Soviet demands on Estonia

On the evening of 24 September 1939, in the Kremlin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, received the Estonian foreign minister, Karl Selter. Selter had come to Moscow to sign a trade agreement that was already settled. He was told that trade was in order, but that political relations were “bad”, and that the Soviet Union demanded a military alliance or a mutual assistance pact that would give it bases for its fleet and air force on Estonian territory. “Do not force us to use force against Estonia,” Molotov said. Behind his words stood tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers concentrated on the border, and the warships of the Baltic Fleet, which for several days had been ostentatiously entering Estonian waters.

A week of pressure

The pretext was provided by the escape of the Polish submarine Orzeł, interned in Tallinn, which had slipped out of the harbour on the night of 17–18 September. On 19 September Molotov informed the Estonian envoy in Moscow, August Rei, that the Soviet fleet would henceforth guard Estonian waters itself. The days that followed looked like preparation for an invasion. In the testimony he prepared in 1953 for a committee of the United States Congress, Selter later listed one incident after another. On the morning of 20 September three Soviet destroyers approached the island of Muhu from the north and entered Estonian territorial waters, and on the same day the flotilla leader Minsk, with two destroyers, entered Estonian waters off the west coast, near Cape Ristna on the island of Hiiumaa. From 20 September Soviet aircraft flew over Estonia more and more often, especially at night. Soviet torpedo boats cruised off the mouth of the Narva, and one of the destroyers fired a salvo towards the coast near Loksa Bay. The Estonian army was ordered not to fire at “stray” foreign aircraft. The government in Tallinn did not want to give Moscow a pretext for war.

In this situation Estonia was entirely alone. The non-aggression pact with Germany, signed in June, was worth nothing. Rumours had already reached Tallinn that in the secret protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Berlin had assigned Estonia to the Soviet sphere of interest. On 22 September, in Brest, which they had captured together, German and Soviet troops paraded side by side, and Poland, which had separated the Baltic states by land from the rest of Europe, had ceased to exist as an obstacle. Britain and France, at war with Germany, could not help in the Baltic, while Latvia and Finland were themselves afraid of Moscow.

An invitation to Moscow

Since mid-September Estonian–Soviet trade negotiations had been under way in Moscow. The outbreak of war and the German blockade had cut Estonia off from western markets, and both countries wanted to increase their mutual trade. The talks went smoothly, and the Orzeł affair did not even become a point of contention. On 22 September the Soviet envoy in Tallinn, Kuzma Nikitin, informed Selter that the agreement was ready and asked who would sign it. Selter suggested the envoy in Moscow, then the minister of economic affairs. Two hours later Nikitin returned with the reply that the Soviet government would like to host the foreign minister himself. Selter discussed the matter with President Konstantin Päts and Prime Minister Kaarel Eenpalu. They concluded that the journey would offer an opportunity to find out what Moscow was aiming at and to try to put an end to the border violations. It is often said that the government decided to send Selter on 23 September. According to his own account, the decision was taken as early as 22 September, and the minister left by train on the night of 22–23 September. At the border station of Kingisepp his carriage was uncoupled and he was told to wait. From there Selter saw Soviet troops everywhere, military trains passing through and columns carrying weapons and supplies. He reached Moscow with his wife at 4 p.m. on 24 September.

The conversation in the Kremlin

At 9 p.m. Molotov received Selter and Rei in the presence of the People’s Commissar for Trade, Anastas Mikoyan. According to the record drawn up by Selter, Molotov declared that the escape of the Orzeł showed that the Estonian government “either does not want or is unable” to keep order in its own country and was thereby endangering the security of the USSR. He claimed that the submarine had been repaired in Tallinn, supplied with fuel and left with six torpedoes. The Politburo and the government had therefore decided to demand guarantees from Estonia in the form of a military alliance or a mutual assistance pact with the right to naval and air bases.

Selter replied that at the time of the internment and the escape the Soviet Union had not officially been at war with Poland and so could not invoke the law of neutrality; that Estonia had done what it could to detain the submarine; and that an investigation was under way. He stressed that for twenty years Estonia had pursued a policy of neutrality, did not want an alliance with any great power, and that its relations with the USSR were adequately governed by the Treaty of Tartu of 1920 and the non-aggression pact of 1932. “Who does not want it?” Molotov interrupted. “You do not want it, the ruling clique does not want it, but the broad masses and the people in Estonia do.” He gave assurances that the USSR had no intention of imposing communism on Estonia or of interfering with its system, its economy, its government or its army. Then he spoke bluntly: twenty years earlier, when Soviet Russia had been weak, the Estonians had shut it up in the “puddle” of the Gulf of Finland, but now the USSR was a great power whose interests had to be taken into account, and it needed an outlet to the Baltic. If Estonia did not conclude a pact, the Soviet Union would secure its safety by other means, “perhaps more drastic ones”. When Selter remarked that Estonia also had a pact with Germany, Molotov replied that Germany would consent to an Estonian–Soviet agreement and that, if necessary, he would arrange that consent himself.

Selter stated that he had no authority to conduct such talks and must report to the President, the government and parliament. Molotov wanted him to settle everything by telephone with Tallinn that very night, “as with the German foreign minister”. He warned the Estonians not to count on England or on Germany: the former could achieve nothing in the Baltic, and the latter was tied down by the war in the west. If Estonia did not agree, the USSR would see to its security “at its own discretion, without Estonia’s consent”. The conversation ended at 10.15 p.m. Half an hour later the Kremlin telephoned the legation, summoning Selter again for midnight. At midnight Molotov handed him a ready draft of the pact with an additional protocol. Asked where the naval bases were to be established, he named the islands, Tallinn, Pärnu “and perhaps other places”. Selter replied that Tallinn, as the capital, could not be handed over.

Troops on the border

On 25 September Selter flew via Riga to Tallinn and reported to the government. The same day General Johan Laidoner broke off field exercises and brought the army to the highest possible state of readiness, without, however, declaring mobilisation, so as not to provoke Moscow. Chronologies give, under 25 September, a figure of 600 tanks, 600 aircraft and 160,000 troops on the Estonian border. This was the estimate of the Estonian general staff from the second half of September: 160,000 men, 700 guns, 600 tanks and 600 aircraft. Estonian historians now judge that there were fewer men, around 135,000, but rather more heavy equipment. In his testimony Selter gave an even higher estimate by Laidoner: some 250,000 troops facing Estonia and Latvia. Whatever the figures, the superiority was overwhelming. The Estonian peacetime army numbered about 16,000 soldiers and had about 230 guns, a dozen or so obsolete tanks and a few dozen aircraft. According to Soviet documents cited by Russian historians, on 26 September the People’s Commissar for Defence, Kliment Voroshilov, ordered an attack on Estonia to be prepared by 29 September, together with an offensive towards Riga should Latvia come to Estonia’s aid.

On 26 September Soviet aircraft appeared over Estonia time and again. Before noon three bombers circled for about half an hour over Tallinn and the island of Naissaar, and others over Muhu and the areas of Narva-Jõesuu and Toila. That day the foreign affairs and defence committees of both chambers of parliament heard Selter and unanimously agreed to negotiations. The government had already explored the possibility of outside help: the representatives of Latvia and Finland did not even want to meet, and Germany, bound by its agreement with Stalin, advised accepting the Soviet terms. At a meeting of the government President Päts said that war with Russia would mean the physical destruction of the nation and that the aim must above all be to keep it alive. On 27 September Selter set off for Moscow again, this time with the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Jüri Uluots, and the professor of international law Ants Piip.

Its place in the war

The conversation of 24 September was the first of the ultimatums that the Soviet Union presented to the Baltic states in the autumn of 1939. It revealed the pattern that Moscow would repeat over the following year: an incident turned into an accusation, a sudden summons of a minister to the Kremlin, assurances of respect for sovereignty combined with the threat of force, and a show of military strength on the border. On 28 September Estonia signed a mutual assistance pact that gave the USSR bases and the right to station 25,000 troops in the country. Within two weeks Latvia (5 October) and Lithuania (10 October) were forced to accept similar agreements. Finland, invited to Moscow on 5 October, refused, and on 30 November it was attacked, which began the Winter War.

In June 1940 Moscow resorted to the same pattern a second time. It accused the Baltic states of violating the mutual assistance pacts, presented them with ultimatums, and on 17 June the Red Army occupied Estonia. In August the country was incorporated into the USSR. Selter, who resigned his post in October 1939 and went to Geneva as a diplomat, died there in 1958. The records of the Kremlin conversations drawn up by him and Piip survived in exile and are today among the most important testimonies to how the Soviet Union began its takeover of the Baltic states.