The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (Estonian SSR, ESSR), also known as Soviet Estonia, was a de facto administrative unit (union republic) of the former Soviet Union, established on the occupied and annexed territory of Estonia in 1940. It existed from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944 until 1990, when the use of the name Estonian SSR was discontinued.
It was nominally established to replace the until then independent Republic of Estonia on 21 July 1940, a month after the 16–17 June 1940 Soviet military invasion and occupation of the country during World War II. After the installation of a Stalinist government which, backed by the occupying Soviet Red Army, declared Estonia a Soviet constituency, the Estonian SSR was subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union as a union republic on 6 August 1940.The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (Postcommunist States and Nations) David J. Smith from Front Matter Estonia: Identity and Independence: Jean-Jacques Subrenat, David Cousins, Alexander Harding, Richard C. Waterhouse on Page 246. Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, until it was reconquered by the USSR in 1944.
Most of the world's countries did not recognise the incorporation of Estonia into the Soviet Union de jure and only recognised its Soviet administration de facto or not at all. A number of countries continued to recognise Estonian diplomats and consuls who still functioned in the name of their former government.Diplomats Without a Country: Baltic Diplomacy, International Law, and the Cold War by James T. McHugh, James S. Pacy, p. 2. This policy of non-recognition gave rise to the principle of legal continuity, which held that de jure, Estonia remained an independent state under occupation throughout the 1940–1991 period.David James Smith, Estonia: independence and European integration, Routledge, 2001, , p. xix
On 16 November 1988, Estonia became the first of the then Soviet-controlled countries to declare state sovereignty from the central government in Moscow. On 30 March 1990, the newly elected parliament declared that Estonia had been illegally occupied since 1940 and proclaimed a transitional period for the restoration of the country's full independence through Restitutio ad integrum. Subsequently, on 8 May 1990, the Supreme Soviet ended the use of the Soviet symbols as state symbols together with the name Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and adopted Republic of Estonia as the official name of the state. Estonia was taking over and restored state institutions – on 1 August 1990, Estonia took over Soviet Ministry of Interior assets in Estonia; on 1 January 1990 Bank of Estonia was re-established; on 1 November 1990, the Estonian Border Guard; on 12 February 1991, Estonian Internal Security Service, on 1 March 1991 Estonian Police, and so on, eroding the occupation authorities in the state.
During the 1991 Soviet coup attempt the parliament of Estonia declared the re-establishment of full independence on 20 August 1991. The Soviet Union formally recognised the independence of Estonia on 6 September 1991. On 31 August 1994, the last remaining Russian troops left Estonia, ending the era.
History Second World War
The Nazi-Soviet Pact which was signed on 23 August 1939, a week before the outbreak of World War II, secretly assigned Estonia to the Soviet "sphere of influence". On 24 September 1939, warships of the Soviet Navy blocked the major ports of Estonia, a neutral country, and Soviet bombers began patrolling over and around its capital city Tallinn.Moscow's Week at Time magazine on Monday, 9 October 1939 Moscow demanded that Estonia allow the USSR to establish Soviet military bases on its territory and station 25,000 troops in these bases "for the duration of the European war".The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by David J. Smith, p. 24, The government of Estonia yielded to the ultimatum, signing the corresponding mutual assistance agreement on 28 September 1939.
Soviet occupation of Estonia
On 12 June 1940, the order for total military blockade of Estonia was given to the Soviet Baltic fleet.according to the director of the Russian State Archive of the Naval Department Pavel Petrov (C.Phil.), Pavel Petrov at Finnish Defence Forces home page On 14 June, the Soviet military blockade of Estonia went into effect while the world's attention was focused on the fall of Paris to Nazi Germany. Two Soviet bombers shot down a Finnish passenger aircraft "Kaleva" flying from Tallinn to Helsinki carrying three diplomatic pouches from the U.S. legations in Tallinn, Riga and Helsinki.The Last Flight from Tallinn at American Foreign Service Association On 16 June, Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Estonia (along with Lithuania and Latvia).Senn, Alfred Erich, Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above, Amsterdam, New York, Rodopi, 2007 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed that the 1939 mutual assistance treaties had been violated, and gave six-hour ultimatums for new governments to be formed in each country, including lists of persons for cabinet posts provided by the Kremlin. The Soviet ultimatum to Estonia was issued on 16 June 1940. The Estonian government decided, in accordance with the Kellogg–Briand Pact, to not respond to the ultimatums by military means. Given the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country, the order was given not to resist to avoid bloodshed and open war.The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by David J. Smith, p. 19
On 16–17 June 1940, the Red Army emerged from its military bases in Estonia and, aided by an additional 90,000 Soviet troops, took over the country, occupying the entire territory of the Republic of Estonia.The World Book Encyclopedia The History of the Baltic States by Kevin O'Connor Most of the Estonian Defence Forces and the Estonian Defence League surrendered according to the orders, and were disarmed by the Red Army. Only the Estonian Independent Signal Battalion stationed at Raua Street in Tallinn began armed resistance. As the Soviet troops brought in additional reinforcements supported by six armoured fighting vehicles, the battle at Raua Street lasted for several hours until sundown. There was one dead, several wounded on the Estonian side and about 10 killed and more wounded on the Soviet side. Finally the military resistance was ended with negotiations and the Independent Signal Battalion surrendered and was disarmed.51 years from the Raua Street Battle at Estonian Defence Forces Home Page
By 18 June 1940, large-scale military operations for the occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were complete. In the following days, the Soviet troops organised and supported Stalinist "demonstrations" in Tallinn and other larger cities.Estonia: Identity and Independence by Jean-Jacques Subrenat, David Cousins, Alexander Harding, Richard C. Waterhouse Thereafter, state administrations were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres, followed by mass repression. Time magazine reported on 24 June, that "Half a million men and countless tanks" of the Red Army "moved to safeguard [Russia's] frontier against conquest-drunk Germany," one week before the Fall of France.Germany Over All, Time, 24 June 1940 On 21 June 1940, the Soviet military occupation of the Republic of Estonia was complete.Estonia: Identity and Independence by Jean-Jacques Subrenat, David Cousins, Alexander Harding, Richard C. Waterhouse That day, the President Konstantin Päts (deported to Ufa, Russian SFSR on 30 July 1940 and arrested a few weeks later) was pressured into affirming the Andrei Zhdanov-appointed puppet government of Johannes Vares, following the arrival of demonstrators accompanied by Red Army troops with armoured vehicles to the residence of the Estonian president. The flag of Estonia was replaced with a Red flag on Tallinn's Pikk Hermann tower.
On 14–15 July 1940, rigged extraordinary parliamentary elections were held by the occupation authorities, in which voters were presented with a single list of pro-Stalinist candidates. To maximise voter turnout to legitimise the new system, the voters' documents were stamped in voting facilities for future identification of voting, along with a threat running in the main Communist newspaper, Rahva Hääl, that "It would be extremely unwise to shirk elections. ... Only people's enemies stay at home on election day." Each ballot carried only the Soviet-assigned candidate's name, with the only way to register opposition being to strike out that name on the ballot. According to official election results, the Communist "Union of the Estonian Working People" bloc won 92.8% of the votes with 84.1% of the population attending the elections.Estonian newspaper «Communist», issue of 18 July 1940. Time magazine reported that, following the elections, tribunals were set up to judge and punish "traitors to the people", which included opponents of Sovietization and those who did not vote for incorporation in the Soviet Union.Justice in The Baltic at Time magazine on Monday, 19 August 1940 This election is considered illegal, since the amended electoral law—along with hundreds of other laws passed by the Vares government—had not been approved by the upper house of parliament, as required by the Estonian constitution. The upper house had been dissolved soon after the Soviet occupation and was never reconvened.
Once the elections were concluded, authorities which had previously denied any intention of setting up a Soviet regime began openly speaking of Sovietisation and incorporation into the Soviet Union. The newly "elected" "People's Parliament" met on 21 July 1940. Its sole piece of business was a petition to join the Soviet Union, which passed unanimously. The Estonian SSR was formally annexed into the Soviet Union on 6 August 1940, becoming nominally the 16th constituent part (or "union republic") of the USSR. After another "union republic", the Karelo-Finnish SSR was demoted to an "ASSR", or to an "autonomous union republic" in 1956, until 1991 the Soviet authorities referred to the Estonian SSR as the 15th (i.e., "the last on the list") constituent "republic".
On 23 July 1940, the new Stalinist regime nationalised all land, banks and major industrial enterprises in Estonia. Farmers were allotted small plots of land during the land reforms. Most small businesses were nationalised soon afterwards. The Soviet central government launched the colonisation of the occupied country by promoting a large-scale population movement into Estonia, as immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former USSR settled in Estonia.The White Book: Losses inflicted on the Estonian nation by occupation regimes, pp. 143–144. According to some Western scholars, relations between the Soviet Union and Estonian SSR were those of internal colonialism.Mettam, Collin W. and Stephen Wyn Williams (2001). A colonial perspective on population migration in Soviet Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies 27 (1), 133–150.Mettam, Colin W. and Stephen Wyn Williams (1998). Internal colonialism and cultural division of labour in the Soviet Republic of Estonia. Nations and Nationalism 4 (3), 363–388. the earlier economic structures constructed mostly in 1920–1940 were purposefully destroyed; new production structures were constructed only to satisfy interests of the colonial power, assigning priorities according to an all-union production chain network; local environmental resources were extensively over used; the employment and migration policies were tailored towards assimilating the native population; former economic ties of Estonia were cut off and Estonian economy was isolated from non-Soviet markets.