/Library%20Files/D%20Series/Destination%20Freedom/Destination%20Freedom%2050-12-31%20John%20Alma%20Johnny%20and%20Myra.mp3 |date=11 November 2022 }}", a presentation from '']'' | |||
*Mälksoo, Lauri (2000). . '']'' 69.3, 289-316. | |||
*Mälksoo, Lauri (2003). ''Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR''. Leiden - Boston: Brill. ISBN 9041121773 | |||
* '''' | |||
* | |||
* ''''(PDF) | |||
*Leonas Cerskus '''' — Wide collection of sources and links | |||
* '''' — Full text, English | |||
* '''' — Canadian film about Estonians mobilized into the Red Army 1941 and forced into labour in the GULAG | |||
*''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. | |||
*''The Soviet Occupation of the Baltic States'', by Irina Saburova. In '']'', 1955 | |||
* '''' by ] | |||
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Latest revision as of 18:11, 15 December 2024
Part of World War II and the Cold War | |
A protest sign from the 1970s calling on the United Nations to abolish Soviet colonialism in the Baltic states | |
Date | 15 June 1940 – 6 September 1991 (1940-06-15 – 1991-09-06)Military presence: 28 September 1939 – 31 August 1994 (1939-09-28 – 1994-08-31) |
---|---|
Location | Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania |
Participants | Estonia Latvia Lithuania Soviet Union Nazi Germany |
Outcome |
|
Part of a series on the |
Occupation of the Baltic states |
---|
Background
|
Soviet occupation in 1940
|
German occupationEstonia Latvia Lithuania |
Soviet re-occupation in 1944 |
Under Soviet rule |
State continuity |
Aftermath |
The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union from 1940 until its dissolution in 1991. For a brief period, Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. The three independent Baltic countries were annexed as constituent Republics of the Soviet Union in August 1940. Most Western countries did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal. In July 1941, the occupation of the Baltic states by Nazi Germany took place, just weeks after its invasion of the Soviet Union. The Third Reich incorporated them into its Reichskommissariat Ostland. In 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states as a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, trapping the remaining German forces in the Courland Pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945.
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 in an "extremely violent and traumatic" occupation. Colonization of the three Baltic countries included mass executions, deportations and repression of the native population.
While there has been a broad international consensus that the Baltic states were illegally occupied and annexed, the Soviet Union never acknowledged that they were forcefully taken over. The post-Soviet government of Russia maintains the claim that the incorporations of Baltic states was in accordance with international law, and school textbooks state that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union after home-grown popular socialist revolutions. As most Western governments maintained that Baltic sovereignty had not been legitimately overridden, they thus continued to recognise the Baltic states as sovereign political entities represented by the Baltic Legations, which functioned in Washington and elsewhere as governments in exile.
The Baltic states regained de facto independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics starting with Lithuania in August 1993. However, it was a violent process and Soviet forces killed several Latvians and Lithuanians. The full withdrawal of troops deployed by Moscow ended in August 1994. Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 by decommissioning the Skrunda-1 radar station in Latvia. The dismantled installations were repatriated to Russia and the site returned to Latvian control, with the last Russian soldier leaving Baltic soil in October 1999.
Background
Main article: Background of the occupation of the Baltic statesEarly in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. The pact contained a secret protocol by which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence". In the north, Finland, Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the Narev, Vistula and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west. Lithuania, adjacent to East Prussia, would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned the majority of Lithuanian territory to the Soviet Union. Under the secret protocol, Lithuania would regain its historical capital Vilnius, previously subjugated during the inter-war period by Poland.
Following the end of the Soviet invasion of Poland on 6 October, the Soviets pressured Finland and the Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance treaties. The Soviets questioned the neutrality of Estonia after the escape of an interned Polish submarine on 18 September. On 24 September, the Estonian foreign minister was given an ultimatum: The Soviets demanded a treaty of mutual assistance to establish military bases in Estonia. The Estonians were coerced to accept naval, air and army bases on two Estonian islands and at the port of Paldiski. The corresponding agreement was signed on 28 September 1939. Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939. The agreements permitted the Soviet Union to establish military bases on the Baltic states' territory for the duration of the European war and to station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia and 20,000 in Lithuania starting October 1939.
Soviet occupation and annexation (1940–1941)
Main article: Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)In May 1940, the Soviets turned to the idea of direct military intervention, but still intended to rule through puppet regimes. Their model was the Finnish Democratic Republic, a puppet regime set up by the Soviets on the first day of the Winter War. The Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments. In May 1940, the Germans invaded France, which was overrun and occupied a month later. In late May and early June 1940, the Baltic states were accused of military collaboration against the Soviet Union by holding meetings the previous winter. On 15 June 1940, the Lithuanian government was extorted to agree to the Soviet ultimatum and permit the entry of an unspecified number of Soviet troops. President Antanas Smetona proposed armed resistance to the Soviets but the government refused, proposing their own candidate to lead the regime. However, the Soviets refused this proposal and sent Vladimir Dekanozov to take charge while the Red Army occupied the state.
On 16 June 1940, Latvia and Estonia also received ultimata. The Red Army occupied the two remaining Baltic states shortly thereafter. The Soviets dispatched Andrey Vyshinsky to oversee the takeover of Latvia and Andrey Zhdanov to Estonia. On 18 and 21 June 1940, new "popular front" governments were formed in each Baltic country, made up of Communists and fellow travelers. Under Soviet surveillance, the new governments arranged rigged elections for new "people's assemblies." Voters were presented with a single list, and no opposition movements were allowed to file candidates. To get the required turnout to 99.6%, votes were forged. A month later when the new assemblies met their sole item of business for each of them was a resolution to join the Soviet Union. In each case, the resolution passed by acclamation. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union duly accepted the requests in August, thus sanctioning them under Soviet law. Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union on 3 August, Latvia on 5 August, and Estonia on 6 August 1940. The deposed presidents of Estonia and Latvia, Konstantin Päts and Kārlis Ulmanis, were deported to the USSR and imprisoned. They died later in the Tver region and Central Asia respectively. In June 1941, the new Soviet governments carried out mass deportations of "enemies of the people". Estonia alone lost an estimated 60,000 citizens. Consequently, many Balts initially greeted the Germans as liberators when they invaded a week later.
The Soviet Union immediately started to erect border fortifications along its newly acquired western border — the so-called Molotov Line.
German occupation (1941–1945)
Main article: German occupation of the Baltic states during World War IIOstland province and the Holocaust
See also: The Holocaust in Estonia, The Holocaust in Latvia, and The Holocaust in LithuaniaOn 22 June 1941 the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. The Baltic states, recently Sovietized by threats, force, and fraud, generally welcomed the German armed forces. In Lithuania, a revolt broke out and an independent provisional government was established. As the German armies approached Riga and Tallinn, attempts to reestablish national governments were made. Baltic citizens hoped that the Germans would reestablish Baltic independence. Such hopes soon evaporated and Baltic cooperation became less forthright or ceased altogether. The Germans aimed to annex the Baltic territories into the Third Reich where "suitable elements" would be assimilated and "unsuitable elements" exterminated. In practice, the implementation of occupation policy was more complex; for administrative convenience the Baltic states were included with Belorussia in the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The area was governed by Hinrich Lohse who was obsessed with bureaucratic regulations. The Baltic area was the only eastern region intended to become a full province of the Third Reich.
Nazi racial attitudes to the peoples of the three Baltic countries differed between Nazi authorities. In practice, racial policies were directed not against the majority of Balts but rather against the Jews. Large numbers of Jews were living in the major cities, notably in Vilnius, Kaunas and Riga. The German mobile killing units slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews; Einsatzgruppe A, assigned to the Baltic area, was the most effective of four units. German policy forced the Jews into ghettos. In 1943 Heinrich Himmler ordered his forces to liquidate the ghettos and to transfer the survivors to concentration camps. Some Latvians and Lithuanian conscripts collaborated actively in the killing of Jews, and the Nazis managed to provoke pogroms locally, especially in Lithuania. Only about 75 percent of Estonian and 10 percent of Latvian and Lithuanian Jews survived the war. However, for the majority of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the German rule was less harsh than Soviet rule had been, and it was less brutal than German occupations elsewhere in eastern Europe. Local puppet regimes performed administrative tasks and schools were permitted to function. However, most people were denied the right to own land or businesses.
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. During the German invasion, the Soviets conducted a forced general mobilisation that took place in violation of the international law. Under the Geneva Conventions, this act of violence is seen as a grave breach and war crime, because the mobilised men were treated as arrestants from the very beginning. In comparison with the general mobilisation proclaimed in the Soviet Union, the age range was extended by 9 years in the Baltics; all reserve officers were also taken. The aim was to deport all men capable to fight to Russia, where they were sent to convict camps. Almost half of them perished because of the transportation conditions, slave labour, hunger, diseases, and the repressive measures of the NKVD. In addition, destruction battalions were formed under the command of the NKVD. Hence, Baltic nationals fought in both German and Soviet army ranks. There was the 201st Latvian Rifle Division. The 308th Latvian Rifle Division was awarded the Red Banner Order after the expulsion of the Germans from Riga in the autumn of 1944.
An estimated 60,000 Lithuanians were drafted into the Red Army. 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. About 20,000 Lithuanians, 25,000 Estonians, and 5000 Latvians died in the ranks of the Red Army and labor battalions.
Baltic nationals in the German forces
The Nazi administration also conscripted Baltic nationals into the German armies. The Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. The LTDF reached a size of roughly 10,000 men. Its goal was to fight the approaching Red Army, provide security and conduct anti-partisan operations within the territory claimed by Lithuanians. After brief engagements against Soviet and Polish partisans, the force self-disbanded. Its leaders were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps, and many of members were executed by the Nazis. Latvian Legion, created in 1943, consisted of two conscripted divisions of the Waffen-SS. On 1 July 1944 the Latvian Legion had 87,550 men. Another 23,000 Latvians were serving as Wehrmacht "auxiliaries". Among other battles, they participated in the Siege of Leningrad, in the Courland Pocket fighting, the defence of the Pomeranian Wall, at the Velikaya River for Hill "93,4" and in the defence of Berlin. The 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) was formed in January 1944 through conscription. Consisting of 38,000 men, it took part in the Battle of Narva, the Battle of Tannenberg Line, the Battle of Tartu, and Operation Aster.
Attempts to restore independence and the Soviet offensive of 1944
Main article: Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (1944)There were several attempts to restore independence during the occupation. On 22 June 1941 the Lithuanians overthrew Soviet rule two days before the Wehrmacht arrived in Kaunas, where the Germans then allowed a Provisional Government to function for over a month. The Latvian Central Council was set up as an underground organisation in 1943, but it was destroyed by the Gestapo in 1945. In Estonia in 1941, Jüri Uluots proposed restoration of independence; later, by 1944, he had become a key figure in the secret National Committee. In September 1944, Uluots briefly became acting president of independent Estonia. Unlike the French and the Poles, the Baltic states had no governments in exile located in the West. Consequently, Great Britain and the United States lacked any interest in the Baltic cause while the war against Germany remained undecided. The discovery of the Katyn massacre in 1943 and callous conduct towards the Warsaw uprising in 1944 had cast shadows on relations; nevertheless, all three victors still displayed solidarity at the Yalta conference in 1945.
By 1 March 1944 the siege of Leningrad was over and Soviet troops were on the border with Estonia. The Soviets launched the Baltic Offensive, a twofold military-political operation to rout German forces, on 14 September. On 16 September the High Command of the German Army issued a plan in which Estonian forces would cover the German withdrawal. The Soviets soon reached the Estonian capital Tallinn, where the NKVD's first mission was to stop anyone escaping from the state; however, many refugees did manage to escape to the West. The NKVD also targeted the members of the National Committee of the Republic of Estonia. German and Latvian forces remained trapped in the Courland Pocket until the end of the war, capitulating on 10 May 1945.
Second Soviet occupation (1944–1991)
Main articles: Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991) and Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1944)Resistance and deportations
After reoccupying the Baltic states, the Soviets implemented a program of sovietization, which was achieved through large-scale industrialisation rather than by overt attacks on culture, religion or freedom of expression. The Soviets carried out massive deportations to eliminate any resistance to collectivisation or support of partisans. Baltic partisans, such as the Forest Brothers, continued to resist Soviet rule through armed struggle for a number of years.
The Soviets had previously carried out mass deportations in 1940–41, but the deportations between 1944 and 1952 were even greater. In March 1949 alone, the top Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals.
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.
The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees between 1945 and 1958 was 20,000, including 5,000 children.
The deportees were allowed to return after Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956 denouncing the excesses of Stalinism, however many did not survive their years of exile in Siberia. After the war, the Soviets outlined new borders for the Baltic republics. Lithuania gained the regions of Vilnius and Klaipėda while the Russian SFSR annexed territory from the eastern parts of Estonia (5% of prewar territory) and Latvia (2%).
Industrialization and immigration
The Soviets made large capital investments for energy resources and the manufacture of industrial and agricultural products. The purpose was to integrate the Baltic economies into the larger Soviet economic sphere. In all three republics, manufacturing industry was developed resulting in some of the best industrial complexes in the sphere of electronics and textile production. The rural economy suffered from the lack of investments and the collectivization. Baltic urban areas had been damaged during wartime and it took ten years to recuperate housing losses. New constructions were often of poor quality and ethnic Russian immigrants were favored in housing. Estonia and Latvia received large-scale immigration of industrial workers from other parts of the Soviet Union that changed the demographics dramatically. Lithuania also received immigration but on a smaller scale.
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. 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.
Restorations of independence
The period of stagnation brought the crisis of the Soviet system. The new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and responded with glasnost and perestroika. They were attempts to reform the Soviet system from above to avoid revolution from below. The reforms occasioned the reawakening of nationalism in the Baltic republics. The first major demonstrations against the environment were Riga in November 1986 and the following spring in Tallinn. Small successful protests encouraged key individuals and by the end of 1988 the reform wing had gained the decisive positions in the Baltic republics. At the same time, coalitions of reformists and populist forces assembled under the Popular Fronts. The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic made the Estonian language the state language again in January 1989, and similar legislation was passed in Latvia and Lithuania soon after. The Baltic republics declared their aim for sovereignty: Estonia in November 1988, Lithuania in May 1989 and Latvia in July 1989. The Baltic Way, that took place on 23 August 1989, became the biggest manifestation of opposition to the Soviet rule. In December 1989, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union condemned the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol as "legally untenable and invalid."
On 11 March 1990 the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet declared Lithuania's independence. Pro-independence candidates had received an overwhelming majority in the Supreme Soviet elections held earlier that year. On 30 March 1990, seeing full restoration of independence not yet feasible due to large Soviet presence, the Estonian Supreme Soviet declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and announced the start of a transitional period to independence. On 4 May 1990, the Latvian Supreme Soviet made a similar declaration. The Soviet Union immediately condemned all three declarations as illegal, saying that they had to go through the process of secession outlined in the Soviet Constitution of 1977. However, the Baltic states argued that the entire occupation process violated both international law and their own law. Therefore, they argued, they were merely reasserting an independence that still existed under international law.
By mid-June, after unsuccessful economic blockade of Lithuania, the Soviets started negotiations with Lithuania and the other two Baltic republics. The Soviets had a bigger challenge elsewhere, as the Russian Federal Republic proclaimed sovereignty in June. Simultaneously the Baltic republics also started to negotiate directly with the Russian Federal Republic. After the failed negotiations the Soviets made a dramatic but failed attempt to break the deadlock and sent in military troops killing twenty and injuring hundreds of civilians in what became known as the "Vilnius massacre" in Lithuania and "The Barricades" in Latvia during January 1991. In August 1991, the hard-line members attempted to take control of the Soviet Union. A day after the coup on 21 August, the Estonians proclaimed full independence, after an independence referendum was held in Estonia on 3 March 1991, alongside a similar referendum in Latvia the same month. It was approved by 78.4% of voters with an 82.9% turnout. Independence was restored by the Estonian Supreme Council on the night of 20 August. The Latvian parliament made similar a declaration on the same day. The coup failed but the collapse of the Soviet Union became unavoidable. After the coup collapsed, the Soviet government recognised the independence of all three Baltic states on 6 September 1991.
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. In 1992 there were still 120,000 Russian troops there, 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.
Lithuania was the first to see complete the withdrawal of Russian troops—on 31 August 1993—owing in part to the Kaliningrad issue.
Subsequent agreements to withdraw troops from Latvia were signed on 30 April 1994, and from Estonia on 26 July 1994. Continued linkage on the part of Russia resulted in a threat by the U.S. Senate in mid-July to halt all aid to Russia in case the forces were not withdrawn by the end of August. Final withdrawal was completed on 31 August 1994. Some Russian troops remained stationed in Estonia in Paldiski until the Russian military base was dismantled and the nuclear reactors suspended operations on 26 September 1995. Russia operated the Skrunda-1 radar station until it was decommissioned on 31 August 1998. The Russian Government then had to dismantle and remove the radar equipment; this work was completed by October 1999 when the site was returned to Latvia. The last Russian soldier left the region that month, marking a symbolic end to the Russian military presence on Baltic soil.
Civilian toll
During the 1940–1941 and 1944–1991 occupations 605,000 inhabitants of the three countries in total were either killed or deported (135,000 Estonians, 170,000 Latvians and 320,000 Lithuanians). Their properties and personal belonging were confiscated and given to newly arrived colonists – economic migrants, Soviet military, NKVD personnel, as well as functionaries of the Communist Party.
The estimated human costs of the occupations are presented in the table below.
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
See also: Baltic Russians, Non-citizens (Latvia), and Non-citizens (Estonia)The Soviet Union and its successors have never paid reparations to the Baltic states.
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 and Human Rights Watch contended that the policy of Estonia towards its non-citizens was discriminatory. 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.
In 1993, Estonia was noted for having problems concerning the successful integration of some who were permanent residents at the time Estonia gained independence. The requirements for getting citizenship in Estonia were considered "relatively liberal" in 1996. According to a 2008 report of Special Rapporteur on racism to United Nations Human Rights Council the representatives of the Russian speaking communities in Estonia say the most important form of discrimination in Estonia is not ethnic, but rather language-based (Para. 56). The rapporteur made several recommendations, including strengthening the Chancellor of Justice, making it easier for persons of undefined nationality to obtain citizenship, and opening a discussion on language policy to elaborate strategies better reflecting the multilingual character of the society (paras. 89–92). Estonia has been criticized by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination strong emphasis on Estonian language in the state Integration strategy; usage of punitive approach for promoting Estonian language; restrictions of the usage of minority language in public services; low level of minority representation in political life; persistently high number of persons with undetermined citizenship, etc.
According to Israeli author Yaël Ronen [he] 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. 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. When the illegal regime transitioned to a lawful regime in 1991, the status of these settlers became an issue.
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.
Legal and historical perspectives
The Baltic states' governments themselves, the United States and its courts of law, the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Council have all stated that these three countries were invaded, occupied and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union under provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. There followed occupation by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944 and then again occupation by the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991. This policy of non-recognition has given rise to the principle of legal continuity of the Baltic states, which holds that de jure, or as a matter of law, the Baltic states remained independent states under illegal occupation throughout the period from 1940 to 1991.
However, the Soviet Union never formally acknowledged that its presence in the Baltics was an occupation or that it had annexed these states 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".
Historically revisionist Russian historiography and school textbooks continue to maintain that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union after their each of their peoples carried out socialist revolutions independent of Soviet influence. The post-Soviet government of Russia and its state officials insist that incorporation of the Baltic states was in accordance with international law and gained de jure recognition by the agreements made in the February 1945 Yalta and the July–August 1945 Potsdam conferences and by the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which declared the inviolability of existing frontiers. However, this claim has been described by British army think tank CHACR as both "nefarious" and a "horrifying insult" — part of an intentional propaganda campaign to spread a myth of Baltic "incorporation". Russia also agreed to Europe's demand to "assist persons deported from the occupied Baltic states" upon joining the Council of Europe in 1996. Also, when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed a separate treaty with Lithuania in 1991, it acknowledged the 1940 annexation as a violation of Lithuanian sovereignty and recognised the de jure continuity of the Lithuanian state.
State continuity of the Baltic states
Main article: State continuity of the Baltic statesThe Baltic claim of continuity with the pre-war republics has been accepted by most Western powers. As a consequence of the policy of non-recognition of the Soviet seizure of these countries, 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 thus sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law.
The official position of Russia, which chose in 1991 to be the legal and direct successor of the USSR, 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.
Soviet and Russian historiography
Main article: Baltic states in Soviet historiographySoviet historians saw the 1940 annexation as a voluntary entry into the USSR by the Balts. Soviet historiography promoted the interests of Russia and the USSR in the Baltic area, and it reflected the belief of most Russians that they had moral and historical rights to control and to Russianize the entire former Russian empire. To Soviet historians, the 1940 annexation was not only a voluntary entry but was also the natural thing to do. This concept taught that the military security of mother Russia was solidified and that nothing could argue against it.
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:
- 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
- These pacts allowed the USSR to station a limited number of Red Army units in the Baltic countries.
- 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.
- 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 USSR were adopted and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was 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 "acts had been concluded with the Baltic States, but there were as yet no Soviet troops there capable of holding the defences". It also states regarding those invasions that "nly enemies of democracy or people who had lost their senses could describe those actions of the Soviet Government as aggression".
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.
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 Molotov–Ribbentrop pact was necessary to the security of the Soviet Union, that the Baltics' joining the USSR was the will of the proletariat—both in line with the politics of the Soviet period, "the 'need to ensure the security of the USSR', 'people's revolution' and 'joining voluntarily'"—and that supporters of Baltic independence were the operatives of western intelligence agencies seeking to topple the USSR.
Soviet-Russian historian Vilnis Sīpols [ru] 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. 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".
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".
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".
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.
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.
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.
However, Russia's current official position directly contradicts its earlier rapprochement with Lithuania 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....". The Russian government and state officials maintain now that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate and that the Soviet Union liberated the countries from the Nazis. 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. "The assertions about '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, 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.
Treaties affecting USSR–Baltic relations
Main article: Baltic–Soviet relationsThe Baltic states proclaimed independence after the signing of the Armistice, and Bolshevik Russia invaded at the end of 1918. 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, 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
Main article: Timeline of the occupation of the Baltic statesSee 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
- Welles Declaration
Notes
- (1940–1941; from 1944)
- (1941–1945)
References
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Most Western countries had not recognised the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union, a stance that irritated the Soviets without ever becoming a major point of conflict.
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The forcible military occupation and subsequent annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union remains to this day (written in 1972) one of the serious unsolved issues of international law
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The Putin administration has stubbornly refused to admit the fact of Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia following World War II, although Putin has acknowledged that in 1989, during Gorbachev's reign, the Soviet parliament officially denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which led to the forcible incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union.
- Bugajski, Janusz (2004). Cold peace. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 109. ISBN 0275983625. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
Russian officials persistently claim that the Baltic states entered the USSR voluntarily and legally at the close of World War II and failed to acknowledge that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were under Soviet occupation for fifty years.
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From Sumner Wells' declaration of July 23, 1940, that we would not recognize the occupation. We housed the exiled Baltic diplomatic delegations. We accredited their diplomats. We flew their flags in the State Department's Hall of Flags. We never recognized in deed or word or symbol the illegal occupation of their lands.
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The Court said: (256 N.Y.S.2d 196) "The Government of the United States has never recognized the forceful occupation of Estonia and Latvia by the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics nor does it recognize the absorption and incorporation of Latvia and Estonia into the Union of Soviet Socialist republics. The legality of the acts, laws and decrees of the puppet regimes set up in those countries by the USSR is not recognized by the United States, diplomatic or consular officers are not maintained in either Estonia or Latvia and full recognition is given to the Legations of Estonia and Latvia established and maintained here by the Governments in exile of those countries
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Five decades of almost unbroken Soviet occupation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ended in 1991
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- See, for instance, the position expressed by the European Parliament, which condemned "the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact, and continues." European Parliament (13 January 1983). "Resolution on the situation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania". Official Journal of the European Communities. C. 42/78. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2007.
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- ^ David James Smith, Estonia: independence and European integration, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0415267285, p. xix
- ^ Parrott, Bruce (1995). "Reversing Soviet Military Occupation". State building and military power in Russia and the new states of Eurasia. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 112–115. ISBN 1563243601.
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The forcible incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union in 1940, on the basis of secret protocols to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, is considered to be null and void. Even though the Soviet Union occupied these countries for a period of fifty years, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania continued to exist as subjects of international law.
- Zalimas, Dainius "Commentary to the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Compensation of Damage Resulting from the Occupation of the USSR" – Baltic Yearbook of International Law. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, ISBN 978-9004137462
- ^ cf. e.g. Boris Sokolov's article offering an overview Эстония и Прибалтика в составе СССР (1940–1991) в российской историографии Archived 2018-10-17 at the Wayback Machine (Estonia and the Baltic countries in the USSR (1940–1991) in Russian historiography). Accessed 30 January 2011.
- Cole, Elizabeth A. (2007). Teaching the violent past: history education and reconciliation. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 233–234. ISBN 978-0742551435.
- Combs, Dick (2008). Inside The Soviet Alternate Universe. Penn State Press. pp. 258, 259. ISBN 978-0271033556. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
The Putin administration has stubbornly refused to admit the fact of Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia following World War II, although Putin has acknowledged that in 1989, during Gorbachev's reign, the Soviet parliament officially denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which led to the forcible incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union.
- Bugajski, Janusz (2004). Cold peace. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 109. ISBN 0275983625. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
Russian officials persistently claim that the Baltic states entered the USSR voluntarily and legally at the close of World War II and failed to acknowledge that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were under Soviet occupation for fifty years.
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- For a legal evaluation of the annexation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union, see K. Marek, Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law (1968), 383–91
- D. Zalimas, Legal and Political Issues on the Continuity of the Republic of Lithuania, 1999, 4 Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review 111–12.
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- Gerner & Hedlund (1993). p. 60.
- Gerner & Hedlund (1993). p. 62.
- ^ Andrew Roth (23 August 2019). "Molotov-Ribbentrop: why is Moscow trying to justify Nazi pact?: Exhibition about Soviet-Nazi treaty, signed on 23 August 1939, seeks to turn spotlight on west's behaviour in 1930s". The Guardian.
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- Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- Soviet Information Bureau (1948). "Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey)". Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House: 50. 272848.
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(help) - Soviet Information Bureau (1948). "Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey)". Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House: 52. 272848.
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(help) - According to Sīpols, "in mid-July 1940 elections took place . In that way, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, that had been grabbed away from Russia as a result of foreign military intervention, joined her again, by the will of those peoples." – Сиполс В. Тайны дипломатические. Канун Великой Отечественной 1939–1941. Москва 1997. c. 242.
- Новейшая история Отечества. XX век. Учебник для студентов вузов: в 2 т. /Под редакцией А.Ф. Киселева, Э.М. Щагина. М., 1998. c. 111
- С.В.Черниченко "Об "оккупации" Прибалтики и нарушении прав русскоязычного населения" – "Международная жизнь" (август 2004 года) – "Статья С.в.черниченко*, Опубликованная В Журнале "Международная Жизнь" (Август 2004 Года) Под Заголовком "Об "Оккупации" Прибалтики И Наруше". Archived from the original on 27 August 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
- Олег Платонов. История русского народа в XX веке. Том 2. Available at http://lib.ru/PLATONOWO/russ3.txt Archived 21 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- Khudoley (2008), Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War, The Baltic factor, pp. 56–73.
- Žalimas, Dainius. Legal and Political Issues on the Continuity of the Republic of Lithuania Retrieved January 24, 2008. Archived April 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- Opinion No. 193 (1996) on Russia's request for membership of the Council of Europe Archived 2011-05-07 at the Wayback Machine, at the CoE Parliamentary site, retrieved December 6, 2009
- "Russia denies Baltic 'occupation'". 5 May 2005. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2007 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
- "Bush denounces Soviet domination". 7 May 2005. Archived from the original on 12 December 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2007 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
- The term "occupation" inapplicable Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine Sergei Yastrzhembsky, May 2005.
- Mendeloff, David A. (1968). Truth-telling and mythmaking in post-Soviet Russia: pernicious historical ideas, mass education, and interstate conflict (Thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/17498.
- Mendeloff, David (2002). "Causes and Consequences of Historical Amnesia – The annexation of the Baltic states in post-Soviet Russian popular history and political memory". In Kenneth, Christie (ed.). Historical injustice and democratic transition in eastern Asia and northern Europe: ghosts at the table of democracy. RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 79–118. ISBN 978-0700715992. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
- http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/communistnationssince1917/ch2.html Archived 1 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine at University of Kansas, retrieved January 23, 2008
- Prof. Dr. G. von Rauch "Die Baltischen Staaten und Sowjetrussland 1919–1939", Europa Archiv No. 17 (1954), p. 6865.
Bibliography
- Aust, Anthony (2005). Handbook of International Law. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521530347.
- Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. Alfred a Knopf Inc. ISBN 978-0375410864.
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- Frucht, Richard (2005). Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture. ABC-CLIO. p. 132. ISBN 978-1576078006. Archived from the original on 21 January 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
- Gerner, Kristian; Hedlund, Stefan (1993). The Baltic States and the End of the Soviet Empire. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415075701.
- Hiden, Johan; Salmon, Patrick (1994) . The Baltic Nations and Europe (Revised ed.). Harlow, England: Longman. ISBN 058225650X.
- Hiden, John (2008). Vahur Made; David J. Smith (eds.). The Baltic question during the Cold War. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415371001. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
- Mälksoo, Lauri (2003). Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR. M. Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 9041121773. Archived from the original on 17 January 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
- Marek, Krystyna (1968) . Identity and continuity of states in public international law (2 ed.). Geneva, Switzerland: Libr. Droz.
- McHugh, James; James S. Pacy (2001). Diplomats without a country: Baltic diplomacy, international law, and the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0313318786. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
- Misiunas, Romuald J.; Taagepera, Rein (1993). The Baltic States, years of dependence, 1940–1990. University of California Press. ISBN 0520082281.
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- Tsygankov, Andrei P. (May 2009). Russophobia (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230614185.
- Wyman, David; Charles H. Rosenzveig (1996). The World Reacts to the Holocaust. JHU Press. pp. 365–381. ISBN 978-0801849695. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
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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 Irina Saburova. In 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
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- Occupation of the Baltic states
- History of the Baltic states
- German military occupations
- Soviet military occupations
- World War II occupied territories
- Reichskommissariat Ostland
- Jewish Estonian history
- Jewish Latvian history
- Jewish Lithuanian history
- Military history of Belarus during World War II
- Military history of Estonia during World War II
- Military history of Finland during World War II
- Military history of Latvia during World War II
- Military history of Lithuania during World War II
- Military history of the Soviet Union during World War II
- Annexation
- Communist repression
- Politics of World War II
- Russians in Estonia
- Estonia–Soviet Union relations
- Latvia–Soviet Union relations
- Lithuania–Soviet Union relations
- Estonia–Germany relations
- Germany–Latvia relations
- German occupation of Lithuania during World War II
- 1940 establishments in Europe
- 1941 establishments in Europe
- 1940 in international relations
- 1941 in international relations
- 1940 establishments in the Soviet Union
- 1940 in the Soviet Union
- 1940s in Belarus
- 1940s in Estonia
- 1940s in Latvia
- 1940s in Lithuania
- 1941 in Germany
- 1941 in the Soviet Union
- 1942 in the Soviet Union
- 1943 in the Soviet Union
- 1944 in the Soviet Union
- 1945 in the Soviet Union
- Germany–Soviet Union relations