Skip to main content

Terror and Hope

August 23rd is the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. This was a secret and criminal treaty that divided Eastern and Central Europe between Hitler and Stalin. It allowed Hitler to invade Poland a week later, without any fear that the USSR would intervene, and it allowed Stalin to crush the independence of the Baltic Countries and to seize half of the corpse of Poland for itself. Stalin also had a free hand to seize Bessarabia and turn that Romanian speaking land into a Soviet satrapy. Thus this monstrous bargain inflicted occupation and slavery on millions. All of course secret, since the Soviet authorities denied that any secret protocols existed- even when the German treaty text was published after the war.

Fifty years later. Millions of Estonian, Latvians and Lithuanians formed a chain to link Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius- the Baltic Chain. This protest was one of the high points of the singing revolution.

It is a triumph of the human spirit that such terror eventually gave way to such hope, and such hope gave way to such success.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Balti Kett on üks mu esimesi mälestusi. Õigemini see, et mind sinna kaasa ei võetud, Vanaisa ei tahtnud ka ema kaasa võtta, kuna kartis, et hakatakse tulistama. Aga kõik läks hästi.
Cicero said…
"The Baltic chain is one of my earliest memories. I was there and I remember that my Grandfather did not want to take my mother in case the Russians started shooting. In the end all was well."

I think
James said…
What do think might have happened if the Baltic countries had choosen to fight as Finland did?
I'm not criticising them, given that the outcome (as in Finland)was certain.

For my own part, in the short term I expect nothing would have been any different, but in the longer term I expect that the symbolic gesture would have prevented the Baltic States from almost slipping out of western conciousness during the Cold War. I know that the Baltic States continued a heroic partisan resistance to the Red Army up until the early 50's - but no-one ever got to hear about it. Wouldn't this effort have been better spent defending genuine independence in 1939?

What's your view?
Anonymous said…
"The Baltic chain is one of my earliest memories. Well, actually the fact that I wasn't taken there. I remember that my Grandfather did not even want to take my mother in case the Russians started shooting. In the end all was well."

almost :)
Cicero said…
On tõõ rããgida Eesti keelt! Mina õpin aga see on töö! :-) Äitah.
Cicero said…
James- one of the great what ifs? Given the4 poor performance of the Soviet troops against Finland, there might have been a replay of the War of Independence of 1918-20 and with the same result. On the other hand, the fact that the Nazis had already sanctioned the Soviet occupation (and "called home" the ethnic Germans) would mean that only the UK could help- and the day of the occupation was the same day we were taking them off the beaches at Dunkirk.

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

Bournemouth absence

Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need to be the most urgent priority of the next government. So far it has been the Liberal Democrats that have made the running, and although the Conservatives are now belatedly recognising that cuts will be required they continue to fail to provide even the slightest detail as to what they think should guide their decisions in this area. This political cowardice means that we are expected to ch