To the Barricades! Bloody January 1991
13 January 1991 – Soviet Special Forces kill 14 and injure 150 at the TV station in Vilnius.
18 January 1991 – People start erecting barricades in Toompea, Tallinn.
20 January 1991 – 6 people are killed in an attack on the internal ministry of Latvia; in Russia mass demonstrations are organised in support of the Baltic States.
In October 1990, it was announced that the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was Mikhail Gorbachev – for his service in ending the Cold War. Gorbachev’s prestige was formidable. Paradoxically – or maybe just because of the Western praise – the general secretary set on the path of saving the empire, with violence if need be. He had deserted his former liberal-minded advisers, such as Aleksander Yakovlev and Eduard Shevardnadze, and leaned more and more on the KGB and the army, which were led by those who later attempted a coup.
For Gorbachev, the conflict with the Baltic States had become unsolvable. Especially cold was his relationship with Lithuania, which had declared independence at the start of 1990.
In August 1990, the central committee of the Communist Party of the USSR had taken a secret decision to overthrow the governments of the Baltic States by force and replace them with organisations loyal to the Empire – the so called inter-fronts, which were directed by the KGB. Latvia with its largest Russian minority was chosen as the target to be hit first. Later on Latvia was replaced with Lithuania.
January 1991 presented itself as a convenient time for launching the operation, as the West was pre-occupied with war in Iraq. 15 January was the deadline, which the UN had set for Iraq to evacuate its armies from Kuwait, which Iraq had occupied. 15 January was probably also designated as a day for the culmination of the coups in the Baltic States.
Using several excuses additional army units were brought into the Baltic States. At the start of January, OMON, a special forces unit, occupied the house of journalists in Riga and forced the press into silence. On 11 January 1991, armed attacks commenced in Lithuania. In the early morning of 13 January, special forces attacked the Lithuanian TV centre, killing 14 and injuring more than 150. Moscow probably assumed that loyal groups of communists would help occupy government buildings as well, but there were very few such communists available. The house of parliament, which had been barricaded, was therefore left unconquered.
The events in Lithuania and Latvia were supposed to be repeated in Estonia. Here, too, people loyal to the Empire announced the establishment of an emergency committee, set to take power in the country. Most probably, it was the support of Boris Yeltsin’s Russia that saved Estonia from a bloodbath and thwarted Gorbachev’s plans.
Estonian leaders Edgar Savisaar and Arnold Rüütel had been in close contact with Yeltsin. Yeltsin supported the Baltic States in the Federation Council of the USSR on 12 January. But more important was his surprise visit to Estonia on 13 January. In Tallinn, the Russian SFSR and the Baltic States signed a declaration, which recognised the sovereignty of each signatory, pledged mutual assistance and condemned the terror. In a crucial declaration, Yeltsin asked Russian soldiers serving in the Soviet army not to interfere with the affairs of the Baltic States. On 20 January, mass demonstrations took place in Russia in support of the Baltic States. The operation for saving the Empire had been defeated.
- 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