I will focus on Estonia, as that’s where I grew up, but I assume this topic is also very relevant to the other Baltic nations.
For my whole life, I have heard horrible stories about Soviet occupiers. I have yet to meet a single person in real life who actually believed in communism or socialism, despite being raised in Soviet times and spending a lot of their childhood learning about Lenin, Stalin, etc.
I always knew that there are people out there (especially in other ex-soviet countries) who remember the USSR fondly, but I always assumed that this was more about nationalism than anything else, like “oh man it sure was great when we had a powerful military and a strong presence on the world stage”. It has been a serious culture shock to discover that the leaders of the Soviet union actually seem to have believed in the project, and that elsewhere in the union, the people seem to have believed in it as well! It really gives me a new perspective on Soviet nostalgia.
Meanwhile in the Baltic countries, and especially in Estonia, all age groups, including the very elderly, treat our Soviet past as an extremely dark time in our history. Just take a look at Estonia here compared to other nations: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/29/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin/
When discussing this with older people, or when I hear Soviet times discussed in general, I always hear statements like:
- Almost everybody had family members or friends deported or killed (a part of the Estonian population was deported early in the occupation under the guise of being kulaks and nationalists, except the vast majority were women and children)
- People lost their ancestral homes and were forced into tiny apartments shared with other families
- There were constant shortages of food - you had to know somebody in the party or somebody working in a shop to get any actual variety in your meals
- In general, everything was super corrupt, being “well-connected” meant you had a much easier life
- Our culture was being deleted, we were not allowed to sing our songs, discuss a lot of our history, etc
- People felt that they had lost their dignity and were not treated in a humane way
Conversely, I have not really heard many (or really any that I can remember) positive statements.
So this is something I have been thinking about for the past few days, and it’s not a topic that I can generally find a lot previous unbiased discussions on online (I guess because at the end of the day, the Baltic nations are absolutely tiny).
So: what actually went wrong? Why did communist ideology not manage to take root within the minds of the Baltic people? Maybe others here have some interesting perspectives.
One thought I have had myself:
Estonia was never a colonial power, we were in fact serfs, with other nations like Sweden, Denmark and Russia taking turns at ruling us. So when the Soviet union marched in with their army, the Estonian people only saw it as another exploitative ruler, with no interest in hearing anything about socialism. Nevertheless, this doesn’t really explain why several generations growing up in the Soviet union never learned to appreciate socialism.
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Were doing pretty well in Soviet times and had the experience of cutting themselves out before Russia tanked. A perception that they did things right and Russia held them back.
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Were not subjected to nearly as vicious of economic violence in post-Soviet times.
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Were offered up NATO membership on a silver platter.
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Had a lot of Nazi sympathetic history and despite the memes, the Soviets let the vast majority of them live and have children and harbor antisemitic views.
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Western ahistorical narratives easily took root due to the above.
Compare to post-Soviet countries that were more thoroughly stripped for parts, saw dramatic losses in quality of life, never fully recovered, and/or lacked such a strong Nazi sympathetic history that was whitewashed into cultural heritage. Most of those countries (European side) had and have all of these elements and properties, it’s a matter of degree and whether one thoroughly won out in the aftermath.
Russia would probably be the same if it hadn’t been subjectes to shock therapy.
Yeah, that’s basically 1:1 Poland’s situation, except without the pro-Nazi stuff. (instead it’s nationalist narratives of having been held back and targeted by everyone - which is the only thing preventing from Poland becoming a great power.)
Pro-Socialist narratives are also censored, criminalized, denounced and the accusation of communism is flung around by libs and right wingers against each other - odds are, people who remember socialism fondly often have a blurred understanding of what it actually is, while those who actually do understand it and are supportive hold their tongue out of fear of backlash/resignation/lesser evilism.
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I’m not familiar with the specific history and am excited to read the responses to this thread. However, the extent of the policy of Russification is a common critique of the USSR from a Marxist perspective, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the long and short of it.
I really do think it’s the cultural rift. The Baltics are culturally much more closer to Germanic/Scandinavian cultures than Slavic ones, so the Russians were much more so outsiders to them than many other countries that gained independence in the post-Soviet era. And so anything Russian coming in felt like an attack on their culture. Probably also due to them being brought into the Soviet fold in the post-revolution period which made it feel more like a realpolitik move. It was more about the strategic advantage of having Baltic Sea ports, so it created a feeling of being used.
the baltics were colonized by the germans, it was not a natural affinity of cultures
Yes they were conquered by Germanic nations multiple times, but that’s also going back many centuries. At some point the conquering culture gets assimilated into the native culture.
The Baltic Germans have almost completely left to become settlers in Poland after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had the USSR annex Estonia and Latvia, and then fled from the Red Army into West Germany.
Similarly, East Prussia was (as any self-respecting settler colony - even though the genocide of the Prussian Balts was completed by 1710) a far-right stronghold. In the March 1932 elections, the NSDAP and the monarchist DNVP got 56% combined there (compared to 12% for the KPD)
I think it’s so interesting how particularly true this is- it’s seen everywhere that colonialism spreads culture so thoroughly that even the colonized see themselves as the conquerors. I think Alexander the Great is a huge perpetuator of this in the common understanding of history, but basically every superpower has done it to some degree.
I think most of it can be attributed to the change in economic fortune. The countries that have more nostalgia for the USSR are the ones with more across-the-board economic hardships.
As somebody from Hexbear, I feel obligated to, uh, say something mean about Estonia? I don’t know why, but I’m told by other instances that we’re a pro-Estonian genocide instance.
Anyway. ur mom gay. HA GOTTEM!
(I literally have not heard anything about Estonia since Pauly Shore made it a gag in Encino Man.)
Estonia is automatically the coolest baltic state just solely based on Disco Elysium
yeah i mean, doesnt that kinda prove the op wrong a bit that the disco elysium devs are probably the only game developers from estonia of note and theyre communists? it could be that a lot of the pro communist sentiment is buried on purpose
Tbf half of that game are the devs lamenting how much their country sucks
In my experience, it’s extremely fringe and basically completely taboo to be pro-communism in Estonia. Disco Elysium is definitely a point of pride for many Estonian video game enjoyers, but even so, when discussing the authors, Estonians get super awkward about their communism. The general vibe I’ve seen is something like “ZA/UM can be forgiven for having a few screws loose, they’re artists after all” etc.
also, should be noted that the baltics are out of the norm in that they were one of the ex-soviet areas that received a lot of foreign funding and are now doing better, at least gdp wise, than they did under the soviets. but it took 20ish years for this to happen. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/GDP_per_capita_Baltics.svg/1280px-GDP_per_capita_Baltics.svg.png. from what i can tell, PPP has remained stagnant in estonia since the soviet collapse.
this could be fueling reactionary opinions in society, but it should also be noted that the west has a keen interest in getting the baltics under their heel, it allows them to put more pressure on russia from the north. its unlikely that the baltics would be stable economically without this significant investment from the west. but if you take a look at the graph i linked, you can clearly plot the trend out, under the soviets the gdp would be higher in these areas.
Yeah, good point. I’ve also heard claims that Estonia was on par with Finland in terms of GDP per capita before Soviet times, so many people blame socialism for the current weakness compared to Finland.
Yeah no clue tbh. I could give you a czech communist opinion of the Soviet Union but it should be noted that we’re one of the only places to not ban the communist party (despite many attempts) and there are still a good number of communists in the country, though that has unfortunately been waning in recent years. I’m not aware of any Estonian communists in hexbear to give you that perspective. Tbh maybe you should email the communists on zaum and ask them why lol
I do know what Lithuania was up to during ww2 and they did some nasty shit along with the poles so I could discuss that
I mean it’s fringe and taboo in the west as well
Oh shoot, you’re right! I take back everything, Estonia fucking cranks.
The first prime minister of Estonia post-independence was a Milton Friedman stan in his early 30s, and as a result the country is super neoliberal with all the problems that entails, like really high poverty rates by EU country standards and really low wages which means a lot of people are exploited by having to work construction in Finland or working in outsourced call centers for Finnish companies. Estonia fucking sucks.
I think in general your description of poverty rates and low wages is a perfect description of Estonia ~10 years ago, but nowadays I think it’s actually a bit different. Poverty rates have seriously decreased, wages have gone up quite quickly every year, and construction workers are making quite good money within Estonia, etc. (To be fair though, the inflation from the past year has hurt people a lot)
Are you Estonian by any chance?
Are you Estonian by any chance?
Nope, Finnish. Honestly I’m shocked I was even slightly contemporary with my tangential knowledge of Estonian politics.
Shock treatmemt would makse sense in the way Estonian workers did become the Others with the Baltic and how Finland was and still is exploiting their workers, because they probably had to seek a living wage outside the country after the Soviet fell.
Interestingly there is never any analysis of this whatsoever in Finnish media, a county that had it’s own shock therapy lite with the depression and a Chicago school dude as a prime minister.
Construction sites here see a lot of Eastern Europeans nowadays, but Estonian workers were the first to my understanding.
For what it’s worth, here’s a struggle session with a lib about this topic: https://lemm.ee/comment/3344414
Not a fan of how this discussion went tbh. GoodEye8 brought up the very same poll about The Baltic states sentiments about the Soviet period that OP is talking about here, and the comrades in the thread switched to “well yeah the Baltics are Nazis” which seems immensely shitty to me. I’m not saying there isn’t a Nazi sympathy problem in Baltics, the prevalence of double genocide Definity means there is. But surely there’s a reason why such sentiments are common in the Baltics besides “well the people of the Baltic countries are just naturally Nazi inclined” or some shit. I think the comrades there could have done a better job of adressing GoodEye8 when they brought up the poll showing that pro-Soviet period sentiments are uncommon in the Baltics.
I completely agree with you, especially regarding the “Baltics are Nazis” thing - I think it’s completely messed up. At least in Estonia, there are three very distinct kinds of people that regularly get called Nazis by foreigners (mostly by Russian media):
- Actual Nazi sympathisers - they surely exist (as they probably do in all countries globally), but in my experience, this is an extreme fringe minority of people, because the general sentiment is that Nazis occupied and did absolutely horrible things in Estonia in WW2.
- Conservative nationalists - a much bigger group, but still a minority, these are people who are hardcore against anything progressive, they generally even oppose the EU (often calling it a new version of the USSR, as an insult).
- People who condemn the Soviet Union - this is the vast majority of the population.
Basically all Estonians belong to the third group (as discussed elsewhere in this thread), so it’s actually scary when Russian media lumps these people in with literal Nazi sympathisers. I don’t think Estonia can do anything to effectively combat this propaganda either - Russian media is fucking powerful.
I think the reason why 3 happens, besides Russia’s national agenda of course, is that in the Baltics (and Finland) resistance to the USSR often came hand in hand with collaboration with the Nazis. I also mention the Double Genocide Theory, which is recognized as being basically Holocaust denial and from what Ive heard is basically government policy in the baltic nations (correct me if I’m wrong about that). There was unfortunately a fair amount of Baltic Nazi collaborators back in the WWII era. But it is good to hear you say that general sentiment is that Nazi occupation was bad. I just worry about any perception that the USSR was actually the worse evil and that collaborating with the Nazis to resist the USSR was acceptable being common there.
But yeah, generalizing the entire nation as Nazis is wrong of course. Especially since even according to the polling, roughly 15% of the Estonian population DO think the fall of the USSR was bad, which is still a lot of people. So it may not be common sentiment or maybe not something you say in polite company there, but it does exist.
I think this thread highlights the general sentiment among the Estonian population perfectly.
Smaller countries so easier for anticommunism to diffuse
Lots of interesting comments here already. I am now trying to find more information from another perspective - how did the Estonian people feel about the Soviets leading up to the occupation.
During the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Estonia was still a part of the Russian Empire. There was also a revolutionary government in Estonia at that time, but at the same time, a democratically elected (capitalist) government emerged, resulting in a dual power situation in Estonia.
There was a war of independence during 1918-1920. In Estonian schools, it’s taught like this: on one side was the capitalist government with a mostly volunteer military (and with heavy financial and military aid from Britain and Finland) - these were the “good guys”. They were fighting the “bad guys” - Germans in the south, and Bolsheviks in the East. Bolsheviks also included the aforementioned revolutionary government, which was in fact fully comprised of ethnic Estonians, but they are mostly handwaved away as traitors to the Estonian people, and actually they are kind of treated as Russian puppets who were just executing the will of the “Soviet empire”. I remember being very confused in school when learning about these guys, I never understood how the Russians managed to convince some Estonians to betray our people, I think the common understanding most people leave school with is that they were basically just fundamentally evil people (yes, really).
Ultimately the October revolution failed in Estonia, because the capitalist government managed to somehow win against both Germans and the Red Army with a much smaller army (how this happened is actually really hard for me to understand), and so the first independent capitalist Estonia was born (which lasted until the Soviet occupation in 1939).
Based on the above, I am making some assumptions:
- I can definitely see the war of independence creating a “Bolsheviks are the enemy” understanding in the general populace, so when the Soviets came at the start of WW2, people were already only seeing them as the enemy. I think this is the perfect environment to prevent the spread of communism as an ideology: a population who feel they’ve had their independent future stolen from them by the Soviets, their historic enemies. I can definitely see parents in such an environment priming their children to not trust Soviet teachings from a young age - I know from first hand experience that such priming was being done to children when I was very young, so this very well could be something that has been passed down through the generations from when the occupation first started.
- Very likely the war of independence resulted in the loss of most Estonian communists, so by the time of the occupation, there were probably very few Estonian people spreading communist ideology “on the inside”.
- This is pure speculation, but the fact that the Estonian people had effectively resisted the October revolution may have caused some built-in anger and disdain from the side of the Soviets, and this may very well explain the initial violence and frankly unjustifiable deportations of what I consider mostly innocent people.
I want to try and find some more sources about the revolutionary government and the war of independence, and how the people in Estonia felt about communism during the October revolution, but I think I will need to go to a library for this, as I am not finding much online (certainly not finding much that is unbiased).
One interesting note: the revolutionary government went into exile in Russia after the war of independence, and eventually most of them were executed during the Great Purge. I am having a hard time finding out what crimes they were accused of.
Thank you for this question and these thoughts. This and a sort of similar history here in Finland has me confused as well because a lot of the framing seems the same. It was just today that we were talking with a friend on how it would be very good to hear even one Soviet positive comment from someone who lived during that time in Estonia. There really seems to be none.
The history seems blurry at best. I know that here in Finland the capitalists had a lot of support from Germany and also Sweden even before the October revolution and it was them who were actually originally against independence. The nation building story of one nation came a lot later. But, they had to give into the independence which was then flipped on its head later as a project led by them (they actually wanted to install a monarchy here).
All the Finnish owner families tend to have feudal ties and this goes back a lot further than the last century, but I believe they always saw Finland as their little playground where the people really didn’t have much of a voice until the Soviet started to form, this threat gave us a civil war that in hindsight the capitalists won. The support for them in my understanding came from their ties to feudalists. This also gave birth to the weldare state as the Reds had to be appeased with something, up until this we were still happily trading poors as slaves.
Framing of these things in school, things like the Terijoki parliament are muddy and odd, the people deemed as bolsheviks are basically called traitors, but nobody says what or who was betrayed and how exactly. All I know is that the Reds here were treated badly even during WW2 and to this day “finlandization” will bring forward great outrage from the capitalis class.
Our nations story has very much been constructed for and by these people in power, on a large part those in power remain to be the same today. I wonder if this alone has been enough to effectively disappear the voice and history of communism here and demonize it so fully that today you cannot find a balanced voice on this anymore and those few who do see the era of Soviet collaboration as prosperous have been fully discredited.
