INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.
University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600
Order Number 1346121
Independence: The current struggle for political and economic autonomy by Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia
Shaw, Robert Gould, M.A.
The American University, 1991
UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106
INDEPENDENCE: THE CURRENT STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC AUTONOMY BY LATVIA, LITHUANIA AND ESTONIA
by
Robert Gould Shaw
submitted to the
Faculty of the School of International Service
of the American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in
International Affairs
Signatures of^Uommittee^
Chair: ---
IxjfUto OJ Q~ 3J . [Clci\ Date 1991 The American University ia4-‘l Washington, D.C. 20016 (c) COPYRIGHT by Robert Gould Shaw 1991 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INDEPENDENCE: THE CURRENT STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC AUTONOMY BY LATVIA, LITHUANIA AND ESTONIA BY Robert Gould Shaw ABSTRACT For half a century the Baltic republics have had the highest standard of living in the Soviet Union yet they are among the republics most intent on regaining the political and economic autonomy they enjoyed between the world wars. Using Thorstein Veblen's axiom for human institutions ("What is is wrong") I have shown that independence, while difficult to attain, is a goal that the Balts have been drawn to not just for historical and cultural reasons, but also for economic reasons. Governments are tools among the purposes of which is to ensure prosperity and security. Because the Soviet central government has failed to produce the benefits that governments must, the Balts have come to feel that they have no other choice but to manage their own affairs. I conclude that despite the problems associated with independence, the Baltic republics will continue with their struggle till they achieve their goal. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...... ii LIST OF TABLES...... iv CHAPTERS INTRODUCTION...... 1 1. THEORY FOR CHANGE AND LIST OF WANTS FOR ALL SIDES...... 5 2. THE BALTIC REPUBLICS: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO ANNEXATION...... 15 3. SOVIET RULE...... 27 4. ECONOMIC CENTRALISM AND THE BALTIC REPUBLICS...... 58 5. INDEPENDENCE...... 80 6. NATIONALISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS...... 92 7. CONCLUSION...... 107 iii LIST OF TABLES PERCENT OF RAW MATERIALS IMPORTED BY LATVIAN INDUSTRY IN 1984.... 32 THE RURAL AND URBAN POPULATION OF LATVIA CIRCA 1935...... 33 DISTRIBUTION OF RIGA'S POPULATION: 1935...... 34 URBAN-RURAL DISTRIBUTION OF LATVIA'S POPULATION: 1935 AND 1970... 35 PERCENT OF BOOKS PRINTED IN LATVIAN: 1935 AND 1970...... 36 URBAN AND RURAL POPULATION OF ESTONIA IN PERCENTAGES...... 37 POPULATION OF TALLINN IN PERCENTAGES...... 39 PERCENTAGE OF BALTS FLUENT IN RUSSIAN...... 40 DISTRIBUTION OF FLUENCY IN ESTONIAN OF THE FOUR LARGEST MINORITY NATIONAL POPULATIONS RESIDING IN ESTONIAN SSR, 1989...... 41 CARS PER 1,000 INHABITANTS...... 47 PRODUCTIVITY OF BALTIC WORKERS IN COMPARISON TO THE SOVIET AVERAGE: 1965-1984 (USSR-100)...... 49 MONTHLY WAGES FOR BALTIC WORKERS IN COMPARISON TO THE SOVIET AVERAGE: 1965-1984 (USSR-100)...... 49 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LABOR PRODUCTIVITY AND WAGES IN THE USSR AND IN THE BALTIC REPUBLICS (USSR-100), 1984...... 51 NUMBER OF ENTERPRISES DECLARED INSOLVENT AS OF 1 JANUARY 1989___ 52 HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ESTONIA IN THE FUTURE...... 83 iv INTRODUCTION The culture of a country, Its notions of what is right or normal, of what is best or better and of what Is possible or permissible, often fuels changes in their political and economic systems. When systems are not allowed to change gradually to meet the demands of society, the forces of change build up within that society. Since Mikhail Gorbachev rose to the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party (CPSU) in 1985, he has sought to reform his country's political and economic system. The Baltic republics, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, with little trust in the ability and the honesty of the central government, have taken up the cause of reform but for their own ends rather than the CPSU's and the government's. This study shows why the Soviet Union's Baltic republics seek independence from the Soviet political and economic systems. It looks at the new political and economic system they are constructing. It also discusses the problems associated with the assertion of autonomy and will show how these republics are attempting to resolve their problems. At the turn of the last century the American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen proposed the following axiom for human institutions: "What is is wrong." According to this axiom institutions exist in an ever changing environment to which they are slow to adapt. For the purposes of this study institutions are not only organizations but are also the widely held beliefs and widely practiced customs of a society. An institution is a tool, and as a tool it must be of some use to society to ensure its continued existence. Societies are willing to maintain institutions of marginal practical use that are psychologically useful. The constitutional monarchies of Europe are an example of this. The monarchs have little, if any, real power but serve to connect a society with its past, to connect the people with their society symbolically. Organizational institutions are not likely to change their practices and beliefs, especially in ways that do not benefit the staffers, unless forced by the reaction of the general society to changes in their environment. Institutions that fail to meet the ever changing needs of society will lose their importance as they lose their usefulness. The environment within which societies live is constantly changing. Sometimes the pace of change is slow and incremental and at other times change comes quickly and radically. Societies attempt to alter their institutions to make them more useful in the new environment, with varying success. A society cannot usefully be viewed as something static. Though the pace of environmental and institutional change is slow, it is always there if one broadens one's historical horizons. Societies cannot accurately be said to be something, and are best described in terms of what they have been or what they are becoming. It is rare for a society to be homogeneous; the Baltic republics are no exception. It is easy to find examples of societies that suffer from problems associated with heterogeneity, though heterogeneity is not necessarily a bad thing nor are homogeneous societies problem free. According to the 1989 census, Lithuania is by far the most homogeneous of the Baltic republics. Its indigenous population is more than three quarters of the republic's total. Estonia's indigenous population is somewhat less than two thirds of the total. Latvia's indigenous population is only a little more than half its total. Most of the non-indigenous population of these republics are Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians. With non-indigenous peoples a large share of their populations, it is important for the future stability and success of the Baltic republics that their desires, needs and fears are heeded when decisions are made and reforms of the political-economic system are implemented. They are part of the societies of these republics, though they may not be a part of the indigenous cultures. They may not be welcome by all segments of the indigenous population, but they are there and they must be heard. This study shows why all the peoples of the Baltic republics want political and economic change. It looks at how the non-indigenous population views the changes desired by the indigenous population. It also shows how the concerns of the two populations are being dealt with in the republics. As this study is being written, the Baltic republics are not yet independent states. They are semi-autonomous republics of the Soviet Union which are seeking to reassert their lost independence. The CPSU and the central government have a stake in the reforms contemplated and implemented in the Baltic republics. If they choose to disagree with events in the republics, or actions taken by the republic governments, there are ways for them to make their displeasure known and felt, ranging from mild to drastic. The concerns of the CPSU and the central government have to be, and are, taken into account by all residents of the Baltic republics seeking change and by the governments of the Union's fifteen republics. This study shows how the changes, those occurring and those desired, affect the interests of the CPSU and the central government, and what they are doing and what they can do in response to these changes. In the physical world every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the political world every action also has a reaction, but they are not necessarily equal nor opposite. Politics is a world in constant motion, simultaneously torn and pushed in many a different direction. When one acts in the political world it is common to receive an unforeseen reaction. This study will focus on the situation and the actions of the Baltic republics and those of the CPSU and the Soviet central government. It also looks at the actions contemplated by the Baltic republics, the CPSU and the central government, and the possible reactions. I will use census data, survey data, anecdotal evidence by Balts, officials of the Baltic republics, officials of the central government, newspaper articles, and data from historical sources. CHAPTER I THEORY FOR CHANGE AND LIST OF WANTS FOR ALL SIDES All societies are forced to change by exogenous and internal factors. That is the history of man. Hunter-gatherers were forced into agriculture to sustain themselves because of population growth and the decline in the availability of the animals they had lived off of. European traders travelled farther and farther to attain spices, minerals and other exotic goods. Invaders have often sought to remake their new realms in their own image. To populate their far-flung lands, the Spanish sought to convert their new subjects into Spaniards. The Soviet Union tried to do the same thing when it captured the Baltic republics. It significantly altered the institutions, economies, and populations of the republics in order to assure continued Soviet control over them. The Baltic republics are in many ways so fundamentally different from what they were during the brief decades of independence that a complete restoration to their pre-annexation state is not an option. What then are the goals of the Baltic nationalists? The Soviet central government can only maintain its old relationship with the Baltic republics with great difficulty. Realizing this difficulty, what is it that the central government wants from the republics? The Baltic republics are no longer home to just Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians; there are now large numbers of non-indigenous, largely Russian speaking peoples living in the republics. It is not a reasonable option to repatriate these people. They also have a stake in the future of the republics. What are their goals? In this chapter I will attempt to answer that question. In order to survive they reluctantly adjust to the new circumstances, but the changes occur faster than they can be adjusted to and not all institutions are capable of reforming adequately. Some institutions, especially ones with rigid ideologies, cannot be greatly changed because fundamental changes undermine their destroy ideology. Institutions that change inadequately can become irrelevant, or even detrimental, to the needs of society. These institutions are likely to disappear or be replaced by other institutions. A form of government may no longer be useful, and it can either be replaced by chaos or a new form of government. If one applies Veblen's axiom to the Soviet Union, and specifically to the Baltic republics, the current institutional crisis becomes clear. For decades the CPSU avoided, as much as possible, adjusting their political and economic systems to new circumstances, or even to making fundamental reforms that would allow them to perform their tasks better. Since the political and economic systems grew more out of line with reality, they grew less able to perform their functions. The standard of living did not significantly improve, nor did people have any reason to feel that their political system was interested in fixing this situation. For the Balts, these systems were imposed upon them by force. That they didn't work to their benefit has made their undesirability even greater. The Soviet central government, controlled universally by the Communist Party, the CPSU, like all governments or institutions has a number of concerns and responsibilities which it, over the long run, must attend to in order to maintain its power and authority. The exact nature of a government's or an institution's responsibilities depends upon several factors. The Soviet central government has been a totalitarian institution guided by its claim of representing the interests of the proletariat through the ideology of Communism as interpreted by the rulers of the Communist Party. For decades the Communist Party, through the central government, claimed that it was building a workers paradise of prosperity and equality. One of the primary concerns of any government is its survival, the protection of its territory, institutions and resources and the continuation and increase of its authority. The foundations of a government's rule are its legitimacy, from which it derives its authority, its power to make its will felt in a territory, and the resources to pay for its programs. A church cannot exist without a congregation, but the congregation can survive without a church. The interests of an institution are ideally the interests of its members. This is rarely attained in large scale institutions, like governments, that try to play a multi-faceted role. Just as only some members of the Catholic church follow or agree with all its doctrines yet maintain their membership. Large institutions generally have staffs which are likely to have interests that may differ from those of the institutions general membership. The bureaucrats that staff governments, as well as the government's policy makers often have interests that differ from those of the general population. Members of an institution are concerned foremost about their well-being. Their allegiance is generally with those institutions from which they derive significant benefits. The larger the dichotomy is between the interests of an institution and its members the less likely it is that the membership will continue to support the institution. When the legitimacy of an institution, like a government, wanes, replacements will eventually present themselves to fill the vacuum. When a government's legitimacy wanes it is faced with a number of options. It can relinquish its power with minimal struggle, as the Czechoslovak government did at the end of 1989. It can crack down on the opposition and force the population to comply with its will, as the Chinese government did after the pro-democracy protests of 1989. It can try to compromise with or coopt the opposition by offering reforms, like the Soviet central government. By completely relinquishing their power the government also gives up any benefits it derived from ruling. For many that is to great a sacrifice and do not heed their conscience, and so governments are likely to struggle to maintain as much of their power as possible. The more apparent it becomes that the struggle to maintain power is not only hopeless but also dangerous, the more likely the government will be to relinquish power. When the authority of an institution begins to wane, and thus its ability to serve the interests of its members declines, members are likely to desert it. They will seek a replacement institution that can offer them what the old one can no longer offer. An institution must have members to exist. When the legitimacy of a institution wanes there will be any number of others seeking to take its place, to wield its power. New institutions take some time to found. Their founding is often impeded by existing institutions that see the fledgling institution as an unwanted rival. For its entire history the Soviet Union it has been governed by the CPSU, and until recently the Party's authority over the Soviet Union has been unquestioned. Any potential rival political parties or groups were crushed, their members killed, imprisoned or sent into internal or external exile. For decades this strategy seemed to serve the CPSU well. Except on a few occasions, such as in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, its authority was unquestioned. We shall see later that this strategy, largely abandoned since Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the CPSU, has become a symbol used to challenge the very authority it was designed to ensure. We shall see that instead of insuring the continued security of the CPSU's authority, the policy of maintaining power by force has come to threaten not only the CPSU but also to threaten the continued institutional security of the Soviet political and economic systems. 10 What is the purpose of an institution like a government? An institution is a tool designed to realize the ends desired by its members. Institutions often exist longer than its members. Institutions often change to better suit the goals of its membership. On the other hand, according to Thorstein Veblen, institutions are inherently conservative; they will only change if they are forced to. If an institution claims infallibility, and that its ideology is the ultimate one, then it can be even more difficult to alter the institution than is normally the case. It is not always clear to the membership that their institution is not meeting, or able to realize the desired ends. An institution must ultimately produce what is desired by its membership. An institution that fails to do this will either be discarded or altered. This process of institutional evolution is slow. The CPSU long declared that its tenets and plans were the best and most scientific of all possible tenets and plans. It regularly proclaimed its institutional infallibility. Based upon its belief in its tenets and plans, the CPSU claimed to be the one institution able to guide the people of the Soviet Union, and the rest of the world by example, to an economic and social promised land. The population would be shielded from the woes, the misfortunes and the injustices of capitalism and imperialism and would live in equality. In some cases the CPSU had to force the Soviet people to agree with the it, and in other cases the people willingly bought into the CPSU's ideology. Unfortunately for the CPSU and the Soviet population, they have not led the Soviet Union to an economic and social promised land, but to an 11 economic morass. They tried to shield Soviets from the alternative ideas of the capitalist West that they proclaimed as inherently inferior. They also shielded Soviets from the benefits and the successes of the capitalist West. A common knowledge among Soviets of the failings of the Soviet system relative to the West, and solely on its own demerits, was necessarily dangerous to the legitimacy of the CPSU. The CPSU tried to cover up the system's failings, through censorship, fictitious statistics and other methods. The CPSU could not, however, shield Soviets from the rotten fruits of their mismanagement apparent in virtually any store or cramped communal apartment, or from dreams of social justice kicked in the face by self-interested bureaucrats. The CPSU, after seventy plus years in power, has failed to adequately meet the needs of the population save for the lucky of the privileged Nomenklatura, the bureaucratic elite. With respect to the legitimacy of Soviet rule in the Baltic republics, the CPSU and the Soviet central government are to most Balts one and the same. It is conceivable that a reorganized Soviet Union along the European Community model could offer the Baltic republics prosperity and security. A muddy foot is rarely in a clean shoe. An unwelcome annexation and more than four decades of CPSU misrule has understandably made the continuation of the central government's rule over the republics odious to the Balts. Institutions that fail to meet the needs of their members are not only useless to their members but are often detrimental to their members' interests. If that is the case, then it can be in the interest of the members of an institution to rid themselves of such an institution. 12 The CPSU and the Soviet political and economic system that it designed and managed has failed to do what it promised, to create a workers paradise. It was hardly a secret to the people after wide-ranging censorship was lifted in the first years of Gorbachev's leadership that those unfortunate enough to be living in the unjust, economically inferior developed capitalist states have had a higher standard of living. For decades Estonians have been able to receive Finnish radio and television programs. Since the Estonian and Finnish languages are mutually intelligible, it was no problem for Estonians to get an idea what treats they were missing in their paradise. Over the decades, the more the failures of the CPSU and the central government it ran were recognized by the people, especially the Balts, the greater was the threat to its legitimacy. When the authority of an institution is threatened, its leadership has to act in order to maintain its position. If it fails to adapt, as it is overtaken by events it will become even more out of sync with its environment and its ability to survive will become ever more questionable. In order to ensure its continued authority within an failing institution, and the security of the perquisites its members derive from their positions, the leadership is likely to try to adapt its institution to the changes in its environment. The membership may go along with these reforms or they may decide that they are inadequate, or they may decide to replace the leadership. If the institution in this situation is a government, and the people do not agree with the reforms offered by the government leadership, then the people will take some action to replace the 13 government leadership, or if the problems are especially dire, they will choose to replace the form of government. Democracies allow for the venting of public discontent through the electoral process. In countries where there is no or limited democracy the level of public frustration can rise so high that the people will choose to replace their governmental institutions. By the mid 1980s the leadership of the Soviet Union had realized that they had arrived at a crucial point. The Union's poor economic performance made it clear that in order to save the legitimacy of the CPSU's leadership and the integrity of the Union, it was necessary to make substantial reforms to Soviet economic and political institutions. The institutional alterations, Perestroika and Glasnost, the CPSU leadership made to these institutions have been inadequate. The integrity of the Soviet Union seems to become ever more shaky, and the legitimacy of the CPSU's leadership, especially in the Baltic republics and other independence minded republics, has clearly waned. The reforms have not produced many economic benefits. They have not produced a revised governmental system agreeable to the Baltic republics and to other regions of the country. They have not been able to rid the CPSU of the stigma of its many previous failures and abuses. For decades the people were not allowed to complain and were often forced to attend demonstrations in support of political and economic systems that were less and less able to benefit them. To the Baltic republics, forced to take part in these systems, their failures have been a constant reminder, especially to the indigenous population, that they 14 hadn't welcomed these systems in the first place. It is natural that the Lithuanians, the Latvians and the Estonians would arrive at the opinion that if they re-established their own political-economic systems they might be able to do a better job than the CPSU and the Soviet central government. The forced collectivization of their agriculture and the imprisonment and deportation to Siberia of many thousands of Balts also have not endeared the CPSU and the Soviet political and economic systems to them. CHAPTER II THE BALTIC REPUBLICS: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO ANNEXATION In this chapter I will provide a short history of the Baltic republics from the end of World War I to 1940. It was during these two decades that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia won and lost their independence. In order to understand the present you must know the past. In conducting my research I have repeatedly come across parallels between their initial period of independence and their present struggle for independence. Between the two World Wars the small Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia enjoyed twenty odd years of independence. During these decades they became more urbanized, they built their societies and institutions and participated in the international community as a member of the League of Nations and in Olympic games. These were years of economic growth, years in which the destruction wreaked on them in the First World War was repaired, and years in which they lived in peace. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Balts have come to see their years of independence, to some degree, as a paradise lost, an Eden to be regained. 15 16 Each country founded democratic governments based upon generous proportional representation plans similar to those used in Italy, the Netherlands and Israel now. Unfortunately they were not able to maintain these institutions. The government of each country, in its turn, fell to mildly authoritarian dictatorships, mild at least in comparison to those of their neighbors Germany and the Soviet Union. Like the rest of the world, the republics suffered through an economic depression in the 1930s, which strained the tolerance of their societies. These authoritarian regimes based their legitimacy on the claim of protecting their countries from indigenous extremist groups of the right and left. It may not have been idyllic, but for the first time after many centuries of German, Polish, Swedish and Russian domination, the Balts were their own masters. After close to half a century of mismanagement by an uninvited Soviet central government, the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians are now seizing control of their republics, their governments, their resources and their economies in the belief that by doing so they will be able to improve their economies and their lives. It is only natural for the Balts now to look fondly on their previous, and relatively recent, experience with independence and see it as a goal and as a model for action. They see the central government as the cause of their current misery and the barrier to solving their problems, to remolding their societies after their own designs. If these years of independence, cut short by their current tormentors, the Soviet central government, are important to the Balts, what were they like? What occurred during those twenty odd years? What have 17 the Balts learned from their history? What sort of society do they seek to build for themselves? A political vacuum existed across Eastern Europe at the end of the First World War. In Russia, the Bolsheviks came to power, withdrew early from the World War and began fighting for their survival in the Civil War, struggling to extend their rule over all the former Tsar's vast empire. Bolshevik governments came to power in the Baltic capitals. Germany was then defeated on the Western Front. At the close of the war a small, independent German army roamed through the eastern Baltic fighting to gain control, for Germany, of a region which had been home since the 12th century to a powerful German population. For centuries German Junkers had ruled the Baltic countryside from large landed estates while German merchants played an influential role in the economic life of the region. In 1935 Latvia's population was only 3 percent German, most of whom lived in the cities.^- In 1871, the population 2 of Tallinn, Estonia's capital, was 34 percent German. After the First World War, the army of the fledgling, reconstituted Polish state fought the Bolshevik Red Army and the army of the new Lithuanian state over the definition of their borders. The tiny Baltic nations, the Lithuanians, the Latvians and the Estonians, long ruled by foreigners, caught between German forces and larger Polish and Bolshevik armies, successfully fought these foreign forces from their soil. The Lithuanians were able to capture their capital, Vilnius, from the Poles only to lose it soon thereafter to a 18 surprise Polish attack. Peace treaties were signed by the newly independent Baltic countries and the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union. In these treaties the Soviet Union agreed to forever relinquish all claims to the territories of the Baltic countries. Now independent, the countries embarked on a program of development of their war ravaged countries. After the World War, in the 1920s and 1930s, the economies of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, like the Soviet Union, were largely based on agriculture. According to their census of 1922, 59 percent of Estonia's workers were employed in agriculture, and 95 3 percent of these people were farmers. In 1935 agriculture employed 67.8 4 percent of Latvia's workers. Lithuania, traditionally the least developed of the three republics, had a population that was 90 percent rural in 1922.^ During the same period, in 1928, the Soviet Union's population was approximately 78 percent rural.^ In these countries industrialization was beginning to siphon people away from the farm and into the cities, as has been the experience in other parts of the world during periods of industrialization. Before the World War most Baltic farmers had worked tenant farms owned by the German Junker landlords. In Estonia and Latvia most of the farm land was owned by these large landlords. In 1919, at the beginning of independence, 58 percent of the land in Estonia belonged to only 1149 estates.^ In 1918 70 percent of Latvia's farmers did not own the land they g worked, while 48.1 percent of the land was owned by the 1338 largest 9 estates. 19 In 1919, one of the first projects of the newly independent Baltic governments was land reform. The lands of the large estates were confiscated by the governments and meted out to the tenant farmers who had worked the land. The land reform laws differed in each of the countries, but, generally, a farmer could either purchase the appropriated land outright or sign a long term lease on reasonable terms. As a result of its land reform program, Estonia appropriated and redistributed 97 percent of the land of its eleven hundred or so largest estates and created 33,438 new farms.^Latvia, through its reform program, claimed to have created 100,000 new farms.^ Though the economies of the countries were based largely on agriculture, there was a small amount of light industry, especially in Latvia and Estonia. Manufacturing had played a larger role in countries before the World War, but much of their industrial infrastructure was destroyed during the war and in the tumultuous years thereafter. While Lithuania has been the most agricultural of the three republics, Latvia has been the most industrial. In 1914 Latvia's capital, Riga, alone had four times the number of industrial workers as did the entire republic in 1924, after the war because so much of its infrastructure was destroyed. After the War Latvia rebuilt its industrial infrastructure and soon "became known for its machinery and, especially, 13 [its] electronics production." Perhaps the best example of Latvian technical prowess during these years is the tiny MINOX camera, long seen in spy movies. For its time it was the world's smallest camera, and is still highly regarded by many for the quality and innovativeness of its 20 engineering. After the Second War MINOX relocated in western Germany and continued its production. The populations of the three countries were homogeneous during the years of independence to a degree that they will likely never regain. Though Germans have lived in the area for centuries and had largely controlled the local economies, they were really only a small percentage of the populations. Russians were also a very small percentage of the population and were largely confined to rural areas bordering the Russian republic. 14 In 1934 Estonians were 89 percent of their country's population. In 1935 76 percent of Latvia's population were ethnic Latvians.^ Lithuanians made up 84 percent of their country's population in 1923.*^ Though the economies of the countries were relatively undeveloped industrially, they were also advanced socially and politically, far more so than most other Europeans, and especially Russians. This is perhaps a result of their one-time domination by Sweden and their proximity to the progressive societies of Scandinavia. Their initial constitutions were progressive. They recognized equal rights for all citizens regardless of their religion, their sex or their nationality. During the early years of independence the Baltic legislatures were elected on the basis of proportional representation. A political party received the same percentage of the seats in the legislature as they received in the election. There was no barrier above which a party needed to receive support. Their constitutions also recognized broad cultural rights for their small minority national 21 populations. The constitution of Estonia was the most beneficent culturally. Articles 12 and 21 of Estonia's 1922 constitution stated that "minority nationalities are guaranteed education in their mother tongue," and that "members of the minority nationalities. . .may form their own autonomous institutions for promotij^ of the interests of their national culture and welfare." The Estonian government even offered funding for the cultural activities of its national minorities. Latvians "prided themselves on the absence of discrimination with 18 regards to sex, religion or national origin," and like that of Estonia their constitution also recognized broad cultural rights for their national minorities. National minorities in Lithuania, according to section 73 of the republic's inter-war constitution, had the right "to autonomously administer the affairs of their national culture - public education, 19 charity, mutual aid. . ." The Balts, governing themselves for the first time in centuries, were not inclined to limit the rights of their national minorities, unlike other governments in the region. They did not seek to try to assimilate these minorities as the Russians had tried assimilate them in the 19th century. They did not outlaw the use of other languages and the free expression of other cultures living on their territories. They were generous and tolerant of their minorities. The tolerance of their minorities shown by the Balts perhaps was not an innate attribute of their cultures. It is fine for a country to 22 adopt a constitution that recognizes the civil rights of its citizens, but it is another thing to abide by it. Examples of inter-ethnic enmity from the years of independence can certainly be dredged up, but I have not encountered any substantial instances in my research that would cause me to think that interwar Baltic society was strained along national lines. The confiscation of the land of the, primarily German, landlords can be raised as an example of intolerance, but it is my belief that the issue involved in the land reforms was foremost an economic one. It can be argued that the Balts did not repress their minorities because they were not perceived as a threat since their numbers were small. Most of the other countries in the region were heterogeneous. I will show, in a later chapter that, faced with a different situation, the Balts are continuing to live by their tradition of tolerance. At the end of the 1930s, before the onset of the Second World War, most of the small, but still influential (in spite of the confiscation of the great estates), German population were pressured by Nazi Germany to leave the Baltic countries. Germany also forced Lithuania to cede a narrow peninsula along Lithuania's short coastline from the East Prussian border to Klaipeda (the German Memel), the republic's main port. This almost entirely cut off from the Baltic sea, and left it with no real port. In 1940, in accordance with the Secret Protocols of the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact, the countries were forced by Stalin to accept the basing of Soviet troops on their soil. The Balts were coerced into agreeing to their own invasion. Soon after the troops arrived the Soviet Union 23 conducted rigged elections and installed Communist governments with only sham legitimacy. Though the constitutions of the countries did not grant them this authority, the now Communist controlled puppet governments voted for the admission of their countries into the Soviet Union. According to the constitutions the authority to dissolve the state could only be exercised by the citizens through a referendum. No referendum was ever held. The annexation of the countries was also in violation of the peace treaties the Soviet Union had signed with them in the early 1920s, wherein they relinquished forever all claims to the territory of the Baltic countries. Stalin accepted the requests of the puppet governments and admitted Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia into the Soviet Union as Union republics. Soon after the annexation the Soviet Union began to arrest, execute or send off to the gulags of Siberia many of the republics' intellectuals and politicians. During much of the Second World War the republics were captured and occupied by Nazi Germany, who slaughtered most of the Jews living in the republics. Lithuania's large and vital Jewish community, centered in Vilnius (the capital was reattached to the republic after the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland) long one of the most renowned centers for Jewish culture, was rounded up and shipped off to their destruction in the concentration camps. The much smaller Jewish communities of Latvia and Estonia were also largely killed off during the War. When the Soviet Union recaptured the republics at the end of the World War, Stalin began again to decimate the intellectuals and politicians, and all who seemed to oppose the new political and economic 24 order that was being imposed. Agriculture was collectivized in the same brutal way that Stalin had used in his own country. 25 NOTES 1. Andrejs Urdze, Die Bevoelkerungsentwicklung Lettlands Unter Beruecksichtieung der Nationalen Zusammensetzung. (Cologne: Bundesinstitut fuer Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 1975), 23 2. Toivo Raun, Estonia and the Estonians. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987), 230 3. ed. Albert Pullerits, The Estonian Yearbook: 1929. (Tallinn: Estonian Government Printing Office, 1929), 82 4. Edgar Anderson, Latvia--Past and Present. (Waverly, Iowa: Latva Gramata, 1968), 461 5. E.J. Harrison, Lithuania: Past and Present. (London: T. Fischer Unwin, Ltd., 1922), 461 6. James H. Bater, The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective. (London, Edward Arnold, 1989), 86 7. The Estonian Yearbook: 1929. 82 8. The Book of Latvia, Inc., Latvia, (St. Charles, 111.: The Book of Latvia, Inc., 1984), 130 9. Dauvagas Vanagi, Lettland und die Letten. (Muenster: Dauvagas Vanagi, 1983), 13 10. The Estonian Yearbook: 1929. 83-84 11. Lettland und die Letten. 13 12. Maynard Owen Williams, "Latvia, Home of the Letts: One of the Baltic Republics Which is Successfully Working its Way to Stability," 26 National Geographic. October 1924, 402 13. Latvia. 156 14. Estonia and the Estonians. 229 15. Latvia--Past and Present. 455 16. Petras Adlys, Algirdas Stanaitis, Soviet Lithuania Population. (Vilnius: Vilnius Mintis, 1979), 70 17. The Estonian Yearbook: 1929. 28 18. Alfred Bilmanis, A History of Latvia. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 371 19. "Lithuanian Interwar Constitution" CHAPTER III SOVIET RULE It has been fifty years since the Soviet Union annexed the three Baltic republics, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. In that time the Soviet central government has made many changes to the political and economic systems of these republics, as well as their ethnic make-up. The central invested a great deal of money and effort in rebuilding the three republics after the destructions and disruptions of the Second World War. The Soviets industrialized the formerly agriculturally based economies of the republics, though the economies of Latvia and Estonia had some important industries prior to the War. The Soviets remade the political systems of the republics. They transformed their demographics. In various ways they tried to ensure their continued control over the republics. In essence they tried to squeeze the unwilling countries into a Soviet mold that never fit them well. The Balts, long uncomfortable with their position, have now begun to try to throw off the weight of the Soviet system. 27 28 In this chapter I will show how the years of Soviet rule have affected the Baltic republics. I will discuss how they were forced by the central government to develop economically, politically and demographically. At the beginning of the Second World War the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic republics, but soon lost them to the invading German armies. The war left the industries and the infrastructures of the republics in ruins. When the Soviet government regained control over the republics at the end of the war they, under the leadership of Josef Stalin, began to rebuild and reorganize the republics along the highly centralized, bureaucratic and brutal Soviet model. After the war the Soviet government collectivized the republics' many small farms in the same brutal way that Soviet agriculture was collectivized in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Baltic farmers, most of whom had come to own their land only in the 1920s, were understandably not keen on giving up their property. The central government terrorized the Balts, arresting hundreds of thousands of them and sending them off to remote Siberian camps where many died. In the first few years after the end of the War small bands of partisans hid in the woods and fought a small scale guerilla war against the Soviets. The legitimacy of Soviet rule in the Baltic republics has always been questionable. Governments imposed on a people by a foreign power are not often popular. The requests in 1940, by the fraudulently elected Communist-led Baltic governments, for admission into the Soviet Union were 29 not supported by the citizens of the three republics. According to their constitutions, the power to dissolve the state was the sole right of the people and not the government. The Soviet reorganized the Baltic republics without regard to the interests and desires of the republics' citizens. I will show that the decisions and actions of the central governments and their Baltic puppets have not served the interests of the people. The people have not had their demands and interests met by the S ovi e t gove rnment. Only in the last several years, since Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and began his programs of perestroika and glasnost, has it been possible for the Balts to make their interests and demands known without risking arrest and imprisonment. Let us now look at how the Soviet central government has transformed the Baltic republics during the last half century. The Baltic republics are a largely resource poor region. Their industries depend upon imported raw materials. Estonia does, however, have significant oil shale deposits that contribute to its energy production. Their industries rely upon a highly skilled work force. The destruction of the Second World War, the arrests and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Balts in the early postwar years and the traditionally very low Baltic birthrate have kept the indigenous population of the republics small. In its reorganization and industrialization of the Baltic republics the Soviet central government sought to take full advantage of the republics' skilled and industrious workers in such a way as to ensure their 30 continued economic and political dependency on the rest of the Soviet Union. The economic integration of countries is not necessarily unprofitable. The countries of the European Community have profited by the integration of their economies, but they chose to integrate themselves. The Baltic republics, on the other hand, were forcibly integrated into the Soviet economic and political system. Their role in the Soviet Union was not chosen freely by them, but was imposed on them by the central government without regard to the interests and desires of the Baltic republics. The economic ties between the Baltic republics and the other Union republics are not the natural product of free markets and freely made decisions based upon self-interest. They are the artificial product of the Soviet central government's decrees. Market factors like the proximity to markets and to suppliers or the availability of labor were often not the primary factors that led the central government to its decisions. The Soviet economy has been managed to realize the political interests of the Communist Party. Let us examine the case of Latvia, traditionally the most industrialized Baltic republic. Since 1945 it has become an important part of the Soviet economy. Its factories are important suppliers to the Soviet Union's transportation network. The Latvian government claimed in 1983 that the republic produces all the mainline electric passenger trains, diesel trains, as well as every second moped and milking machine, every fourth radio. .every fifth tram car. . .every 31 sixth bus. . produced in the USSR.^ Latvia's factories are also important to the Soviet economy because they produce some of the country's highest quality goods in a country where quality goods are in short supply. In a speech given during a visit to the republic in early 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev said that Soviets "have grown used to the Latvian Republic being the star in terms of consumer product 2 quality." Latvian consumer goods are not often of world quality, but they have been among the best the Soviet Union has had to offer its citizens. Latvia, though extremely important to the Soviet economy is tiny in area and in population, especially when compared to the Russian republic. Latvia's population is 2,667,000 out of a total Soviet population of more 3 than 285,000,000. Since Latvia is resource poor it is natural that its industries should rely on imported materials and foreign markets. On the other hand this has bound it to the Soviet economy like a drug addict to his supplier. According to the Latvian government "most of the [republic's] necessary energy resources, raw materials and other materials, machines 4 and equipment is received from the other union republics." Most of the goods produced with these imported materials and equipment are not consumed within the republic, but are exported to other union republics. I have been unable to find more current or systematic data showing the resource flows into the Baltic republics and have therefore relied on pre-perestroika reports by the Baltic governments. The accuracy of these reports are, unfortunately, of questionable reliability. 32 In 1984 Latvia's machine building-metal working industry imported 62 percent of its materials from union republics and exported 68 percent of its products to these republics. Its chemical industry imported 82 percent of its materials from union republics and exported 75 percent of its products to these union republics.^ Tablel.--Percent of Raw Materials Imported by Latvian Industry in 1984 Industry Percent of Materials Percent of Products Imported Exported Machine Building- 62 68 Metal Working Chemical 82 5 A larger labor supply was necessary to vastly expand the industries of the region. Depopulated by war and the mass deportations of the early postwar era, Latvia was not a land with a large and idle work force to be drawn on. To man the republic's rapid postwar industrialization and expansion, and also to greatly increase the central government's political control of the republic while decreasing the control of ethnic Latvians, tens of thousands of Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian workers were resettled in Latvia in the decades after the War. The result of the industrialization policies of the central government has been to dilute the homogeneity the republic enjoyed during its years of independence. These immigrant workers have more than replaced the over 100,000 Latvians who were deported in the early postwar years.^ 33 The central government has wrought profound demographic changes upon Latvia. The republic is no longer primarily the territory of the Latvians who now must share it, unwillingly or willingly, with people of other nationalities. In the 1970s because of their very low birthrate, the number of Latvians in the republics increased by 20,000 while the number of non-Latvians increased by 116,000.^ While Latvians were 76 percent of g their republic's population in 1935 and Russians were 10 percent, Latvians are now, according to the 1989 census, no more than 52 percent 9 of the population. Table2.--The Rural and Urban Population of Latvia Circa 1935, In ^ Percentages Latvia Urban Rural Riga Latvians 75.5 64.4 81.5 63.0 Russians, 12.0 ca. 6.8 ca. 14.4 8.5 Belorussians J ews 4.8 13.7 0.6 11.3 Germans 3.2 8.1 0.8 10.3 Others 4.5 ca. 7.0 ca. 2.7 6.9 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 Almost 80 percent of those listed as Others in the above chart were other Balts, 60 percent were Lithuanians and 18 percent were Estonians. ^ In 1935, Latvia was largely rural. Two thirds of the population lived in the countryside. Latvians were three quarters of the republic's I 34 population, though they shared the cities with many other nationalities. Latvians were 64 percent of the republic's urban population, while Jews were 14 percent, Germans were 8 percent, Russians and Belorussians were almost 7 percent and Poles were 5 percent. Riga's population was slightly less Latvian than the republic's urban average, while the countryside was significantly more Latvian than average. Most of the republic's minorities lived in its cities, except Russians and Belorussians who lived in the countryside. Some 92 percent of Jews, 82 percent of Germans, and 64 percent of Poles lived in the cities while only 22 percent of the Russians and Belorussians did so. As a result of the War Latvia has lost virtually all of its large German and Jewish populations, though the number of Germans had long been in decline. In 1897 there were 120,200 Germans in Latvia. By 1935 the number had declined to 62,100 and in 1970 there were only 5400. In 1897 there were 142,300 Jews in the republic, but by 1935 their numbers had 12 declined to 93,'500 and then to 36,700 in 1970. Latvians are no longer the majority of the population of their cities, and are barely a majority of the republic's total population. Latvians are now about 38 percent of Riga's population, down from 63 percent in 1935, while Russians are 46 percent of the city's population, up from less than 8 percent. Table 3.--Distribution of Riga's Population:1935 City Percentage of Percentage of Russians Percentage of Latvians Russians Others Riga 38 46 16 I 35 Russians are now the majority of the population in two of Latvia's six largest cities, Daugavpils and Rezekne, while Latvians are in the 13 majority in only one, Jelgava. By 1970 Latvians had dropped to 47 percent of the republic's urban population, down from 64 percent in 1935. Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians grew to 45 percent, up from less than 7 percent of the population. By 1970 Latvians were 73 percent of the rural population, down from 82 percent, while Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians were 21 percent of the rural population, up from up from 14 14 percent in 1935. Table 4.--Urban-Rural Distribution of Latvia's Population:1935 and 1970 Nationality 1935 1970 Urban Rural Urban Rural Percent of Total Percent of Total Latvians 64 82 47 73 Russians, Belorussians, 7 14 45 21 Ukrainians The combination of the immigration of Russians and Russian speaking peoples and the central government's various policies that have sought to produce a new "Soviet" man has resulted in a russification of Latvia and the other Baltic republics. German had been the primary language of business and instruction in 36 the region before the First World War. After the Second World War Russian became the dominant language.^ The central government has tried to force the indigenous populations of the Baltic republics to assimilate into "Soviet", or Russian society. After "1976 the hours of instruction in Russian in Latvian schools, from the 3rd grade on" was "greater than in Lett."^ Even research papers had to be written in Russian regardless of the writer's proficiency in the language, or the language of the intended audience.^ The percentage of books printed in Latvian fell from 88 percent in 1935 to 52 percent in 1977, while the percentage of newspapers printed 18 in Latvian fell from 71 percent to 61 percent. Table 5.--Percent of Books Printed in Latvian: 1935 and 1970 1935 1977 88 52 This decline corresponds to the decline of Latvians as a percentage in the population. It does show the decline in the dominance of Latvians in their republic and shows how effective the central government has been at gaining control over Latvia. By 1977 three of the republic's four television stations were broadcasting in Russian and the other station 19 broadcast in both Russian and Latvian. Even Latvian choirs and dance troupes have not been exempt from i I 37 Russification. Professional and amateur troupes had to include not only political and ideological pieces but also Russian pieces in their repertoires._ . 20 It is understandable that Latvians should now feel that their republic has been taken away from them. It is understandable that they feel that the Soviet central government has not only not represented them but has worked against Latvian cultural interests. In 1978 then Latvian Communist Party First Secretary Augusts Voss summed up the situation in his republic. Latvians have lost all control over their political destiny. What is probably even more frustrating and debilitating is that they have to participate in turning the wheels of an alien industry which may2 ^ 1 timately bring about the destruction of their own nation. Estonia has experienced the same significant changes as Latvia. It has been industrialized and become more urban in the years of Soviet rule. The percentage of the republic's population involved in agriculture dropped from 59 percent in 1922 to 13 percent in 1978. In 1986 the22 industrial and construction sectors of the economy were 68 percent of its 23 Gross National Product (GNP) while only 19 percent came from agriculture. The republic's population grew from 27 percent urban a in 1984.24 Table 6.--Urban and Rural Population of Estonia in Percentages 26 27 1922 1984 Urban 27.2 71.3 Rural 72.8 28.7 38 Estonia's economy, like Latvia's, became highly integrated into the Soviet economy. The republic's industries are highly dependent upon the raw materials of other union republics and upon these republics as markets for Estonian goods. The republic's industries import 45 percent of their materials from other union republics, while most of the goods produced by its 28 industries are exported to other republics. Its chemical industry 29 exports 60 percent of its products. Estonia exports 85 percent of [precision] instruments, 90 percent of electrical motors, 87 percent of excavators, S^percent of cable products and 68 percent of oil equipment they produce. In all they export 40 percent of their gross industrial output.- - 31 Estonia has a small territory and a small productive population. According to the 1989 census its population is 1,565,662, even smaller 32 than Latvia's. Estonia's population was also decimated by the Second World War and the mass deportations of tens of thousands of its citizens in the postwar years. The industrialization of the republic was largely fueled by workers, primarily Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians, imported by the central government. As a result of this immigration, and the very low Estonian birthrate, the republic has lost its prewar homogeneity. Once 89 percent of the republic's population in 1934, Estonians are now no more than 62 percent.- 33 39 Most non-Estonian live in the republic's cities. In 1984 Estonians were 55 percent and Russians were 37 percent of the urban population. "^In Tallinn, the republic's capital, Estonians were 86 percent in 1934 while Russians were 6 percent of the population. By 1979 Estonians had dropped to 52 percent while Russians had risen to 34 percent of the 35 city's population. Table 7.--Population of Tallinn in Percentages 1871 1934 1979 Estonians 52 86 52 Russians 11 6 34 Others 37 8 12 • This decline in the Estonian character of Tallinn must be looked at from a historical viewpoint. Before the Soviet annexed their republic, Estonians were not always the overwhelming majority of their capital's 36 population. In 1871 Tallinn's population was only 52 percent Estonian, while Germans were 34 percent and Russians were 11 percent of the population. This is similar to the situation in the capital today; only the relative size of the minorities have changed. Though Estonia's economy has become highly integrated into the Soviet economy, there is little interaction between Estonians and the non-Estonians. In most aspects of life the two groups live separately, in the workplace and at home. In general the non-Estonians are concentrated 40 in the lower paying j obs. Estonians are now little more than 20 percent of the republic's 37 construction workers. Most of the policemen are non-Estonians, perhaps because policemen were seen by Estonians as tools of an occupying power. In some years there have been no Estonians enrolled in the 38 Tallinn Police School. According to Aleksander Nedosekin, vice-chairman of a collective fishery, a Russian--Tallinn is developing in the form of new micro boroughs. .There are areas that are virtually all-Russian or all-Estonian. .There is nowhere for people to socialize-there aren't enough clubs or movie theaters. This separation of ethnic groups is in part a product of the small number of Estonia's national minorities fluent in Estonian. It has been the policy of the central government to foster inter-ethnic communication in the Russian language only. The central government has only had marginal success in teaching Russian to the Soviet Union's many non-Slavic nations. According to the 1989 Census, only 34 percent of Estonians and 38 percent of Lithuanians are fluent in Russian. Latvians are best able to speak Russian among all major Soviet ethnic groups. Some 64 percent 40 of Latvians can speak Russian fluently. Table 8.--Percentage of Balts fluent in Russian Estonians 34 Lithuanians 38 Latvians 64 It is difficult for two communities to interact without a means of 41 communication, so it is understandable that Estonians and non-Estonians should live apart. Table 9 -Distribution of Fluency in Estonian of the Four Largest Minority 41 National Populations Residing in Estonian SSR, 1989 % of Total % of Pop. Fluent Nationality Republic Pop. in Estonian Russians 30.3 13.7 Ukrainians 2.3 6.9 Belorussians 1.5 6.1 Finns 1.1 33.3 Since Estonian and Finnish languages are mutually intelligible, it is surprising that only one third of Finns living in the republic are fluent in Estonian. The languages are close enough that for decades Estonians have been able to watch and understand Finnish television. The central government has done nothing to help the two communities come together. There has been little effort to teach Estonian to non-Estonians. In Estonia "there are not enough teachers 42 to instruct even Estonian children in their native language." it's hard to find a simple easy-to-use self-instruction manual in the Estonian language, a book from which one could learn the raiments of communication without the help of an instructor. It is therefore not surprising that vast majority of non-Estonians are not 42 fluent in Estonian. The central government has made it difficult for the Balts, and for most other non-Russians, to work in their own language. In a highly centralized country where the central government proscribed the production of virtually all products there is virtually no place to buy typewriters based on the alphabets of our national republics. People buy other typewriters and adapt them. And in Latvia and Litjjjiania there aren't even typewriters that can be adapted. Lithuania's experience in the decades since the Second World War has been similar to Latvia's and Estonia's. The republic has been industrialized by the central government, though not to as great a degree as Latvia and Estonia. In 1976 the republic's population was 45 still 43 percent rural. Though Lithuania's economy is still largely based on agriculture, industry has become important. The republic's industries are now important to the Soviet economy, though its population is only 3,711,000. They, for example, produce "a considerable part of the Soviet-made precision 46 metal-working machines, electric welding equipment and drills." Lithuania did not experience mass immigrations of Russian speaking peoples, like Estonia and Latvia. Though the republic has been industrialized, it has not been industrialized to as great a degree as the other Baltic republics, thus there was not as great a demand for labor. Though its population also was decimated during the Second World War and the mass deportation of its citizens during the early postwar years, they have been able to retain their prewar homogeneity. 43 Lithuanians are still close to 80 percent of their republic's population.• 47 Although the Baltic republics were forced to join the Soviet Union, and have had only a limited role in the direction their economies and their political systems have developed, they have become the Soviet Union's most prosperous and productive region. They have also become the most adamant about leaving the Union, about establishing their own political and economic systems. If they have been so successful in the Soviet system, why would they wish to leave. People tend to continue with what has been successful for them. They may tinker about trying to perfect their methods, but they will rarely abandon what has served them well if they are satisfied with their successes. Only if they feel that they are not as successful as they see as possible are people likely to abandon their methods for an improved one. There are clear historical and cultural reasons why the Balts are working to regain control over their republics. They rightly feel that the central government not only cares little for the survival of their national identities but has actively worked to dissolve them into the far larger Russian culture. In spite of their relative prosperity, there are also economic reasons behind their goals. By comparing their economies and standards of living with those of Western Europe and in particular their neighbor Finland, it is clear that the Balts have been economically shackled by their integration into the Soviet economic system. Ideally an economic system is a tool by which a population can provide itself with prosperity. Political systems, and the 44 governments that administer them, are responsible for the administration of the economic system and the security of the population. If a government fails to perform these functions satisfactorily, the people will in time become frustrated with the government and seek to replace it according to the customs of the country. If the problems afflicting a country are systemic, and not just the fault of the government in power, then the people will in time seek to reform or replace their malfunctioning economic and or political systems depending on the severity of the problems. If a country's political and economic systems are performing satisfactorily, then the people will not seek to change them, except to make them perform even better than they are already doing. It would not be to their benefit to make any fundamental reforms since such reforms may damage the system. Clearly the Soviet political economic and political system has not benefitted the Soviet Union, even the relatively prosperous Baltic republics. The current Soviet economic crisis is a product of decades of mismanagement based upon their faulty economic and political systems. As noted earlier the Baltic republics have become highly integrated into the Soviet economy. Most of the necessary energy resources, raw materials and other materials, machijjgs and equipment is received from the other union republics. This integration has been vertical. Most economic decisions have been made by the government's central ministries, located in Moscow, that has controlled the different parts of the Soviet economy. There has been 45 little coordination between these ministries. There has also been little local control over economic development. The Baltic republics have had very little control over their economies. For example, centralization has now gone so far that 90% of the economic potential of Estonia. .is under administration of Union and Union-republic ministries. This vertical integration served the central government in two ways. It made the Soviet Union's constituent republics dependent upon the central government and its ministries for the materials its industries need. It also allowed the central government to exercise considerable political and economic control over the republics. Whatever the military and police strength of a government, its power is ultimately only as strong as its legitimacy, the acceptance by its authority by the people it governs of its decisions and actions, is solid. People will only support a government to the degree that believe it is in their interest to. The Baltic republics have the highest standard of living in the Soviet Union. They have benefitted most from the faulty Soviet economic system. How much greater is it than the rest of Union? In many ways their standard of living is substantially greater than those of the other republics, particularly those in Central Asia which lag far behind the rest of the Union. It is as if West Berlin were annexed to Poland. The Baltic republics are an island of modest prosperity at the edge of a vast economic morass. One of the Soviet Union's many economic failings is that it has not 46 been able to provide an adequate supply of housing to its citizens. Many people continue to live in communal apartments, and even those who have their own apartment live in cramped poorly constructed and maintained quarters and have little opportunity to move. Estonia has perhaps the best housing supply situation in the Soviet Union. According to the USSR State Statistics Committee, residents of Tallinn average more living space per capita than residents of the rest of the Soviet Union. They have "18.3 square meters of total space and 11.8 square meters of living space, per person," which is more than average total space enjoyed by the residents of Moscow, Riga, Kiev, Vilnius, Tiblisi, Ashkhabad and Yerevan.^ In Estonia there are fewer people waiting for an apartment than in most other places in the Soviet Union, except Moscow. As of September 1988 16 percent of the families in Tallinn were waiting for an apartment, while in Moscow only 12 percent of families were waiting, in Minsk 28 percent were waiting and in Kishinev 32 percent were still waiting. Owning a car, though common in the Western Europe and in the United States, and ubiquitous in Southern California, is uncommon in the Soviet Union. The rate of car ownership in the Baltic republics, though not great by Western standards, is, however, far greater than in the rest of the Soviet Union. According to the USSR State Planning Committee, the national average for car ownership is 45 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. Lithuanian, with 93 cars per 1000 people, and Estonia, with 96 per 1000, have rates more than twice the Soviet average, and more than three times the rate in Azerbaijan, where the rate is only 30 per 1000. Georgia, 47 with 71 per 1000, has the highest rate of car ownership outside the Baltic republics. Russia's rate of car ownership, 44 per 1000, is slightly below the Soviet average and less than half that of Lithuania and Estonia. 52 Table 10.--Cars Per 1,000 Inhabitants Soviet Average 45 Lithuania 93 Latvia 81 Estonia 96 Russia 44 Ukraine 46 Belorussia 39 Georgia 71 Moldavia 33 Armenia 56 Kazakhstan 39 Azerbaijan 30 Kirgizia 34 Turkmenistan 46 Tadzhikistan 35 Uzbekistan The Baltic republics have higher rate standard of living than the rest of the Soviet Union simply because their economies are more productive and efficient than the Soviet average. Bred and reared in the centralized Soviet command economic system, the Baltic economies have prospered at the edge of what the Soviet system can provide. The economic efficiency of production in the Estonian SSR is already higher than the USSR average. . .the per capita volume if industrial production is by 38 per cent and the labour productivity in industry by 20 per cent higher. . .the gross per capita agricultural produce is by 59 per cent and the labour productivity in^griculture 2.3 times higher than" is the Soviet average. 48 According to the work of Itzchok Adirim, though the Baltic republics have the highest standard of living in the Soviet Union, their 54 economic relationship with the Union has not been to their benefit. Not only are the economies of the Baltic republics more prosperous than the rest of the Soviet Union, but for years the gap has been widening. Adirim shows that from 1961 to 1984 the national income of the Baltic republics, their tons of freight transported by rail, their gross industrial and gross agricultural production increased faster than the Soviet average. The economic gap between the Baltic republics and the rest of the Soviet Union is to a large degree a result of the greater productivity of workers in the republics in all areas of their economies. It is in agriculture that the Baltic republics are the most productive. Their experience with private farming is more recent than most of the rest of the Soviet Union. Most of the tens of thousands of imported workers were brought in to staff the new factories rather than the newly collectivized farms, thus leaving substantial numbers of indigenous farmers or farm laborers in the agricultural sector of the economy. During the pre-Gorbachev years of stagnation, from 1965 to 1984, Baltic labor productivity in the industrial sector of their economies was higher than the Soviet average. From 1965 to 1984 the productivity of Baltic agricultural workers on both state (Sovkhoz) and collective (Kolkhoz) farms was substantially higher than the Soviet average. From 1975 to 1984, for example, the productivity of Estonian agricultural workers was at least 2.5 times the Soviet average. In 1965 the productivity of Lithuanian Sovkhoz farms was 14 percent lower than the Soviet average, but since then their productivity has risen to 21 percent above average. In 1984 Latvian agricultural workers were more than 50 percent more productive than the Soviet average. Estonian agricultural workers were 162 percent more productive than the Soviet average. Table 11.--Productivity of Baltic Workers in Comparison to the Soviet Average: 1965-1984 (USSR-100) 1965 1984 1965 1984 Industry Agriculture (State/Collective Farm) Estonia 106 114 173/198 262/267 Latvia 103 108 117/134 161/164 Lithuania 101 104 86/105 121/154 While the Baltic republics are more productive than the rest of the Soviet Union, Adirim shows that they have not benefitted commensurate with their productivity. Table 12.--Monthly Wages for Baltic Workers in Comparison to the Soviet Average: 1965-1984 (USSR-100) 1965 1984 1965 1984 Industry Agriculture (State/Collective Farm) Estonia 103 110 105/130 138/180 Latvia 97 101 90/105 117/134 Lithuania 94 99 80/ 96 99/116 50 People in the Baltic republics have larger apartments and a higher rate of car ownership than other Soviets, but according to the level of their productivity they should be even better off than they are. Some of their high standard of living is a result of the more advanced economic development they had achieved before the Soviet Union annexation of the republics. In spite of their greater productivity, according to Adirim, only in Lithuania has the annual average increase in housing construction been greater than the Union average. Housing construction in Estonia and Latvia has lagged behind the Union average. For the central government the decision to invest in poorer republics is understandable. The Baltic republics did not willingly join the Union, and.since they have received their budgets and instructions from the central government, they have not had a say in how the results of their labor is distributed. The wage-productivity differential for Baltic industrial workers is small. Estonia's industrial workers were 14 percent more productive than the Soviet average, yet their average monthly wages were 10 percent greater the the average in 1984. Latvia's workers were 8 percent more productive than average, but their wages were only 1 percent greater than average. Lithuanian workers were 4 percent more productive than average, but their wages were slightly below average. Baltic agriculture workers fared much worse than industrial workers, even though they generally earned far more than the Soviet average. Estonia's state farm workers have been the most grossly underpaid. They were 162 percent more productive than the Soviet average 51 in 1984, but their wages were only 38 percent greater than average. Latvia's workers were 61 more productive than average but received wages that were only 17 percent greater than average. Lithuanian workers were 21 percent more productive than average, but they were paid slightly less than average wages. Table 13.--Relationship Between Labor productivity and Wages in the USSR and in the Baltic Republics (USSR=100), 1984 55 Labor Average Monthly Productivity Wages Industry Estonia 114 110 Latvia 108 101 Lithuania 104 99 Agriculture (State Farms) Estonia 262 138 Latvia 161 117 Lithuania 121 99 Agriculture (Collective Farms) Estonia 267 180 Latvia 164 134 Lithuania 154 116 Estonian collective farm workers were 167 percent more productive than the Soviet average, but they only received wages that were 80 percent greater than average. Latvia's workers were 64 percent more productive than average but were paid 34 percent more than average. Lithuanian workers were 54 percent more productive than average, yet were only paid 16 percent more than average. The economies of the Baltic republics are in much better shape than those of the other Union republics, yet they still are not healthy. It is not surprising that since Baltic workers are more productive than other Soviet workers, relatively few of their enterprises should have been declared insolvent under the enterprise self-financing laws that Gorbachev has initiated. Table 14.--Number of Enterprises Declared Insolvent as of 1 January 1989^ USSR Total 1167 RSFSR 310 Ukraine 320 Belorussia — Uzbekistan 116 Kazakhstan 241 Georgia 58 Azerbaij an 51 Moldavia 16 Kirgizia 9 Taj ikistan 16 Armenia 10 Turkmenistan 18 Lithuania Latvia 1 Estonia 1 It may be that the policy of enterprise self-financing has been more thoroughly implemented in Russia, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and thus they had such high numbers of enterprises declared 53 insolvent. On the other hand the enterprises of these republics may be less efficient and productive than those of other republics. Of the 1167 enterprises that were declared insolvent only one was from Latvia, one was from Estonia, while none was reported in Lithuania. These republics, with such a high rate of enterprise insolvencies, also have far larger populations than the small Baltic republics. However, the percentage of the total number of insolvencies that occurred in the Baltic republics is far smaller than their percentage of the total Soviet population. Their total population is 7,944,000, while the total for the Soviet Union is 286,717,000. The Baltic republics are 2.8 percent of the country's total population, but their insolvent enterprises were less than 0.2 percent of the Soviet total. ^ 54 NOTES 1. Raitis Nadzins, Latvian SSR. (Riga: "Avots" Publishers, 1983), 5 2. Mikhail Gorbachev, Restructuring is Carried Out by the People. (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1987), 17 3. Rahva Haal. 19 September, 1989, 2 4. Latvian SSR. 8 5. The Book of Latvia, Inc., Latvia. (St. Charles, 111.: The Book of Latvia, Inc., 1984), 216 6. Andrejs Urdze, Die Bevoelkerungsentwicklung Lettlands Unter Beruecksichtipunp der Nationalen Zusammensetzung. (Cologne: Bundes-Institut fuer Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 1975), 23 7. Latvia. 212 8. Rahva Haal. September 19, 1989, 2 9. Die Bevoelkerungsentwicklung Lettlands UnterBeruecksichtigung der Nationalen Zusammensetzung. 23 10. ibid., 25 11. ibid., 23-25 12. ibid., 23 13. Imants Lasinkis, "The Fallacy of the 'Soviet Nationality'", Occupied Latvia Today. (Muenster: Center for Latvian Studies, 1987), 23 14. Die Bevoelkerungsentwicklung Lettlands Unter_Beruecksichtigung der 55 Nationalen Zusammensetzung. 31 15. Juris Ozols, "Life in Soviet Latvia", Occupied Latvia Today. (Muenster: Center for Latvian Studies, 1987), 12 16. Davagas Vanagi, Lettland und die Letten. (Muenster, Davagas Vanagi, 1983), 26 17. Latvia. 213 18. ibid. 19. ibid. 20. Lettland und die Letten. 26 21. Latvia, 216 22. Edgar Tonurist, Agriculture in Soviet Estonia. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1978), 8-9 23. E. Vanatoo, Estonian SSR: A Reference Book. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1987), 13 24. Toenu Parming and Elmar Jaervesoo, A Case Study of a Soviet Republic: The Estonian SSR. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), 29 25. Toivo Raun, Estonia and the Estonians. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987), 230 26. A Case Study of a Soviet_Republic: The Estonian SSR. 29 27. Estonia and the Estonians. 230 28. Perioodika, A Thousand and One Facts About Soviet Estonia. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1977), 109 29. ibid., 110 30. Karl Vaino, Soviet Estonia: Yesterday. Today and Tomorrow. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1977), 110 31. Rahva Haal, 19 September, 1989, 2 32. A Thousand and One Facts About Soviet Estonia. 110 33. Rahva Haal, Tallinn, 19 September 1989, 2 34. Estonia and the Estonians. 230 56 35. ibid. 36. ibid. 37. B. Matveyev, Sovetskava Estonia. 18 December, 2 38. ibid. 39. G. Ovcharenko and V. Shirokov, Pravda, 9 February 1989, 3 40. Rahva Haal. Tallinn, 19 September 1989, 2 41. ibid. 42. L. Levitsky, Izvestia. 19 October 1988, 2 43. G. Ovcharenko and V. Shirokov, Pravda. 9 February 1989, 3 44. L. Levitsky, Izvestia. 3 September 1988, 2 45. Petras Adlys and Algirdas Stanaitis, Soviet Lithuania Today. (Vilnius: Vilnius Mintis, 1979), 37 46. Jonas Pocius, Present Dav Lithuania in Figures. (Vilnius: Gintaras Vilnius, 1971), 35 47. Latvian SSR. 8 48. Rahva Haal. Tallinn, 19 September 1989, 2 49. V. Karotyeve, L. Perepelkin and Prof. 0. Shkaraton, Kommunist, October 1988, 22-23 50. V. Tolstov, Izvestia. 19 October 1988, 2 51. ibid. 52. V. Tolstov, Izvestia. 14 August 1988, 2 53. Velio Tarmisto, "Conceptual Basis for the Development of the Production Forces," Estonia: Nature. Man. Economy. (Tallinn: Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR, Estonian Geographical Society, 1984), 101 54. Itzchok Adirim, "Realities of Economic Growth and Distribution in the Baltic States," Journal of Baltic Studies. Vol. XIX, No. 1 1989, 49-58 55. ibid. 57 56. Ekonomicheskava Gazeta. 11 November 1989, 15 57. Ann Sheehy, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR. 19 May 1989, 3 CHAPTER IV ECONOMIC CENTRALISM AND THE BALTIC REPUBLICS In this chapter I will examine how the Soviet centrally planned economic system has worked in the Baltic republics. I will show how the Baltic republics have become economically dependent on the other Soviet republics for the raw materials used by their industries and for markets for their goods. I will show how the Soviet Union has made itself dependent on the goods produced by the Baltic republics, and thereby have made themselves vulnerable to economic disruption in the republics. I will look at Baltic attitudes toward their economic system, especially their attitudes concerning their integration into the Soviet economy and their dependency upon the central government. Finally I will look at how the Baltic republics seek to change their economic and political relationship with the Soviet Union. An economic system, like any institution, must meet the needs and satisfy the desires of the population. All institutions are not equally wrong, and the Soviet economic system is more wrong than most. If an 58 59 economic system fails to work adequately, the people subjected to its inadequacies will eventually seek to improve or replace it in order to reap the benefits of a better system. The Soviet centrally planned economic system has neither met the needs nor satisfied the desires of the Baltic and other republics adequately. As shown in an earlier chapter, the economies of the Baltic republics have become highly integrated into the Soviet economy in the last forty-five years. This high degree of economic integration has made the Baltic republics and the entire Soviet Union interdependent. They are interdependent in ways that have made the Soviet economy more susceptible to dislocation than if they had had a market economy where economic development was largely locally planned rather than planned by the central government based upon political as well as economic concerns. The case of the Sloka Pulp and Paper Plant is an excellent example of the integration of Baltic industrial enterprises and the interdependence of the Baltic republics and the Soviet Union. It also is an example of how vulnerable Soviet central planners have made the Soviet economy to dislocations. In the Soviet economic system many enterprises are the sole Soviet producer of the particular good that they produce. If, for some reason, an enterprise that is the sole producer of a good not easily substituted in the Soviet economy can no longer produce its good, then the effects on the Soviet economy can be dire. During normal times the Soviet economy can reap benefits from the large scale production at a single enterprise of a 60 good. It is generally cheaper to produce goods in large lots rather than small lots. The chain of events began in the last half of 1988 with a move by the concerned people of the Latvian town of Jurmala, a resort frequented by the Soviet elite, to close the Sloka Pulp and Paper Plant, a notorious local polluter. Despite decades and reams of Soviet propaganda which proclaimed the cleanliness of Soviet industry, many Soviet enterprises produce a lot of pollution. Pollution control devices are generally expensive, and until recently the concerns of populations near polluting enterprises could most often be ignored by polluting enterprises. Protesters could expect some form of government persecution. They could lose their job or be arrested and jailed. There was little incentive for enterprises to reduce their pollution. In the last few years, since censorship was largely lifted and the political system was liberalized, the central government has allowed special interest groups to form. Some of these interest groups, concerned with environmental issues, have become influential in many regions of this highly polluted country. For a long time Latvian environmentalists have been concerned about the pollution produced by the Sloka Plant. By early January 1990 the environmentalists were able to convince the Latvian Supreme Soviet to close the Sloka Plant. The Plant was soon closed by the local authorities and the effects of the closure quickly began to ripple through the Soviet economy. 61 When it was closed in the middle of January, the Sloka Pulp and Paper Plant stopped producing the 90,000 metric tons of pulp and paper products that it had produced each year and its 6,000 workers were laid off. These were just the initial effects. The thousands of unemployed workers were forced to look for work elsewhere in an era of increasing economic disruption in Latvia and the rest of the Soviet Union. Also, the consumers of the tens of thousands of metric tons of pulp and paper products were forced to look for substitutes or go without. Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians, migrants by the hundreds of thousands to the tiny Latvian republic during the last forty-five years, are a disproportionately large share of the Latvia's industrial workers thus it is likely that many of these 6,000 workers are non-Latvians.^ Latvia's consumption of paper products has been between 115,000 and 120,000 metric tons per year, not much more than the Sloka Plant's total production, however most of it has not been produced by the plant. The plant was a producer of highly specialized paper products used by enterprises across the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for the Soviet economy, the Sloka Plant was the only enterprise in the entire Soviet Union that made such products as disposable tableware, like paper plates and cups. Soviet picnickers would be disappointed come summer. It was the only plant where cover paper for magazines and books was made. Soviets magazines and books would become less attractive. It was the sole producer of certain types of wrapping paper and nutrient yeast for the agriculture industry. Finally, but most 2 importantly, it was the sole producer of computer punch card paper. 62 Soon after the closing of the Sloka Plant, .the USSR Council of Ministers sees no possibility of resolving the problem of supplying the national economy with these types of paper, in view of the pulp shortage amounting to some 500,000 tonnes. This will entail the cessation at a number of enterprises in the country, with the loss of a total of production of more than R 1 billion, as well as the need to restrict consumption of paper products in Latvia to 35-40 percent. Most Soviet computers would have long been considered obsolete in the West. They still rely on punch cards, something that was phased out more than a decade ago in the West. Because the Sloka Plant was closed, Soviet computing centers were threatened by the cut off their supply of punch cards. The central government estimated that 1,400 extra accountants would 4 be needed to do the work formerly done by computer. All this because of the closing of one plant. The plant can at least be reopened, perhaps after pollution control devices have been installed. If the plant had burned down, the consequences would have been even more dire for the Soviet economy. In response to the plant closing the Soviet central government restricted shipments of paper products to Latvia. The republic now had to get by with a consumption of between 40,000 and 48,000 metric tons per year down from the previously mentioned levels of between 115,000 and 120,000 metric tons. Gosplan has stopped shipping all types of printing paper to Latvia so as to export that paper formerly used by Latvia in order to earn hard currency to import^the types of paper formerly produced by the Sloka plant. For several days after the plant closing, newspapers had to stop printing, and it looked like they were only going to be able to publish 63 weekly. Eventually they were able to resume daily publishing, but had to take steps to economize their use of paper.^ Besides the central government's embargo on printing paper shipments, some republics took reciprocal actions. Lithuania, for example, stopped supplying Latvia with packaging cardboard. Moldavia stopped shipping consumer goods and the Ukraine stopped shipping something reported as "metallurgical output" to the republic.^ Most of the republic's energy resources, raw materials, machines and equipment are, as , . 8 , shown earlier, imported from other union republics, thus it is not only the Soviet computing centers that are susceptible to disruptions of vital supplies. As noted earlier, Latvia produces all the Soviet Union's mainline electric passenger and diesel trains, half the mopeds and milking machines, a quarter of the radios, about 20 percent of the trolley cars 9 and about 16 percent of the busses. The Soviet Union is highly dependent upon rail transportation for shipping goods across its vast territory, and Soviet transportation is highly dependent upon the output of Latvia's factories. If the supplies of raw materials needed by Latvia's industries are cut off, then it will not only be Latvians who suffer; it will be the entire Soviet Union. This assumes that substitutes for Latvian goods are not available to the Soviets. From the closing of a paper plant by Latvian environmentalists to the paralyzing of Soviet computing centers to publishing restrictions for Latvian newspapers to restrictions on the supply of inputs to Latvian 64 factories to, potentially, the inability of Latvian factories to supply the Soviet transportation system with trains, this chain of events displays the susceptibility of the Soviet economy to disruptions. It is not only the disruption of production in Latvia that can cripple the Soviet economy. Estonia, as shown earlier, is a big producer of Soviet precision instruments, electrical motors, excavators and some types of oil equipment.^Lithuania produces much of the Soviet Union's precision metal-working machines, electric welding equipment and drills.^ It is easy to see how an embargo of the Baltic republics that would affect the operation of their industries could seriously affect the rest of the Soviet economy. The Baltic republics are not only an important supplier, but often they are the only supplier of certain products to the Soviet economy. Their workers are also, as shown earlier, significantly more productive than other Soviets. Thus, it is in the best interest of the Soviet central government to insure the continued operation of the Baltic industries. They may attempt to apply various forms of economic pressure on the Baltic republics, such as embargoes on the shipment of some goods, but there are great disincentives to any economic actions that would greatly disrupt the Baltic economies. The people of the Baltic republics have the highest standard of living in the Soviet Union. They have thrived in the centralized economic system, at least relative to other regions, yet they do not like the system and wish to divorce themselves from it. Though they have done better than other Soviet republics, they have 65 not done well by world standards, and especially in comparison to their Scandinavian and West European neighbors. The Finns and the Estonians were at the same economic level before the Second World War. Now, because they have lived under different economic systems for the last forty-five years, the Finns, who have had their independence, are far ahead of the Estonians. The Balts would like to have an even higher standard of living. It is clear from Adirim's work, noted earlier, that if they had been compensated at a rate equal to the level of their productivity they would have it. Central planning is seen by the Balts as a main obstacles that stands in the way of a better life. Indrek Toome, the first secretary of the Estonian Communist Party, said in August of 1988 that The main obstacle for us today is the fact that Union ministries and departments largely continue to dictate economic policy without regard to the republic's interests. .One has to trust the republics. . .Unfortunately we're failing to keep pace with people's and rank-and-file Party members' understanding of restructuring. We must cooperate with the People^ Front; we need it where restructuring is impeded. The Estonian Party leadership clearly recognized the desire for reform felt in their republic. They also knew that their political futures depended upon satisfying the public's demands. The amount of planning in the hands of the central government was truly large. The problem of central planning has existed at all levels of government. From settlements to cities, to republic's budgets have been dictated by the central government. Local governments have not had their source of revenue. All revenues have been allotted by the central government. According R. Ostason, chairman of the Estonian branch of 66 Gosplan, the central government's planning bureaucracy, For example, we have to coordinate with Moscow the amount of housing, schools, and day-care centers to be built, and the amount of permissible outlays for running them. When requests from the field are accepted, J^e republics are "given as a gift" some of their own proceeds. It is understandable that in Estonia there is much resentment and indignation caused by central planning, since it has often curbed their economic growth and has often been taken, by the central government, to tremendous levels. As a pair of Estonian journalists described the situation, .things are becoming ridiculous-in our republic we are not entitled to fix the price of a movie ticket, a cake recipe, or the cost of a jar of T^Llinn sprats. This overcentralization angers people. In Latvia the state of the economy and central planning is also an important issue to the people. In a 1978 speech given by Augusts Voss, the then first secretary of the Latvian Communist Party, as quoted earlier, it was noted that Latvians had lost control over their destiny and that What is probably even more frustrating and debilitating is that they have to participate in turning the wheels of an alien industry which may ultimat^y bring about the destruction of their own nation. Not only has the central government controlled the budgets of governments at all levels, but they have also controlled virtually all the enterprises within the republics. As of 1 January 1988 the Latvian government controlled only 5.5 percent of the enterprises in the republic, while 63.4 percent were controlled directly by the central government and 31.1 percent were under joint union-republic control}^ In Lithuania, whose economy is still largely agricultural, the 67 central government controlled enterprises that produced 40 percent of the republic's total output while controlling 50 percent of the republic's „ 17 assets. There has been much resentment and indignation in Lithuania caused by central planning and its micromanagement, especially when taken by the government to ridiculous extremes. How long is some Ivan Petrovich in office no. 421 going to decide whether or not a public toilet should be built^jn some Lithuanian city whose name he can't even pronounce? J.P. Kubilius, the rector of Vilnius State University, wondered when he was asked about his opinion of the Soviet central planning system. Representatives from the three Baltic republics met in late September 1988 in Riga to discuss and coordinate plans for shifting their republics away from central planning to local planning and control. A product of this conference was the agreement, the Coordinated Basic Principles of Republic Economic Accountability. According to the Basic Principles an economically accountable republic should have the right to own and control its property. A republic's resources and its territorial waters should be its property. A republic should control all its enterprises, organizations, farms, banks and its transportation, communication and power networks. All enterprises in a republic should be subject to taxation by the republic. A republic should pay from out of its own budget a sum to the central government for the support of the central government's all-union functions. A republic should make all decisions concerning its internal economic, social and political matters as well as its foreign trade. A republic should control its banking system and the 68 circulation of money. Finally, the Constitution of the USSR should be changed to make economic accountability possible, the economic 19 self-reliance of the republics. This program was nothing less than a blueprint for economic and political independence for the Baltic republics. If all the points were implemented, then the republics would only nominally be part of the Soviet Union. The central government would have little real control over the management of the republics. During the year after the conference the Baltic republics continued their work and drafted plans and legislation for their moves to full economic accountability. The acronym for Estonia's plan is IME, which in Estonian stands for Economically Accountable Estonia. It is also happens to be the Estonian word for miracle. According to IME the Estonia's have "set their sights high, measuring themselves against the social and economic indicators of 20 the rich Scandinavian countries." The IME plan, like the plans of the other Baltic republics, conforms to the "Basic Principles." Estonia, however, has a long way to go to reach that goal. The average life span for those living in the republic is 8 years shorter 21 than for those in Sweden, and 5 years shorter than in Finland. To the central government in Moscow the Estonians, and the other Balts, argued that, "A union of republics is economically strong only when it is made up of economically strong republics. There is no other 22 choice." "Only economic accountability will in time help surmount 23 mismanagement in all its manifestations.” 69 According to the Estonian State Planning Committee, The semi-reforms and half-completed experiments in the USSR, including Estonia, have produced no marked results. Nothing more is to be expected of the economy with its present structure. Everyone understands that uj^ess radical steps are taken today it will get even worse. The IME plan recognizes that Western businessmen interested in investing in Estonia will primarily be interested in gaining access to the Soviet Union's vast potential market. Estonia realizes that its relationship with the central government should continue to be "as 25 good-neighborly as possible. The goal of IME is not to create a new center for planning, to make Tallinn a new Moscow with a highly centralized bureaucracy, but to decentralize within the republic control over the economy. IME allows the creation of public enterprises "in the form of a delegation of the right of 26 ownership. .a lease, and. .in share-capital form." They want to create a capitalist economy. The stock of these "share-capital" companies 27 will be owned by enterprises and the public. A stock market is even being established. IME calls for the establishment of a separate Estonian currency. The first step towards this goal was the introduction on 1 January 1990 of purchasing notes instead of part of one's salary. These notes, a proto-currency, will be good for the purchase of some commodities, based upon their demand and their supply. The goal is for these notes to be phased out as the republic's new market economy and a hard currency for the 28 currency for the republic develops. Estonia is trying increase its foreign trade by developing its 70 ports for international passenger and commercial traffic. Commercial representatives are also being sent to countries around the Baltic Sea. They have had a trade representative in Finland since May of 1989. Tourists as well as businessmen are being encouraged to visit the republic, and as in early 1990 commercial flights from Helsinki and 29 Stockholm were begun. IME aims to restore private ownership of farm land, though the buying and selling of land, which will occur "only with the mediation of the state." Collective and state farming will be de-emphasized in favor of private farming. In the future the remaining state farms will be mainly used for "academic, experimental, and scientific purposes." "The peasant family is to become the autonomous and independent initial component of 30 agricultural production." Latvia's plan, sponsored by the Latvian Komsomol and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, also conforms to the "Basic Principles". The plan delegates to the Soviet central government defense, foreign policy and "the most important scientific and technical programs." The plan also allows Enterprises, organizations and production units in the republic have the right to establish and direct economic ties with partners from foreign countries, to establish joint enterprises, and to carry out international commercial activity. For Lithuania, plans for economic self-determination mean that it should live in accordance with the results of its own work. To this it should take charge of miner^ resources and everything that is situated on its territory. 71 Under the plan the central government would retain the functions of foreign policy and defense. Like the other republic's Lithuania's plan conforms to the "Basic Principles. 33 Lithuania's new property law stipulates a significant change in the forms of legal ownership. The republic will now allow the ownership of private persons, a family, the peasant farm, the cooperative, joint-stock company, business association (partnership), public organizations, the religious community, the state, local self-management, Lithuanian SSR joint ventures with other states and others. Persons and groups that are not citizens of the republic also will be able to own property. Land, natural and material resources, money and securities and the "products of intellectual activity" can all now be 34 owned privately, a significant departure from the Soviet economic system. Owners can use and administer their property at their discretion, except that private land cannot be leased. There is also, however, the important restriction that land can be confiscated (if obtained free of charge) or redeemed (if purchased) from citizens incapable of effectively,, administering and utilizing such which they own. After many long and heated discussions between the Baltic republics and the central government, the Congress of People's Deputies, the Soviet legislature, passed the Law on Republic Autonomy at the beginning of December 1989, a month before economic accountability was scheduled to start in the republics. Article 2 of the Law states that By agreement the USSR Government and the republic government, union ministries, committees, and departments transfer to the ownership of the people of the republic 72 enterprises and economic organizations with all their fixed and circulating capital. By agreement between the USSR and the republics, the resources of the armed forces, main oil and gas pipelines, and other facilities of unionwide significance are classified as under union ownership. It is stipulated that the legislative acts of the USSR governing economic relations operate in the territories of the said republics in^gfar as the do not hamper their switch to economic autonomy. The Baltic republics, at the beginning of 1990, decided that instead of simply working towards political and economic autonomy within the Soviet Union, they were now going to work openly toward the restoration of their economic and political independence. In the past complete independence was the assumed goal of the Baltic Popular Fronts, but they were cautious and openly only espoused autonomy. At the time the Soviet central government was discussing with the Baltic republics, who were finally espousing their true goal, independence. The central government's position is that if the republics leave the Union, they must pay vast sums to the Union to compensate for forty-five years of investment into the republics by the central government. However, according to the Law on Republic Autonomy passed by the Congress of People's Deputies and effective 1 January 1990, the central government ceded ownership of enterprises and economic organizations to the Baltic republics. If the republics own their enterprises and other organizations, then why should they pay the central government for them? The resources of the armed forces based in the republics is a different matter. As newly independent republics it unlikely that they 73 would become owners the warships, airplanes, bases and tanks on their territory. The land the bases are on is the republic's, and all the hardware can be sent back, that is, if the Soviet Union agrees to do so. The ownership of the main oil and gas pipelines should be easy to resolve. The meaning of the category of "other facilities of unionwide significance," is murky. The oil and gas pipelines probably would fall within this category since the Russian republic's Kaliningrad oblast, formerly part of East Prussia, is cut off from the rest of the republic by Lithuania. I have not seen anything that describes what falls into this vague category, so it is difficult to say what the republics might be expected to pay for, and how expensive it would be if the republics were made to pay. The Soviet laws that would hamper the switch to economic autonomy by the Baltic republics is no longer an issue since the passage of the Law on Republic Autonomy. On the other hand, since the beginning of 1990 the central government has acted, not through legislation but through ministerial policies and bureaucratic decisions, to deter the moves by the republics to greater economic and political independence. Since soon after the beginning of 1990 there has been a financial blockade of the Baltic republics. The banks of the Baltic republics became unable to draw upon the central state bank's hard currency and convertible ruble reserves because the central state bank would no longer recognize the signatures of the presidents of the Baltic banks. This made it very difficult for Balts to travel, even to Eastern Europe. According to Danute Kuciene, the president for relations with foreign banks of the 74 Lithuanian Republic's Bank, they "have no currency, nobody will sell 37 anything for the rubles." This foreign currency embargo has surely hurt the economies of the Baltic republics, and will make it more difficult for some of their enterprises to survive under the new Soviet self-financing regulations. In addition, the limited embargo of Latvia caused by the shutdown of the Sloka plant will make it difficult for that republic's economy. An enterprise has to be able to receive inputs of goods, services and financing to operate. In the Soviet Union, where often one enterprise is the sole producer of a product and the supply of goods has been limited in the best of times, the shut down of an enterprise, let alone a republic or two, can cause major economic problems. When an enterprise, like the Sloka Wood Pulp and Paper Plant, shuts down, or cannot meet its contractual agreements, or plan requirements, the effects ripple through the economy like a wave, a big wave. Not only will the closing of the Sloka Plant cost the Soviet Union R 1 billion and 6,000 jobs, noted earlier, but it is estimated that it will cost Latvia R 100 million in revenues and R 250 million in 38 uncollected taxes. These are just some of the direct effects of the closing, there are also many indirect effects. In Latvia For instance, if paper deliveries are reduced, computer center services will have to be forfeited, and this would jeopardize the timely payment of pensions. Even such a trifle as the packaging of matches at a local factory will grow into a serious problem. For instance, the Kuryukova plant in Chernigov oblast was forced to break a contract because Sloka d^n't supply the paper material for the production of wall paper. 75 Because of the embargo by the Ukraine on the shipment of their republic's "metallurgical output" to Latvia, Latvia's main-line electric and diesel locomotive factories, their bus factories and their radio manufacturers may be forced to cut their production for lack of supplies. Rail transportation is the Soviet Union's primary method of shipment, and all the mainline locomotives are built in Latvia. Without a supply of replacement parts, or a supply of new locomotives, the Soviet Union will eventually be hard pressed to move goods around the country, not that they are extraordinarily adept at doing that now. The Soviet economy is hardly a productive one. Sweden and Finland, for example, produce twice the wood pulp as the entire Soviet Union, a 40 country vastly larger and with an immense supply of trees. The Soviet economy needs the Baltic republics and their enterprises, as much as they need the Soviet's raw materials, at least for the time being. The Soviet Union could eventually do without the goods produced by the Baltic republics, such as punch cards, busses, radios, not to mention locomotives, but they would have to find alternate supplies. They would either have to build new factories or find foreign suppliers. The former option would have to be built and staffed and the latter option would require hard currency, which the Soviet Union has little of. Both options would be very expensive. The Baltic republics could find alternative foreign suppliers of raw materials, which would be more expensive than the Soviet suppliers, and alternative markets for the goods. Now, few of the goods produced by the Baltic republics meet Soviet standards but they do not yet meet world 76 standards. All the republics can offer is price. They realize that though they can become economically autonomous, they will not soon be able to divorce themselves from the Soviet economy. 77 NOTES 1. TASS, 23 January 1990, 1156 GMT 2. Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 3 3. ibid. 4. TASS, 23 January 1990, 1156 GMT 5. Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 3 6. Izvestiva. 26 January 1990, Morning Edition, 2 7. Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 3 8. Raitis Nadzins, Latvian SSR. (Riga: "Avots" Publishers, 1983), 8 9. ibid., 5 10. Karl Vaino, Soviet Estonia: Yesterday. Today and Tomorrow. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1977), 110 11. Janos Pocius, Present Dav Lithuania in Figures. (Vilnius: Gintaras, 1971), 35 12. Interview with I. Toome, Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party, Pravda. 30 August 1988, 3 13. Sotsialisticheskava Industriva. 24 June 1989, 1-2 14. 0. Losoto and V. Shirokov, Pravda. 30 August 1988, 3 15. The Book of Latvia, Inc., Latvia. (St. Charles, 111.: The Book of Latvia, Inc., 1984), 216 78 16. Latvian Komsomol, Latvian Academy of Sciences, "A General Plan for Restructuring Economic Management of the Latvian SSR," Sovetskava Molodezh. 7 September 1988, 23 17. Interview with Kazimiera Prunskene, Deputy Chairman of the Lithuanian Council of Ministries, Radio Vilnius, 1 September 1989, 0000 GMT 18. Interview with J.B. Kubilius, Rector of Vilnius State University, Pravda. 2 November 1988, 1, 3 19. Sovetskava Estoniva. 27 September 1988, 2 20. L. Telen, Sotsialisticheskava Industriva. 11 October 1988, 3 21. ibid. 22. Estonian State Planning Committee's Estonian Self-Management Problems Council, "Republic Economic Accountability: Making Estonian Self-Management a Reality: Preparatory Stage (September-December 1989)," Sovetskava Estoniva. 19 September 1989, 2-3 23. ibid. 24. ibid. 25. ibid. 26. ibid. 27. ibid. 28. ibid. 29. ibid. 30. ibid. 31. Sovetskava Molodezh. 7 September 1988, 2-3 32. Rolkandas Barisas, TASS, 20 October 1988 33. ibid. 34. "Draft Property Law," Sovetskava Litva. 29 November 1989, 1, 4 35. ibid. 36. Pravda. 2 December 1989, 1, 3 79 37. Interview with Danute Kuciene, Vilnius Domestic Service, J anuary 1990, 1000 GMT 38. Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 2 39. ibid. 40. Sovetskava Rossiva. 24 January 1990, First Edition, 2 CHAPTER V INDEPENDENCE A fundamental goal of the reawakened Baltic nations is independence, not just autonomy or sovereignty, but complete and total political independence from the Soviet Union and the central government. In this chapter I will look at the desires of the indigenous and non-indigenous Baltic populations for and against independence. Independence won and independence lost, the years of mismanagement by an alien central government and the decades that have seen the Latvia's and Estonia's demographic situation significantly altered by the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Slavs. For the indigenous populations of the Baltic republics, independence represents a rejection of the unwanted Soviet rule. Perhaps if the people of the Baltic republics had profited from the more than forty years of Soviet rule, they would not be so fond of their lost independence. They have seen their economies and their standard of living fall farther and farther behind those of Sweden and Finland, their closest Baltic neighbors with very successful market economies. Perhaps if they had not had their 80 81 hard won independence taken from them, they would not want it back. Perhaps if the Soviet government had not shipped in hundreds of thousands of Slavic workers, if they had not arrested and deported thousands of the indigenous population to prison camps deep in the Soviet interior, if the vast new industries built by the Soviet government had not polluted the environment, if the Soviet political system had allowed the Balts to express their interests and concerns and had effectively responded to their demands, the Balts would not want to regain their independence. Not only is the desire for independence widespread among the native Balts, the desire has been growing. According to a poll taken in Estonia in April and September of 1989 only 2 percent of Estonians believed who the republic should maintain its present status as a union republic of the USSR. From April to September the percentage of Estonians who believed that the republic should achieve independence as part of a USSR comprising a confederation of republics declined from 39 to 31 percent. The percentage of Estonians who believed the republic should become an independent state not part of the USSR increased from 56 percent in April to 64 percent in September. In both polls 3 percent of the Estonians had no opinion. Thus, 95 percent of Estonians would like to see a fundamental change in the republic's political relationship with the central government of the USSR, and the number desiring the most radical change has increased. Since Estonians are 61.5 percent of the republic's population, 58 percent of the republic's total population can be said to favor a significant, if not radical, change in its political relationship with the USSR.'*' 82 What of the non-Estonians who make up 38.5 percent of the population? What is their view on autonomy and independence? The percentage of non-Estonians who believed that the republic should maintain its present status as a union republic of the USSR fell from 54 percent in April to 37 percent in September of 1989. The percentage of non-Estonians who favored the republic achieving independence as a part of a confederated USSR rose from 25 percent in April to 47 percent in September. The percentage of non-Estonians who favored an Estonia independent of the USSR rose from 5 percent in April to 9 percent in September. The percentage of non-Estonians with no opinion fell in half, from 14 percent in April to 7 percent in September. Thus little more than a third of non-Estonians want the status quo to be maintained. On the other hand a majority, 56 percent, of non-Estonians would like to see a significant change in the republic's political relationship with the central government, though few favor 2 complete independence. If the opinions of the two populations are combined the following results are found. Thus the percentage of the entire population who want significant change in Estonia's political relationship with the central government rose 10 percent, from 70 percent in April to 80 percent in September. A public opinion survey published in May 1989 in a Finnish newspaper 3 had results almost the same as those noted above. In a poll of 1073 residents of Riga, Latvia conducted at the end of 1989 the feelings of the non-native population against independence were stronger than in Estonia. According to the survey 57.4 percent of 83 Table 15.--How Would You Like to See Estonia in the Future? April September "Estonia should maintain its present status- 22% 16% remain a union republic as part of the USSR as a union state." "Estonia should achieve independence as 34% 37% part of the USSR as a union of states (confederation)." "Estonia should become an independent 36% 43% state not part of the USSR." "I cannot say." 8% 4% Latvians were reported as for Latvian independence while 69.8 percent of non-Latvians were said to be against independence. Most of the non-Latvians were said to believe that independence would lower their standard of living and harm the economy. Two thirds of the non-Latvians thought that a new Latvian state would be an authoritarian-nationalistic one. Among the non-Latvians, 19.6 percent stated that they would return to the USSR if Latvian becomes independent, 4.8 percent stated that they would emigrate to another country and 42.3 percent said that they would try to 3 preserve their Soviet citizenship. If the results of this poll can be trusted, it indicates that while more than two-thirds of non-Latvians living in Riga are against Latvian independence, believe that independence would lower their standard of living, and believe that the new state would be authoritarian and nationalistic, more than three quarters of them would remain in the 84 republic. If so many non-Latvians would choose to remain in a poorer, authoritarian and nationalistic independent state than return to the USSR, either they are stubborn or they believe that things are or would be worse in the USSR. Slightly fewer than half the non-Latvians would try to keep their Soviet citizenship, perhaps out of nostalgia, or for ideological reasons, or perhaps to keep an avenue of escape open. It must be noted that in the republic non-Latvians are slightly less than half the population. I have not seen any public opinion surveys conducted in Lithuania that pose the question of independence as directly as the surveys conducted in Estonia and Latvia. According to one survey, 86 percent of Lithuanians agreed with the conclusions of.the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet Commission on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its consequences, to wit the Pact and the resultant annexation of the republic were illegal. The non-Lithuanians largely approved of the Commission's conclusions, 57 percent, however, were not so overwhelmingly in favor as the Lithuanian population. Thus some 80 percent of Lithuania's population are reported as agreeing that the annexation of the republic as an illegal act by the Soviet government.^ In order for the Baltic republics to regain their independence in an orderly and non-violent way, the central government and the Russians must agree with the new political arrangement. Beside the opinions of the indigenous and non-indigenous populations of the Baltic republics what are the opinions of the Russians on Baltic independence? In a poll of 2,000 Muscovites, 48.2 percent of whom were Russian, i I 85 asked about their attitude toward the idea of political self-determination for the Baltic republics 38.2 percent had a positive opinion, 42.4 percent had a negative opinion and 19.4 percent had no opinion. Clearly, assuming the survey's results can be trusted, Muscovites are almost evenly divided on the issue, though a sizeable percentage had not yet formed their opinion. A positive attitude toward Baltic political self-determination was held by more than 70 percent of those under 40, by over 85 percent of students, by over 70 percent of members of the artistic intelligentsia, by 42 percent of Communist Party members, but by only 25 percent of workers of large industrial enterprises. The Muscovites most likely to support the political aspirations of the Baltic republics are those most highly educated, those most Western oriented, those most likely to gain from the current political and economic reforms. ✓ A negative attitude toward Baltic political self-determination was held by almost 80 percent of pensioners, by over 92 percent of servicemen, by over 75% of housewives, by 100 percent of Communist Party, Komsomol, and Government officials, and by over 58 percent of liberal arts intellectuals. « The Muscovites least likely to support the political aspirations of the Baltic republics are the elderly, who had a hand in building the current political-economic system, by servicemen who understand that if they are stationed in the republics they will not be able vote in local elections, and who may feel that they might have to fight in the republics, and by the officials who have the most to fear from the disintegration of the authority of the central government and party apparatuses. Why so many I 86 housewives and liberal arts intellectuals have a negative attitude is mysterious. Perhaps the liberal arts intellectuals work for central government and party organs and fear for their jobs, or perhaps they have a better understanding of the possible effects on the stability of the Soviet political and economic system resulting from the decentralization. Among the 38.2 percent that had a positive attitude toward Baltic political self-determination 21.2 percent thought that self-determination meant the broadening of a number of the republic's political rights on the economic basis of republic financial autonomy combined with negligible modifications of the present form of the USSR. Among those with a positive attitude 40.2 percent thought that self-determination meant the political and economic independence of independent states voluntarily united with other independent states within the framework of a confederative formation-the USSR. Among those with a positive attitude 38.6 percent thought that self-determination meant the political separation from the USSR and restoration of the status of independent states. Asked whether their view of the problem of political self- determination for the Baltic republics had changed in the past six months, 81.4 percent answered no and only 18.6 percent answered yes. The poll was conducted between the 9th and the 11th of October 1989, at the very beginning of the revolutions in East Central Europe, before the Lithuanian Communist Party's split with the CPSU, before the uprisings in Azerbaijan, Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan, and before the announcement by the CPSU of its I I 87 plan to move toward multi-party democracy. Would a new poll yield the same firmness of opinion? Would more or fewer Muscovites be positively inclined toward Baltic self-determination? If more are positively inclined then it seems more likely that a transition toward greater or complete Baltic independence would be smooth and non-violent. If fewer people are positively inclined, then it seems more likely that the transition would be difficult and possibly violent. Questioned about which direction they saw the Baltic situation moving, 40.2 percent saw a broadening of democracy, 36 percent saw it moving "toward dangerous inter-ethnic tensions, 19.8 percent saw it moving "toward a restoration of capitalism, but only 3.8 percent saw it moving toward a "revival of fascism." The public opinion survey of residents of Riga claims that two thirds of the non-Latvian residents feel that an independent Latvia would be authoritarian and nationalistic. Perhaps those living in Riga are better aware of the situation than those in Moscow. Those living in Riga have a greater personal stake in how the situation develops than those living in Moscow. The Latvian Popular Front, and the Estonian Popular Front and Lithuania's Sajudis have made it a point that they see a future where all * Balts, no matter their ethnicity, would enjoy broad cultural freedoms, though with the primacy of the indigenous nations' language and culture. There is the potential- that existing inter-ethnic tensions in the Baltic republics will become more dangerous, but it seems unlikely that there would be any pogroms carried out by the indigenous population. Most of the leaders of the indigenous nations are preaching inter-ethnic 88 cooperation. They realize, especially in Latvia and Estonia, that it is unrealistic and economically undesirable to expect or to try to force the non-indigenous population to leave. The Balts are going to have to live with their Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian populations. Some Slavs may return to their homelands, but it is likely that they will remain a sizeable part of Estonia and Latvia's populations. The Baltic republics cannot move; they will always have the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Belorussians and the Poles as their neighbors. Realizing that they must live with the immigrant Slavs and next to their far larger neighbors the Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians have decided to try to integrate the Slavs into the new political system they are attempting to build. The Balts want to regain their independence while the central government and the CPSU leadership are reluctant, if not unwilling to allow them their independence. Where do people living outside the Baltic republics see the current situation heading? Muscovites were asked the following question "Could the situation in the Baltic reach the point of inter-ethnic clashes of the Nagorno-Kharabakh type?" Some 7.2 percent had no idea, 40.6 percent said no, and 52.2 percent said yes. Of the more than have of the respondents who said yes, there could be violent inter-ethnic clashes in the Baltic republics, 17.2 percent said Perestroika would be the cause. Thus, Perestroika is not widely thought to be a cause of the tense Baltic situation. Of those who said yes, 72.6 percent said extremists on both sides would be the causes, 70.8 percent said the legacy of Stalinism would be the cause, 68.8 percent said the more extreme Baltic nationalist organizations, 62.1 percent said the Moscow I I 89 leadership, 56.2 percent said KGB provocateurs, 50.2 percent said the nationalistic Russian organizations like the Intermovement, Interfront and "Unity." Only 36 percent said the Baltic Popular Fronts would be the cause, and only 25.5 percent said the local republic leadership would be the cause. Clearly the vast majority of the Muscovites who believe that there will be violent inter-ethnic strife in the Baltic republics do not see the Baltic Popular Fronts and the Baltic republic leadership as extremists or as dangers to the maintenance of public order, but many do see the KGB, Baltic Russian nationalist organizations and extremists on both sides as potentially dangerous. Stalinism is widely seen as the cause of the current tense situation, and many have little confidence that the government's and the Party's leadership will successfully manage the Baltic situation. Very few Muscovites believe that it is okay for the government to invade the Baltic republics. When asked if a "1968 style military intervention in the Baltic is permissible" only 20 percent said yes, 68.2 percent said no and 11.8 percent had no answer. Of the 20 percent who believe that an invasion of the Baltic republics would be permissible, 100 percent said that it would be okay if they proclaimed their independence, 98.6 percent said that it would be okay if they refused to abide by _US_SR_ laws, 70.2 percent said it would be okay if there was discrimination against the non-indigenous population, and 42.2 percent said it would be okay if there was a "mass flight or deportation from the Baltic republics of the non-indigenous population."*’ The Baltic republics have already refused to abide by those USSR laws they do not agree with. Estonia declared its sovereignty in this matter at the end of 1988. Though each of the republics have passed laws that guarantee the freedom of culture to members of all nationalities, and all major political organizations support cultural freedom, it could be argued : i that the laws establishing the indigenous language as the official language are discriminatory. Unless there is a substantial outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in the republics, which at this time is unlikely though possible, there is not likely to be a mass flight of the non-indigenous population. Some Baltic nationalists may dream about deportations, but it there is little support for such an action. The republics are only a step or two away from declaring themselves independent. The Baltic situation, as it stands now, does fulfill some of the prerequisites that would make an invasion permissible in some eyes. It remains to be seen whether an invasion will happen, in spite of the overwhelmingly negative public opinion, at least in Moscow, against the idea. How would those opposed to an invasion react if one were undertaken? The Moscow leadership probably would lose some of its already shaky legitimacy. On the other hand, Russians could rally round the leadership and support an invasion if Russians were being killed, forced to flee or deported. Given an invasion the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians would likely resist and their determination to secede probably would grow even stronger. 91 NOTES 1. Maynor Public Opinion Research Center, Molodezh Estonii. 18 October 1989, 4 2. ibid. 3. Poll conducted by the Finnish daily, Ilta Sanomet. 3 May 1989, taken from Tomaz lives, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR, 22 June 1989, 14-16 4. TASS, 4 January, 1990, 0941 GMT 5. Saulius Grinius, "Sociological Surveys in Lithuania," Radio Liberty Report on the USSR. 10 November 1989, 24-26 6. Poll of 2,000 Muscovites, 48.2% were Russians, 30% refusal rate. The poll was conducted from 9-11 October 1989, Atmoda. Riga, 4 December 1989, 4-5 I I CHAPTER VI NATIONALISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS The people demand a return to normal life, to a normal economy, to democracy, as understood by five-sixths of the earth, and not only in Kaluga. . .It is time to come to from the lethargy of utopian communism and look life, man, and the whole world honestly in the eye! M. Ummelas, Molodezh Estoniva. 17 November 1989, 3 If the Baltic republics become independent countries again, then one of the major factors that will determine their success will be how well they are able to integrate their non-indigenous populations into their new political and economic systems. Some in the non-indigenous communities opposed to Baltic independence believe the Baltic nationalists to be neo- fascists. In this chapter I will look at how the Balts have sought to deal with their non-indigenous populations. Are the Balts really neo-fascists, or is theirs a liberal nationalism? What plans, if any, do the Baltic nationalists have to incorporate their non-indigenous populations into the new political and economic systems they are attempting to build? The Balts want restore the independence of their states. They want to 92 93 ensure the survival of their nations, their national languages and their cultures. For the Latvians and Estonians, their republics will never be as homogeneous as they were before they were annexed by the Soviet Union. Latvians are now only a bare majority of the population of their republic. They are not even the majority of the population of the Riga, their capital. Estonians are now only 62 percent of their republic's population. While the birthrate of the Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians is low, the Latvian and Estonian birthrates are even lower. It does not look as though many of the immigrants are going to return to their home republics. Why should they when the Baltic republics have the highest standard in the Soviet Union. Among the Balts there are many who have a xenophobic view of the immigrant population. Many Estonians view things that go wrong as 2 "W"-vene vork, or Russian stuff. Tiit Made, a leader in the Estonian and a USSR People's Deputy, in an article for a Swedish newspaper wrote that One seldom finds an agreeable, friendly, and good-natured Russian. There are few of them. Naturally I have met Russians who are friendly, intelligent, willing to give away their last crust of bread, and who understand the worries of their fellow man. But only to a certain point. In 1939, Hitler summoned home to Germany the Germans in Estonia. All of them went. Soon the time should be ripe for Gorbachev to summon home all the Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians living in Estonia. . .There is a shortage of manpower. . .we will be glad to pay them back. . .are also offering 300,^00 - 400,000 Russians the chance to return to their villages. In Lithuania, where there was relatively little immigration, there are many who view the Soviet "internationalist" experiment as a failure. With every passing day it becomes increasingly clear and obvious how different the people's who live in the Soviet Union are. . .And when people try to make us all the same, to I I 94 make us eat from one pot, live in one house, and cover ourselves with one blanket, as if we were one family, it is so unnatural. . .We can be good neighbors, everyone living in his own house with his own blanket, we can trade freely and engaged in cultural exchange, but we cannot be identical people, as this is simply unthinkable with our different levels of^culture, civilization, morals, and different outlooks. The Balts want to re-establish independent Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian states rather than establish independent states named Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. You, Lithuanian Russians and Poles are not Lithuania's occupiers and must therefore understand that just as the Russians are in Russia, the Poles are in Poland, the Swedes are in Sweden, so, too, are the Lithuanians true owners in Lithuania. Similar sentiments are espoused in the General Principles of the Estonian and Latvian Popular Fronts. In order to assure the Baltic nature of their republics the Baltic nationalists through their Popular Fronts and their local Communist Party organizations are seeking to establish republic citizenship, to curb immigration and have the indigenous language legislated as the official language. According to Indrek Toome, general secretary of the Estonian Communist Party, What happens now is abnormal, I mean the unrestrained bringing into the republic of manpower to suit the unreasonable policy .of. the central ministries which widen the production without the knowledge of the local authorities, without consideratign for the social, demographic, ecological factors. Though Baltic nationalism has some xenophobic tendencies, it is 95 primarily realistic and generous towards the civil and cultural rights of its national minorities. According to Marju Lauristan, head of the Estonian Popular Front, the essence of their proposals is on the one hand, to guarantee the use of the Estonian language of official documents within the boundaries of our national republic, and the right of indigenous residents to be able to speak their native language everywhere in their native land. At the same time, the law must of course give all inhabitants of non-indigenous nationality a guarantee that they will be free to use the Russian language-the language of inter-ethnic contacts in our country-in any institution. In the Fall of 1988, when the Baltic Popular Fronts were being founded, and Marju Lauristan made the above statement, the Balts were primarily calling for autonomy within the Soviet Union rather than independence. At the time, founding political movements independent of the CPSU was provocative enough to the central government. Independence was probably on the minds of most of Balts, but they were understandably too cautious to openly state their true feelings and aspirations. The Balts are not likely to rid themselves of their immigrant populations. If they did leave it would be a disaster for the Baltic republics. In Latvia and Estonia the police are predominantly Russian g speaking. In Lithuania there is a great deal of controversy over the safety of the Ignalina Atomic Power Station, which produces 49.3 percent of the republic’s electricity. In the nearby town of Snieckus, where many of the station's workers live, only 4 percent of the 35,000 residents are 9 Lithuanians. Few of the station's 2,000 employees are Lithuanians. Estonians are little more than 20 percent of Estonia's construction workers.i 10 96 There is no one to replace the immigrant workers. The Baltic labor force is just too small. With economic accountability many unprofitable enterprises will close and their workers will be unemployed. Many employees are under-utilized. When enterprises undertake measures to increase their efficiency many employees will be put out of work. In the next few years, as the economies of the Baltic republics are reformed, it is likely that a large unutilized labor supply will be created. Some unemployed immigrants may decide to return to their home republics, thus the Balts may increase their share of their republic's population, since few Balts are likely to leave their native republic. It is unlikely that, for example, nearly half of Latvia's, more than a third of Estonia's, or 20 percent of Lithuania's population will leave, especially since the economic situation in Russia, the Ukraine and Belorussia will for a long time continue to be worse than in the Baltic republics. The other 12 Soviet republics not only have a lower standard of living than the Baltic republics, but they are further behind in the process of economic reform. If they can't, and are unlikely to live without them, what is to be done with the non-indigenous and immigrant population? The non-natives are understandably concerned about their future, for the security of the economic, cultural and civil rights. It does not help inter-ethnic relations that there is a communication barrier between the two groups. As noted earlier, few of the immigrants know the native language and there are few teachers and few self-help books to help change the situation. According to V. Miroshninchenko, the director of Tallinn's M.I. 97 Kalinin Electrical Energy Plant Association and a non-Estonian the problem has economic roots. When the regional economic councils were eliminated and some of the enterprises switched to union ministries, all the documentation and clerical work began to be carried out in Russian alone. Voluntarily or not, Estonians began to move into local industry enterprises. Moreover. . .for a long time there was a difference in the amount of information available to the Estonian and Russian-speaking populations. Estonian-language press, radio, and television raised more acutely and frankly the problems disturbing the indigenous population. At the same time the Russian-language media hushed things up. It is only recently that steps have been t^en to inform the Russian-speaking population more fully. If Baltic economic reform and political independence are to succeed, then the entire population of the republics must not only have a stake in the future success and stability of the republics, but it must also have a say in the republic's future. It is natural that the non-indigenous populations are concerned about the actions of the Balts and their nationalist organizations. It is natural that the non-indigenous population voice their concerns in whatever ways they feel are most effective, that they seek to have their concerns and interests considered by the Balts. Each Baltic republic has passed citizenship laws that discriminate against their non-indigenous populations. It is understandable that they would do so since one of the primary concerns of the Balts is their national survival. The Lithuanian citizenship law, for example, states that All citizens now living on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR have the right to acquire citizenship. All who have ancestral roots in Lithuanian soil but who, because of various 98 circumstances, live outside it possess the right to citizenship. Those currently residing in the republic who want to acquire Lithuanian citizenship must "make a statement acknowledging Lithuania as their homeland." It is understandable that a country would require new citizens to renounce their ties to their homeland, but many non-Lithuanians have lived in their Baltic republic for their entire life. New arrivals ( not those who now reside in the republic) will have to reside permanently in the republic for 10 years and know Lithuanian, study the culture and customs of the local population and swear loyalty to the republic before they can acquire Lithuanian citizenship. Citizens of Lithuania cannot also remain citizens of other Soviet republics. Lithuania, in the future, will 12 also begin issuing passports. The law does not seem unreasonable, except that many non-Lithuanians may find it overly restrictive. Estonia's voting laws have been changed to allow only citizens of the republic to vote in the republic's elections. In addition, one must have lived for at least two years in one's Soviet of People's Deputies district, 13 or five years within Estonia to be eligible to vote. To run for a seat in Parliament, a candidate must also have lived in the republic for at least 14 ten years. Within the republics are large Soviet military bases, and the republics are home to many thousands of Soviet military personnel, both active and retired. Clearly the Balts want to ensure that the interests and the concerns of the voters and the representatives they elect correspond with the interests and the concerns of the citizens of their republics. 99 Latvians are right to be concerned about maintaining the Latvian nature of their republic. One of their chief concerns is immigration. In Latvia, from 1971 to 1988, the republic's population growth by immigration was twice the natural growth rate. According to the Latvian Republic Council of Ministers. the number of workers at enterprises and the creation of new jobs were planned without proper coordination with the republic's existing labor resources. Insufficient attention was devoted to improving workers' working and living conditions, which led to high labor turnover and a weakening of labor discipline. The high unregulated population growth led to an overloading of the social infrastructure, made the provision of housing and food more difficult, and laos worsened medical, munij^pal, consumer, and transportation services for the people. Enterprises and organizations operating in latvia now, according to Latvian law, no longer have the right to recruit additional manpower outside the republic. Permission can be given by the local government if workers are imported to the republic, and money must be provided by the enterprise for the housing and the social infrastructure needed by these new workers.^ Immigration is not just a Latvian question in the republic. In Latvia the housing situation has been so bad that some people have been on waiting lists since 1966 for housing. Some people in Riga have taken to squatting in apartment buildings earmarked for construction workers, most of whom are non-Latvians.^ The passing of native language laws in the republics has sparked the political activism of the non-indigenous population. Various organizations have sprung up to represent the interests of this community, such as the 100 Union of Veterans of War, Labor and the USSR Armed Forces, but Interfront has become the main organization representing the interests of the non- indigenous populations. Many see the new language and citizenship laws, the economic autonomy programs, and the aims of the Popular Fronts as discriminatory. Interfront has conducted many demonstrations and strikes, and has been somewhat successful at getting its concerns accounted for by the republic governments. When many non-Estonians went on strike in the summer of 1989, they demanded that the propaganda of the theory of "the indigenous nation's priority" must cease, that there must be an end to separatism, that the reorganization to economic autonomy and accountability "must be coordinated with republic and statewide interests," and that there must be no economic self-isolation.^ The strike ended in a stalemate. Most of the issues dividing the two communities in the republic were not resolved. As the issue of independence is pressed more and more there are likely to be more demonstrations, strikes and political actions by the non-indigenous communities in the Baltic republics. To calm the fears of the non-indigenous population, the Popular Fronts and the governments of each Baltic republic, which they lead, have returned to the principles and the laws of cultural freedom that existed during the inter-war years of independence. This is not to say that the Balts have given up on the idea of the priority of the indigenous nation. The draft version of the Estonian ethnic rights law, for example, begins with the statement that 101 Only the right of the Estonian as the indigenous nation of Estonia to its ethnic territory and self-determination may be a guarantee of national rights of all citizens of the Estonian SSR. But it does go on to acknowledge the need for cooperation between nations within the republic. In implementing the national rights of citizens of the Estonian SSR, the state proceeds from the need to pool the efforts of Estonians and all ethnic groups with a view of accomplishing the political, economic, and cultural sovereignty of Estonia. The provisions of this law are virtually identical to those of the republic's 1922 constitution. This new law seeks to guarantee equal political, economic and social rights to all citizens of the republic regardless of their nationality. National groups would have the right to establish ethnic associations and registers them with the government. citizens of all nationalities would have the right to receive general, secondary, special and college educations in Estonian, Russian or other languages. They would have the right -to organize the dissemination of information and cultural activities in the native language, perform ethnic rituals and religious rights. Along with the state system, organizations and associations involved in the development of ethnic culture have a right to set up with their own funds cultural and educations establishments, create foundations, establish prizes and scholarships, engage in entrepreneurial activities, and publish press organs. In addition, the government would help fund the activities of ethnic associations, and the law states that "any action asserting national exclusivity, national superiority or fueling ethnic strife are punishable by the courts.^ Though Lithuania has not experienced immigration on the scale that 102 Estonia and Latvia have, there are still inter-ethnic tensions in the republic. The geographic boundaries of nationalities in Eastern Europe are often vague and overlapping. During its war of independence Lithuania fought with the newly reconstructed Polish state for the control of the Vilnius region, a region with, at the time, a mixed Lithuanian, Polish and Jewish population. Lithuania lost Vilnius to the Poles, but regained it at the end of the Second World War. In recent years the Poles of Lithuania have called for the creation of a Polish autonomous oblast within the republic to assure the protection of their cultural and civil rights, and to allow them to gain some control over the economic development of their region. The Lithuanian government was not pleased with the idea of a Polish autonomous oblast and vetoed it. According to V. Astrauskas, then chairman of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet Presidium: Lithuanian citizens of Polish nationality are also experiencing a national revival now. Unfortunately, some people are trying to transform the wonderful and noble ideas into a tool for whipping up ethnic tension. I would like to emphasize that the idea of creating a Polish national area in Lithuania cannot be seen as either productive or correct. The proclamation of the aforementioned territorial autonomous units is illegal; it is con£jary to the Lithuanian SSR Constitution and other laws. though they have not agreed to the creation of a special Polish autonomous area, the Lithuanian government did make a concession on their language law in Polish speaking areas so that 103 the introduction of the state language in Kaunas, Shyaulyay, Panavezhis, and other rayons must be subject to ^jfferent regulations from Vilnius, Sneckus, and Klaypeda. The concern in Lithuania over inter-ethnic tensions was so great that to ease these tensions and to show the Soviet central government that the republic was not ethnically polarized, much of the republic's political leadership and the International Coordination Association, and organization that represents various ethnic associations, issued a joint declaration addressing the problem. This declaration was signed by leading Lithuanian politicians as well as associations representing Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians. There were, however, no Polish associations among the signers. The declaration states that Since ancient times, people of diverse nationalities have lived in Lithuania in mutual harmony. During Independence-about 800 national association organizations were active in Lithuania; various Jewish organizations alone exceeded 200. Many Polish, Latvian, Russian, German, Belorussian, Estonian, Karaim, and other national minority organizations published many varied books and periodicals in their languages. National minorities, i.e., Latvians, Jews, Poles, Russians, and Germans who resided in Independent Lithuania up to 1940 maintained a total of 328 schools, with instruction in their own language. Jewish association schools alone exceeded 120. Currently we are determined to protect the welfare of this national harmony and to preserve it for the future by restoring a state of Lithuania that would serve all its citizens on an equal basis, without considering their nationality. . . .the right of every national association tg^develop freely its language and culture will also be ensured. Clearly, those who signed the declaration wished to show that Lithuania was and continues to be a place where all nations have and can live in harmony. Besides this declaration the Lithuanian government passed a cultural 104 rights law. This law is as clear in its espousal of broad cultural rights as is the Estonian law. The law begins with a recognition and an affirmation of the multinational quality of the republic. The historical path trodden by people of different nationalities living in Lithuania is closely interwoven with the fate of the Lithuanian people and makes for the community of common goals. The law guarantees all Lithuanian citizens, regardless of their nationality, equal political, economic and social rights, it "recognizes national identity and the continuity of culture and encourages the manifestation of self-awareness and self-expression." Discrimination based upon racial, national, linguistic or other grounds in prohibited. Among the rights guaranteed to all Lithuanian citizens are -the right to assistance on the part of the state in the development of national culture and education; -the right to a press and information in the native language. . . -the right to confess any religion or not to do so and conduct religious and national ritual ceremonies in the native language; -the right to unite in national cultural organizations; -the right to establi|^ cultural relations with compatriots outside the republic. If the Baltic republics can live by their principles and their laws, then assuming no severe economic decline occurs, there should be little inter-ethnic strife in the republics. Assuming peace can be maintained the Baltic republics, if they can gain their independence, should have a good chance, after several decades, at catching up to the standard of living enjoyed by Western Europeans. 105 NOTES 1. Letter from M. Ummelas, senior scientific editor of the "Estonian Encyclopedia," Literature and Art Department, Molodezh Estoniva. 17 November 1989,3 2. Tooenu Perming and Elmar Jaervesoo, A Case Study of A Russian Republic: The Estonian SSR. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), 56 3. Tiit Made, Svenska Dagbladet. 24 July 1989, 3 4. Kazimera Prunskiene, USSR People's Deputy from Lithuania, Sovetskava Litva. 10 June 1989, 3 5. Algimanits Liekis, speaking for the Lithuanian History Institute, Gimtasis Krastas. No. 13, 13 March - 5 April 1989, 1, 7 6. Indrek Toome, TASS, 20 October 1988 7. Interview with Marju Lauristan by 0. Losoto and V. Shirokov, Pravda, 29 September 1988, 3 8. Dagens Nvheter. 18 October, 1988, 11 and 0. Losoto and V. Shirokov, Pravda. 30 August 1988, 3 9. Letter from Aleksander Zharik, fitter at the Ignalina Atomic Power Station, Izvestiva. 10 March 1989, 3 10. B. Matveyev, Sovetskava Estonia. 18 December 1987, 2 11. Inteview with V. Miroshninchenko, director general of Tallinn's M. I. Kalinin electrical Energy Plant Association by 0. Losoto and V. Shirokov, Pravda, 30 August 1988, 3 12. "Lithuanian Citizenship Law," Izvestiva. 5 November 1989, 1 and Trud. 7 November 1989, 1 I I 106 13. "Estonian Voting Law," Sovetskava Estoniva. 9 August 1989, 1 14. "Estonian Election Law," TASS, 17 November 1989 15. Meeting of the Latvian Republic Council of Ministers, Sovetskava Latvia. 15 February 1989, 1 16. ibid. 17. 0. Meshkov and A. Chernenko, Pravda. 1 March 1989, 6 18. Strike demands of the Republican Council of Representatives of Strike Committees of the ESSR, Sovetskava Estoniva. 25 August 1989, 3 19. "Draft of the Estonian Ethnic Rights Law," Sovetskava Estoniva. 13 October 1989, 3 20. ibid. 21. V. Astrauskas, chairman of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, Sovetskava Litva, 23 September 1989, 1, 2 22. ibid. 23. "Declaration - International Coordinating Association and USSR Supreme Soviet Deputies," Tiesa. 17 August 1989, 1 24. "Lithuanian SSR Law on National Minorities," Sovetskava Litva. 26 November 1989, 1 ! I I There can be little doubt that the people of the Baltic republics wish to separate themselves from the Soviet Union and its political and economic systems. Even many among the non-indigenous populations desire independence, despite their apprehensions over their cultural and economic futures. I have shown that independence is not a goal that the Balts have hastily come to. It is the result of their history and the result of the mismanagement of the Soviet central government. I have shown that the decision to seek independence was rationally arrived at. "What is is wrong," said Thorstein Veblen, and in the case of the Baltic republics wrong was virtually all they had. They were crammed into the Soviet political and economic systems by Stalin and those who came after, yet they never fit, they never wanted to fit. It might have seemed an easy and cheap undertaking for the Soviets, to annex three small countries who only twenty or so years earlier had been part of the Russian Empire. In order to ensure their control over the countries, they imported tens of thousands pf Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians to Latvia and Estonia, imprisoned or killed thousands of natives 107 and restructured their economies along Soviet lines. They rebuilt their war ravaged economies in a way that bound them to the Soviet economy by building enterprises dependent on the rest of the Soviet Union for their inputs and their markets. Since their annexation forty-five years ago the Balts have kept alive their desire for independence. For a time they may have been resigned to making the best of things, of trying to work within the foreign Soviet political and economic systems. However, by the mid 1980's it had become clear that the Soviet system was not going to be able to provide a better standard of living, or even maintain the poor standard of living they had been able to eke out. With everything to gain and little to lose, the frustrated Balts are seeking to jettison their boats from the titanic Union, sinking under its own weight, and make shore. Perhaps they can lighten the Union's load enough to keep it from drowning. Whether the boat will sink before they can pull away is still undecided. The central government has a difficult choice before it. It can keep the Baltic republics and ensure a future wrought with strife and diversions from reforms, or it can let loose the republics and set a precedent from the dissolution of the very Union it is trying to safe. Its priorities are at odds. As the last several years of economic stagnation and decline have shown, if they do not offer a compelling reason to stay in the Union and every reason to leave, then the choice for the Baltic republics is obvious. Leave before its too late. "What is is wrong." If the tool is inadequate then you try another. 108 ( I BIBLIOGRAPHY Adirim, "Realities of Economic Growth and Distribution in the Baltic States," Journal of Baltic Studies. Vol. XIX, No. 1 1989, 49-58 Adlys, Petras, Stanaitis, Algirdas, Soviet Lithuania Population. (Vilnius: Vilnius Mintis, 1979) Anderson, Edgar, Latvia--Past and Present. (Waverly, Iowa: Latva Gramata, 1968) Barisas, Rolkandas, TASS, 20 October 1988 Bater, James H., The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective. (London, Edward Arnold, 1989) Bilmanis, Alfred, A History of Latvia. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951) Gorbachev, Mikhail, Restructuring is Carried Out by the People. (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1987), 17 Harrison, E.J., Lithuania: Past and Present. (London: T. Fischer Unwin, Ltd., 1922) Karotyeve, V., Perepelkin L. and Shkaraton, 0., Kommunist. October 1988, 22-23 Interview with J.B. Kubilius, Rector of Vilnius State University, Pravda. 2 November 1988, 1, 3 Interview with Danute Kuciene, Vilnius Domestic Service, 22 January 1990, 1000 GMT Lasinkis, Imants, "The Fallacy of the "Soviet Nationality"", Occupied Latvia Today. (Muenster: Center for Latvian Studies, 1987), 23 109 I I 110 Levitsky, L., Izvestia. 19 October 1988, 2 Losoto, 0. and Shirokov, V. , Pravda. 30 August 1988, 3 Matveyev, B., Sovetskava Estonia. 18 December, 2 Nadzins, Raitis, Latvian SSR. (Riga: "Avots" Publishers, 1983), 8 Ovcharenko, G. and Shirokov V., Pravda. 9 February 1989, 3 Ozols, Juris, "Life in Soviet Lajtvia", Occupied Latvia Today. (Muenster-.Center for Latvian Studies, 1987), 12 Parming, Toenu and Jaervesoo, Elmar, A Case Study of a Soviet Republic: The Estonian SSR. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978), 29 Pocius, Jonas, Present Dav Lithuania in Figures. (Vilnius: GintarasVilnius, 1971), 35 ed. Pullerits, Albert, The Estonian Yearbook: 1929 (Tallinn: Estonian Government Printing Office, 1929) Interview with Kazimiera Prunskene, Deputy Chairman of the Lithuanian Council of Ministries, Radio Vilnius, 1 September 1989, 0000 GMT Raun, Toivo, Estonia and the Estonians. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987) Sheehy, Ann, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR. 19 May 1989, 3 Tarmisto, Velio ' "Conceptual Basis for the Development of the ProductionForces," Estonia: Nature. Man. Economy. (Tallinn: Academy of Sciences of theEstonian SSR, Estonian Geographical Society, 1984), 101 Telen, L., Sotsialisticheskava Industriva. 11 October 1988, 3 Tolstov, V., Izvestia. 14 August 1988, 2 Tolstov, V., Izvestia. 19 October 1988, 2 Tonurist, Etfgar, Agriculture in Soviet Estonia. (Tallinn: Perioodika,1978), 8-9 Interview with I. Toome, Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party, Pravda. 30 August 1988, 3 Urdze, Andrejs, Die Bevoelkerunesentwicklung Lettlands Unter Beruecksichtigung der Nationalen Zusammensetzung. (Cologne: Bundesinstitut fuer Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 1975) I I 111 Vaino, Karl, Soviet Estonia: Yesterday. Today and Tomorrow. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1977), 110 Dauvagas Vanagi, Lettland und die Letten. (Muenster: Dauvagas Vanagi, 1983) Vanatoo, E., Estonian SSR: A Reference Book. (Tallinn: Peroodika, 1987), 13 Williams, Maynard Owen, "Latvia, Home of the Letts: One of the Baltic Republics Which is Successfully Working its Way to Stability," National Geographic. October 1924 The Book of Latvia, Inc., Latvia. (St. Charles, 111.: The Book of Latvia, Inc., 1984) Perioodika. A Thousand and One Facts About Soviet Estonia. (Tallinn: Perioodika, 1977), 109 "Draft Property Law," Sovetskava Litva. 29 November 1989, 1, 4 Latvian Komsomol, Latvian Academy of Sciences, "A General Plan for Restructuring Economic Management of the Latvian SSR," Sovetskava Molodezh. 7 September 1988, 23 Lithuanian Interwar Constitution Ekonicheskava Gazeta. 11 November 1989, 15 Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 2 Izvestiva. 24 January 1990, Morning Edition, 3 Izvestiva. 26 January 1990, Morning Edition, 2 Pravda. 2 December 1989, 1, 3 Rahva Haal. 19 September, 1989, 2 Sotsialisticheskava Industriva. 24 June 1989, 1-2 Sovetskava Estoniva. 27 September 1988, 2 Sovetskava Molodezh. 7 September 1988, 2-3 Sovetskava Russiva. 24 January 1990, First Edition, 2 TASS, 23 January 1990, 1156 GMT