II.
OCCUPATION OF THE BALTIC STATES
AND THEIR “INCORPORATION” INTO THE USSR

In the course of the next days after the presentation of the ultimata to the Baltic States, the Soviet army invaded these states. The occupation of Lithuania began on June 15th, and the occupation of Latvia and Estonia started on June 17th, 1940. The Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who at that time was still in Moscow, had time to inform Mr. Smetona, the President of Lithuania, that the Soviet Government had decided to send V. Dekanozov, Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs, to Kaunas to take charge of the forming of a new Cabinet. The President felt that under these conditions he could not perform his constitutional duties and decided to carry on the struggle for the restoration of Lithuania’s independence from abroad. On June 15th, the day when the Soviet army crossed the borders of Lithuania, he left his country. The Presidents of Latvia and Estonia, who were not fortunate enough to have similar advance information, remained in their countries. The President of Latvia also preferred to stay in the country in order to avoid panic among the population. To dispel rumors spread by the Communists, that he had already left Latvia, the Latvian President addressed the people by radio as follows:

“Let each of you stay at his place, as I myself shall stay at mine ...“44

Together with the military units, emissaries of the Kremlin arrived in the Baltic States and installed themselves in the Baltic capitals. They were: the already-mentioned V. Dekanozov, in charge of Lithuania; A. Vishinsky, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, in charge of Latvia; and A. Zhdanov, Politbureau member and Party Secretary for the Leningrad district, in charge of Estonia. The mechanized units of the Soviet army were followed very soon by the units of the security police. The complete occupation of the Baltic States and their isolation from the outside world was carried out within a few days. The press, radio and telegraph were under Soviet Russian control. The freedom of organization and of public assembly was suspended. In order to cover Soviet violence with a veil of legality, President K. Ulmanis of Latvia and President K. Päts of Estonia were temporarily retained in office, although they were actually prisoners of the occupation regime from the first day of occupation, which fact was later proved by their deportation to the Soviet Union at the end of July.45 They were positively isolated in their official residences — K. Ulmanis at the Riga Castle, and K. Päts at the Castle of Kardriorg. Terror spread over the Baltic countries and arrests were made, which affected first of all Cabinet members, various high officials, especially those belonging to the police or prosecutor's office, as well as leading members of the Baltic armed forces. The new “People’s Governments” (de facto puppet governments), destined to prepare their countries for the forthcoming “incorporation” into the Soviet realm, were handpicked and directed by the above-mentioned three emissaries of the Kremlin. The recruiting and selecting of these “governments” was carried out completely disregarding provisions of the constitutions of the Baltic States. Neither Mr. Päts nor Mr. Ulmanis had been given an opportunity to make any objections against the Premiers chosen by the Kremlin or against other members of their cabinets who had already been approved by Moscow, i.e. the Kremlin.

All the decrees and declarations of the puppet governments emanated from the respective Soviet legations, to be released to the public by the “sovereign” Baltic governments. Obediently following the directives issued by the three emissaries (in reality those issued by Moscow), these puppet governments promulgated new “elections of “people’s parliaments” to be held on July 14th and 15th, 1940.

On July 5th and 6th new electoral laws were promulgated in Latvia and Lithuania. A similar decree concerning elections was promulgated in Estonia on July 5th. The changes in the electoral law were undertaken with the three principal aims:

  1. to eliminate judicial control over electoral procedures and counting of votes;
  2. to bring the election authorities under full control of the government and the Communist Party, and
  3. to facilitate falsifications in election returns and fraud in voting.

The above facts, which radically changed the former electoral laws adopted by the Baltic States, were promulgated in contradiction to the Constitution of these States. Thus, the Latvian Constitution expressis verbis denied the Government the right to change the Saeima (parliament) election law (Art. 81). Only the Saeima itself was entitled to change this law, but if these changes affected the fundamental democratic principles contained in Art. 6 of the Constitution, the amendments adopted by the Saeima had to be ratified by a referendum (Art. 77). Also the Estonian Government, being an executive agency, had no legislative powers whatsoever. The only legal way to amend or change the electoral law of Estonia was by the normal parliamentary procedure — adoption by both Houses of the State Assembly and confirmation by the President.

The intention of the puppet governments was also to carry out the elections in accordance with the pattern used in the Soviet Union, i.e. with one list of candidates. This fact was confirmed publicly, although indirectly, by Korsakov, who at that time was the chief of the Lithuanian Bureau of Information, and who said: “Today, the Lithuanian people, following the example of the free peoples of the USSR under the leadership of the Great Stalin, are electing the Diet in a most just and democratic way. It is true that these elections are not bourgeois democratic elections.”[46]

The Communist functionaries designated by the puppet governments played the dominating role in the electoral committees and in the entire election apparatuses in all three Baltic States. No right of appeal was provided if they decided that some of the lists of candidates were not acceptable, because the control of an impartial court had been abolished. As a result of the new electoral system and the decisions adopted by the electoral committees, only one list of candidates was accepted in each of the election districts. Thus, for instance, in Latvia, as is evident from the report of the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, Communist A. Busevics, at the third meeting of the newly elected Saeima on July 23rd, there had been presented a total of 17 lists of candidates of which only five had been found acceptable (i.e. a Communist-sponsored list of the United Workers Block, under No. 1 for each of the five existing election districts.)47 Therefore, this voting procedure reflected the usual Soviet pattern of one-ticket elections. In Latvia, a group of patriotic citizens had attempted to present to the voters a list of well-known politicians, economists and former state officials, but this action was suppressed by the closing of their election office, confiscation of all election materials, and arrest and later deportation of several persons responsible for organizing this candidates’ list. The order to search and to close the election offices was signed by the Minister of the Interior of the puppet government, V. Lacis, and by the Chief of Secret Police, Communist V. Latkovskis.48

Consequently, in all three Baltic States the elections were held according to the Soviet pattern, with a single list of Communist candidates. In addition, it happened at a time when, as previously stated, these countries were ruled by the terror of occupational forces. Actually there was neither freedom nor secrecy in these elections, and the electorate was under constant coercion and fraudulent manipulation. In many cases people were forced to vote in favor of the single list of candidates proposed by the Communists, and even whole groups of workers of enterprises were transported to the balloting stations and forced to vote. In addition, the Communist officials of the balloting stations made home visits to many voters shortly before the closing of the elections with a demand to appear and to cast their votes, warning them not to abstain from elections. The elections were devised by the Communists and their confidants alone, and conditions existing in the balloting stations were such as to exclude any possibility to cast a secret ballot.49

In spite of all-out propaganda for participation in the ballot and unmistakable threats against the absentees, many citizens, especially in rural districts, abstained from voting for the single Communist list of candidates. The results of the elections had been calculated by Moscow well in advance, with no one being in a position to contest the count. The day after the elections it was announced that 92.8 percent of the voters had cast their ballot for the single pro-Communist slate in Estonia; 97.6 percent in Latvia; and 99.19 percent in Lithuania. By mistake the London representative of TASS reported the results prematurely on July 15th, while the elections were still in progress.50 When the new puppet parliaments convened on July 21, the majority of the representatives were surprised at the agenda placed before them: change of the structure of the state and incorporation into the USSR. Nothing was known of it before the elections, since neither the pro-Communist government nor occupation forces had ever made anything public. Only Vishinsky addressing the forced demonstrations on July 18th in Riga mentioned “a new form of state” supposedly coming from the nation’s “deepest consciousness.”51 Molotov was more frank than Vishinsky, for already on July 2nd during his conversation with Prof. V. Kreve-Mickevicius, Deputy Prime Minister of Lithuania's puppet government, Molotov said: “You must take a good look at reality and understand that in the future small nations will have to disappear. Your Lithuania, along with the other Baltic nations, including Finland, will have to join the glorious family of the Soviet Union.”52 The newly convened Latvian and Lithuanian parliaments each “unanimously” adopted a resolution asking the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to admit their countries (Latvia and Lithuania) into the Soviet Union, as equal Soviet Socialist Republics. But the Estonian Communists, having requested to be granted the semi-independent status of Outer Mongolia, yielded only on July 22nd, after their request had been declined by Moscow. On the basis of petitions asking for these admissions and by virtue of the resolutions adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,53 the Baltic States were admitted as members of the Soviet Union — Lithuania on August 3, 1940; Latvia on August 5, 1940; and Estonia on August 6, 1940. The diplomatic representatives of the Baltic States accredited in the United States and other free foreign countries immediately protested against this illegal incorporation. Following the formal inclusion into the Soviet Union, a Soviet constitution was imposed upon Estonia and Lithuania on August 25th, 1940, and upon Latvia on August 30th, 1940. Foreign diplomatic and consular representatives in the Baltic States were requested to leave.

Thus by installing obedient puppet governments and by arranging the non-constitutional elections of parliaments described above, the Soviet occupation forces have violated the Hague Convention of October 18, 1907.[54] According to Article 43 and the following articles of the Annex IV of this Convention, an occupied country, as far as there are no obstacles to it, retains her legislative, judicial and administrative systems.55 Considering this and the rights of occupation forces enumerated in these articles, it is evident that the occupying power had no right to take any steps towards the alteration of the fundamental law of the occupied country, especially not in reference to hen sovereignty and incorporation into other states. After World War I all regulations for a legally organized referendum observe the principle that the armed forces belonging to governments concerned must be withdrawn before the referendum is put into effect.[56] The Soviet occupation forces were not entitled either to take part in creation of an organ of state power foreseen in the constitutions of the Baltic States nor in any respect to affect the act of constituting of such a Government body. Yet, as is evident from the foregoing, the incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR was carried out by the puppet parliaments, elected during the period of the Soviet occupation, and by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in its capacity as a legislative body, i.e. by these legislative bodies only. Thus, the incorporation of the Baltic States carried out under such circumstances must be recognised as unlawful and legally void due to the following considerations:

  1. As is stressed by M. Čakste, who in his article “Latvia and the Soviet Union” refers to several authorities of international law, such incorporation, from a purely formal point of view, needed conclusion of a treaty between both of the states interested in such incorporation. In other words, there must have been a treaty concluded on both sides by organs of state power which, according to the constitutions of the respective countries, would have been entitled to conclude treaties. In addition, in order to put such a treaty into effect and make it binding, it must have been ratified in a manner determined by the constitutions of both countries, and the documents of ratification must have been exchanged or deposited according to regulations prescribed by international law.[57] But in the case of incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR, there were no such treaties, not to mention ratifications or exchange of ratification documents.
  2. The “people’s parliaments” elected under the Soviet occupation in the Baltic States were not entitled to decide on incorporation into the USSR, because:
    1. These parliaments were not elected in free democratic elections and in accordance with the Constitution and the democratic electoral laws of the Baltic States and therefore they did not represent the free and true will of the Baltic peoples. It should also be noted that with reference to the parliaments elected in the Baltic countries in such a way under the occupation regime, A. de Lapradelle, an eminent authority on international law, made the following comment:
      “It is not difficult to conclude that these three parliaments were neither constitutional nor revolutionary — they only figured in consequence of the machinations of the occupying power.”58
    2. Questions pertaining to the change of the fundamental structure of the state (into which category should be classified the decisions of the puppet parliaments concerning the transformation of the Baltic States into Soviet Republics and their incorporation into the Soviet Union) could have been decided by means of referendum only in accordance with the respective provisions contained in the constitutions of independent Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The aforesaid emanates from the preamble and Article I of the Estonian Constitution, Art. I and II of the Lithuanian Constitution,59 and Art. 77 of the Latvian Constitution which expressis verbis requires a referendum for adoption of decisions of this kind.60
  3. The puppet parliaments’ decisions may not even be looked upon as a kind of surrogate for referendum because:
    1. voting citizens were not informed that the parliament, in violation of Constitutional Law, would have to decide on the country's admission to the USSR61 and
    2. the decisions of these parliaments which allegedly substituted for the referendum took place while the Soviet occupation forces were stationed and active in the Baltic States (and, as stressed above, no referendum may be put into effect during the presence of foreign armed forces in the country.)

In reference to point 3, one must note that even the USSR collection of laws and decrees contains the “Decree on Peace of November 8, 1917” which, among other things states:

“If any nation ... is not permitted the right to decide the form of its state's existence by a free vote, taken after complete evacuation of the troops of the incorporating, or generally of the strong nation, such incorporation is annexation, i.e. seizure and coercion.”62

Considering the foregoing, one must arrive at the conclusion that the incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR is legally void and unlawful and that, according to international law, the Baltic States have not lost their sovereignty, nor has the USSR acquired this sovereignty by the fact of the occupation of these countries, and by decision of the Supreme Soviet on the incorporation into the USSR. By the incorporating, i.e. the absorbing of these States, the USSR has committed an international offense, but under international law the USSR cannot acquire any rights on the basis of its own delinquency.

Noted below is the opinion expressed by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Communist Aggression with regard to the Soviet aggression in the Baltic States. In a special extensive report published in 1954, this Committee stated:

  1. that the evidence is overwhelming and conclusive that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were forcibly occupied and illegally annexed by the USSR,
  2. that the continued military and political occupation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia by the USSR is a major cause of dangerous world tensions... and constitutes a serious threat to the peace.[63]

Thus, by continuing the occupation of the Baltic States, the USSR continued to violate:

  1. The Atlantic Charter of August 14, 1941[64] which the Soviet Union joined by a resolution signed in London, September 24, 1941.65
  2. The Declaration by the United Nations of January 1, 1942.66
  3. The Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe of February 4-11, 1945.67
  4. The Charter of the United Nations.[68]

44A. Berzins, I Saw Vishinsky Bolshevize Latvia, 1948, p. 24.
45 A. Švābe, Latvju Enciklopedija, 1950-51, pp. 805-7 and B. Meissner, op. cit., p. 90.
46 Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 1951, p. 349.
47 Valdības Vēstnesis (Latvian Government Gazette) July 24, 1940, No. 165.
48A. Blodnieks, testimony contained in the files of the Committee for a Free Latvia.
49Hearings before the Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR, Washington, 1954, Pt. I, pp. 27, 47, 117, 120, 358-360, etc. Also Third Interior Report, 1954, pp. 265-276, 303-306, 347-355.
50 A. Schwabe op. cit. p. 109 and Bernard Newman, The New Europe, New York, 1934, p. 207.
51 Valdības Vēstnesis, (Latvian Government Gazette), July 20, 1940, No. 162.
52 Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 1954, p. 342.
53 These resolutions were promulgated as laws.
54 Although the Soviet Union formally did not join this Convention, at the beginning of the Second World War it declared that it will consider it and during the war in several notes blamed Germany for disregard of this convention. (Mezhdunarodnoye Pravo, Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR, 1951, pp. 511 and 523.) This convention found recognition in Soviet juridicial literature and its provisions on the occupational regime were regarded as a norm of the International Law (ibidem, p. 524 and Vyshinsky-Losowsky, Diplomatitschesky Slovar, 1948-50, p. 441).
55 Fr. von Liszt, Das Völkerrecht, Berlin, 1925, p. 329.
56 S. Wambaugh, Plebiscites since the World War, 1933, p. 445.
57 M. Cakste, op. cit. Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. IX, 1949, pp. 173 and the following.
58 A. de Lapradelle, La Jeune Suisse, February 19, 1944.
59 B. Meissner, op. cit. p. 247.
60 Latvijas Brīvībai, 1954, pp. 11-17.
61 A. de Lapradelle, ibidem.
62 Sobranie Uzakonenii i Rasporiazhenii, 1917-18, p. 2.
63 Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 1954, p. 8.
64 The signatories of the Charter declared:
  1. their desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned,
  2. their wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them. (Louis L. Snyder, Fifty Major Documents of the Twentieth Century, 1955, p. 92.)
65 B. Meissner, op. cit., pp. 119-120.
66 In this declaration the government signatories, including the Soviet Union, confirmed the agreement to the principles of the Atlantic Charter and declared the conviction that “victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom.” (Louis L. Snyder, ibidem, p. 96.)
67 In this declaration the Premier of the USSR, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the President of the USA jointly declare for the reestablishment or order in Europe according to the principle of the Atlantic Charter “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live, the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations.” Furthermore, the declaration states that “to foster the conditions in which the liberated peoples may exercise these rights, the three governments will join ... among others to facilitate where necessary the holding of free elections.” (Foreign Relations of the United States, The Conference at Malta and Yalta, Washington, 1955, p. 977.)
68 According to this Charter, one of the “purposes of the United Nations is to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” (Art. I, pt. 2.)

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