History of Estonia - Soviet Occupation (1940)

Soviet Occupation (1940)

The Republic of Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940. On September 24, 1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Estonian ports and Soviet bombers began a threatening patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside. Moscow demanded Estonia assent to an agreement which allowed the USSR to establish military bases and station 25,000 troops on Estonian soil for the duration of the European war. The government of Estonia accepted the ultimatum, signing the corresponding agreement on September 28, 1939.

On June 12, 1940, the order for a total military blockade of Estonia by the Soviet Baltic Fleet was given.

On June 14, 1940, while the world's attention was focused on the fall of Paris to Nazi Germany a day earlier, the Soviet military blockade of Estonia went into effect, and two Soviet bombers downed Finnish passenger airplane "Kaleva" flying from Tallinn to Helsinki carrying three diplomatic pouches from the U.S. legations in Tallinn, Riga and Helsinki. US Foreign Service employee Henry W. Antheil, Jr. was killed in the crash.

On June 16, 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Estonia. Molotov accused the Baltic states of conspiracy against the Soviet Union and delivered an ultimatum to Estonia for the establishment of a government approved of by the Soviets.

The Estonian government decided, given the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country, not to resist, to avoid bloodshed and open war. Estonia accepted the ultimatum and the statehood of Estonia de facto ceased to exist as the Red Army exited from their military bases in Estonia on June 17. The following day, some 90,000 additional troops entered the country. The military occupation of the Republic of Estonia was rendered "official" by a communist coup d'état supported by the Soviet troops, followed by "parliamentary elections" where all but pro-Communist candidates were outlawed. The "parliament" so elected proclaimed Estonia a Socialist Republic on July 21, 1940 and unanimously requested Estonia to be "accepted" into the Soviet Union. Those who had fallen short of the "political duty" of voting Estonia into the USSR, who had failed to have their passports stamped for so voting, were allowed to be shot in the back of the head by Soviet tribunals. Estonia was formally annexed into the Soviet Union on August 6 and renamed the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. See, for instance, position expressed by European Parliament, which condemned "the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact, and continues."

The Soviet authorities, having gained control over Estonia, immediately imposed a regime of terror. During the first year of Soviet occupation (1940–1941) over 8,000 people, including most of the country's leading politicians and military officers, were arrested. About 2,200 of the arrested were executed in Estonia, while most others were moved to prison camps in Russia, from where very few were later able to return alive. On June 14, 1941, when mass deportations took place simultaneously in all three Baltic countries, about 10,000 Estonian civilians were deported to Siberia and other remote areas of the Soviet Union, where nearly half of them later perished. Of the 32,100 Estonian men who were forcibly relocated to Russia under the pretext of mobilisation into the Soviet army after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, nearly 40 percent died within the next year in the so-called "labour battalions" of hunger, cold and overworking. During the first Soviet occupation of 1940–41 about 500 Jews were deported to Siberia. Estonian graveyards and monuments were destroyed. Among others, the Tallinn Military Cemetery had the majority of gravestones from 1918–1944 destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and this graveyard became reused by the Red Army. Other cemeteries destroyed by the authorities during the Soviet era in Estonia include Baltic German cemeteries established in 1774 (Kopli cemetery, Mõigu cemetery) and the oldest cemetery in Tallinn, from the 16th century, Kalamaja cemetery.

See also Soviet deportations from Estonia

Many countries including the United States did not recognize the seizure of Estonia by the USSR. Such countries recognized Estonian diplomats and consuls who still functioned in many countries in the name of their former governments. These aging diplomats persisted in this anomalous situation until the ultimate restoration of Baltic independence.

Ernst Jaakson, the longest-serving foreign diplomatic representative to the United States, served as vice-consul from 1934, and as consul general in charge of the Estonian legation in the United States from 1965 until reestablishment of Estonia's independence. On November 25, 1991 he presented credentials as Estonian ambassador to the United States.