Jan 10: Bad Baltic Takes- The movement for independence
Thread published November 24, 2022
Bad Baltic Takes: We rejected of Nazis and Soviets
Just as Kremlin propaganda narratives seek to paint Ukrainians as fascists for defending their sovereignty and lives against Russia’s genocide, it also continues to distort history with the same narrative to justify the previous occupation of the Baltic states.
Let’s rewind…
Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania declared independence in 1918 - from both German & Russian control. Russia eventually agreed to recognise the territorial integrity of all 3 countries (& vice versa).
They have existed in international law ever since: State Continuity of the Baltic States
But in 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. They called it “a non-aggression pact” but its key secret clause was to aggressively divide up sovereign European states like the Baltics into their empires.
Needless to say, people around Europe and the world actually opposed to the Nazis were devastated by the news - and that was before the secret clause and the full extent of Nazi-Soviet mutual cooperation to follow was fully understood.
It led to the invasion of Poland, which started WW2. Here’s Soviet and Nazi soldiers greeting each other in Poland as allies at the time.
During the same period, Soviet troops also invaded the Baltic republics and staged their takeover here based on the MRP.
The Soviet troops overthrew the Baltic governments and staged their own fake elections for puppet pro-Soviet administrations that then “requested” Soviet annexation. Here’s a clue from Estonia as to how democratic that was. Soviet troops were literally inside Parliament.
The Soviets also began mass repressions, including deportations.
Some say: “but those were targeted at fascists”.
Mass Soviet deportations in the Baltics were targeted primarily at women, children & elderly. As a reminder, the Soviets were allied with the Nazis when this began.
To Stalin’s shock, the Nazis turned on the Soviets after 2 years of their wartime alliance - bringing further immense devastation & repression to the Baltics from Nazi occupation before the Soviets returned to continue their own occupation in the same manner as agreed in the MRP.
Defenders of the Nazi-Soviet pact use the same excuses to justify it. We’ve heard them all before and wrote up a separate thread here summarising them:
The most common is: “But what about agreements other countries had with the Nazis?”
But we are free to discuss and critically examine them - and no one defends them.
And none contained a secret agreement to brutally conquer sovereign states with the Nazis.
Everyone should be free to discuss the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and condemn all its horrific consequences, and all the atrocities from Nazis and Soviets.
That’s what the Baltic republics have been doing ever since.
In fact, they declared war on both Nazis & Soviets during that period.
The initial hope was that WW2 would end with independence restored for all sovereign nations.
Baltic people put up their own flags after the Nazis retreated but the advancing Soviets tore those down.
While de facto independence was crushed for another half century of occupation and brutal repressions continued as before, the Baltic republics remained de jure independent under international law and continued campaigning to annul MRP. Here’s a thread on that:
As the Soviet Union desperately tried to prevent its empire collapsing, reforms enabled greater freedom of speech - and Baltic people used that to talk more openly about how they were illegally annexed as a consequence of MRP.
Soviet propaganda labelled independence movements as fascist, but in reality it was galvanised by a total rejection of Nazis and Soviets.
Most notably, the incredible 2 million strong Baltic chain protest was organised on the 50th anniversary of MRP.
It is thanks to these people that the Baltic republics were finally able to annul the illegal Soviet annexation as a consequence of the Nazi-Soviet pact - and rebuild ourselves as vibrant democratic states, which will always stand up for international law.
We support Ukraine - not just because we don’t want history to repeat here.
We empathise with Ukrainians. We see the same pattern of lies & brutality to deny their right to exist. We see horrors like mass deportations in Ukraine in a way the world doesn’t yet fully understand.
So we will keep sharing our voices from here in the Baltic states to help the world understand our history and the history of nations brutalised by MRP - but also be a voice for our Ukrainian friends too.