Freedom Restored: a British Diplomat's Memories of 1990–1991

Freedom restored: A British diplomat’s memories of 1990–1991

David Manning Retired British diplomat

Talk given in Tallinn on 24 October 2008 at the conference “For Estonia. 90 years of foreign policy and diplomacy”

My ﬁ rst visit to Estonia, and to the other Baltic countries, was in December 1990 when I was head of the political department at the British Em- bassy in Moscow.

I had long been aware of the three countries and of their tragic recent history, and long fascinated by them. I remembered over-hearing discussions about them in my childhood; remembered that, improbably, there had been a copy of Teach Yourself Latvian in our local bookshop, a language that looked dauntingly difﬁ cult – which is why, no doubt, the book never sold. I remembered reading about Reval in C S For- rester’s novels about the Napoleonic wars, and about Baltic émigrés in the cold war novels of John Le Carré; and I remembered learning of the frightful real life betrayals of Baltic agents by Kim Philby in the years immediately after the Second World War. But, fascinated though I was, these were countries that were out of bounds, in a part of Europe cut off from us by the Iron Curtain. Even on my ﬁ rst diplomatic assignment to Warsaw in the early 1970s, it was more or less impossible to cross from Poland to Lithuania, for a Western diplomat anyway.

Although the Baltic countries were tantalisingly out of sight, it did not mean that they were out of mind as far as successive British governments were concerned. The United Kingdom never accepted the forced incorporation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. We continued to recognise, and insist upon, their de jure status as sovereign, European states; and we continued to recognise Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian diplomats who had been accredited to London before the Second World

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War and who remained there afterwards, championing their countries’ rightful independence. I remember them, elderly but splendidly resilient ﬁ gures, coming to call in the Foreign Ofﬁ ce when I was working there in the 1970s and 80s.

One consequence of the British Government’s stance was that the British ambassador to the Soviet Union, The British view was clear: who of course worked in Moscow, never at any time since the Baltic states were visited the Baltic countries. The British view was not part of the Soviet Union, clear: since they were not part of the Soviet Union, the British ambassador to the the British ambassador to the Soviet Union had no Soviet Union had no business business going there. Other, more junior members going there. of the Moscow Embassy went instead, which we were careful to insist did not imply recognition of Moscow’s claims that they were Soviet Republics.

Throughout the Cold War period, the Baltic countries were denied their political freedom. So, too, were the Warsaw Pact countries of Central and Eastern Europe. But I was aware that it was even worse for Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians than it was for Poles, Czechs or Hungarians, or for the other Central and East Europeans who were ‘captive nations’: worse because the Balts were denied their national identity.

We in the UK always hoped that both national recognition and political freedom would be restored. But we had no illusions about how tough or protracted the struggle was likely to be. The dice were heavily loaded against Baltic success. And British policy makers were wary about how best to promote that success. There was a long- standing concern that, while encouraging the aspirations of the Baltic countries, we should not appear to hold out the hope of help that we could not deliver, or of promises that we could not keep. Memories of Hungary in 1956 were strong and carried a clear warning. And in the late 1980s, there was concern that we should do nothing that might strengthen the opponents of Gorbachev’s reforms. These, after all, had proved strongly in Baltic interests and had allowed for a greater measure of freedom in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania than at any time since the Second World War.

In my most optimistic moments, I used to wonder if Poland might prove an inspiration. Here was a country that had been wiped from the political map of Europe in the 19th century only to re-establish itself in the twentieth. Language, religion, cultural aware- ness, and a remarkable ability to exploit political opportunity had proved the potent mix that had fuelled an unlikely restoration. Perhaps there was a model here for others. But even if the Polish example offered an encouraging theory, the reality was harsh. The odds of a Baltic renaissance did not seem good when I was on the Soviet desk in the British Foreign Ofﬁ ce in 1980, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

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Estonian Deputy Foreign Minister Rein Müllerson and Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Ofﬁ ce Douglas Hogg signing the agreement for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Estonia and the United Kingdom 05.09.1991.

There was little reason to revise this pessimistic assessment until Mikhail Gorbachev’s election as Soviet leader. Even then, although it was a welcome change to have a rela- tively young and obviously dynamic Soviet leader after the stagnation and confrontation that characterised so much of the Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko period, I watched with wary scepticism as Gorbachev ushered in glasnost and perestroika. I remember wondering uneasily whether the Politburo had ﬁ nally plucked up the courage to elect someone who might be able to galvanise the Soviet Union and whose legacy might therefore be to give a discredited system an extended lease of life. These Whatever the balance between fears proved unfounded. Whatever the balance be- accidental and deliberate re- tween accidental and deliberate reform, between form, between muddle and muddle and design, Gorbachev was genuinely try- design, Gorbachev was genu- ing to bring about fundamental change. Without inely trying to bring about fun- him, the last ﬁ fteen years would have played them- damental change. selves out very differently for all Europeans.

Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius all seemed beautiful in the winter sunshine during that ﬁ rst visit of mine in December 1990. But the backdrop was menacing. Those I met, including Lennart Meri (then Estonian foreign minister), expressed deep concern that a Soviet clampdown was imminent. Gorbachev was long past the peak of his popu- larity; there was growing political and economic dislocation across the Soviet Union,

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and the analysis in all three Baltic capitals was that Gorbachev was under ﬁ erce pressure from the Army, the KGB and Communist party hardliners to check so-called Republican nationalism: to stop the rot – as one of my interlocutors put it – after the loss of Soviet control in Eastern Europe. There were fears, too, that Moscow might impose an economic blockade during the winter to try to bring about the collapse of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian governments. The message from those I met was clear and urgent: the West must speak out.

And the West did. I returned to Moscow with Sian McLeod, the embassy colleague who had The message from those I met accompanied me, to report fears of an imminent was clear and urgent: the West crack-down. And what we reported to London must speak out. And the West was immediately relayed to a ministerial meeting did. of NATO, which issued a strong warning against a new wave of repression in the Baltic countries. The warning seemed all the more urgent coinciding as it did with the sudden resig- nation of Eduard Shevardnadze, the reformist Soviet foreign minister, who himself warned that a new dictatorship threatened.

As we know, the fears of a crackdown were well founded. In the second week of Ja- nuary 1991, the KGB and the Soviet security apparatus attempted what were effectively coups in all three Baltic capitals; it began in Vilnius, where Soviet forces seized the television tower, killing thirteen people. The pattern repeated itself with an attempted takeover by hardliners in Riga, and what was in effect the military occupation of central Tallinn, with Soviet troops surrounding the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and occupying the square outside Toompea.

It was a moment when the future of the three Baltic countries, and indeed of the Soviet Union, seemed poised between the onward march of liberalisation and reversion to authoritarian communism imposed by the barrel of a gun. And the outcome was far from certain. Despite the huge achievements of the Baltic independence movements over the previous three or four years, which had mobilised whole populations, it was hard to imagine that the security forces that had crushed the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968, that had had obliged Poland to impose martial law in the early 1980s, and had dealt ruthlessly with internal dissent for decades, would not in the end prevail if they were bent on renewed repression.

These were the sorts of thoughts running through my mind as I went from Moscow to Riga and then to Tallinn in the middle of January. It tells us something about the con- fusion in Moscow that, while the Soviet authorities discouraged me and my embassy colleague, Tim Barrow, from travelling, they made no serious attempt to stop us – nor

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indeed to stop other Western diplomats, as far as I know. We went because of course we wanted to ﬁ nd out what was happening on the ground; but we also went because we wanted the Soviet government to know that, if they acted against the Baltic governments, it would be with Western witnesses. It would not be hidden.

The crisis in Estonia was reaching a climax when Tim Barrow and I arrived in Tallinn. Soviet troops were in the streets; the Estonian Government was deﬁ antly resisting the pressure. The question was whether the troops would storm Toompea, with the bloodshed that this would surely provoke, and overthrow the democratically elected Estonian Government.

I discussed all this with Jüri Luik, now your ambassador to NATO, then working alongside the courageous Lennart Meri. One of the great pleasures for me in attend- ing this conference is that Jüri is here too, someone who served Estonia with distinction during the struggle to re-establish independence and has served the country with distinction ever since.

Once in Toompea, Tim Barrow and I settled, with what now seems considerable pre- sumption, into Lennart Meri’s ofﬁ ce. It was vacant because he had left for Scandina- via to be the centre of an Estonian Government in exile if the government in Tallinn were overthrown by Soviet forces. I remember sitting at his desk and ringing him up to say it was the British, not the Russians, who were in occupation – the nearest I have ever come to being a foreign minister myself.

A number of things stand out from the tense hours that followed. One was the impact of CNN on the crisis. It was one thing to have Western diplomats in Toompea report- ing to their capitals and signalling concern to the Soviet authorities by their presence. It was quite another to have a TV channel with global reach bringing the crisis live to governments and populations around the world. Here was a new and powerful fac- tor in the equation, one which may well have given those pressing for a crackdown pause for thought.

But the most momentous – what the Americans would call game-changing – moment in the crisis came when Boris Yeltsin, then chairman of the Russian Parliament, ﬂ ew to Tallinn to meet his Estonian and Latvian counterparts. He signed a common dec- laration with them – and with the besieged Vytautas Landsbergis by means of a fax to Vilnius – in which Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Russian Republic expressed solidarity with each other, declared that only legally elected bodies could exercise power, and insisted that the use of force was inadmissible. Separately, Yeltsin also appealed for Soviet troops to return to barracks, and for an end to the crisis that the Soviet hardliners and security services had unleashed across the Baltic states.

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Yeltsin’s reputation has suffered in recent years. But it is worth recalling the courage with which he conducted himself in the period of the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the personal risks he ran when the outcome was far from certain. He showed remarkable leadership in the January crisis of 1991. And he did so again seven months later, when he faced down the hardliners who mounted the August coup that was designed to roll back the reforms and liberties secured over the previous ﬁ ve years. Without him, too, the history of the last ﬁ fteen years would have been very different, and I believe much darker, for all Europeans.

I remember listening to Yeltsin’s late night appeal, standing on a table to get a bet- ter view of him. Jüri Luik and Tim Barrow were next to me. As we listened, I spoke by phone to my ambassador in Moscow to tell him what was happening. Jüri may have a clearer memory than I do, but as I recall, Yeltsin had to be smuggled from the building after his speech and driven by night down the Baltic coast because of fears for his life.

It was a decisive moment. The crisis was broken. The troops dispersed. The attempt to overthrow the Baltic governments, if not wholly abandoned by hardliners, was put on hold. And months of phoney war ensued. The Baltic governments knew the attempt might be renewed at any stage; knew that the issue of independence was not yet ﬁ nally resolved. And we, in Western embassies in Moscow, watched as Gor- bachev’s authority and that of the Soviet Communist Party ebbed away; watched for another attempt by hard liners to seize what remained of Soviet power; watched uncertain what strange and unpredictable turn events would next take.

The phoney war that took place between January and the failed coup of August 1991 involved me in several trips to the Baltic countries, not least to see President Lands- bergis, who had set up his headquarters in the heavily defended and sandbagged Parliament building in Vilnius. He was calm, convinced a new crisis was coming with the Soviet authorities, but apparently serenely certain that the outcome would be independence for Lithuania and the other Baltic countries. I remember that on the walls of his Parliamentary ofﬁ ce were pictures of the Virgin Mary and of Vaclav Havel, his powerful sources of inspiration.

About ten days after the failed coup in August 1991, I returned to the Baltic countries with letters from Prime Minister John Major’s government to the governments in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, announcing that the UK again recognised the de facto as well as the de jure independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and wished to re- new full diplomatic relations with them. Delivering those letters was one of the most pleasurable and moving tasks I undertook in my thirty ﬁ ve years as a member of the British Diplomatic Service.

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What lessons do I draw from those extraordinary days and months, when I watched the Baltic countries restore themselves to their rightful position on the map of Europe and to the wider European political system?

Many, but a few worth highlighting:

First: the power of identity. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania never lost their sense of identity or their determination to restore their independence, despite the horrors of the Second World War, Stalinism and a Soviet Russiﬁ cation policy designed to dilute and ultimately destroy that identity.

Second: the importance of leadership. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all produced remarkable leaders whose courage was matched by a keen sense of timing. The indi- vidual does matter in history.

Third: national solidarity. In each of the Baltic states, there was an extraordinary level of national consciousness and solidarity among people of all backgrounds and ages. It was a solidarity that was expressed equally powerfully in the cross-border support that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gave each other.

Fourth: we now know that determination to restore independence was subsequently matched 1991 was the moment when a by clear-sighted willingness to rethink national post-Second World War politi- identity and destiny. 1991 was the moment when cal settlement ﬁ nally emerged. a post-Second World War political settlement ﬁ - The Soviet occupation of Cent- nally emerged. The Soviet occupation of Central ral and Eastern Europe, and of and Eastern Europe, and of the Baltic countries, the Baltic countries, came to came to an end. It is to the immense credit of an end. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that they used the window of opportunity presented by the 1990s to work towards, and secure, membership in both NATO and the European Union. That looks to be a very wise investment in the light of recent events – a lesson not to put off till tomorrow what is politically possible today.

One ﬁ nal lesson: the enduring value of our transatlantic and European institutions. NATO has proved its continued post-Cold War relevance by providing a robust alliance in which the Baltic countries have at last found security. And the European Union, by extending membership to the Baltic countries and to the restored democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, has underwritten the prosperity and political stability of the whole continent, an achievement for which it receives too little recognition – particularly in Britain.

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I shall fi nish, as I began, on a personal note. I had expected the Cold War to keep me in business It was obvious, even in the throughout my diplomatic career. It was obvious, 1970s and 1980s when Soviet even in the 1970s and 1980s when Soviet power power was in its pomp, that was in its pomp, that Western democracy, for all Western democracy, for all its its shortcomings, was vastly more successful than shortcomings, was vastly more communism. But it was not obvious that the West successful than communism. would prevail any time soon; and certainly not But it was certainly not obvious obvious that, within a very few years, the Soviet that, within a very few years, the Leviathan would topple. What happened in the Soviet Leviathan would topple. Baltic countries between 1987 and 1991 was striking proof of the resilience of the idea of personal and national freedom; and striking proof, too, of the effectiveness of well-organised but non-violent political protest in undermining even the most practiced of oppres- sions. What happened here in Estonia, and in the other Baltic countries, had a sig- nifi cance and a resonance that went much wider than the Baltic region, much wider than the Soviet Union: what happened here made a vital contribution to the peaceful reunifi cation of Europe.

I was privileged to see a small part of it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some recollections with you today and to celebrate not only freedom restored but the brave people – some of whom are in this room – who made it happen.

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