The Baltic Way
13 April 1988 – In the programme “Let's think again” by Estonian Television, Edgar Savisaar introduces the idea to create a popular front “Rahvarinne” in support of perestroika.
October 1988 – The founding congress of Rahvarinne takes place.
23 August 1989 – Rahvarinne organises the Baltic Way.
Poland and Hungary were the first states of the Eastern Bloc, which could breathe more freely. In East-Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, not to speak of Romania, dictatorship stood firm. Thanks to glasnost there was much more freedom in the Baltic Soviet republics. Without this newly won freedom, the “Baltic Way” – a unique event in history, which saw two million people joining their hands in a human chain connecting the Baltic capitals Tallinn, Riia and Vilnius – would never have been possible.
The Baltic chain or the Baltic Way was organised by the popular fronts of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; the idea and the initiative came from Estonia. As the largest social movement, the Estonian popular front Rahvarinne played a significant role in the Estonian struggle for independence and in the demolition of the Soviet empire. Most importantly, Rahvarinne occupied the “middle ground” in the struggle for freedom, which was secure enough for large sections of the public, as well as of the Communist Party, to join in. The dissident movement was too risky for an ordinary citizen; Rahvarinne, established as an organisation in support of Gorbachev's perestroika, was a safe choice even for a reform-minded communist. Rahvarinne helped split the Communist Party of Estonia.
It was clear to everyone, however, that behind the screen of supporting perestroika, under the leadership of Edgar Savisaar Rahvarinne was fighting for the “Estonian thing”, although more carefully than the dissidents or the citizens' committees, which publicly advocated the restoration of the pre-war republic.
The unique contribution of Rahvarinne was to win the support of minorities, including many Russians, to the idea of Estonia's freedom. For example, Viktor Palm reminds us of how the famous semiotician Juri Lotman personally came to register himself as a member of Rahvarinne: “By doing this he asked us to take note that during the war he had been an artillery soldier – if this was needed”.
The Baltic Way was the greatest of all mass gatherings organised by Rahvarinne, which joined two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in a single demonstration against the Soviet occupation. The veiled threats of repression, which Gorbachev launched at the Baltic peoples the next day, could not turn history back. On 24 December 1989, the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR declared the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact null and void, thereby recognising implicitly that the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states was unlawful.
- Estonian SSR
- Latvian SSR
- Lithuanian SSR
- Russian SSR
- Byelorussian SSR
- Ukrainian SSR
- People´s Republic of Poland
- German Democratic Republic
- Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
- People's Republic of Hungary
- Socialist Republic of Romania
- Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
- The Moldavian SSR
- The People´s Republic of Bulgaria