«We thought we could wait out the war ‘under the Russians,’ but ended up in Stalinist Bolshevism.» On the 85th anniversary of the Soviet annexation of the Baltics
In recent years, some in the Russian public have been strongly tempted to engage in victim-blaming regarding the events of 1939-1940. The idea goes that the Baltic peoples chose their own fate: they signed the treaties, let the Red Army in, and voted for pro-Soviet candidates in elections. Who else can they blame for this but their own short-sighted and cowardly governments? Indeed, formally the Stalinist regime at the time did nothing that the authorities of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia did not allow. But in reality, the Soviet leadership fully understood the true meaning of these documents and procedures.
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