Today ... years ago

[Hrothbern]

Every day important events happen. But some mark a change with major consequences.
Every day people die. But some had a big influence.

This thread is for that and some thoughts around it if desired.

(must be my old age that I come with it )

 

[Hrothbern]

Today 30 years ago...

25% of the population of the Baltic states had in 1989 a peaceful demonstration making a chain connecting the three capitals standing hand in hand on the roads and motorways.
Two million people hand in hand for their independence from the Soviet oppression.

The Baltic Way or Baltic Chain (also Chain of Freedom;[1] Estonian: Balti kett; Latvian: Baltijas ceļš; Lithuanian: Baltijos kelias; Russian: Балтийский путь Baltiysky put) was a peaceful political demonstration that occurred on 23 August 1989. Approximately two million people joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 675.5 kilometres (419.7 mi) across the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were considered at the time to be constituent republics of the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way

 

[Kyriakos]

That is a rather unorthodox way to start with important events.

 

[Hrothbern]

That is a rather unorthodox way to start with important events.

It was in 1989 a special summer of big people's manifestations.

In nearby Poland earlier that summer at last the free elections were held, forced by the trade union Solidarity (founded much earlier in the 80ies, Gdansk, Lech Walesa) and international pressure, incl the Pope.
And those elections were just after the Tiananmen square protests in China.

The Baltic one was for me special because of the combination of peaceful and the high percentage of the population participating.

 

[Yeekim]

@Hrothbern
You know, I actually had an idea of making this precise thread myself, but eventually didn't get around to. Hence, big like to you.
Great minds think alike, huh?
The only thing left to add is that the date of the Baltic Way was chosen as it was also the 50th anniversary of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the existence of which secret protocols the USSR was still denying at the time.

 

[dusters]

Really happy to see this thread. We there at Baltic States ought to celebrate more often and remember the ideals we stood for back then.

 

[Hrothbern]

@Hrothbern
You know, I actually had an idea of making this precise thread myself, but eventually didn't get around to. Hence, big like to you.
Great minds think alike, huh?
The only thing left to add is that the date of the Baltic Way was chosen as it was also the 50th anniversary of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the existence of which secret protocols the USSR was still denying at the time.

yes
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
The next move, a couple of months later, the Soviet-Union invaded Finland.

Some events just disappear from collective memory.
Part of our resistance in the Netherlands were communist cells. But only active after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was shredded paper. At the start of the war they were loyal to Moscow, not to their fellow citizens.
And people forgot during the war.
Directly after WW2 the communist newspaper "de Waarheid", was the newspaper with the most subscriptions in the Netherlands. (de Waarheid in English The Truth, in Russian Pravda). A good "harvest" that war.

But in 1948 Stalin showed his face again with "the Czech Coup" hammering down the democratic attempts in Czechoslovakia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d'état

It was an eyeopener everywhere.
In my country the subscriptions to the communist newspaper fall in short time back to 50%. And within not so many years the CPN was seen by "everybody" here as a Moscow puppet.
(It still took another 30 years before the last Moscow puppets were "removed" from that party, meanwhile changed in a progressive left party with an allergy for middle-class university educated ideologists).

On geopolitical scale it supported the Marshall plan.
Directly after WW2 the US had already set up a huge aid program in Greece to prevent that the Soviet communists would win the civil war there.
A combination of money to buy US miltary equipment, money for employees, money for reforms modernising the economy.
In 1948... it worked in Greece... this was brought in a broader perspective in the whole of Europe because of the teeth that Stalin was showing. An economical recovery of Europe was seen as a security issue by the US.

Also something we should not forget.