Timeline

1918-1940

On 28. November 1918, the Red Army attacked the newly proclaimed Republic of Estonia on orders from Soviet Russia's Leninist-Marxist regime. The resulting Estonian War of Independence claimed the lives of 6127 Estonians and 600 citizens of allied countries. Areas temporarily conquered by the Red Army were ruled by the Estonian Workers Commune, a Communist puppet government that murdered 689 people and had as much as 4000 deported to Russia. Eventually, Estonian forces prevailed and the war ended with the Tartu Peace Treaty of February 1920. The treaty, however, was soon violated by the Soviet regime. In December 1924, the Soviet terror network and local Communists launched an armed coup attempt to overthrow the elected Estonian government, but were defeated. Soviet authorities denied ethnic Estonians in the Soviet Union the right to return to their historic homeland and thousands were arrested or persecuted as kulaks. During the Great Terror of 1936-1938, thousands of Estonians living in Russia were arrested and executed on grounds of ethnicity.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's Communist leaders were determined to terminate Estonia's independence. The opportunity was provided by the outbreak of World War II. In August 1939, Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact and its secret protocol outlining the two totalitarian regimes' spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and paving way for the subsequent World War. As a result of the Hitler-Stalin pact and under threat of Soviet military aggression, Estonia on 24. September 1939 consented to a treaty of mutual assistance that led to the establishment of Soviet military bases in October 1939 and a full occupation on 17. June 1940.

1940-41

After the military takeover of Estonia, the USSR in June 1940 demanded a shadow government to be set up that subsequently dissolved Estonia's civil society, sovietized its government institutions, nationalized the economy and shut down free press and civic organizations. In an atmosphere of terror and massive human rights violations, a puppet parliament was elected in July 1940. On 21. July, it proclaimed the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic which was incorporated into the Soviet Union on 6. August 1940. Leading countries of the free world did not recognize the move and continued to recognize the Republic of Estonia and its diplomatic representatives throughout the era of occupation.

Imposition of a Communist terror regime shattered the existing way of life. Hundreds of historical monuments were wiped out and more than a million banned books were destroyed during the first year of occupation alone. From June 1940 to August 1941, more than 7000 persons were arrested and about 200 shot. Almost all leading politicians, including former Prime Ministers and cabinet members, were arrested and executed or sent to die in Siberian prison camps. Communist crimes reached genocidal proportions on 14. June 1941 when more than 10.000 persons with families were deported to Soviet Union's remote Siberian regions. About a third of the deportees were men, who were separated from families in assembly stations and sent to prison camps where most perished from cold, hunger and forced labor. Women and children, the majority of deportees, were transported in inhumane conditions to Kirov and Novosibirsk oblasts where many did not survive. A second wave of deportation was launched in July 1941, but was limited to Estonia's islands as invading German forces closed in.

In violation of international law, a forced mobilization into the Red Army was ordered by the Soviet Union after war broke out between it and Nazi Germany and as many as 36.972 Estonian men were transported to Russia. Thousands of civilians were also involuntarily evacuated to the Soviet rear. During the first year, at least 10.440 of the mobilized died from hunger and diseases in labor camps or repressions by the Soviet People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Between 9700 and 20.000 forcibly mobilized Estonian citizens were killed in the battles of World War II. A fresh wave of terror hit Estonia after war broke out between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

At least 2446 civilians were executed without trial by death squads, special military and Soviet regular forces, with many being tortured to death.

To put down local resistance, villages and whole towns were burnt to the ground. Largest mass murders were committed in Tartu, Kuressaare, Eerikvere and Kautla. 

In all, the Soviet regime repressed at least 52.750 Estonian inhabitants during 1940-41 and 18.090 lost their lives. During 1941-44, at least 2409 persons were killed in Estonia by Soviet air bombardment. The air raids of March 1944 completely destroyed the border town of Narva and caused extensive damage in Tallinn, where 750 civilians died.

1944-53

Repressions continued under a second Soviet occupation that replaced the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation. An attempt to restore the Republic of Estonia was suppressed by the Red Army on 18.-22. September 1944 and most members of a newly formed Estonian Government were arrested. Some were later shot while others were imprisoned and sent to Siberia. During 1944-1945, some 10.000 Estonian people were imprisoned and most died in less than two years. According to sources, 25.000-30.000 people were transported to labor and prison camps during 1944-53 and 11.000 did not return. The fear of Communist terror forced 70.000 Estonians to flee the country and only a handful of refugees later returned to Soviet-occupied Estonia. Some 10% of refugees never reached their destination. The gravest shipwreck of the Baltic Sea dates from 22. September 1944 when refugee ship Moero with 2300-2700 persons on board was sunk by Soviet air force. According to Soviet data, more than 2000 Estonian „forest brother" resistance fighters were killed during 1944-53 and 9870 were arrested; half of the latter were later shot or died in camps. The last known resistance fighter died in a shootout with security forces in 1978. On 25. March 1949, simultaneous mass deportations were carried out in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to suppress resistance and induce the creation of collective farms. At least 20.072 Estonians were deported to Siberia for life, most of them women, children and the elderly. Of 23.000 persons deported after the war, some 3000 perished. All ethnic Germans remaining in Estonia after the war were deported and deportations also targeted religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses.

After restoring the Soviet rule, Estonia's economy was fully nationalized. In addition, peasant farmers were forced into collective farms in 1949, delivering a heavy blow to agricultural production and rural life in general. Estonian culture fell under strong pressure. During the 1950-51 campaign against „bourgeois nationalists", thousands of cultural workers, researchers and teachers lost their job. Estonia's independent cultural life was virtually frozen.

1953-1991

After Stalinism ended in the 1950's, Soviet mass repressions were replaced by more selective persecution, ideological pressure and human rights violations that lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union. More subtle measures were now used to maintain the social fear spread by public terror. During the „thaw", most prisoners were released from camps and deportees were allowed to return from Siberia, but many were banned from their profession and could not return to former homes. Prison camps remained, although sentences were somewhat reduced. Under a new policy, many dissidents were confined to mental health institutions. During the 1970s, at least 350 Estonians remained political prisoners. Many political dissidents and freedom activists received non-political sentences on fabricated grounds. 

After putting down armed guerrillas, the bulk of resistance shifted to youth groups, followed in the 1960s by small human and civic rights groups. Political repression and political trials continued, although Estonian dissidents were fairly well organized and able to maintain contacts with the outside world to convey the human rights violations in Estonia to foreign governments and organizations. Dozens of political trials were held in Estonia in the late 1970s in defiance of the Final Act of the 1975 Helsinki Conference and the 1979 UN Declaration of Human Rights, both of which had been approved by the Soviet Union. However, the resistance movement persisted and became better organized after late 1970s.

Although Stalin's death reduced brutal repressions, the Communist regime maintained absolute social control. Control measures included the daily tracking and intimidation of disloyal citizens, layoffs, banning from professional jobs or expelling from schools, chastising the parents of dissident youth, limiting the freedom of movement, violating the security of residence and confidentiality of mail, expropriating personal property, spreading libel, letters of threat, seemingly random physical attacks and so on. Colonization and russification assumed a major role in Communist repressions - bringing in masses of foreign workers, discriminating  against Estonians in many fields of life and promoting the Russian language. Despite the partial return of deportees and refugees, the ethnic Estonian population had by 1989 decreased by 117.000, to 963.000 (this includes 80.000 Estonians who had lived in Russia and resettled after the occupation). Meanwhile, the percentage of Estonians fell from 93% to 61, 5% as a result of colonization. By 1989, some 577.000 of Estonia's total population of 1.566.000 were Russian-speaking, most of them Soviet immigrants. According to natural growth projections, more than 170.000 Estonian children were unborn due to the occupation.

The Communist toll on Estonia was not limited to murder victims, deportees and war dead. Communist repressions inflicted physical and mental injuries to tens of thousands, suppressed living standards and devastated public morale. The political goal of Soviet repressions was to establish an atmosphere of fear and anxiety by forcibly reshaping people's attitudes and beliefs. To achieve this, Communists restricted civil liberties and banned independent civic groups. They sought to erase memories by destroying cultural heritage and millions of books. The church suffered grave repressions and all religion was oppressed. Cultural pressure destroyed spiritual liberty. Political restriction of the arts, separation from international scenes and politization of cultural life persisted until the end of occupation.

The Estonian economy and environment were heavily damaged by the Communist regime. It is impossible to precisely assess the losses from nationalization of businesses and industry, agricultural collectivization, expropriation and destruction of property. Existing assessments range from $100 billion to $180 billion. The damage is even greater in terms of national income. In 2004, Estonia's per capita GDP was one-sixth of that of Finland, although pre-war levels had been almost comparable. Through unbalanced development, centralized management of the economy, technological backwardness, alienation from human- and home-centered values and excessive militarization, the Soviet regime caused massive and sometimes irreparable damage to Estonia's environment. Residual pollution and environmental damage caused by the Soviet army alone is estimated at $4 billion, excluding damage to public health.

50 years of Communist rule left Estonia on the verge of a demographic disaster. Estonians were becoming a minority in their homeland with their language replaced by Russian in official affairs, cultural life bound by censorship, people restrained and denied access to the outside world. Estonia's environment degraded and many cultural monuments were in shatters. Estonia was lagging hopelessly behind developed countries, including ones whose level of development it matched before WWII. The last years of Communist rule cast a majority of Estonia's population into poverty with crumbling infrastructures and economy, lack of basic consumer goods and deepening social inequality. Only the restoration of independence and swift abolition of the Communist system helped steer the country clear from social and economic collapse. 

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