From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Human rights VIOLATIONS in ESTONIA
Date: 2 Oct 92 02:31:24 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <9209292058.AA17973@feds66.Prime.COM>, dleschin@FEDS66.PRIME.COM 
("", Dmitri Leschiner) writes:
>> Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 11:14:17 GMT
>> From: thietaniemi@CC.HELSINKI.FI
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> (ESTONIAN) INDEPENDENCE LOST
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On June 16, 1940, a Soviet ultimatum demanded a new Estonian government,
>> "able and willing to secure the honest application of the Soviet - Estonia
>> mutual assistance treaty." The following day Soviet armed forces occupied
>> the whole country, and on June 19 Andrei Zhdanov, a member of the Kremlin
>> Politburo, arrived in Tallin to complete the designs of the Soviet
>> government. On June 21 a puppet government headed by Johannes Vares
>> took over.
 
> Could anyone suggest some sources providing more details of events of
> first days and weeks after occupation? In particular, what was a (formal)
> procedure for establishing Vares' goverment? Did parliament take place in it?

Every decision any political body in Estonia made after June 17 was done 
under the conditions of occupation and dictated by Stalin. There were soviet 
tanks all around. 

> What was the position and behaviour of various political forces concerning
> the events? One knows that people at the gunpoint could not be required
> to be heroes, still often they come to be.

I would recommend the presidential candidate professor Rein Taageperas works
on Estonian history and society. I have got the impression that the Estonians
where just shocked and felt themselves totally helpless. One just couldn't
imagine that such injustices happen!

In southern Estonia, some individuals continued their hopeless guerilla
warfare in the forests until the fifties ("The brothers of the forest").
 
>>            On July 14-15 the "election" of a new Chamber of Deputies
>> took place under a new procedure ignoring the provisions of the
>> constitution and electoral law. Only the single list of Soviet-sponsored
>> candidates was allowed to stand. On July 21 the new chamber was
>> presented with a resolution to join the U.S.S.R.; it was unanimously
>> adopted the following day in spite of being contrary to constitutional
>> procedure.
 
> So, constitution and laws were not changed according to new procedures?
> Or were they?

The Estonians got on July 21 1940 the infamous Stalin constitution. 
The Estonian Socialist Soviet Republic (R.I.P.) was definitely an 
illegal construction. The Estonian republic, it's constitution and
citizenship did not cease to exist.

It would have been _a_clear_case_ in the Hague international court. 
This is why some anti-Estonian Russian parliamentary deputies are 
NOT threating Estonia with the Hague!
 
>>            On Aug. 6 the Moscow Supreme Soviet incorporated Estonia
>> into the U.S.S.R. Meanwhile, Pa"ts, Laidoner, and many political
>> leaders were arrested and deported to the U.S.S.R. In the first
>> 12 months of Soviet occupation more than 60,000 persons were killed
>> or deported: more than 10,000 were removed in a mass deportation
>> during the night of June 13-14, 1941.
>>
>> After restoration of the Soviet regime, Vares became the first
>> chairman of the Presidium of the Estonian Supreme Soviet; he
>> committed suicide in 1946 --

BTW, the text above I posted was not my own: It is from ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
(The 1974 version, sorry, I do not have any other version in my library,
but since the things that happened in the past have not changed since 1974,
it does not matter.)

But I do recall Helsinki in 1975: the Balts were protesting when the 
European Conference on Security and Co-operation recognized the 
existing borders in Europe. The protests were almost neglected 
by the international community. It was not that the world did not know. 
It just did not care.

Personally, I suspected deeply the Baltic demonstrators in Helsinki
in 1975: Why were those people (most of them came from USA and Canada)
"disturbing the peace"? In my eyes, they were at least "suspect elements"...
It was obvious that I had not yet read the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.

I changed my opinion gradually during the eighties. I had my history
lessons.

Reading history - one could start it with any international encyclopedia -
teaches us why the republic of Estonia is STILL occupied clearly against 
the will of it's citizens.

sincerely,
Tapani Hietaniemi, University of Helsinki
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet