Housden Martyn. Forgotten Pages in Baltic History: Diversity and Inclusion. (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics) (ENG)

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

The View from the Top

237

Vossler, F. (2005), Propaganda in die eigene Truppe: die Truppenbetreuung

in der Wehrmacht 1933–1945. Paderborn: Schöningh.

Weber, P. (1917), Wilna―eine vergessene Kunststätte. Wilna: Verlag der

Zeitung der 10 Armee.

Wilnaer Zeitung (Vilnius News).

Wronka, J. (1917), Kurland und Litauen. Ostpreußens Nachbarn. Freiburg i.

Br.: Herder.

Soviet Genocide in Latvia? Conflicting Cultures of

Remembrance of Stalin’s Policy, 1940–1953

Erwin Oberländer

Introduction

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the political developments in Europe

since 1991, new issues have surfaced concerning the historical memory of

National Socialism and Communism. Today, three different forms of

historical memory regarding the Second World War and its consequences

compete with each other: an emphasis on National Socialist occupation and

the Holocaust predominates in Western memory; the myth of liberation and

victory in the Russian one; while the suffering inflicted by two totalitarian

regimes shapes the memory of the peoples of Eastern Europe. These

divergent memories not only reflect different experiences of war and

dictatorship, but also the suppression of national memory cultures by

Communist rulers. Whereas the perception of occupation, collaboration and

resistance in Western Europe has undergone immense changes during the last

60 years, in Eastern Europe (including the Baltic States) it has only been

possible since 1991 to articulate openly the experiences of dual dictatorship.

This experience is still denied by official Russian policy, and in Western

Europe it is by no means yet accepted as an evident part of twentieth-century

European history.

The evaluation of Stalin‟s policy in East Central Europe, and

especially in the Baltic States from 1940 until 1953, is central to this debate.

The liquidation by murder, incarceration and deportation of almost the entire

élite―that is to say the most important representatives of Estonian, Latvian

and Lithuanian national consciousness―, the mass settlement of Russians in

Estonia and Latvia, together with the Russification of public life as a whole:

were all of these “only” crimes against humanity, or were they in fact an

attack on the very existence of three nations which deserves to be called

genocide? At least Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian historians and

politicians maintain the latter position so, for example, the Republic of Latvia

commemorates not only the victims of the Jewish genocide on 4 July, but

also has designated the first Sunday in December “Memorial Day for the

Victims of Genocide against the Latvian People by the Totalitarian

Communist Regime”. The accusation of genocide against the Stalinist Soviet

Union has been rejected unanimously in Russia, but it also irritates historians

in western countries because intensive study of the Holocaust has led many to

demand that the Holocaust be regarded as a singular crime. Any comparison

between this and crimes against other peoples must be considered an attempt

to relativise the Holocaust. In Eastern Europe, however, things are seen

precisely in the reverse, that is to say, emphasis on the Holocaust leads to the

relativisation of the suffering of all other victims such as the peoples of East

Erwin Oberländer

240

Central Europe under Hitler and Stalin. It even leads to them being forgotten

altogether. Before I discuss these controversies in detail, however, I want to

recall briefly those factors relating to the experience of dual dictatorship

which continue to have a critical effect right up to the present day not just on

Latvians, but Estonians and Lithuanians too―factors which have given them

the impression of having been victims of a Stalinist attempt at genocide.

From 1918 until 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were independent states.

From 1926 Lithuania was subject to authoritarian rule, Estonia and Latvia

from 1934. These regimes clearly were not democratic, but neither were they

fascist since they were characterised neither by terror nor by mass

movements or ideologies, in fact they did not involve a commitment to

expansionism either.

Even today, all three of the dictators are given

considerable respect in their countries and critical debate about their regimes

is not appreciated by large sections of the public. If, however, you consider

the catastrophic effects of the Second World War on this region and the

decades of political oppression by the Soviet Union which followed, then it is

easy to understand why the members of the peoples living there look at the

two decades of independence experienced before the Second World War

through rose-tinted glasses, regardless of the political system which existed.

The secret protocols of the German-Soviet treaty of autumn 1939 allocated

all three states to the USSR‟s sphere of interest. The consequences of the co-

operation between Hitler‟s Germany and Stalin‟s Soviet Union were

traumatic for the Baltic nations: three occupations within five years which, at

least until Stalin died, were characterised in equal measure by terror, mass

murder, deportations and exploitation. The occupations, of course, were by

the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, by Nazi Germany from 1941 until 1944,

and then came the second Soviet occupation lasting from 1945 until 1991.

In the wake of the rapid German victory over France, in 1940 Stalin

embarked on the annexation of the Baltic States. The ultimatum demanding

new governments loyal to Moscow was followed in mid-July by the military

occupation of the three states. High ranking Soviet emissaries implemented

the re-organisation of government offices. Grotesque pseudo-elections with

one-party lists produced the desired 92 to 99% majorities. Then, in August

1940, the “newly elected parliamentarians” voted for the transformation of

their country into a Soviet Socialist Republic and for absorption by the

USSR. In order to achieve this―as we now know from, for instance, the

archive of the Estonian Communist Party―, many deputies were given

orders backed up by tremendous threats against life and limb, since not even

those elected from the workers‟ one-party lists were willing to vote as

required voluntarily.

As if the violent loss of independence had not been

sufficiently humiliating, for the next 50 years those affected were also

confronted by Moscow‟s use of language, according to which in 1940 the

Soviet Genocide in Latvia?

241

Baltic peoples had joined the USSR completely of their own accord, indeed

thanks to a socialist revolution. Over the decades, the creed-like repetition of

this brazen falsification of history kept awake in those affected the memory

of the actual circumstances of the loss of independent statehood and of union

with the USSR.

Immediately after annexation, the complete re-structuring of society

according to the Soviet model began. This was accompanied by mass

imprisonments, as well as the murder or deportation of almost all members of

the previous élites. By rendering the population defenceless, it was intended

to destroy once and for all the seed-bed of ambitions for independence. The

project culminated in the long-prepared mass deportations of 15,424 citizens

of Latvia, 10,861 citizens of Estonia and 16,246 citizens of Lithuania to East

Siberia and Kazakhstan as “undesirable, anti-soviet and socially dangerous

elements”. This happened during the night of 13–14 June 1941, i.e. just a

week before the German invasion.

These deportations effectively destroyed

the political, legal, social, economic, cultural and moral foundations of the

Republics which had been independent until then. They involved practically

the entire upper class of the three nations, including their families (among

them 2,400 children under 6 years of age from Latvia), and became a national

trauma which entered the collective memory as the start of genocide.

Transportation often lasted for weeks, was carried out using cattle wagons

and was inadequately provisioned; consequently numerous deaths were

mourned during the journey itself. Directly after the German attack on the

USSR on 22 June 1941, an additional 3,458 political prisoners were taken

from Latvia to the interior of the Soviet Union as quickly as possible.

When

the victims of this terrorism were “granted an amnesty” (although by no

means rehabilitated)―at the Twentieth Party Congress of the USSR‟s

Communist Party (1956) when Nikita Krushchev drew up an account of

Stalin‟s actions―, only 15 to 20% were left to return home. The majority had

fallen victim to hunger and cold as early as the first winter, while almost all

fathers of families and deported political prisoners had been killed in special

camps.

These events must be kept in mind in order to understand why large

numbers of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians initially welcomed

Germany‟s invasion of the USSR which began only a week after the mass

deportations. Indeed, the German army was welcomed as a liberator. Hatred

of Bolshevism, specifically of Soviet rule, seemed to provide a basis for

reaching an accommodation with the Germans, the aim being at least to

maintain or create focal points around which national sentiment could

crystallise and which, at a later time, could lead to the re-establishment of

independence. But German actions soon led to the sober realisation that the

supposed liberators were not prepared to make any concessions apart from

limited and strictly controlled self-administration.

Rather, Soviet terror was

replaced by German terror which frequently was supported by home-grown

Erwin Oberländer

242

police units and directed against Jews (92,000 in Latvia, of whom between

65,000 and 70,000 were murdered),

Communists, Soviet occupation

collaborators and Soviet prisoners of war. It was accompanied by the

unscrupulous exploitation of the three countries for the benefit of the German

war effort, including the sometimes violent deportation to the Reich as

labourers of 75,000 Lithuanians, 35,000 Latvians and 15,000 Estonians. It

quickly became clear that no matter who won the war―whether Hitler or

Stalin―there would be no chance for the nations of this region to develop

further and freely the independent statehood which they had consolidated

with difficulty between 1919 and 1939. Nonetheless, many regarded German

dominion as the lesser evil and collaborated with it, since the Germans

seemed less of a threat to the very existence of the titular nations than did

Soviet rule―although long-term German plans did not recognise the

existence of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, but these plans of course

were unknown to those affected. On the other hand, others maintained the

hope that, after a Soviet victory, a war would break out between Stalin and

the Western Powers, opening up new prospects for self-determination for

Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.

In 1944 the Red Army returned to the Baltic, and so began the third

period of occupation within five years. Until 1991 this had to be celebrated as

“Liberation by the Red Army”, but broad circles of the three nations only

remembered it as a change of occupying power. It certainly did not bring real

liberation, only terror, deportations and gulag. As the Red Army approached,

tens of thousands attempted to flee westwards with the German troops.

Roughly 130,000 people did this from Latvia, 70,000 from Estonia and

60,000 from Lithuania―predominantly members of the educated classes.

Along with Poland, at the end of the war Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

belonged to those European nations which had suffered the greatest

proportional losses of population, that is to say well over 20% of the pre-war

figure. In any event, the blood-letting was in no way over. Post-war Soviet

terror culminated in 1949‟s forced collectivisation which was strongly

opposed by farmers, leading to renewed mass deportations to Siberia. These

were far more extensive than the deportations of 1941. The Soviet Union also

tried in the process to destroy support for the thousands of so-called “Forest

Brethren”―“bandits” in Soviet terminology. In the hope of an imminent

military confrontation between the USSR and the USA, these were waging

guerrilla war from the forests against the Red Army and, as a result, were

tying up large numbers of Soviet troops. The last of the “Forest Brethren”

gave up only in the mid-1950s. At the end of March 1949, within a few days

43,231 people were deported from Latvia alone to the regions of Omsk,

Tomsk and Amur. Representing 2.28% of the entire population, without

exception they were farming and “bandit” families.

33,500 and about 40,000

people were affected in Lithuania and Estonia respectively. Even according

to Russian estimates, however, total numbers of Latvian victims of Soviet

Soviet Genocide in Latvia?

243

repression between 1944 and 1953 were much higher than in the other two

countries: 2,000 people were sentenced to death and shot, while 88,000 were

imprisoned or consigned to penal camps (apparently this number includes the

inmates of filtration camps). Of the 88,000, 8,000 lost their lives and 43,000

were deported (of whom 5,000 died). Consequently at least 148,000 people

were affected, although Latvian historians say the number is far higher.

The second mass deportation also entered the collective memory as an

assault on the existence of the three nations―as a continuation of genocide.

Almost every family was affected by it. This impression was reinforced

when, just a little later, the expansion of industry in Latvia and Estonia led to

the settlement of tens of thousands of Russians to off-set the loss of labour

and also to bind the region more closely to the rest of the Soviet Union in

ethnic terms. In Latvia, the proportion of the population comprised by

Latvians sank dramatically, that is to say from 77% in 1939 to 52% in 1989,

while the proportion of Russians rose from 8% to 34% (in 2005 the figures

were 59% and 29%). If, in 1934, the figures for Estonia were still 88%

Estonians and 8% Russians, today they are 68% Estonians and 26%

Russians. Only Lithuania was spared significant alteration, since the

leadership of the Lithuanian Republic managed to prevent mass immigration

from other Soviet Republics, albeit at the cost of achieving only small-scale

industrialisation. The population‟s composition remained roughly at 84%

Lithuanians, 6% Poles and 5% Russians.

The Sovietisation of the Baltic States was halted in the mid-1950s because by

this time every independence movement seemed to have been stamped out.

Nonetheless, at the first sign of Glasnost‟ and Perestroika Estonians, Latvians

and Lithuanians also raised demands for more freedom and, ultimately, for

re-establishing the independence of―as they say in the Baltic―“the last

colonies from the Hitler-Stalin era”. In 1991 independence was regained as

the Soviet Union collapsed. This gave political leaders and historians from all

three states the first opportunity since 1940 to interpret and write about their

history for themselves―in particular the history of the last 50 years. As you

would expect, the focus now was on the victimhood of the three nations

under two dictatorships imposed from abroad. This emphasis on the two-fold

experience of dictatorship and the associated role of victim corresponded to

the three nations‟ requirements both for self-confidence and for the

legitimation of the restored nation states. As an external symbol of new

historical understanding, straight after the re-gaining of independence the

terms “Soviet time” or “Soviet period”―which hitherto had been used to

describe the years between 1944 and 1991―were replaced by the term

“Soviet occupation”. Above all, this emphasised the continuity of the three

states under international law, even if the designation “Soviet regime” would

have been more correct given that it had lasted for almost 50 years, and

Erwin Oberländer

244

especially in view of the fact that innumerable Estonians, Latvians and

Lithuanians had supported the system.

Now the circumstances surrounding the annexation of the three states

by the USSR became central to both public interest and historical research, as

did Soviet terror, deportations and the Russification of the whole of public

life―all themes until then strictly taboo. In this connection, harsh criticism

was also levelled at the western powers who won the Second World War.

They were accused of, for decades, only stigmatising and prosecuting the

crimes of the Nazis and their allies; by contrast, the war crimes and crimes

against humanity committed by their one-time ally, the Soviet Union, had

been ignored or else swept under the carpet. Recently the leading

contemporary historian of Latvia and the current chairman of the

international Commission of the Historians of Latvia for the Investigation of

Crimes against Humanity on the Territory of Latvia under Two Occupations

1940–1991, Inesis Feldmanis, also accused German historians of shying

away from an unbiased comparison of Hitler‟s and Stalin‟s regimes by

referring to the possible “relativising” of National Socialist crimes, in

particular the Holocaust. By way of contrast, he stressed that historical

experiences made it impossible for people in Latvia to remember the past in

such a biased and imperfect way. “They suffered at the hands of the two

equally criminal totalitarian regimes, but first and foremost this had to do

with the Soviet Union, which initially could pursue its criminal aims against

Latvia and her people specifically because it was the ally of Nazi Germany.

There is absolutely no reason to claim that the Soviet regime was less evil or

terrible than Nazism.”

Estonians and Lithuanians start from the same premises, although as a

rule they formulate them rather more moderately. The Executive Secretary of

the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes

Against Humanity, Toomas Hiio, stressed the following in autumn 2009 at a

conference in Riga: “We cannot say that only Germans were bad although it

could be the easiest way to become loved by the majority of our Western

Allies in this context”,

while in October 2008 the Executive Director of the

International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and

Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Ronaldas Račinskas, posed the

following simple question: “Two totalitarian regimes, two criminal

ideologies―two different attitudes. Why?”

Here you can see a

fundamentally different perception of Stalinism and National Socialism than

that which is prevalent in Western Europe. For the western nations, 1945

marks a sharp caesura as Hitler‟s Germany was defeated with the assistance

of Stalin‟s Soviet Union. For the Baltic nations, however, this break had

already happened in 1940, when they lost their independence owing to co-

operation between Hitler and Stalin. What followed was, from their

perspective, two totalitarian occupations which both denied them the right to

self-determination and which threatened their existence through a policy of

Soviet Genocide in Latvia?

245

excessive violence. Consequently it is emphasised repeatedly in all three

lands that the war only ended there in 1991.

The widespread equating of German with Soviet occupations has

provoked major reactions in the Russian Federation where in terms of

historical policy there has been no revival of critical discussion of the

Stalinist past since Putin came to power.

Both official Russian sources and

many historians alike simply denounce talk of “Soviet occupation” of the

Baltic States as the “rehabilitation of fascism”. Just as in earlier times,

Stalinist myths are regarded as official truths and include the ideas that the

Red Army liberated Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from “fascism” twice―in

1940 from “national fascism”, in 1944 from German fascism; that the three

countries joined the USSR voluntarily in 1940; that the mass deportations of

1941 were unavoidable because of the supposedly pro-German attitude of the

three countries‟ élites; that the mass deportations of 1949 were unavoidable

as a means for the pursuit of class conflict; and that almost 50 years of Soviet

rule had benefited the three countries in obvious ways as well.

Anyone

criticising these positions will be challenged by the Commission against the

Falsification of History to the Disadvantage of Russia’s Interests which was

set up by President Medved‟ev and also by a law recently introduced in the

Duma by the Minister for Protection against Disasters, Sergej Schojgu, which

envisages severe fines and up to five years in prison for criticising the

liberating role of the Red Army in the Second World War.

Behind all of this

stands above all Putin‟s search for a “positive” view of history which, in the

face of the fragmentation of the Russian Federation, is supposed to create

pride in the nation and its history leading to social cohesion. And since

victory in the “Great Patriotic War” represents, as it were, the single positive

inheritance left from the USSR, it is instrumentalised tirelessly for political

purposes as one of the most important sources of strength for national

consciousness―just as it was in Soviet times. Apparently this is accepted by

the majority of the population in the context of a “patriotic consensus”. At the

same time, in respect of public opinion abroad, emphasis on the “myth of

victory” is supposed to maintain the prestige that Russia inherited from the

Soviet role in the defeat of Hitler‟s Germany, it also serves as a broad

defensive shield against remembering the victims of Stalinist terror.

Nonetheless, there are commendable exceptions even in Russia, most

notably the organisation MEMORIAL which, in defiance of all major

obstacles, fights for a critical re-consideration of the Stalinist past which time

and again officially is depicted as “a Russian Sonderweg”.

In summer 2008

MEMORIAL demanded “that, without giving up their justifiable pride in

victory, the citizens of the Russian Federation should know and understand

what this success brought the Baltic nations (for instance) beyond liberation

from National Socialism. On the other hand, given their own tragic history,

these should not forget what the great international conflict with National

Socialism meant for Russia, indeed for the whole world.”

Nonetheless,

Erwin Oberländer

246

there is no sign of either side calming down; in fact, the situation is the

reverse. The more stubbornly Moscow invokes the old myths, the more

irritated become the reactions of those affected. This “war of memories” is

not just an intellectual debate, however, it is also an existential threat to the

social integrity of a multi-national state like Latvia. Since the official culture

of memory in Latvia is fixated specifically on the Latvians, the result is that,

for instance, the Russians who make up almost 30% of the land‟s inhabitants

are hardly given any chance of historical contact promoting identification

with the state. Consequently, to a large extent Latvia‟s Russians have adopted

the version of history for the years 1940 to 1991 represented by Moscow.

This also offers the Russian government the possibility of instrumentalising

Latvia‟s Russian inhabitants in respect of its politics of memory and the

demands which accompany it―thus to interfere in Latvia‟s domestic affairs.

Up to now, no initiatives have been developed by the Latvian side to

overcome this alienation of the non-Latvian population. This can only be

achieved through a lengthy and direct dialogue between intellectuals and

historians from the different ethnic groups which could, for instance, enable

the Russians in Latvia to develop their own culture of memory as Latvian

citizens of Russian origin. Such a dialogue is unavoidable if the integration of

the non-Latvian population is to succeed.

In the West especially, there is opposition to the excessively one-sided

emphasis on the victimhood of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians evident

in the re-interpretation of Baltic history on the grounds that it has largely

overshadowed the suffering of other population groups―especially the Jews.

On the Baltic side, initially there was little inclination to diminish the

importance of their historical role as victim, which was of formative

importance to their identity, by admitting a certain share of the blame for the

fate of other persecuted people. Consequently the impetus to reinterpret

fundamentally culpable collaboration by members of the three Baltic nations

in the National Socialist mass murders of Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of

war and patients of psychiatric clinics―likewise in the Stalinist terror against

their co-citizens―came predominantly from abroad. In 1998 the above-

mentioned historical commissions were set up in the three countries under the

aegis of the state presidents of the day. There was general agreement about its

purpose, namely to clarify as completely as possible all the crimes of both

occupying powers on the territory of the three countries, to determine the

extent of participation by citizens of these lands in the crimes of both

occupying powers, to inform society about the events, to draft corresponding

curricula for schools and universities, to advise political decision-making

bodies about related issues and, above all, to inform other states about the

results of the research and the special historical problems of the three

countries concerned. In the past 12 years, these commissions have

accomplished important work such that the research of central events like the

Holocaust, the Soviet mass deportations, the terror which accompanied

Soviet Genocide in Latvia?

247

sovietisation in 1940–41 and 1944–53, collaboration with both occupying

regimes and so on has been advanced intensively and the results have been

made public through conferences and publications.

In particular, the

participation of indigenous people in the genocide of the Jews has been

explained at length. The idea that only a few criminals were to blame―as

several Latvian historians still maintain―, has been contradicted to the same

extent as has the cliché still broadcasted in many western studies about “Jew-

murdering East Europeans” which derived from the National Socialist

propaganda.

III

The accusation of genocide against the Stalinist Soviet Union is absolutely

central to these controversies. First of all, it is not contested―at least among

Baltic and Western historians, but also a number of Russian historians―that

the deportations and mass murders carried out by the Soviet Union in the

Baltic in 1940–41 and 1944–53 constituted crimes against humanity. Soviet

policy in the Baltic seems to fit the internationally accepted definition quite

precisely: “For the purpose of this Statute „crime against humanity‟ means

any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or

systematic attack against any civilian population with knowledge of the

attack: (a) Murder; (b) Extermination; (c) Enslavement; (d) Deportation or

forcible transfer of population; (e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation

of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

Torture (…); Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on

political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in

paragraph 3 (…) or other grounds; Enforced disappearance of persons;

(…)”.

Latvia‟s parliament, however, went a step further and, in its

“Declaration on the Occupation of Latvia” of 22 August 1996, pronounced:

“During the whole occupation period, the USSR purposefully realized the

genocide of the people of Latvia, violating the Convention on the Prevention

and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, dated 9 December 1948”.

Apparently this declaration originated in the desire to accommodate the

collective memory of the majority of Latvians, in which the mass repressions

against the Latvian leadership class, the mass settlement of Russians and the

Russification of all public life are remembered as attempted genocide by the

Stalinist Soviet Union against the Latvian people. The assessment of Soviet

policy as genocide was very common among Latvian politicians and

historians in the 1990s, although the concept was employed arbitrarily and its

applicability to Latvia was never examined in a fundamental way. Since then,

historians at least have started speaking with greater restraint about “features

of genocide”. It is also interesting that, in their official statements none of the

three above-mentioned international historical commissions have classified

expressly either the whole set of events, or individual measures undertaken

by the USSR in the Baltic Republics, as genocide. Apparently this is because