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y the Red Army, but Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuaniahad been compelled to conclude close alliances with theU.S.S.R. and grant the establishment of naval andmilitary bases. Lithuania at the same time was richlyrewarded by the Soviet gift of Vilna, which had just beenacquired through the Soviet-German partition of Poland.There was no introduction of the Soviet regime in thethree countries, though Soviet cultural and economicactivities were energetically forwarded, and the disciplineof the Soviet garrisons, which kept almost entirely tothemselves, appears to have been excellent.In June 1940, at the same time as the collapse ofFrance, for reasons that can at present be only surmisedas imperative on military grounds, the Soviet policy ofoccupation of key points and dominant influence wassuddenly abandoned for the policy of inclusion in theUnion. There was full-scale military occupation; newleft-wing governments were set up; the election ofnational assemblies was rushed through under Communistcontrol, which proceeded to vote for incorporationin the U.S.S.R. This was formally ratified inMoscow in August. For ten months the three countriessuffered the cruel pangs inevitable in the initial stagesof sovietization; but land redistribution on an individualbasis took the place of collectivization of agriculture,which was not introduced here (unlike eastern Poland)in what was, since the dispossession of the Germanlandowners twenty years before, a stronghold of peasantfarmers.When the German battering ram was turned againstthe Soviet Union in June 1941, the outer defences of theUnion, if none too strong and weakened by hostilityamong the Baltic peoples, were at least well forward ofthe vital centres. None can say whether the Germanswould not have entered Moscow and Leningrad had notthe Red Army been in possession of the Baltic states andeastern Poland, and as well of Viborg and the Karelianisthmus on the side of Finland.In the same autumn of 1939, when the Baltic coastfrom Tallinn (Revel) to Libau was secured by Sovietbases, strategic demands were made upon Finland,254