All The Things We Don't Know

by Cheryl Rofer

Giustino is wondering about the lack of response he's getting about his sighting of Arnold Rüütel, former President of Estonia and former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR. I should mention that Giustino is in Estonia and talking to Estonians. I would expect a full complement of blank stares in the US.

Rüütel is one of those enigmas that I don't suppose we'll ever know the full story on. His career began in agronomy, and he rose to become the rector of the Estonian Academy of Agriculture in 1969. His friends encouraged him to set his sights on higher political office, and he made his way through the system to become Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR in 1983.

In the late eighties, until the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Estonia led most of the innovations in the Republics that moved toward their independence without poking the bear hard enough to bring down the tanks. Rüütel was the Chairman, and he was invited, twice, to Moscow to explain his Republic's untoward actions and to receive orders for his actions upon his return. Like that he was not to sign the Sovereignty Resolution, which declared that the laws of the ESSR prevailed over the laws of the Union on Estonian soil. He signed it upon his return, which he wasn't at all sure would happen, the likely alternative being imprisoned in Moscow.

So Giustino saw Rüütel the other day near the National Library, across the street from where that statue of the Bronze Soviet Soldier once stood. He is taken with the nickname "Silver Fox" for Rüütel, and has been using it in recent conversations. He hasn't been getting much reaction, certainly not what he seems to expect. There are a few possible reasons for this.

One, that Giustino is figuring out, is that nicknames have only a limited currency. Some of us even tend to think they're silly, but I must say, having met him, that Arnold Rüütel is a handsome and charming man with very attractive hair, so there is some appropriateness to "Silver Fox."

But there is another. Rüütel was head of the Estonian SSR for several years before perestroika and glasnost opened the way to Estonian moves toward independence. I have wondered what compromises people who held power in that kind of situation had to make. We may consider just one example, in the United States of America, of a person who went against the establishment, to see that a certain conformity is required.

I have asked friends in Estonia about how it was to live under the Soviets. Their answers tend to be along the lines of assuring me that everyday life is more ordinary than we Americans may imagine. They've said that it wasn't even necessary to be a member of the Communist Party to hold official positions.

I have heard from others, however, that that may not have been the case for Arnold Rüütel and his wife, that they may have taken advantage of their position to the detriment of other Estonians. Certainly some Estonians were imprisoned while Rüütel was in power.

I list these comments as data. I have not made up my mind as to their truth or falsity. I have no way of determining that. People's experiences were different. They were not as free under the Soviets to share this sort of information, which would have compartmented their understanding still further. Giustino may be bringing up a subject that his Estonian companions would rather relegate to the past.

What I think I do know is that Arnold Rüütel has had some remarkable experiences. If he joined the government with Estonian nationalism as his primary motivation, he has seen great fulfullment while, most likely, having had to do some things he would rather not have. If his journey was more mixed, if he was a political opportunist, he nonetheless displayed great bravery in the Estonian movement toward independence.

I think about what his situation may have been, and I think about Thomas Tamm, the US whistleblower (that's an Estonian name, too!). I wonder what I would have done in their places.

Comments

[zenpundit]

Judging Ruutel by the standards of freedom, as it appears some critics are wont to do, is a back door way of attacking somebody who helped bring down the USSR without sounding like a pro-Communist idiot.

Scratch a lot of these critics and I suspect you will find hard leftists and ppl with personal axes to grind. If they were really interested in historical "justice" they would go after those who made the machinery of oppression work in the Estonian SSR - the local KGB, the stool pigeons, the abusers of dissidents the Party ideologists.

[Cheryl Rofer]

Mark, that's a vast oversimplification and completely unfair to the critics. Those in Estonia that I've met personally seem to be quite genuine in what they say and why they say it. Other Estonians, like those whom Giustino was talking to, just seem to avoid the subject.

My point in the post is that we have little way of verifying much that comes out of an authoritarian system.

History will give us one story; perhaps your preferences will prevail.

It seems to me that this story illustrates how uncertain our understanding of history is. It is particularly vivid to me because of the personal connections and experiences involved.