By Patricia H. Kushlis
“The Baltic Way was an
uninterrupted 600 kilometre human chain uniting the Baltic capitals of Tallinn,
Riga and Vilnius, in which two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, joined hands to demand
freedom and independence. The Baltic
Way was organised by the joint efforts of the
three Baltic countries’ Popular Fronts on the 50th anniversary of the
Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939, which served as a basis for the Soviet Union to occupy the Baltic countries in 1940. The
aim of the Baltic Way
(was) to draw the world’s attention to continuing Soviet occupation of the Baltic
countries and (it) emphasised the non-violent nature of the Baltic nations’ struggle
for freedom.” - Inscription on an envelope issued by the Estonian postal service in 2009 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Baltic Way.
Did Natalia Narochnitskaya, the historian who heads the
Foundation for Historical Perspective, a Russian think tank in Moscow, really tell Financial Times columnist
Charles Clover that ‘even throughout the whole cold war, no one questioned the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’ but that “Now everything is being thrown open?”
That’s what he said she said in his September 9, 2009 column
entitled “Putin’s Polish room reignites battle over war memories.”
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact a Non-Issue during the Cold War?
Oh, really.
If that’s so, then I wonder where Narochnitskaya was when I
was Press Attache at the American Embassy in Helsinki from 1988-1991 because I certainly
heard Estonian and other Baltic independence leaders question the legality of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact during that waning period of the Cold War. Furthermore, strong popular objections to the
terms and results of the Pact caused the formation of the Baltic Way, an event that took place on
August 23, 1989. The Baltic Way linked the three Baltic
peoples in a human chain that ran from Estonia through Lithuania via Latvia in a
gesture of solidarity against the continuing Soviet occupation of the Baltics based
on that illegal pact.
Did Ms. Narochnitskaya not remember the Baltic Way (or Baltic Chain as it was also called) or its
significance in terms of the ending of Soviet history? Did she not read the documents and statements
by the leaders of the three Baltic
Republics at the time? Did she not hear Russian Republic President
Boris Yeltsin say in the Russian Duma in September 1990 that “If the center had
given independence to the Baltic
Republics at the very
beginning, there would not have been nationalistic sentiments and centrifugal
tendencies (elsewhere in the Soviet Union).’?” (Photo of the Baltic Way, August 23, 2009)
Perhaps she should apply for a grant to conduct research in
the West where the documents she has apparently not found in Russia - or may have been removed from public access during the Putin era - can
surely be located.
In fact, there should also be a copy of a German language translation of the original Russian
language text (as opposed to the German text) of the pact – signed by Foreign Ministers Molotov and Ribbentrop –
in US government archives. Yes, it exists and I'll bet there's at least one copy here in these United States.
Although the copy of the Russian text of the once secret document
would have come from Soviet archives, the German text of the document had been openly
available for years. The contents of that pact were also important to the US because they formed the basis for the American
government’s refusal to recognize the illegal incorporation of these three
small republics into the Soviet Union. Thepact also resulted in the G.H.W. Bush
administration’s recognition of the independence of the Baltic Republics
de facto as well as de jure almost immediately after the
failed Soviet coup in August 1991.
Or maybe from Ms. Narotchinskaya's historical perspective, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were nobodies?
The Baltic argument for secession from the Soviet Union was
based on the fact that this secret Pact between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union was illegal under international law. The Pact, of course, had set in motion the Soviet
occupation and annexation of the three previously independent Baltic countries
in 1939. The Nazi invasion eastward followed
when Hitler decided to break the pact unilaterally. Then later as the Nazi military machine retreated,
Soviet forces retook the Baltics en route west and occupied them until the Soviet Union itself crumbled in 1991.
So if Yeltsin spoke openly about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
in 1990 in the Russian Duma and the terms of the Pact formed the legal basis
for the Baltic Republics’ declarations of sovereignty and independence before
the end of the Cold War, I have to wonder about Ms. Narochnitskaya’s memory.
Perhaps had Gorbachev not been so poorly informed and made
such a botched decision on the Baltics just a couple of years before – a Soviet Union of 12 republics might have survived. The Baltic leaders, after all, based their demands
for independence on the terms of the secret pact. These
independence leaders were not arguing that the Soviet Union itself should be
dissolved – simply that the three previously independent Baltic Republics
should never have been a part of it and, therefore, should be let to go their
separate ways.
If, therefore, the Kremlin is drawing “on Soviet imperial glory to
buttress its own legitimacy” as Clover suggests, it also needs to take heed
from a lesson that Gorbachev learned the hard way. Rewriting history to suit the needs of a
leader or a government may be popular or even expedient – but it’s not always
wise.
Particularly if countervailing
sources are available to dispute the claims as is clearly the case for the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Baltics and the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact.