MEMORY OF NATIONS Democratic Transition Guide [ The Estonian Experience ] CONTENTS AUTHORS TRANSFORMATION OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM . 3 TOOMAS HIIO Historian, Head of Research at the Estonian Institute of His- DISMANTLING THE STATE SECURITY torical Memory (since 2017) and Deputy Director of the Esto- APPARATUS ........................... 10 nian War Museum – General Laidoner Museum (since 2005). Member of the Board of the Estonian Foundation for the In- REGIME ARCHIVES ...................... 16 vestigation of Crimes Against Humanity (1998–2009) and of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory (2008–2017). LUSTRATION .......................... 22 MEELIS MARIPUU INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION Member of the Board of the Estonian Institute of Historical OF THE CRIMES OF THE REGIME ........... 27 Memory (since 2009) and Managing Director of S-KESKUS, the non-governmental center for contemporary history (since REHABILITATION OF VICTIMS .............. 31 2005). Member of the Board of the Estonian Foundation for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity (1999–2009). EDUCATION AND PRESERVATION OF SITES OF CONSCIENCE ........................ 38 MEELIS SAUEAUK Senior Researcher at the Estonian Institute of Histori- TIMELINE OF THE MAJOR EVENTS .......... 43 cal Memory (since 2014). Research Fellow at the Estonian Foundation for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity SOURCES USED AND FURTHER READING . 46 (2006–2009). This case study is a part of the publication “Memory of Nations: Democratic Transition Guide” (ISBN 978-80-86816-39-5). This publication is available to download at www.cevro.cz/guide. [ 2 ] MEMORY OF NATIONS: DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION GUIDE – ThE ESTONIAN EXPERIENCE TRANSFORMATION OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM TOOMAS HIIO LOSS OF INDEPENDENCE DURING WORLD WAR II1 the USSR in Estonia Vladimir Bochkarev and his staff. To each ESSR people’s comissariat a deputy people’s commissar, in fact Occupation. The member states of the League of Nations, Esto- a supervisor from respective branch institution of the party or nia, Latvia, and Lithuania were occupied by the Soviet Union in the USSR government was appointed. The security services, June 1940. Tens of thousands of the Red Army and Soviet Bal- the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and tic Fleet soldiers and sailors were stationed to the territories of the People’s Commissariat the State Security (NKGB), created in the Baltic states.2 February 1941 with their branch offices (respective ESSR people’s After that the Estonian government resigned. The list of commissariats) had extraordinary important role. members of the next government, a puppet government, was Political terror and population losses. First arrests of proposed by the Soviet Legation in Tallinn. Andrej Zhdanov, the political opponents took place already in June 1940. Since a special emissary of Joseph Stalin, was sent to Tallinn and co- autumn the massive political arrests began, culminating with erced the President of the Republic, Konstantin Päts, to appoint the deportation of men, women and children from all three a puppet government. Similar events took place in Latvia and Baltic states on 14 June 1941. Repressions and deportation were Lithuania. A “transitional period” in all three Baltic states cre- directed against the bearers of the statehood: the politicians ated the illusion of the continuation of the former legal order and higher state officials, military officers, policemen, part with the so-called people’s governments, controlled by Soviet of educational elites, businessmen, enterpreneurs, wealthier special representatives, under the cover of the Soviet diplomats, peasants etc. During 1939–1941 Estonia has lost every tenth and by the Soviet secret police, NKVD, was finalized by the formal resident: when in 1939 there was about 1,134,000 inhabitants incorporation of all three Baltic states into the Soviet Union in in the Republic of Estonia, so according to the registration of the beginning of August 1940. Three weeks earlier the Soviet-con- the population, carried through by the German occupation trolled and Soviet-type elections, with only one candidate in each authorities in the end of 1941, there were little bit less than electoral district, were carried out in each Baltic country. Elected 1,000,000.4 puppet parliaments had voted unanimously for the reorganisa- After the German occupation in 1941–1944, according to tion of their countries into soviet republics, and asked the Soviet the registration of the population carried through by the Soviet government for incorporation of their states into the “friendly authorities in autumn 1944, only about 900,000 persons were family of the Soviet nations”. present in Estonia, i.e during 1939–1944 Estonia has lost every Non-recognition policy of the USA. Simultaneously with fifth resident.5 the first session of the puppet parliaments in all three occupied Baltic states, on 23 July 1940, the US acting Secretary of State 1 To this chapter see Toomas Hiio, Meelis Maripuu, Indrek Paavle, eds., Esto- Sumner Welles issued a declaration, condemning the political nia 1940–1945: reports of the Estonian International Commission for the In- changes in all three Baltic states. It was the beginning of the non- vestigation of Crimes Against Humanity, Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, Tallinn: Inimsusvastaste recognition policy of the Western countries in respect of incor- Kuritegude Uurimise Eesti Sihtasutus, 2006; Andres Kasekamp, A history of poration of the Baltic states that continued until the collapse of the Baltic states, Basingstoke–New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. the Soviet Union. 2 First Soviet military bases were stationed to the Baltic countries after the de- Soviet reorganisation of society. At the end of August 1940 feat of Poland beginning with October 1939 following another Soviet ulti- the constitutions of all three Baltic soviet union republics, based matum, but though according to the agreements between the Soviet Union and each Baltic state. on Stalinist constitution of the USSR from December 1936, 3 The communist parties were illegal in all three Baltic states. The central came into force. The puppet parliaments declared themselves committee of the Estonian CP was located in the Soviet Union and was to the temporary Supreme Soviets and continued in this capacity subordinated to the Comintern and in turn to the All-Union Communist until new supreme soviets were elected in 1947. Temporary Su- (bolshevist) Party of the Soviet Union. ECP was the smallest comparing to preme Soviets appointed new governments, councils of people’s the other Baltic states with some 100–150 members in 1940. 4 Not all of them were direct victims of the Soviet repressions: among them commissars. Although some members of the “people’s govern- were the more than 20,000 Baltic Germans, settled to the Germany after ments” continued in new councils of people’s commissars, now the Hitler-Stalin Pact was signed. In summer 1941 more than 30,000 men also the former underground communists3 and some citizens were mobilised to the Red Army from Estonia, but sent to the labour units, of the Soviet Union were appointed to the people’s commissars’ and more than 25,000 were evacuated (mostly the party and Soviet officials, (ministers) posts respectively in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. but also skilled workers and specialists). The most of circa 7000 arrested and a majority 10,000 deported persons, who were sent to the Gulag camps or Before the end of the year 1940 the Soviet legislation was in- forced settlement in Northern Russia and Siberia, died during first few years. troduced, including the criminal code of the Russian Soviet So- Circa 2000 political prisoners and civilians were executed in Estonia or mur- cialist Federal Republic of 1926. Estonian currency, kroon, was dered by the retreating staff of the state security institutions or the Red Army changed to the Soviet rouble using the extortionate exhange rate soldiers during the combat in Estonia from July to October 1941. 1 kroon = 1,25 roubles. 5 The biggest categories among them were more than 70,000 individuals who escaped to the Germany and Sweden in autumn 1944, including the men During 1940–1941 Estonia was ruled in fact by the Plenipo- who were mobilised in the German armed forces, and probably also part of tentiary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist the men mobilised to the Red Army in Estonia during 1944–1945 (altogether (bolshevist) Party and the Council of People’s Commissars of about 20,000 men). MEMORY OF NATIONS: DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION GUIDE – ThE ESTONIAN EXPERIENCE [ 3 ] Estonia has lost all its national minorities: the Jews (0.4 % in the all-union, all-union-republican and republican.7 This al- 1934) who remained in Estonia became the victims of the Holo- lowed to subordinate all important fields to the direct control of caust already in 1941 (more than 2/3 of Estonian Jews succeeded central authorities in Moscow. to escape to the Soviet Union and the most of them, who had The dynamics of the personnel of the Soviet authorities in survived there, returned after the end of the war) and the Swedes Estonia had four phases, however without very clear borders. (7500 individuals) were evacuated to Sweden in 1943–1944. In During 1944–1950 the leading posts were in the hands of for- 1944–1945 the parts of Northeast and Southeast Estonia with mer Estonian underground8 communists from the interwar mostly Russian population were dispatched from