Vladimir Lenin declared on sealing Estonia’s independence by treaty in early 1920: “We have yielded much. The more important are the disputed lands where Estonians and Russians live among each other, left to Estonia. But we do not want to spill the blood of workers and the Red Army for a piece of land that in any case is not given away forever.”
A translation from Pekka Erelt, Eesti Ekspress, 2 November 2022, which mostly concerned the Soviet campaign post-WWII to entice Baltic refugees back to the USSR.
Lenin continued: “Estonia lives for now in the time of Kerensky [Russia’s leader in 1917 until the October Revolution]. Soon will be put in place there a Soviet government, and we will make a new peace treaty.”
The Soviet premier was not entirely wrong, but did not live to see a reckoning. This year is the 100th anniversary of his death, aged 53 after falling into a coma. His legacy: ordering the execution of the deposed Tsar Nicolas II and his family, and spelling misery and death for countless millions of other Russians.
Our grandfather fought in the Estonian War for Independence, and would live half his life in a democratic country. Grandma spoke in glowing terms about Johannes Napp’s part in that war, and dad enjoyed telling of free Estonians liberating Latvia from German occupation.
I always thought the old man was exaggerating; now reading the history supports his stories, to a large extent. It was a bizarre conflict at a time of German and Russian military exhaustion. The events leading up read like a flipchart movie.
Russians were locked in civil war, and a newly elected provincial government in Estonia declared sovereignty, put down shortly afterwards by local Bolsheviks. In early 1918 this mob fled Estonia ahead of German forces arriving; Estonian leaders used the lacuna to declare independence on 24 February.
On this day every year Estonians run up the tricolour. Family sent us this year a video of flag raising on a cold, foggy morning, on slick, grey snowmelt, frozen overnight.
The following day the Kaier’s troops entered Tallinn, stopping the new republic in its tracks. A reversal followed the armistice on 11 November 1918, and after a revolution in Germany. Just in time.
Estonia hurried to form an army as a Red Army division invaded the border city of Narva on 28 November. The beginning of Estonia’s war was inauspicious; 2000 fighters and 14,500 irregulars against 7000 battle-hardened veterans. By year’s end the Russians had advanced within 34 kilometres of Tallinn. Bolsheviks from Latvia took the border town of Valga, and pressed northwards, taking the university city of Tartu on Christmas Eve.
Estonian armoured train, sourced from Wikipedia
The rebound came swiftly as Baltic Germans in Estonia, Finnish volunteers, and Finnish and British-supplied weapons entered the struggle. At what moment Johannes Napp joined up, we don’t know, nor do we know what he did. Wikipedia reports an Estonian army of 13,000 troops at the beginning of 1919. On 7 January the counter-offensive began. Deploying armoured trains – a stroke of genius – Colonel Laidoner’s army freed Rakvere east of Tallinn five days later, and Narva, shortly afterwards.
Tartu partisans and Finns took trains to Tartu, captured the city, and headed further south, expelling the Red Latvian Riflemen out of Valga on 31 January. An astonishing story, armed with the most basic weapons, rifles and machine guns, and later, field artillery.
The Soviets then conscripted 80,000 troops and pushed back into southeastern Estonia and northern Latvia in March. The Estonians and allies in turn retook lost territory by mid-May, freed Latvia in June, and the war was more or less won.
There is more to tell, for another day. Peace talks between Estonia and the USSR began in September 1919 and continued with an interruption into the end of the year. At the formal signing of the Treaty of Tartu on 2 February 1920 Lenin praised Estonia’s independence as a victory against “Western imperialism”.
Western powers did not recognise the Bolshevik state at the time, and it took until 1922 for Estonia (and the other Baltics) to gain formal status within the League of Nations.
Erelt closes his piece: “Even after 100 years have passed, Russia has changed not at all in its attitude and deeds.”
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