1920–1940: the YEARS of INDEPENDENCE § 1. the Era of Liberal Democracy

CHAPTER THREE

1920–1940: THE YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

§ 1. The Era of Liberal Democracy (1920–1926/1934)

1.1. Constitution-building During the First World War and the wars of independence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania suffered from signi cant material and human damage.77 The rst years of independence were, therefore, almost exclusively devoted to economic reconstruction and institution-building. Of outmost importance was a sweeping land reform, which aimed to transfer control of the land from a small group of rich, foreign landlords to the majority of landless, native peasants.78 This radical agricultural redistribution, introduced by the Estonian and Latvian Constituent Assemblies in October 1919 and September 1920 respectively, was primarily motivated by a determination to break the disproportionate political and economic power of the Baltic Germans.79 In Lithuania, the land reform of 1922 mainly concerned the Polish and Russian nobility.80 The social transformation which accompanied the territorial reorganization reconciled the native peasantry with the new national elite. A continuation of the previous system of land and property ownership might have threatened the entire independence movement. Moreover, it can be argued that the land reform reduced the appeal of communism to thousands of Baltic peasants.81

77 The population of Latvia dropped from 2.5 million before the outbreak of the First World War to 1.58 million in 1920. The corresponding gures for Estonia and Lithuania are from 1,086,000 to 1,059,000 and from 2,676,000 to 2,035,000 respectively. O’Connor, op. cit., footnote 16, pp. 86–87. 78 Von Rauch, op. cit., footnote 57, pp. 87–91; N. Hope, “Interwar Statehood: Sym- bol and Reality”, in: G. Smith, (ed.), The Baltic States. The National Self-Determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1996, pp. 47–48. 79 Hiden, The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik, op. cit., footnote 63, p. 36. 80 Vardys, Sedaitis, op. cit., footnote 9, p. 40. 81 Von Rauch, op. cit., footnote 57, p. 87. 20 the baltic states in europe

The Russians and Baltic Germans, who once controlled the political and economic life of the region, had to accommodate themselves to the new circumstances. The foundation of independence on the basis of national self-determination further raised the issue of minority integration, which preoccupied the constitution-makers of the Baltic republics.82 Without clearly de ned historical precedents or viable existing institutions, the Baltic Constituent Assemblies looked to the democratic republics of Western Europe for inspiration.83 Hence, the rst constitutions of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were essentially based on the models of Switzerland, France and Weimar Germany. They all established a single-chamber parliamentarian system with weak executive institutions.84 Estonia, for instance, did not even have a formal head of state.85 The national parliaments—the Riigikogu in Estonia, the Saeima in Latvia and the Seimas in Lithuania—dominated the political life and could dismiss the government at any time. In addition, the national constitutions provided for widespread possibilities of direct democracy: the electorate could initiate laws or dissolve the parliament through the mechanism of referendums. Due to this strong emphasis on public participation, the rst constitutions of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been described as “ultra-democratic”86 or even “too democratic”.87 The absence of ef cient executive institutions to balance the power of the legislature resulted in political fragmentation and frequent government turnover. The average life of a government was less than nine months in Estonia and approximately eleven months in Latvia and Lithuania.88 This situation was not an exception in Europe at that time and re ected the governmental instability in, for instance, Weimar Germany and France.89

82 Hiden, Salmon, op. cit., footnote 2, p. 46. 83 Kirby, The Baltic World 1772–1993, op. cit., footnote 25, p. 317. 84 Von Rauch, op. cit., footnote 57, pp. 76–80. 85 Raun, Estonia and the Estonians, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 213. 86 Hiden, Salmon, op. cit., footnote 2, p. 48. 87 Lieven, op. cit., footnote 14, p. 64. 88 Kirby, The Baltic World 1772–1993, op. cit., footnote 25, p. 318. 89 Raun, Estonia and the Estonians, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 114.