This paper is a modest effort to sketch the transformation of public memory in conditions of political transition. Specifically, it examines the recovery and interpretation of the Baltic past in Soviet and post-Soviet discourse. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part examines the desacralization of the central myths that legitimated the Soviet empire and its rule over the Baltic nationalities. The debate on Baltic history during perestroika was part of a larger – and increasingly destructive – examination of Soviet history that shocked society with a flood of negative revelations about the past, forcing political and academic authorities to cancel secondary school exams and discard existing textbooks as virtually useless. This struggle over how to interpret the Soviet past eventually weakened the normative supports of the Soviet state, contributing to its collapse in 1991.
The second part of the paper examines change and continuity in Russian interpretations of Baltic history in the post-Soviet period, using new history textbooks as guideposts.^[1] Although some of the new Russian textbooks are little better than their Soviet predecessors in terms of substance and style, other textbooks represent significant advances over the Soviet period. This progress in Russian pedagogy and historiography – however incomplete – is important for the survival of intellectual and political pluralism. In democratizing states, particularly where definitions of citizenship – and of the boundaries and character of the state – are still tentative, a strong marketplace of ideas is a vital counterbalance against exclusionary politics, authoritarianism, and hypernationalism. Equally important, historical accounts that recognize past injustices to previously colonized nationalities signal the willingness of the former imperial state to these newly independent nationalities equitably.

Myth, History, and Separatism in the Soviet Periphery

Scholars generally agree that the emergence of mass nationalism in the Soviet republics during perestroika was a necessary if not sufficient condition for the collapse of the Soviet state in 1991. These movements for autonomy and then separatism, which emerged in the periphery of the Soviet empire in 1988, were fuelled by the destruction of the regime’s official mythology and the revival of ethnic memory.
To achieve political stability, an empire must destroy the myths and memories of forcibly incorporated groups. Only by successfully substituting a new, transcendent myth can the imperial elite create a symbolic framework that defines the boundaries of meaningful identity, thereby legitimating the existence of the empire.^[2] Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika dramatically demonstrated that the Soviet system had failed in this vital political task. The public expression of ethnic myths and memories strengthened the cohesion and sense of grievance of the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union, and worked to revive or create separatist agendas.
The Baltic nationalities were the first to attack the legitimating myths of the Soviet empire during perestroika, revealing their rapid mobilization around separatist agendas. Among the variables that explain why the Baltic nationalities were the most energetic sovereignty-seekers, two factors seem to be of special importance.
First, the Baltic nationalities perceived that membership in the Soviet Union threatened vital interests of the ethnic community. This perception was strongly influenced by memories of forced incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940. The coercive nature of the annexations in 1940 and the deportations to the interior of the Soviet Union in 1941 and in the immediate post-war period led to fears that the very survival of the three Baltic communities was at stake.
For example, 15,000 Latvians were deported to labor camps on the single night of June 14, 1941. Total population losses during the first year of Soviet rule (1940-41) have been estimated at 35,000. With the rollback of the Wehrmacht from the Baltic region by the Red Army in 1944, 100,000 Latvians fled westward, while the Latvian resistance movement to Soviet reoccupation was suppressed with considerable loss of life. In 1945-46, a second wave of deportations carried off 60,000, with another 50,000 deported during the collectivization drive of 1949. The population of Latvia in 1940 was approximately 1 million.^[3]
Despite the elimination of mass terror after the death of Stalin, the concern of the Baltic nations for their cultural identity and perhaps physical survival did not abate significantly. The absence of systemic political reforms held the potential danger of the return of physical and cultural repressions and reinforced the perception that only secession could protect the respective communities. More immediate threats to the physical and cultural viability of the autochthonous Baltic communities were low birthrates (in some years, negative rates) and the steady in-migration after World War II of Slavs, primarily Russians, who experienced little acculturation and even less assimilation.
Balts also felt threatened within the material realm. If real or perceived threats to a group’s cultural distinctiveness or physical security are joined by challenges to its economic well-being, ethnic solidarity is likely to harden further and separatist sentiments to increase.^[4] The perception of economic threats tends to be particularly strong in conditions of regional and group over-development or under-development relative to the center and to other ethnic groups.^[5] Ethnic groups which rise above or fall below median levels of income and productivity tend to feel exploited either by the political center, by other ethnic groups, or both, and may become convinced that only secession can redress their grievances. In the Soviet case, the Balts occupied one of the most developed economic regions and were among the most advanced ethnic groups in terms of standard of living and levels of productivity. However, due to the redistributive policies of the center the region contributed more to the coffers of the state than it received. Significant regional resources were transferred to under-developed areas, particularly the Central Asia southern frontier.
Perceptions of economic exploitation were reinforced by the inability of Baltic elites to gain significant access to all-union political and administrative hierarchies after the incorporation of the Baltic states in 1940.^[6] The Soviet economic downturn of the 1970s and early 1980s further depressed the professional mobility of Baltic elites and exacerbated competition with the non-indigenous population over access to economic privilege and political power within the republics. Secession, therefore, held the promise of reduced competition for scarce resources and increased access to valued positions in local industry and administration controlled by Russian migrants.^[7]
The second factor that explains the nature and timing of Baltic political mobilization is the structure of political opportunities, which expanded at a greater pace in the Baltic region than in other parts of the Soviet Union.^[8] Baltic elites were urbanized, educated, and situated in small, compact republics that facilitated social communication and political radicalization. Within this environment, the intense debate over Soviet history within and outside the Baltic republics, particularly on Stalin’s foreign and nationalities policies, further expanded political opportunities for separatism. For example, political entrepreneurs (in the popular fronts and in the local communist parties) adeptly used Baltic history to rally support for independence – and for their leadership. They publicized Baltic historical grievances in local and national media, in mass demonstrations, in revived republican political institutions, and in newly created national institutions, such as the Congress of People’s Deputies.
These insurgents were emboldened by the support of the Baltic community in diaspora and by the West’s long-standing rejection of Soviet sovereignty over the Baltic republics. Baltic separatism was also strengthened by the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and by Gorbachev’s acceptance of these events with seeming equanimity. A Lithuanian communist told his party’s Central Committee in December 1989 that “Lithuania is a volcano of passions....The stormy waves of revolution, national rebirth, and the renewal of socialism coming from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria are generating passionate and sometimes irreconcilable arguments over what path the Party should take and where the republic should be headed. These waves are sweeping away party hierarchies and dogmas, one-party monopoly, and those leaders who are afraid of their own people.”^[9]

History, Myth, and Collective Action

Russian liberal intellectuals were wrong when they argued during early perestroika that the disclosure of Stalinist repressions would strengthen inter-ethnic ties in the Soviet Union because “nothing bonds as strongly as shared suffering.”^[10] Instead, the public expression of Baltic history and myth undermined the Soviet regime and state because the public recital of group suffering after long periods of enforced silence sharply emphasized the importance of ethnic boundaries.^[11]
The location and timing of such recitals are important. Mass demonstrations held on symbolically important anniversaries are powerful means to advance nationalist goals. Such rallies strengthen the emotional attachment of the participants to the ethnic group and dramatically discredit the prevailing structure of authority. In the Baltic republics, demonstrations were organized on the anniversaries of the independence of the Baltic republics after World War I, the signing of the Soviet-German pacts of August and September 1939, and the forced incorporations of 1940.
Demonstrations are also effective tools for expanding the initial insurgency. As symbolic confrontations between the ethnic group and the state, rallies dramatize the power of the group even though its political strength may still be quite weak.^[12] As a result, mass rallies often have powerful demonstration and multiplier effects, leading others to perceive the goals of the demonstrators as both just and viable. It is noteworthy that criticism of official Soviet historiography in the Baltic press grew stronger immediately after each of the relatively small calendrical rallies of 1987.^[13]

The Hegemonic Status of Radical Discourse
With the radicalization of the agendas of the Baltic popular fronts, nationalist discourse became more uncompromising and strident. The existential themes of death and resurrection, of enslavement and liberation, were prominent in emotional public discussions of Baltic history. At the founding congress of the Lithuanian front in October 1988 a prominent writer lamented the “wave of destruction” that had swept Lithuania since the Soviet annexation. Lithuanians still remembered “how our sacred possessions were profaned and destroyed, our people murdered, our culture rendered prostrate, and our language driven from life... But an even a more terrible loss was suffered. Our state was destroyed.”^[14] According to the speaker, “the greatest monument to the victims of this destruction is their remembrance. If we fail to do this, we will remain slaves.”
Within this moralized discourse, the creation of the independent Baltic republics after World War I – blackened for decades by orthodox Soviet historiography – was now praised and idealized, as was the cultural and political life of the interwar period.^[15] The secret “supplementary” protocol of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 1939, which delineated German and Soviet spheres of influence in the Baltic region, was condemned for destroying Baltic freedom.^[16]
The initial public ambivalence of local Communist elites on historical issues evaporated after the resounding victories of the national fronts and other independent groups in the elections of March 1989 to the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, the newly reconstituted national legislature. These elections fundamentally altered the balance of political power in the republics, forcing the communist leaderships to present themselves more forcefully as defenders of national interests. The pressures were greatest in Lithuania, where candidates of Sajudis, the Lithuanian popular front, won in 36 of the 42 electoral districts. In the face of such losses, and fearing an even more disastrous defeat in elections for the republican Supreme Soviet scheduled for the fall, Algirdas Brazauskas, the first secretary of the Lithuanian communist party, now embraced the revisionist history of the Lithuanian nationalists.
Standing under the recently unveiled liberty monument in Kaunas on the anniversary of the deportations of June 14, 1941, Brazauskas condemned the Stalinist repressions and went on to question the orthodox myth of incorporation. Observing that only weeks before the annexation of Lithuania the Red Army had entered Lithuania in force after Moscow threatened the government of President Antanas Smetona into submission,^[17] Brazauskas condemned Soviet behavior: “one can give various names to it but its essence remains: a huge state... decided that it did not have to reckon with a small one.”^[18]

“Outsiders” and the Legitimation of Separatism

The core strategy of Baltic separatists was to delegitimate Soviet rule and promote ethnic protest in other parts of the Soviet Union. Intra-regional alliance-building was an important first step. The Baltic movements pooled resources and presented a united front to the center, particularly on historical issues. This cooperation culminated in the decision of the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, on May 12 1990, to resurrect the prewar Council of Baltic States as a means to strengthen political and economic ties.
Inter-republic alliances were also forged by the Baltic nationalist movements. The Baltic popular fronts sheltered and advised members of other insurgent groups whose access to the public sphere in their own republics was restricted by local communist elites.^[19] These efforts were joined by appeals to external actors. Western scholars were invited to attend highly publicized Baltic conferences devoted to political and legal assessments of the German-Soviet agreements of 1939. Inter-state alliance-building was also based on shared geography and history. For example, strong links were established between Lithuanian nationalists and the Solidarity movement in neighboring Poland.

The Public Delegitimation of Soviet Mythology

In the pursuit of their objective, nationalist movements often attempt to publicize their grievances and discredit the state in the political community as a whole. They do so for two related reasons. First, effective challenges to the underlying assumptions, principles, and values of the state strip the central authorities of moral authority and prestige.^[20] This can weaken their self-confidence and also their willingness to suppress the insurgency. Second, the exposure of the “sacred” principles of the state as fraudulent may so alter the categories of perception of segments of the elite and nonelite that they adopt the frame of reference of the insurgents.
The Baltic nationalists logically attempted to stimulate debate on Baltic history in the Soviet central media. To this end, the popular fronts established contacts with liberals in the Soviet media and circulated materials on the Soviet-German agreements of 1939.^[21] Similarly, the great rallies in the Baltic republics were designed in part to place the issue of Baltic history on the agenda on the national mass media. The publication of previously taboo negative assessments of Soviet history in Baltic newspapers and journals, which freely circulated outside the republics, also encouraged elements of the central media to discuss the same topics. Here the Baltic insurgents were aided by the economic incentive of all-union editors to publish controversial materials in hopes of finding new readers. Perhaps most important, the efforts of the Baltic popular fronts helped to intensify and broaden the debate over Stalinism already underway in the mass media, which worked to legitimate the historical interpretations of the Baltic separatists.
As the historical debate gathered momentum in 1989, the Soviet political center attempted to limit discussion of the German-Soviet pact of August 1939. Two contentious issues were at stake. The first issue concerned the published articles of the pact – the terms of the non-aggression treaty with Hitler. Western scholars have argued that the pact ignited World War II by allowing Hitler to invade Poland, and then France, without fear of an attack in his rear from the Soviet Union. The Soviet interpretation maintained that Moscow had attempted to forge a security pact with London and Paris in the 1930s, but when rebuffed, particularly after the Munich Accords of 1938, had no recourse but to conclude an agreement with Hitler. The second issue concerned the secret protocol of the August 1939 pact, which gave Stalin a free hand to absorb the Baltic region, eastern Poland, and the Romanian province of Bessarabia.^[22] For five decades the Soviet Union had denied the existence of the secret protocol, labeling it a slander of Western propagandists.
The debate over the August 1939 pact inevitably threatened core Soviet myths and the stability of the Soviet state. As one Soviet historian admitted in 1989, criticism of the pact as well as its secret protocol called into question the legality of the Western frontiers of the Soviet Union and blackened the Soviet Union in the eyes of the world as Hitler’s accomplice.^[23]
In terms of the Soviet grand narrative, criticism of the pact also challenged the orthodox account of the “Great Patriotic War” as the event that delivered the world from fascist slavery and forged an unbreakable bond, through shared suffering and common purpose, between the Soviet party-state and all of the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. According to Gorbachev: “we withstood it [the German invasion] because this became for us a war of the entire people. Everyone rallied to the defense of the country: young and old, men and women, all the nations and nationalities of our great country.”^[24]

Revising and Defending Orthodox Accounts

Baltic agitation and the debate over the pact in the Soviet press, both of which intensified with the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of the treaty in August 1989, forced the Soviet government to acknowledge finally the existence of the secret protocol. Referring to the upcoming anniversary of the pact, Valentin Falin, Gorbachev’s advisor on foreign policy, underlined in a closed Party meeting the problems created by glasnost and democratization:

We will soon have to confront a labyrinth of versions that... dictate the conclusion, particularly for the uninformed and the young, that the Soviet Union was an accomplice in unleashing World War II... Essentially, the moral and political values that are shaped [by the debate over the pact and origins of World War II] will influence public awareness, psychology, and politics for decades to come.^[25]

Falin argued that in conditions of emerging pluralism, continued Soviet denial of a German-Soviet agreement on spheres of influence could no longer “withstand criticism.” Failure to acknowledge the secret protocol prevented an effective defense of Soviet behavior on the eve of the war. Falin advised the Party to cut its losses, beat a retreat, and regroup.
Two months later, the Soviet government carefully acknowledged the existence of the German-Soviet protocol on spheres of interest. But, as was evident in Falin’s comments, the Kremlin refused to criticize the protocol: its new position resembled the long-standing Soviet defense of the public articles of the August 23, 1939 treaty.^[26] The most common variation of this defense maintained that the pact as a whole was justified by Soviet national security and that the protocol was simply the logical extension of the treaty’s published articles. Given the West’s attempts to push Stalin into war with Hitler, the non-aggression treaty delayed the inevitable German attack, while the secret protocol ensured a territorial buffer that enhanced Soviet security.^[27]
Supplementing this argument, other analysts maintained that the secret protocol provided a protective shield for the independent Baltic states, which were said to be under threat of attack and absorption by the German Reich. According to one commentator, “no criticism of the pact and the protocol can deny the fact that they imposed a limit on the Wehrmacht’s thrust to the East. We know now what lot the Nazis had in store for the Baltic nations.”^[28]
Neither of these newly minted arguments could provide a moral or legal justification for the secret protocol. Instead, Soviet analysts maintained that Stalin had acted according to the prevailing international “rules” of conduct. If Berlin and London had no reservations in the 1930s about concluding secret agreements that affected the interests of third parties, why condemn the Soviet Union for the same kind of behavior? Accordingly, a number of Soviet analysts pointed out that “we should not invoke morality when evaluating the actions of Iosef Stalin... He went by the imperialist law of the jungle.”^[29]

World War II and the Question of Alternatives

The Kremlin’s defense of the pact and its protocol faced an uphill struggle, partly because the emotional debate over the treaty was closely linked to other contentious historical questions, including whether the horrendous Soviet loss of life in World War II were avoidable. Although this issue was briefly examined under Khrushchev, it had been largely suppressed in the two decades before perestroika.
The vital issue of historical alternatives first emerged in early perestroika in positive reevaluations of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. The orthodox position of Soviet historiography – that the growth of the fascist threat in the 1930s had justified Stalinist forced industrialization and collectivization – was now challenged by Otto Latsis and others who maintained that the socio-economic policies of Nikolai Bukharin’s NEP would have better prepared the Soviet Union to resist, and perhaps deter, the German invasion.^[30] Alongside this painful discussion of avoidable costs, Soviet estimates of war casualties were revised upward from the long-standing figure of 20 million, with some historians claiming losses of at least 27 million dead.^[31]
Another stream of criticism maintained that Stalin’s Comintern policy of the late 1920s and early 1930s enabled Hitler to come to power.^[32] This argument strengthened the positive evaluation of Bukharin, who in the late 1920s identified fascism as the main danger to the Soviet Union and advocated an alliance with Western social democracy to counter the threat. Soviet commentators and historians recalled that Stalin, in contrast, was pathologically distrustful of European social democracy and in 1929 ordered the Western communist parties to commit themselves to the destruction of “social fascism.” This self-defeating struggle weakened the KPD and SPD and prevented the formation of a united front against Hitler.^[33]
The exploration of alternatives in foreign policy in the 1930s inevitably focused on the Nazi-Soviet pact and whether the Soviet Union wasted opportunities to avoid war with Hitler or at least face Germany in battle with allies. In one variant of this debate, revisionist historians and commentators maintained that an agreement with Germany was unavoidable in 1939 given the political isolation of the Soviet Union. But unlike the orthodox defenders of the pact, they argued that Soviet foreign policy blunders and the character of the Soviet system itself severely limited Moscow’s options in 1939.
Revisionists frequently argued that the West was reluctant to conclude a mutual security treaty with the Soviet Union for three reasons. The brutality of the Stalinist system conditioned elite and popular opinion in the West to view cooperation with the Soviet Union as morally repugnant;^[34] the Stalinist purges of the Red Army in 1936-38 not only shocked Western sensibilities but also diminished the utility of the Soviet Union as a military ally;^[35] and finally, notwithstanding Moscow’s vocal commitment to collective security, Soviet ideology and revolutionary rhetoric generated apprehensions that the Soviet Union remained a potential source of world revolution.^[36]
Still other revisionists offered very different explanations for the failure of the Western democracies and the Soviet Union to sign an agreement in 1939. By 1989, it became increasingly common for Soviet commentators to criticize Moscow’s failure to seek cooperation with the Western powers, particularly France.^[37] Despite deep reservations about the Soviet system, it was argued, elite and popular opinion in France and Britain in general favored negotiations with the Soviet Union. According to the historian Borisov, the British archives revealed significant support in the British cabinet for a treaty with Moscow and that “for the most part, the desire to reach an agreement with the USSR prevailed in the capitals of Western Europe.”^[38]
Soviet revisionists of this kind offered several explanations for Moscow’s failure to act. A radical variant maintained that Stalin had wanted a rapprochement with Hitler since the mid-1930s and therefore remained aloof from France and Britain in 1939.^[39] Others, like the influential historian Aleksandr Chubar’ian, were inclined to blame British foot-dragging, which hobbled French efforts to cooperate with the Soviet Union. But Chubar’ian and others also believed that the replacement of Maksim Litvinov as Commissar of Foreign Affairs with Viacheslav Molotov, a “man of a completely different mold” – together with the purge of the diplomatic corps – severely weakened the ability of the foreign policy apparatus to negotiate effectively with the West.^[40] Chubar’ian pointed out that Kliment Voroshilov, who had no diplomatic experience, was placed in charge of complex negotiations in Moscow with the French and British military delegations in the summer of 1939. Voroshilov frequently adopted “uncompromising” positions that made agreement with the West difficult.^[41]
For the historian Mikhail Semiriaga, the Soviet Union committed a gross political error when it abandoned the tripartite talks and signed the nonaggression pact with Hitler. According to Semiriaga, Stalin “shut the wrong door” for two reasons: Stalin’s authoritarian approach to policy-making deprived him of objective military and political advice; and Stalin’s belief in communist dogma prevented him from understanding that the fundamental political “contradiction” in 1939 was not between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world but between the Anglo-French bloc and Nazi Germany.^[42] Semiriaga noted that even under perestroika rigid ideology still blocked constructive relations with the capitalist West.
Revisionists also challenged the long-held assumption that the time and territory gained by signing the pact significantly strengthened Soviet security. The party historian Nikolai Naumov presented this argument at a roundtable discussion of the pact in 1988:

I personally think that it is impossible to find anything useful that this treaty did for our country. It would be a different matter if, as a result [of the treaty] the Germans were unable to reach Moscow and Stalingrad. But they did! What did the breathing space of two years do for us? ...Can we say anything good about the treaty in strengthening Soviet military preparedness?!^[43]

For the revisionists, the pact opened the way for Germany’s conquest of Europe by removing the threat of a two-front war. The subsequent exploitation of the continent’s vast human and material resources bolstered the German war machine. The interregnum also provided Germany with important battlefield experience for Operation Barbarossa.^[44] However, the Soviet Union failed to utilize effectively the time offered by the pact to prepare for war. Worse, Stalin helped ensure the success of Operation Barbarossa by fulfilling German-Soviet trade agreements while Hitler withheld important deliveries of armaments and machinery.^[45]
The revisionists also stressed that the August 23, 1939 pact and the September 28, 1939 treaty with Germany on friendship and borders were costly in political, moral and psychological terms. After the signing of the pact, Soviet citizens succumbed to ideological disorientation and disillusionment, and Soviet prestige plummeted abroad. Pro-German propaganda in the Soviet Union – inaugurated after signing the pact – softened national vigilance, leaving the Soviet state even less prepared to withstand the German invasion.^[46]
Under perestroika, little known details of Soviet cooperation with Germany in 1939-1941 were exposed for the first time or given heretofore neglected emphasis, including the German-Soviet “victory parades” held in Poland after its defeat; the Soviet order to end anti-fascist propaganda in the Soviet Union and the Comintern; the forcible repatriation to Nazi Germany of communists who had fled to Soviet Russia; and Soviet discussions with Germany in 1940 to create global spheres of influence.^[47]

Historical Non-sequiturs and Political Caution

Although moderates still believed that the Soviet decision to sign the nonaggression pact with Germany was justified, virtually all revisionists condemned the secret protocol on spheres of interest as immoral and illegal. Chubar’ian’s position was typical. He maintained that Stalin signed the pact not only to end Soviet isolation but to “place the Soviet Union [through the protocol] in the rank of world powers that were able to determine the fate of other states.”^[48] The historian Volkogonov and others also harshly criticized Stalin’s secret diplomacy as incompatible with socialist morality and international law.^[49]
Despite this appraisal of the protocol, few Soviet intellectuals acknowledged that the incorporation of the Baltic states in 1940 was based on coercion and the threat of violence. The only prominent Russian observers to establish a direct link between the protocol and the subsequent incorporations were Iurii Afanas’ev, who was lionized in the Baltic republics for his opinions, and Roy Medvedev, the neo-Leninist historian. Medvedev, who still commanded considerable respect as a historian, told the recently-created Congress of People’s Deputies on June 1, 1989:

We are not ashamed to hang the celebrated picture ‘Yermak’s Conquest of Siberia’ in our museums. But hitherto, in our official works of history... we have written that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the Soviet Union voluntarily, that it was a people’s revolution, that there was no violence and there were no threats, and that it was a complete, voluntary expression of the will of the Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latvian peoples. This is untrue.^[50]

By contrast, Chubar’ian, Volkogonov and the majority of influential scholars in 1988 and 1989 maintained that the Baltic population in 1940 overwhelmingly favored incorporation due to the advancing German threat and because the Balts believed the Soviet Union was the “embodiment of socialist principles.” Although these scholars were quick to point out that the Balts suffered mass repressions soon after annexation, they – and many others – continued to support the orthodox assessment of events in 1940.^[51] Under pressure from the revisionists, the Kremlin itself felt compelled to condemn the protocol, but also insisted that the annexations of 1940 followed pro-Soviet socialist revolutions in the Baltic states and votes for incorporation in the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian legislatures.^[52]
Why was this perspective so common among Russians despite strong countervailing evidence? For many historians, the weight of years of orthodox “scholarship” – as well as the fear of political or administrative reprisals – clearly played a role.^[53] Another important factor was the widespread fear that the complete abandonment of orthodoxy might lead to political instability. Many Russian intellectuals, it would seem, remained unwilling to challenge the orthodox paradigm for fear of sharpening the confrontation between Moscow and the Baltic republics.^[54] The radical historian Afanas’ev expressed this concern in 1988 and early 1989. Although Afanas’ev described the incorporation of the Baltic states as an “occupation,” he also warned that the exposure of historical injustice was “by no means a signal to cancel out all subsequent decades... Those who raise the question of withdrawing from the USSR are arguing... unrealistically because an attempt to secede... would lead to conflict and tragedy.” Instead, Afanas’ev called on the restless Balts to work to resurrect “Lenin’s structure of the USSR” – presumably an authentic federal system.^[55] Roy Medvedev was an important exception at this time because of his belief that an honest account of the events of 1939-40 would weaken Baltic separatism. According to Medvedev, the Balts were less interested in secession than in “the truth about their past...”^[56]
Finally, and perhaps most important, orthodox accounts of the incorporation of the Baltic states in 1940 often reflected ingrained Great Russian imperialism. This orientation was prevalent even among liberal Russian intellectuals who advocated cultural and political pluralism. Defining their national identity in terms of the Soviet state, not the administrative territory of Russian republic, they viewed the Soviet Union as the legitimate successor to the imperial Russian state. Even liberals like Alexandr Tsipko had difficulty accepting the right of non-Russians, particularly Ukrainians and Belorussians, to create their own state.^[57]
Nevertheless, widespread criticism of the secret protocol as both illegal and immoral, followed by the Kremlin’s admission of the existence of the protocol, further undermined orthodox historiography and bolstered the strategy of the Baltic separatists, who based their claims to independence on international law. In this sense, the national debate in 1988 and 1989 educated Soviet public opinion (however unintentionally given the unwillingness of many intellectuals at this time to acknowledge the forced incorporations of 1940) and sowed doubts about the myth of the voluntary union of Soviet peoples. Eventually, this debate convinced a significant segment of Soviet public opinion that using force against Baltic nationalism was unprincipled.^[58] The evidence suggests that a similar reassessment took place within the Kremlin itself, further dividing the political elite and eroding its self-confidence in its authority and power to preserve the Soviet state.^[59]

History, Myth, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

Despite its normative shock, the delegitimation of Soviet rule in the Baltic republics was not the only reason why the political center failed to respond with repression to the Baltic secessionism. A number of other factors worked in the same direction, often at different stages in the growth of the Baltic insurgency. The initial failure of the center to understand the dynamics of Baltic politics was later joined by Gorbachev’s fear that repression would both derail domestic reform and sour his courtship of the West to secure aid, arms control, and integration into Western trading and financial institutions.^[60] The non-violent political culture of the Balts and the decision of many, perhaps most of the Russians living in the Baltic republics either to support or to accept secession deprived the center of a pretext to intervene. Similarly, the public support garnered by the nationalist movements probably convinced the political leadership in Moscow that the costs of repression (and its uncertain effectiveness) would be greater than the costs of tolerance.^[61]
Yet it is unlikely that Baltic separatism would have survived without the growth of ethnic turmoil throughout the Soviet Union. Here too the actions of the Baltic separatist movements influenced their political opportunities. Demonstration effects were clearly important. For those Russians and non-Russians who judged the Soviet state illegitimate, the emergence and survival of Baltic separatism demystified the coercive power of the Soviet state and led to a reassessment of the costs of organizing alternatives – including secession – to the status quo. Baltic separatism, therefore, undermined long-standing belief in the certainty and effectiveness of state retribution for heterodox speech and behavior. Equally important, the platforms, organization, and tactics of the Baltic popular fronts provided political templates for other disaffected groups.^[62]
Shocked by spreading ethnic protests and by the perceived Russophobia of non-Russian nationalities, the Russians who believed that the Russian ethnie had long shouldered the economic, social, and cultural burden of Soviet federalism now perceived these costs to be intolerable. The conservative writer Alexandr Prokhanov, a life-long advocate of the Russian-dominated Soviet multinational state, reflected this transformation in attitudes in 1990 when he called on his fellow Russians to “throw off the biting ungrateful neighbors [the Baltic republics]... and stand by ourselves.”^[63]
Russian liberals and democrats also eventually rejected the Soviet multiethnic state, but for different reasons. Some, like Iurii Afanas’ev, may have concluded that not only historical justice but the survival of the Russian democratic movement demanded the support of Baltic separatism despite the threat of state repression and communal violence. By mid-1989 Afanas’ev was not only a radical critic of Leninism but a forceful advocate of the Balts’ right to secession.^[64] Other Russian liberals, like Dmitrii Volkogonov, appear to have followed Afanas’ev after deciding that the Soviet state was an empire that served neither Russian nor non-Russian interests. In language applied to the entire Soviet period, Volkogonov observed that “Russians have paid the price... for their imperial policy.”^[65]
It is noteworthy that Volkogonov’s remark was prompted by the center’s weak attempt to overthrow the Baltic governments in early 1991. In this Gorbachev failed (assuming he was still in control of the security forces), and he was roundly condemned by most liberal intellectuals, who were now in the ranks of the opposition. Baltic nationalism survived this dangerous period in large part because the official myths of Soviet rule had been publicly discredited throughout the Soviet Union and replaced by new, anti-imperial myths.

Post-Soviet Russia: Coming to Terms with Baltic History?

As early as mid-1988, powerful revisionist attacks on orthodox Soviet myths – including the incorporation of the Baltic states – forced Soviet high schools to cancel history exams and discard their history textbooks. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the insurgents were transformed into incumbents. How have they come to terms with Baltic history in the post-Soviet period?
Despite its initial, sweeping condemnation of communism, the government of the new Russian republic (under Yeltsin) made no consistent effort to commemorate the victims of the Soviet regime; effect reconciliation with previously repressed ethnic minorities; or recognize fully the historical grievances of neighboring states such as Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.^[66] Nor has the Kremlin acknowledged that the 1940 incorporations were not based on popular will, but on coercion (however unfortunate, this silence is probably due to fears that any admission would strengthen nativist, exclusionary forces in the new Baltic states, further complicating the status of the Russian diaspora, rather than to any desire to lay historical claim to the region).^[67]
In another failure of political leadership, the governing Russian elite – particularly during the Yeltsin period – never justifed their social and economic reforms in unified, ideological terms, and never developed a coherent historical narrative that legitimated the new state, nation, and economic system. That the reformers never accomplished this task allowed their conservative and reactionary opponents to dominate public debates over how to define the boundaries, goals and character of the Russian political community. Nationalist and neo-imperialist arguments based on chauvinist or orthodox historical myths became increasingly common in the Russian marketplace of ideas. These accounts of the past, which lament the passing of the Soviet Union, remain attractive to many Russians, although few appear willing to pay the price in blood and treasure for a reconstituted Soviet empire.

History Textbooks in the Post-Soviet Period: An Assessment

The negative record of Soviet communism influenced many Russians, at least initially, to embrace Western values as well as Western narratives of Russia’s past. The search for an authentic Russian account has proved to be a slow and painful process, in part because Soviet hegemonic discourse had weakened the collective memory of Russian society. Much had to be unlearned and then learned by Russian society, particularly its historians. Discredited and demoralized – and hampered by unreconstructed senior colleagues and administrators – Russian historians and teachers in the immediate post-Soviet period faced the collapse of an isolated and dogmatic system of ideas that had informed their research agendas and professional culture.
Matters were made worse by the general indifference of the new political leadership toward society’s search for a more truthful past, and by its financial neglect of the institutions that shape historical narratives.
Nevertheless, the Yeltsin administration – with significant exceptions – supported, or at least permitted, intellectual pluralism in academe and publishing. Equally important, the political and bureaucratic disorder of the post-Soviet period served as a bulwark against effective state intervention in cultural life. Other factors helped depoliticize the past. The shock of the new was now largely gone, and although debates continued, Russian society was no longer ignorant of painful and controversial facts, such as the secret protocol of the August 1939 pact. Perhaps most important, the great political struggles of the late perestroika and early post-Soviet periods (1989-1993) were now over, having ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), and then the disbandment of the Supreme Soviet and the adoption of a new constitution (1993).
As a result, the selection and production of history textbooks at the secondary school level were freed from overt political controls. The post-Soviet period brought the demonopolization of textbook publishing and the general decentralization of education. Although the public contests over representations of the past during were often vituperative and biased, these hard edges pointed to the growth of civil society in post-Soviet Russia.
Unlike the Soviet grand narrative that demanded an idealized history of the Communist Party and the Soviet state, Russian textbooks today place considerable emphasis on the tragedies and complexities of Soviet history. Equally important, secondary school texts often ask the reader to as provocative questions without fear of “incorrect answers.” Students are encouraged to engage in debate, developing “their own viewpoints.”^[68]
This does not mean that all – or even most – post-Soviet textbooks approved by the Russian Ministry of Professional and General Education have abandoned the orthodox Soviet approach to Baltic history in 1930-1940. A good example of inaccuracy or silence on the historical questions under discussion is the textbook by O. V. Volobuev, V. V. Zhuravlev, A. P. Nenarokov, and A. T. Stepanishchev Istoriia Rossii. XX vek.^[69] The textbook portrays the Baltic elections of 1940 as free and fair. Remarkably, the authors also say nothing about the massive repressions suffered by the Baltic populations after incorporation into the Soviet Union.^[70]
The textbook by V. P. Dmitrenko, V. D. Esakov, and V. A. Shestakov Istoriia otechestva. XX vek also adheres to the Soviet-era historical paradigm.^[71] Although the authors recognize that the “secret supplemental protocol” of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 departed from “Soviet principles and from previous treaties with regional states,” they make no connection between the protocol and subsequent events. Nor do they say anything of substance about the political role of the Red Army during this period. Instead, the authors maintain that in 1940 “people’s governments were formed, led by society’s leaders and anti-fascists, who advocated union and incorporation into the Soviet Union.”^[72] The textbook notes that the Baltic states soon held elections to their national legislatures, and coalitions led by local Communists were victorious. Immediately thereafter, these institutions petitioned the Soviet Union for incorporation.^[73]
B. G. Pashkov (Istoriia Rossii. XX vek)^[74] adopts a more complex approach to the events of 1930-1940. After justifying the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the basis of Soviet security interests, Pashkov observes that the Baltic elections of 1940 occurred under Soviet diplomatic and military pressure (especially important was the presence of Soviet garrisons). Nevertheless, the textbook describes the Baltic incorporations of 1940 as voluntary, and goes on to discuss subsequent social and economic reforms in a positive tone. The author says nothing about the coercive nature of these wrenching socio-economic changes. Furthermore, the text only briefly notes that many “representatives of the [Baltic] ruling classes” were either executed or deported in the period after incorporation. The stiff, ideological language resembles that of the Soviet period, and suggests that the author to the reader that the repressions were justified.
Nevertheless, Pashkov’s textbook does stimulate (somewhat incongruously) thoughtful debate. Unlike its unsatisfactory discussion of Soviet-Baltic relations in 1940, the textbook intelligently explores the problematic of the Baltic region in the post-WWII period. It reproduces a KGB report (undated) that described in detail “massive” resistance in Lithuania to Soviet rule (1945-1950) and to Soviet policies, including restrictions on private property and “justified and unjustified repressions.”^[75] The author then asks the student to “determine the sources… of the nationalist movement in Lithuania. What were the consequences of Soviet policies? How do the events of 50 years ago still resonate in contemporary [Russian] relations with the Baltic states?”^[76] Here Pashkov usefully suggests to the student that distant events can still have a powerful impact on the present.
A. A. Danilov and L. G. Kosulina (Istoriia Rossii XX vek)^[77] justify the Motlotov-Ribbentrop Pact by arguing that the Western democracies attempted to push Germany into war with the Soviet Union. “Stalin faced a difficult decision: either decline Hitler’s offers of negotiations and run the risk that Germany would share borders with the USSR in the event of a rapid defeat of Poland, or conclude a pact with Germany, enabling the Soviet Union to avoid war for a time and move its borders to the West.”^[78] In their “realist” (Machiavellian) conceptualization of pre-war diplomacy, Danilov and Kosulina observe that Stalin turned the strategy of France and Britain against them (locking them into war with Hitler), thereby eliminating the threat of a two-front conflict.^[79]
Unlike the texts already reviewed, the Danilov-Kosulina book does not state – or imply – that the Baltic incorporations into the Soviet Union were part of a democratic process. Instead, they maintain that Stalin, taking advantage of “favorable” international conditions (unspecified, but clearly referring to Hitler’s attacks in the West), demanded that the Baltic states admit additional Soviet troops, change their governments, and hold national elections.^[80] These elections were conducted “under the control of Soviet officials.”
In their textbook supplement for instructors, Danilov and Kosulina urge the history teacher to explore with students “the problems that were created for the development of the USSR by the mass deportations of Soviet peoples during and after WWII.” The authors clearly suggest that the memory of ethnic-based “repressions” after incorporation helped mobilize nationalist movements for independence during perestroika.^[81]
Unfortunately, the Danilov-Kosulina textbook by itself – without the supplement – does not clearly identify linkages between past Soviet injustices and Baltic separatist behavior during perestroika. A second Danilov and Kosulina textbook – Istoriia gosudarstva i narodov Rossii^[82] – is more successful in locating causation. After describing Soviet military and political pressure on the Baltic states in 1940, the authors ask the student to evaluate Soviet behavior. The textbook often employs historical quotations and fragments of documents to direct the student to preferred answers. In this case, the authors quote Molotov’s claim in 1940 that entry into the Soviet Union would “guarantee these republics rapid economic development and growth of national culture.”^[83] The authors then ask the student if he/she agrees with Molotov’s statement.
In their textbook on twentieth century Russia (Istoriia Rossii XX vek),^[84] V. P. Ostrovskii and A. I. Utkin present a more complex explanation for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact than the other textbooks under discussion. According to the authors, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had “great distrust” of the Soviet Union, rejecting partnership with Stalin on moral and practical grounds. Significantly, Stalin’s domestic purges and repressions of the Red Army led both France and Britain to have a low assessment of the “military potential of our country.”^[85] Although the textbook argues that both France and Britain maintained official and unofficial contacts with Hitler into the summer of 1939, it also states that Stalin was even more determined than the Western democracies to stay on the sidelines in any conflict with Hitler.^[86]
Ostrovskii and Utkin also argue that the secret supplementary protocol of the August 1939 Pact “forced” the Baltic states into the embrace of the Soviet Union. Although the authors acknowledge that Baltic domestic politics at this time were sharply polarized between left and right forces, they maintain that Soviet coercion – and the free hand provided by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact – were the decisive factors in explaining the incorporation of the Baltic states.^[87]
The textbook by Igor Dolutskii (Otechestvennaia istoriia. XX vek)^[88] adopts a similar position on 1939-1940. After pointing out that incorporation occurred under the weight of Soviet political and military pressure – and that massive repressions of the Baltic population soon followed the annexations – Dolutskii characterizes these events as the beginning of a “half-century of Soviet occupation…”^[89] As for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Dolutskii finds fault in the behavior of both the Western democracies and the Soviet Union for their failure to stop Nazi aggression through a tri-partite pact in 1939.^[90]
The final textbook under discussion is that of A. A. Levandovskii and Iu. A. Shchetinov (Rossia v XX veke).^[91] The authors blame both the West and the Soviet Union for engaging in “duplicitous, secret” diplomacy that allowed Hitler to divide his potential adversaries. Interestingly, Levandovskii and Shchetinov do not idealize the Soviet campaign for collective security, but see it as the policy response to Soviet famine, peasant resistance, massive purges, and the general weakness of the Soviet system: “Litvinov understood that being drawn into war (against Hitler) would be a disaster.”^[92]
As for the question of Baltic incorporation, the authors are uncompromising in their criticism of Soviet policy. They maintain that the “elections” to the Baltic legislatures (Gossovet in Estonia) were fraudulent events controlled by the local communist parties and by Moscow’s plenipotentiaries.^[93] Following incorporation, Moscow imposed a “great (socio-economic) transformation” on the Baltic states, while deporting around 200,000 Balts to Siberia.^[94]

Concluding Observations

This paper has examined contending accounts of Baltic history in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods. In their textbook, Ostrovskii and Utkin approvingly quote Santayana on the high cost to society of forgetting the past: Only the “truthful examination of history will enable Russia to find a proper developmental model.” To what extent has post-Soviet Russia succeeded in this task?
In a debate on this question (in the journal Transitions, January, March 1999), the American scholars Albert Weeks and David Mendeloff adopt opposing positions. Weeks praises the new Russian textbooks, referring at length to Ostrovskii and Utkin’s work. Although Mendeloff acknowledges that some of the new history textbooks are an improvement over Soviet-era works, he maintains that the Russian texts adhere to dangerous myth-making and continue to falsify the history of Baltic incorporation.
The evidence suggests that both sides in this debate are partially correct. Although a marketplace of ideas has taken root in post-Soviet Russia, it suffers from serious distortions, (particularly in the mass media) which privilege those players with financial and political power. As for history textbooks, many of them remain in the well-worn grooves of Soviet orthodoxies – and are silent, misleading, or mendacious on the facts of Baltic incorporation. Even the most objective and thoughtful of the Russian textbooks fail to document adequately the political and social pathologies of the Stalin era, including the repression of the Baltic nationalities.^[95] Other common problems of Russian textbooks include a tendency for a dry recitation of facts and a disinclination to provide sufficient analysis or, most importantly, normative assessment.
Nevertheless – as this paper attempts to demonstrate – many textbooks used in Russian secondary schools provide truthful narratives on Baltic incorporation that criticize the actions and motives of the Soviet state. Although post-Soviet pluralism has produced history textbooks that continue to distort the past, they must now compete with other textbooks (which often build on the heterodox arguments first heard during perestroika) that reach international standards and enjoy large domestic audiences. These more objective accounts undermine hypernationalist, chauvinist narratives that question the legitimacy of Baltic independence by denying the facts of Baltic incorporation.
The production of Russian history textbooks today recalls Konstantin Shteppa’s observation about Soviet historiography: that it is a microcosm in a macrocosm, placing in bold relief the quality of state-society relations.^[96] Unlike the Soviet period, the “microcosm” of contemporary history textbooks demonstrates that civil society and civic space have emerged in Russia. Yet it is equally true that Russian civil society enjoys few institutionalized or habituated protections against efforts by the state to limit its freedom.
The vulnerability of Russian civil society in the sphere of history textbooks became increasingly evident in the post-Yeltsin period. In his efforts to reinvigorate the Russian state, President Vladimir Putin has moved to soften the negative valuation of the Soviet period, attempting to create an organic connection among the tsarist, communist, and post-communist periods. Thus, the old Soviet anthem is now played in halls emblazoned with the imperial double-headed eagle.
In its pursuit of a “strong” state (with “strength” defined in administrative terms), the government has recently turned its attention to history textbooks. At a cabinet meeting in the summer of 2001, Putin’s prime minister (Mikhail Kasianov) announced a contest for new textbooks on Russian national history. Reviewing the numerous secondary school texts already in use, the prime minister found their negative assessments of Russian and Soviet history – and their criticism of post-Soviet reform – to be unwarranted and “astonishing.”^[97]
Textbook publishers have harshly criticized these efforts to revise history textbooks, but with uncertain results. If successful, this government initiative will significantly weaken the efforts of historians and teachers to advance truthful accounts of Russian history. A new “orthodox” narrative of the Russian past will offer a semblance of historical purpose to a demoralized Russia, but at the cost of a seriously diminished civil society and marketplace of ideas.