Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

the result of a war of liberation against Soviet Russia. From a historian’s
point of view, however, this interpretation of history seems
somewhat simplistic.
Between 1918 and 1919 there were undoubtedly acts of aggression
by Soviet Russia against the Baltic States as part of a process
of Sovietisation. On the other hand, it was the Soviet government
that was the first to declare its readiness to recognise the Baltic
States: no other Russian government – or the countries of the West
– had been prepared to take such a step. So when historical interpretation
draws attention to Red Army incursions into the Baltic region
but ignores the fact that the existence of the Baltic States only
became possible as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution it is, at the
very least, tendentious. This bias becomes even more obvious when
the relative weakness of the Red Army forces is taken into consideration
along with the fact that amongst those forces were representatives
of the Baltic nations themselves.
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the founding of the Baltic
States are processes linked by causation and this cannot be ignored.
It is also true to say that events in the Baltic region of 1918-
1920 are also sometimes interpreted very tendentiously in Russia
as well: the role of the Red Army in fighting the German occupiers
in the Baltic region is stressed and the existence of the Baltic
States is played down. Russia tended to deny the status of the
Baltic nations as sovereign political states. Such disregard is irreconcilable
with a responsible approach to history: all the more so
as it was Russia itself – its politics and social influence – that played
a significant role in forming modern Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
There is an even greater clash of opinion about what took place in
the Baltic region between 1939 and 1940. According to the Baltic
version, the Baltic States maintained their neutrality whilst the Soviet
Union, having signed the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols
with Germany, occupied and annexed the Baltic States. The picture
painted by the Baltics of the Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols is one
in which Stalin seeks a permanent union with Hitler, with the objective
of destroying the Baltic States. The predominant interpretation
of the pact in Russia is that they did not breach any
international law as regards the Baltic States, quite the opposite:
Russia liberated the Baltic region from Nazism.
123 Česlovas Laurinavičius