According to our information the “Baltic question” was raised only by the US, Canadian and French representatives at the 1986 Vienna conference. It’s expected that at least Belgium and Holland will also raise the issue at the continuation of the conference in 1987. The Belgian representative will speak on behalf of 12 west European countries about Baltic “russification”, “restrictions on religious freedom” etc.
Officials in the USA and other Western States are searching for ways to enliven the otherwise boring topic of “the non-recognition of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union” by linking it to “current problems”.
It is important to note that State Department councillor M.Kampelmen is advising the anti-Soviet émigrés' leadership to maximize its activity in western Europe, because the “political mechanism” in solving the “Baltic question” lies with Europe and only Europe can solve the “problem”.
Indeed, there is noticeable activity around the “Baltic question”. The European Council on January 28, 1987 unanimously passed a resolution which called on the USSR to “return the right to self-determination to the Baltic States”. Since “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania used self-determination in 1918, this right is in force today and the Soviet Union itself affirmed this right in 1920 by recognizing the constitution of the League of Nations”.
The Council of Europe in its resolution calls on western European nations to raise the “recognition of the right to self-determination for the Baltic States” at the Vienna Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The proposal was presented by Harri van den Berg, a Dutch representative of the Workers’ Party. The discussion lasted for one and a half hours with English, Swedish, Italian, Turkish, Norwegian, Swiss, Spanish and other delegates speaking. Not a single delegate dissented.
A delegation of Baltic émigrés was invited to the session and on January 27th the Swedish and British conservative parties threw a reception in their honour.
In preparation for the 70th anniversary of bourgeois Estonia’s declaration of (Feb. 24, 1918) independence, the so-called Estonian World Council, in a proclamation, declared 1987 to be “learn about Estonia” year. It calls on all “free Estonians” to use all possible opportunities to introduce and explain the history and fate of the Estonian people.
It’s obvious in pursuing the goals of the proclamation, Soviet Estonia will be included in their agenda, since anti-Soviet émigrés want to extend their anti Soviet activity here.
In consideration of the foregoing, the Foreign Ministry of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic recommends that in preparation for the 70th anniversary of the October revolution, public presentations at schools and other establishments, and in publications, should approach the matter of bourgeois activity and their arrangements for declaring a bourgeois republic during the 1917 revolutionary year from a Marxist perspective. Lectures and publications, especially for youth, should focus more on the bourgeois regime’s hostility towards the people, since the youth know little about the 1918-1940 period.
ARNOLD GREEN,
Foreign Minister, Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic
March 30, 1987.
(The amount of effort and resources Soviet authorities expended in monitoring Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in the west is commensurate with the level of vulnerability they felt on issues such as human rights violations and the falsifying of historical facts.)