From Soviet State to Independent Estonia.

• Author: Kushlis, Pat

American Diplomacy

February 1, 2022

www.americandiplomacy.org

Title: From Soviet State to Independent Estonia

Author: Patricia H Kushlis

Text:

Well before the Soviet Union collapsed, it was clear that the trajectory of the Baltic states differed greatly from that of the Central Asian Soviet republics. In contrast to the Baltic states clamoring to leave the Soviet Union, Central Asian ones had been pretty satisfied with their lot. Removal of the support they had received from Moscow hurled them spiraling into a vast and unpredictable future.

For decades, Moscow had been shifting funds from the "wealthier" European parts of the huge country to its poorer and less industrialized provinces East of the Urals, This helped keep Russian rule in place but it also alienated the European population of the USSR-including those in the Russian Republic-who had a better sense of the country's profound deterioration and their own personal poverty in comparison with far wealthier neighbors to the West and even those in Eastern Europe.

But the differences were more than just economic. Even after seventy years-or fifty years in the case of the Baltics, which were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940-there was still a latent sense of western democracy in the European republics. The next steps especially in the Baltics-were turning the remnants of democratic parliaments, presidents, and the judiciary contorted under Communism and Soviet rule back into what they had once been or at least aspired to be. In Central Asia, however, that history and those institutions had never existed. Central Asian republics knew no alternative form of leadership aside from Asian authoritarianism or how modern economic systems or governmental structures functioned, whereas in the Baltics those long dormant memories had sprung to life once the heavy fist of Communism was lifted under Gorbachev-even just a little.

As a result of my Helsinki assignments, first as Information Officer at the embassy and then on the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), I had a front row seat to some of the most important political events of the twentieth century. My perspective was enhanced by my late husband Bill Kushlis' position as embassy Political Counselor, our earlier service in Moscow, and our Russian and Finnish language skills.

Something's Brewing in the Baltics

We knew that something was brewing in the Baltic republics before we had arrived in Helsinki in July 1988 because Elo-kaiOjemaa, a fluent Estonian speaker and head of our small U.S. Embassy Helsinki Consular Section, had been reporting voluminously on Estonian television programs she was watching while sitting in her Helsinki apartment after work. These broadcasts had been carried on Helsinki cable for at...