The Soviet Union, Finland, and the Baltic StatesSoviet War News — Soviet Information Bureau, 1941

The “ Aisargs ” in Latvia and the “ Veterans ” in Estonia.

The same anti-Soviet policy and preparation for an attack on the Soviet Union which the Lapuans had been preparing in Finland over many years was also being pursued in Latvia and Estonia by various organisations of a military Fascist type. In Latvia the most important organisation of its kind was the so-called “ Aisargs ” ; this organisation had over 50,009 active members and was led by the most reactionary political party in Latvia, “ The Peasant Union,” with Karl Ulmanis at its head.

In Estonia a similar role was played by a Fascist group with an orientation towards Germany—the so-called “ Union of Veterans,” with Sirk at its head. Its anti-Soviet activities were manifested in constant provocative speeches against the U.S.S.R. and in systematic preparation for a Fascist coup in Estonia. On December 8, 1935, the Estonian Government discovered a plot of the “ Veteran’s Union,” all the threads of which, as was shown by the investigation, led to Finland and Germany. The head of the “ Veteran’s Union,” Sirk, after his arrest in 1934, had succeeded, as a result of the quite evident negligence of the authorities, in fleeing to Finland wherefrom he directed the preparation for the rising.

The connections of the Fascist Organisation of Estonia were not confined to Finland and Germany alone. In the summer of 1931 one of the leaders of Estonian Fascism, General Lille, spent his “ vacation ” in Rumania precisely at the time when a Conference was taking place there of representatives of the General Staffs of the States on the borders of the U.S.S.R. Thus Estonia, just as Finland and Latvia, was an active link in the anti-Soviet chain which was being forged from Finland to Rumania.