Abstract
SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON JUNE 14, THE SOVIET COMMISSAR OF FOREIGN affairs, Viacheslav Molotov, presented an ultimatum to the Lithuanian foreign minister, Juozas Urbšys, who was staying in Moscow for talks. The terms were severe: the Lithuanians had to form a new government subservient to Soviet interests and permit the entry of an unspecified number of Soviet troops and their stationing in the most important centers of Lithuania. The reply had to reach Moscow by 10 a.m. the following morning, but in any case the Red Army would cross the frontier regardless of the Lithuanian response. After an intense debate, at which President Antanas Smetona insisted on resistance, the government complied, and at 3 p.m. Soviet forces crossed the border.1 According to the report of the German military attaché, the Red Army “massed” on the East-Prussian frontier in what was described as a “defensive move” against Germany.2 At the same time, Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vladimir Dekanozov, a Georgian and an ally of Beria working as an assistant to Molotov, arrived in Kaunas to supervise the overthrow of the existing regime.
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Notes
Alfred Senn, Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 92, 97–98.
Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941 (London: Frank Cass, 2002), 186.
Molotov’s speech to the 5th extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet, October 31, 1939, Jane Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, vols. 1–3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1951–1953), vol. 3, 388–400.
Cited in Mikhail Ivanovich Semirjaga, Tainy Stalinskoi Diplomatii, 1939- 1941 (Moskva: Vysshaia Shkola, 1992), 33.
Bernhard H. Bayerlein (ed.), Georgi Dimitroff: Tagebücher 1933–1943 (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2000), 274.
Magnus Ilmjärv, Silent Submission: Formation of Foreign Policy of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: Period from mid-1920’s to Annexation in 1940 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2004), 365.
At present, only the Estonian transcript of the conversation is available, this has been printed in Aleksander Varma, “Läbirääkimised Moskvas ja Tallinnas” [Negotiations in Moscow and Tallinn], Evald Blumfeldt, Hans Kauri, Richard Maasing, and Vello Pekomäe (eds.), Eesti Riik ja Rahvas Teises Maailmasõjas, vol. 2 (Stockholm: EMP, 1955), 56–76. The English translation can be found in Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Communist Aggression and the Forced Incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR: Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954).
Molotov to Munters on October 2, quoted in Geoffrey Roberts, “Soviet Policy and the Baltic States, 1939–1940: A Reappraisal,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 6, issue 3 (November 1995): 672–700, 680; Seppo Myllyniemi, Die Baltische Krise, 1938–1941 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1979), 65; Valdis O. Lumans, Latvia in World War II (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006), 77.
In September–October Stalin repeatedly assured the Baltic representatives that the USSR would not interfere in Baltic internal affairs, Molotov to N. G. Posdnjakov, Soviet Ambassodor to Latvia, October 14, 1939 and Molotov to K. N. Nikitin, Soviet Ambassador to Estonia, October 20, 1939, V. G. Komplektov (ed.), Polpredy Soobshchaiut: Sbornik Dokumentov ob Otnosheniiakh SSR s Latviei, Litvoi i Estoniei: Avgust 1939g.–Avgust 1940g. (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye othnosheniia, 1990), 123, 138. On the relatively decent behavior of Soviet troops, Magnus Ilmjärv, “Soviet Military Bases in Estonian Territory in 1939–1940,” in Toomas Hiio, Meelis Maripuu, and Indrek Paavle (eds.), Estonia, 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity (Tallinn: Inimsusevastaste Kuritegude Uurimise Eesti Sihtasutus, 2006), 7–32.
Patrick R. Osborn, Operation Pike: Britain versus the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2000), 91–5. Stalin knew of the Allied plans to use Polish troops in the North and the Allied hopes of a Polish uprising in the Soviet rear, so he ordered the liquidation of a potential fifth column. The Czech legion had taught a lesson during the civil war which the Bolsheviks could hardly forget. According to Sergo Beria, the Katyn massacre demonstrated Stalin’s dream of “communizing” Europe in 1940, Sergo Beria, Beria—My Father: Inside Stalin’s Kremlin (London: Duckworth, 2001), 55.
This is noted by Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin andthe German Invasion of Russia (London: Yale University Press, 1999), 14–6.
Strobe Talbott (ed.), Khrushchev Remembers: With an Introduction, Commentary and Notes by Edward Crankshaw (London: Andre Deutsch, 1970), 134; Earl F. Ziemke, The Red Army 1918–1941: From Vanguard of World Revolution to US Ally (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 238. On rumors about the Soviet panic about a possible German—British peace, Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, Vol. 1 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1948), 810.
Because of the catastrophe of 1941, it is difficult to agree with Geoffrey Roberts’s assessment of Stalin as a “great war leader,” Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006), 373.
John Alexander Swettenham, The Tragedy of the Baltic States; A Report Compiled from Official Documents and Eyewitnesses’ Stories (London: Hollis and Carter, 1952); August Rei, The Drama of the Baltic Peoples (Stockholm: Kirjastus Vaba Eesti, 1970); Peeter Kaasik, Meelis Maripuu, and Toomas Hiio, “21 June 1940 in Tallinn and Elsewhere in Estonia,” in Estonia 1940–1945, 49–56. There were 133 members in the Estonian Communist Party in 1940 and 1500 in the Lithuanian Communist Party in early 1941.
Cited in David Kirby, “The Baltic States 1940–1950,” in Martin McCauley (ed.), Communist Power in Europe, 1944–1949 (London: Macmillan, 1977), 22–35. Most of the extreme Left would probably have opposed outright annexation. There was much talk about the Mongolian Model, Peeter Kaasik, Meelis Maripuu, and Toomas Hiio, “21 June 1940 in Tallinn and Elsewhere in Estonia,” Estonia, 1940–1945, 49–56; Andres Kasekamp, A History of the Baltic States (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 128–9.
Tina Tamman, The Last Ambassador: August Torma, Soldier, Diplomat, Spy (Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2011), 111.
Arti Hilpus, “Eesti Välisesindused 1940–1941,” in Enn Tarvel and Meelis Maripuu (eds.), Sõjaja Rahu Vahel: Esimene Punane Aasta, II köide (Tallinn: S-Keskus, 2010), 580–620.
“The Explanation of Warma, Rei and Laretei for the Creation of the Foreign Delegation of the Republic of Estonia,” 1940, Mart Orav and Enn Nõu (eds.), Tõotan Ustavaks Jääda… Eesti Vabariigi Valitsus 1940–1992 (Tartu: Eesti Kirjanduse Selts, 2004), 494–8.
Jüri Ant, August Rei—Eesti Riigimees, Poliitik, Diplomaat (Tartu: Rahvusarhiiv, 2012), 216–24.
Eero Medijainen, Saadiku Saatus: Välisministeerium ja Saatkonnad, 1918- 1940 (Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus, 1997), 256.
For a characterization of Pusta, see Heinrich Laretei, Saatuse Mängukanniks: Mällu Jäänud Märkmeid (Tallinn: Abe, 1992), 172–77. Pusta’s memoirs of the prewar years, Kaarel Robert Pusta, Kontrastide Aastasada (Tartu: Ilmamaa, 2000). On Pusta’s unpleasant affairs, The Diary of Johannes Kaiv, July 15, 1941, Eesti Rahvusarhiiv (Estonian National Archives, hereafter ERA), 9619–1-2.
Beatrice Bishop Berle and Travis Beal Jacobs (eds.), Navigating the Rapids, 1918–1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), November 27, 1940 (p. 351).
Gunnar Åselius, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Navy in the Baltic 1921–1941 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 190.
Anita J. Prazmowska, Britain and Poland, 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
The experience after the First World War was the model, Leppik’s recommendation from Rome, October 12, 1939, Laretei’s remark about 2–3 years, Laretei from Stockholm, December 2, 1939, Ernst Jaakson, Eestile (Tallinn: SE & S, 1995), 74–6.
Lithuania did this at the end of 1939, Latvia on 17 May, Romuald J. Misiunas, “Sovereignty without Government: Baltic Diplomatic and Consular Representations, 1940–1990,” in Yossi Shain (ed.), Governments-in-Exile in Contemporary World Politics (New York; London: Routledge, 1991), 134–44.
The last letter from Foreign Minister Ants Piip was sent on June 7, but it arrived only on June 21, August Torma, “Eesti Saatkonnas Londonis,” in Evald Blumfeldt, Hans Kauri, Richard Maasing, and Vello Pekomäe (eds.), Eesti Riik ja Rahvas Teises Maailmasõjas, vol. 2 (Stockholm: EMP, 1955), 95.
E. Ernits, “Eesti Esindus Ameerika Ühendriikides,” in Evald Blumfeldt, Hans Kauri, Richard Maasing, and Vello Pekomäe (eds.), Eesti Riik ja Rahvas Teises Maailmasõjas, vol. 2 (Stockholm: EMP, 1955), 97–100.
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© 2014 Kaarel Piirimäe
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Piirimäe, K. (2014). The Soviet Annexation and the Estonian Diplomats-in-Exile, 1940. In: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Baltic Question. The World of the Roosevelts. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137442345_2
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