Sovietisation of Estonia

Sovietisation of Estonia

OWTF III presentation of Estonian team

After World War II Estonia were occupated by soviet troops

Estonia became part of totalitarian state – its ment a lot of changes in all country

Aftermath WW II

Communist party as only political party Official name were the Estonian Soviet

Socialist Republic Instead free elections just one candidate

and always 99,8% affirmative votes

Changes in governmental system

Industrialisation and creating large enterprises

Collectivization farms Controlled by communist

party economy – command economy

Labour came from Russia – during soviet time 35% of population were immigrants from Soviet Russia

Economy

Fight against “bourgeois nationalism” Massdeportations (biggest were 25/26 of

March 1949 – 20722 people were deported) Direct physical repressions were

accompanied by spiritual violence, expressed in the total submission of the social spiritual life to the ruling ideological dogmas and levelling the pre-war sphere of culture (education, science, art, etc.)

Politics of violence of the regime

The aim of the official cultural policies of Soviet Estonia was to introduce the kind of culture where the “socialist content” was fitted into a “national form”

Control over cultural life

Ideological pressure Class principle KGB kept the church and other aspects of

spiritual life under control selective destruction of cultural heritage

created by the preceding generations Russification, but still Estonian-language

education and culture persisted

Most important

Propaganda posters from 1950

Everyday life in the post-war years In the post-war years, inflation was high,

food and goods were scarce and most of the population was in a permanent struggle for survival.

The war had destroyed approximately 25 to 30 percent of urban housing, rebuilding was slow and the urban population, after a low level in 1945, began to rise.

Black markets thrived and stealing from the state became widespread.

Leader of Soviet Estonia Nikolai Karotamm giving speech

Consequences of Soviet regime Losses of population and russification in

cultural life Repression of political elite Territorial losses (Pihkva and part of eastern

Estonia) Nationalisation of enterprises, banks,

houses Destroied national heritage (ideologization

everyday life) Environmental problems in north-east of

Estonia

Cars were selled in soviet Estonia by special licenses