The country had recently won its independence by armed organized uprising from a brutal occupation that had enslaved the indigenous population for centuries. The original excuse for the occupation was that the country was heathen and the Roman pope at the time gave his blessing to conquer and impose the cross with the sword. For many years the churches themselves doubled as fortresses since there were numerous failed uprisings against the hated foreign overlords. These had been ruthlessly suppressed time and time again with much bloodshed. The native population did not take too well to the new religion and frequently washed off the baptismal water in a creek at the first opportunity, reverting to their old religion and burning castles and churches.

Although it was the 20th century, the system of government outside the cities had until recently substantially remained de facto as serfdom under the strict control of the landed foreign gentry and their church. Outright legal slavery had been done away with a couple of generations ago but the overlords went on practicing all their “droits de seigneur” to the point where over time many of their manor servants and tenants were of mixed blood.

Finally, the indigenous underclass which had been there for at least twelve thousand years was able to successfully fight under their own general officers, freely elect their representatives to the governing legislature, use their own language in the courts, commerce and church and realistically hope to be able to raise their station in life through higher education and full property rights. The large country estates were appropriated and many peasants finally had their own plot of land.

Given this background the new country, brought into being by force of arms, was unfamiliar with democracy as we currently know it. There were too many political parties under a system of proportional representation to conduct an effective legislature. It was a time when both right wing and left wing dictators rose to either power or prominence in many countries including Great Britain (Mosley), Spain (Franco), Germany(Hitler) and the USSR(Stalin).

The president at the time of this story was the leader of the farmers’ party and he had been prominent during the hard fought struggle for independence. It was a time of world-wide economic depression and social unrest because of a widespread perception that capitalism had failed society. The new government also had to deal with substantial hard currency debts arising from the war as well as compensation payments for the expropriated estates.

A new movement arose consisting mainly of veterans of the war for independence. They and others took exception to the way the president was governing the country and a move was afoot to hold a referendum to change presidential powers. At the time, many people thought that this group would win the referendum.

The president was somewhat upset about possibly losing his job, so he called in his senior general in charge of the country’s armed forces who had himself been prominent in the war for independence. Overnight the country was placed under martial law. All other political parties were outlawed. The leaders of the veterans’ organization and others were arrested. One of the more influential newspapers run by the president’s main political opponent, a senior well respected statesman, was shut down. Tight censorship was imposed on the media and the president became a dictator.

His apologists have described him as a “benevolent dictator”, probably because there was no blood shed and the veterans’ organization was arguably “fascist” in nature (a derogatory cliché at the time used by those with extreme left wing views to describe those with right of centre views).

As well, there is no evidence that he looted the treasury and moved substantial sums of money offshore for personal gain.

The general population never having had much experience with democracy anyway, were too preoccupied with raising its standard of living to bother much about who was in charge as long as their own material situation could realistically be seen to be improving, which it was. There then ensued a period known as the “period of silence” which lasted several years until another foreign power was inexplicitly allowed in without armed resistance and enslaved the population yet again. If anything, this occupation was much worse, again the excuse being imposition of a new religion which was then in ascendancy.

Sounds like something that might have happened in one of the so called “banana republics” of South or Central America, but guess what, the country was Estonia! The president was K. Päts, the general was J. Laidoner, and the newspaper editor was J. Tõnnison. Similar situations arose in the neighboring countries of Latvia and Lithuania.

This is something that didn’t get taught to us as part of the history lessons when we attended Estonian school as children on Sunday mornings and perhaps it was just as well, since it conflicted somewhat with the glowing nostalgic descriptions of Estonian life recounted to us by most of the older émigré generation. It is, however, useful to remember these events to appreciate the problems that Estonia is experiencing in moving away from communism. Certainly given the enormity of the task, they haven’t done too badly so far.

Many of us tend to look at their situation through North American eyes and personal experience and much of what we take for granted is not necessarily present in Estonia and never was. Perhaps it’s also time to somewhat demystify how great things were in the interwar republic even if this means that president Päts and general Laidoner, regarded as almost saints by many of the older generation, need to be regarded more objectively. This is not to detract from what they accomplished, but even George Washington was not perfect.

Certainly, had things turned out differently its entirely probable that Estonia would have retained its pre-war lead over Finland in standard of living. It seems entirely probable that Estonian living standards and mode of government with time will approach those of Finland.

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