I will focus on Estonia, as that’s where I grew up, but I assume this topic is also very relevant to the other Baltic nations.

For my whole life, I have heard horrible stories about Soviet occupiers. I have yet to meet a single person in real life who actually believed in communism or socialism, despite being raised in Soviet times and spending a lot of their childhood learning about Lenin, Stalin, etc.

I always knew that there are people out there (especially in other ex-soviet countries) who remember the USSR fondly, but I always assumed that this was more about nationalism than anything else, like “oh man it sure was great when we had a powerful military and a strong presence on the world stage”. It has been a serious culture shock to discover that the leaders of the Soviet union actually seem to have believed in the project, and that elsewhere in the union, the people seem to have believed in it as well! It really gives me a new perspective on Soviet nostalgia.

Meanwhile in the Baltic countries, and especially in Estonia, all age groups, including the very elderly, treat our Soviet past as an extremely dark time in our history. Just take a look at Estonia here compared to other nations: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/29/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin/

When discussing this with older people, or when I hear Soviet times discussed in general, I always hear statements like:

  • Almost everybody had family members or friends deported or killed (a part of the Estonian population was deported early in the occupation under the guise of being kulaks and nationalists, except the vast majority were women and children)
  • People lost their ancestral homes and were forced into tiny apartments shared with other families
  • There were constant shortages of food - you had to know somebody in the party or somebody working in a shop to get any actual variety in your meals
  • In general, everything was super corrupt, being “well-connected” meant you had a much easier life
  • Our culture was being deleted, we were not allowed to sing our songs, discuss a lot of our history, etc
  • People felt that they had lost their dignity and were not treated in a humane way

Conversely, I have not really heard many (or really any that I can remember) positive statements.

So this is something I have been thinking about for the past few days, and it’s not a topic that I can generally find a lot previous unbiased discussions on online (I guess because at the end of the day, the Baltic nations are absolutely tiny).

So: what actually went wrong? Why did communist ideology not manage to take root within the minds of the Baltic people? Maybe others here have some interesting perspectives.

One thought I have had myself:

Estonia was never a colonial power, we were in fact serfs, with other nations like Sweden, Denmark and Russia taking turns at ruling us. So when the Soviet union marched in with their army, the Estonian people only saw it as another exploitative ruler, with no interest in hearing anything about socialism. Nevertheless, this doesn’t really explain why several generations growing up in the Soviet union never learned to appreciate socialism.

    • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      27·
      1 year ago

      Not a fan of how this discussion went tbh. GoodEye8 brought up the very same poll about The Baltic states sentiments about the Soviet period that OP is talking about here, and the comrades in the thread switched to “well yeah the Baltics are Nazis” which seems immensely shitty to me. I’m not saying there isn’t a Nazi sympathy problem in Baltics, the prevalence of double genocide Definity means there is. But surely there’s a reason why such sentiments are common in the Baltics besides “well the people of the Baltic countries are just naturally Nazi inclined” or some shit. I think the comrades there could have done a better job of adressing GoodEye8 when they brought up the poll showing that pro-Soviet period sentiments are uncommon in the Baltics.

      • hatchet@lemm.eeOPEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        I completely agree with you, especially regarding the “Baltics are Nazis” thing - I think it’s completely messed up. At least in Estonia, there are three very distinct kinds of people that regularly get called Nazis by foreigners (mostly by Russian media):

        1. Actual Nazi sympathisers - they surely exist (as they probably do in all countries globally), but in my experience, this is an extreme fringe minority of people, because the general sentiment is that Nazis occupied and did absolutely horrible things in Estonia in WW2.
        2. Conservative nationalists - a much bigger group, but still a minority, these are people who are hardcore against anything progressive, they generally even oppose the EU (often calling it a new version of the USSR, as an insult).
        3. People who condemn the Soviet Union - this is the vast majority of the population.

        Basically all Estonians belong to the third group (as discussed elsewhere in this thread), so it’s actually scary when Russian media lumps these people in with literal Nazi sympathisers. I don’t think Estonia can do anything to effectively combat this propaganda either - Russian media is fucking powerful.

        • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          1 year ago

          I think the reason why 3 happens, besides Russia’s national agenda of course, is that in the Baltics (and Finland) resistance to the USSR often came hand in hand with collaboration with the Nazis. I also mention the Double Genocide Theory, which is recognized as being basically Holocaust denial and from what Ive heard is basically government policy in the baltic nations (correct me if I’m wrong about that). There was unfortunately a fair amount of Baltic Nazi collaborators back in the WWII era. But it is good to hear you say that general sentiment is that Nazi occupation was bad. I just worry about any perception that the USSR was actually the worse evil and that collaborating with the Nazis to resist the USSR was acceptable being common there.

          But yeah, generalizing the entire nation as Nazis is wrong of course. Especially since even according to the polling, roughly 15% of the Estonian population DO think the fall of the USSR was bad, which is still a lot of people. So it may not be common sentiment or maybe not something you say in polite company there, but it does exist.

    • hatchet@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      I think this thread highlights the general sentiment among the Estonian population perfectly.