The Village and the Class War: Anti-Kulak Campaign in Estonia 1944-49

Chapter 1 The Land Question in Estonia

Chapter 1 The land Question in estonia estonia is situated on the south-eastern coast of the Baltic sea. Baltic german barons have dominated most of its history as rulers of the indigenous enserfed peasantry from the time of the eastern crusades in the twelfth century on. until the late nineteenth century, local rule was feudal in character; this did not end completely until the aristocracy finally lost power through national independence and democratisation in 1919. The feudal estates as the nuclei of society belonged to differing empires and states through the political turbulence of both the medieval and modern eras. The multiethnic russian empire was most persistent, holding state power for two hundred years until the February revolution of 1917. at this point, nationalist forces saw the possibility of breaking away from russia, in the general context of civil war. When independence was achieved in 1919, the former russian provinces were organised along ethnic lines, dividing ethnic estonians from their latvian neighbours to the south. estonians, latvians and lithuanians enjoyed twenty years of national independence in the interwar period before the beginning of the second World War when their fate was sealed through the Molotov-ribbentrop pact, the treaty of non-aggression signed between the soviet union and nazi germany. in the secret part of this treaty, the Baltic states, along with eastern poland, were included in the soviet sphere of influence. Following the agreement, the soviet union demanded bases on the territory of both estonia and latvia. (lithuania was initially assigned 4 THE VILLAGE AND THE CLASS WAR to the german sphere but was later transferred to the soviets.) seeing no alternative, the Baltic states acceded to soviet demands.1 1.1. agriculture and the First soviet Year 1940–41 soviet troops entered estonia in october 1939 and kept to their bases for almost a year. in June 1940, demands for a more friendly government were issued from Moscow. a coup d’état against the moderate authoritarian right-wing government in power was staged with the help of red army soldiers. president Konstantin päts was forced to resign and was arrested a week later. in his place a puppet government was installed, consisting of left-wing intellectuals rather than diehard communists, which co-operated with soviet politburo member andrei Zhdanov, who remained behind the scenes. This new government organised rigged elections, resulting in a Chamber of deputies of pro-communist candidates only, which immediately applied to become a member republic of the soviet union. The annexation was thus carried out according to a peculiarly legalistic procedure. This deceived few observers, particularly as the same procedure took place simultaneously in latvia and lithuania.2 sovietisation in the area was sudden and thorough: the new soviet republics had the legislation and organisation of the soviet union imposed on them; the armies of the Baltic states were incorporated into the red army and the police and civil administration were purged. in the economy, nationalisation began almost immediately as large industrial enterprises and banks were seized often by employees at lower levels with a communist commissar at their side.3 in the agricultural sector, sovietisation occurred in an egalitarian and peasant-dominated society. The estonian peasantry made up about 60 per cent of the population at the time of the First World War. in the late nineteenth century, some were able to buy land while others 1 see ilmjärv, Silent Submission, 464–77. 2 Find a general history of estonia in english in raun, Estonia and the Estonians. For an account of the 1939–1940 crisis, see 139–46. 3 exiled estonians have given accounts of their experiences in Eesti riik ja rahvas teises maailmasõjas i-X. 5 The Land Question in Estonia received land in the thorough national land reform of 1919–1925.4 in this land reform, the aristocracy, which were mostly Baltic germans, lost all their land except for 50 hectares per family, ending the longstanding estate system in the area. The result of these processes was that a system of middle-sized family farms arose in estonia, with an exceptionally egalitarian land distribution. estonia’s land distribution is compared to traditionally egalitarian societies in the region in graph 1 (page 29). The economic differentiation within the estonian peasantry was smaller than in neighbouring Finland and sweden. still, a difference persisted in the interwar period between the so-called “old farms” purchased in the...