Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states in 1940 unfolded against the backdrop of a continent already consumed by war. On the 14th of June 1940, the same day Soviet forces issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, the world's attention was fixed on Paris falling to Nazi Germany. In that shadow, three small nations, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, were swallowed by a neighbor they had agreed, under duress, to trust.

  The story begins not in 1940 but a year earlier, in the corridors of Moscow, where ultimatums were drafted and a Polish submarine unwittingly gave the Soviets their opening. It runs through rigged elections whose results appeared in a London newspaper a full 24 hours before the polls even closed. And it ends with mass deportations, a battle at Raua Street in Tallinn, and a moment when many Baltic citizens greeted German troops not as occupiers but as rescuers. What happened between September 1939 and the summer of 1941, and how did a region of sovereign nations become Soviet republics almost overnight?

• 2. Ultimatums and Pacts

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  On the 18th of September 1939, a Polish submarine escaped from the Estonian port of Tallinn. That single event gave Soviet authorities the pretext they needed. Six days later, on the 24th of September, the Estonian foreign minister was summoned to Moscow and presented with a demand: sign a mutual assistance treaty or face the consequences. The Estonians agreed, and the corresponding pact was signed on the 28th of September 1939. Latvia followed on the 5th of October, and Lithuania shortly after on the 10th of October.

  These treaties were not partnerships between equals. They allowed the Soviet Union to establish military bases on Baltic territory for the duration of the European war, and to station 25,000 troops in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia, and 20,000 in Lithuania from October 1939. The Soviet government's underlying fear was straightforward: Germany might use the three states as a corridor to reach Leningrad. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed weeks earlier, had already handed the Soviets formal freedom of action over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

  While the Baltic states were officially neutral in the Winter War that followed against Finland, Soviet bombers used bases in Estonia to strike Finnish targets. The arrangement already on paper was being quietly exceeded in practice.

• 3. Blockade and Invasion

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  By early June 1940, Soviet planning for a full military takeover was already on paper. The Soviet troops allocated for possible military actions against the Baltic states numbered 435,000, around 8,000 guns and mortars, over 3,000 tanks, and over 500 armoured cars. On the 3rd of June, all Soviet forces in the region were concentrated under the command of Aleksandr Loktionov.

  On the 9th of June, directive 02622ss/ov from Semyon Timoshenko ordered the Red Army's Leningrad Military District to be ready by the 12th of June. The directive's objectives were specific and sweeping: capture Baltic naval vessels in their bases or at sea, seize commercial fleets, prevent the evacuation of Baltic governments and military assets, and block Estonian and Latvian aircraft from flying to Finland or Sweden.

  The naval component alone was substantial. Participating in the blockade were 120 Soviet vessels, including one cruiser, seven destroyers, and seventeen submarines, along with 219 airplanes. Among those planes was the 8th air brigade with 84 DB-3 and Tupolev SB bombers. On the 14th of June, two Soviet bombers shot down the Finnish passenger plane Kaleva on its flight from Tallinn to Helsinki. The plane was carrying three diplomatic pouches from U.S. legations. American Foreign Service employee Henry W. Antheil Jr. was killed in the crash.

  The ultimatum to Lithuania came on the 14th of June. On the 15th, Soviet troops invaded. The following day, the 16th of June 1940, ultimatums arrived for Estonia and Latvia as well. A Time magazine article published during the invasions recorded that around 500,000 Soviet Red Army troops occupied the three Baltic states in a matter of days.

• 4. Resistance at Raua Street

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  Most of the Estonian Defence Forces and the Estonian Defence League surrendered on government orders and were disarmed by the Red Army without incident. One unit did not. The Estonian Independent Signal Battalion, stationed in Tallinn at Raua Street, chose to fight.

  On the 21st of June 1940, the battalion resisted both the Red Army and a "People's Self-Defence" Communist militia. As the Soviets brought in additional reinforcements supported by six armoured fighting vehicles, the battle stretched on for several hours until sundown. The fighting ended through negotiation, with the battalion surrendering and being disarmed. Two Estonian servicemen died in the battle: Aleksei Männikus and Johannes Mandre. Several more were wounded. On the Soviet side, around ten were killed and more wounded. The Soviet militia that took part in the fighting was led by Nikolai Stepulov.

  That brief, outnumbered stand on a single Tallinn street was the only organised armed resistance to the Soviet occupation across all three Baltic states.

• 5. Rigged Elections and Annexation

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  Before any votes were cast, the Soviets reshaped the political landscape. Baltic presidents and governments were forced to resign. Transitional "People's Governments" took their place, led by Stalin's close associates, local communist supporters, and officials brought in directly from the Soviet Union. The presidents of Estonia and Latvia were imprisoned and later died in Siberia.

  On the 14th and the 15th of July, elections for new "People's Parliaments" were held after illegal amendments to electoral laws. The laws were written so that only Communists and their allies were permitted to run. The results were entirely fabricated. The Soviet press service released the official tallies before the polls closed, and those results had already appeared in print in a London newspaper a full 24 hours before voting ended.

  The newly elected assemblies met on the 21st of July. Each had exactly one item of business: a request to join the Soviet Union. The requests passed unanimously. In early August, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted all three petitions. Moscow's official position was that the Baltic states had simultaneously undergone socialist revolutions and voluntarily chosen to join the union.

  Beneath that official narrative, the Soviets had already issued the Serov Instructions, a detailed set of procedures titled "On the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia." Mass deportations of around 130,000 citizens followed.

• 6. Exile and Western Recognition

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  Estonia was the only one of the three Baltic states to establish a formal government in exile. That government maintained legations in London and was the government recognised by the Western world throughout the Cold War. When the Soviet republics began leaving the USSR in 1990-1991, Estonia's government in exile was integrated directly into the new governing establishment.

  Latvia and Lithuania took a different path. Both managed to preserve exile diplomatic services that had received emergency powers to represent their countries abroad, functioning as de facto governments in exile without the formal structure Estonia maintained.

  The mass deportations of June 1941, which targeted those the Soviets labelled "enemies of the people," had an immediate and bitter consequence. A week after those deportations, German forces occupied the region. At that moment, many people in the Baltic states greeted the Germans as liberators. The depth of that reaction points directly to what the preceding year had meant to the people living through it.