Glasnost Amplifying Cries for Independence

The Kremlin long held these truths to be self-evident: All Soviet republics are created equal, endowed by the system with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the option of secession. But in the new age of glasnost , pressure mounts in many parts of the Soviet empire to drop such ritualistic claims as outright lies.

Consider the 50th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact on Aug. 23: The day will be celebrated in the Baltic republics with pro-independence demonstrations protesting the terms of an infamous agreement that ceded Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to the Soviet Union.

Now, when the Soviet Union itself begins admitting the truth about that agreement, then glasnost contributes to unraveling the rationale for the very existence of the Soviet Union.

At a recent conference in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Yuri N. Afanasyev, director of Moscow’s Institute of Historical Archives, spelled out the implications of an honest accounting of Soviet history: “To give a legal foundation to a regime that was brought into being through bloodshed, with the aid of mass murders and crimes against humanity, is only possible by resorting to falsification and lies--as has been done up till now. It must be admitted that the whole of Soviet history is not fit to serve as a legal basis for the Soviet regime.”

Other nations, the United States included, acquired territory through conquest, but their legitimacy is rarely questioned. The Soviet case is different for two key reasons: First, the history is recent. Second, since its creation the Soviet Union used repression to subjugate its myriad peoples, providing no peaceful mechanisms for resolving disputes.

In the summer of 1939, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin concluded their nonaggression treaty, setting the stage for the German invasion of Poland that began World War II. The pact included secret protocols on “spheres of interest,” carving up Poland between the two totalitarian giants and providing for Soviet annexation of the Baltic states.

Until now, Moscow has insisted that no such secret protocols existed, maintaining that the Baltic states had “requested” incorporation into the Soviet Union. Even after the Estonian press detailed the contents of the protocols last year, Moscow refused to acknowledge the obvious.

But last month, Valentin Falin, who frequently serves as a Kremlin spokesman, told a West German television interviewer that existence of the protocols was no longer in doubt. This appears to clear the way for a commission of the Congress of People’s Deputies--established by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under pressure from Baltic delegates--to set the record straight.

Glasnost , then, fuels rising nationalist sentiment. At a conference of Baltic popular front movements in May, participants called on world leaders and the United Nations “to heed the aspirations of our nations to self-determination and independence in a neutral and demilitarized zone of Europe.”

If Moscow all but concedes that the Baltic has been occupied territory, it can only use persuasion or repression to block those demands.

The Gorbachev team has attempted to persuade the Balts of its good intentions, acceding to some of their demands. After heated debate last month, the Supreme Soviet approved two resolutions granting the Balts considerable autonomy in economic affairs and giving them the leeway they have sought to become the pacesetters of perestroika . While categorically ruling out secession, Gorbachev and company understand that they need to make reconstruction work somewhere--and that the relatively prosperous and sophisticated Baltic states offer the most promising proving ground.

But on the political front, resentment rises. On a trip through the Baltic republics earlier this year, I asked young people about their reaction to the first substantial media accounts of their 20th-Century history. The press had provided graphic descriptions of wholesale deportations, imprisonment and murder of Balts during the Soviet takeover. “Everyone is angry,” Salius Tamuosaitis, a Lithuanian high school student, said. “Almost every day we hear about new killings.”

Now Lithuanian activists are gathering signatures on petitions calling for the removal of Soviet troops from Lithuanian soil. In May the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, once a docile local legislature, voted 291-8 to declare the republic’s desire for independence; it also asserted the republic’s immediate right to veto legislation passed in Moscow.

Ignoring warnings from the Kremlin, Estonia claims that it also has a right of veto, approved by its legislature last November. Not to be outdone, Latvia passed a similar measure last month.

If glasnost candor hardly inspires gratitude and greater loyalty to the Soviet system, repression remains the alternative to keep nationalist aspirations in check.

In response to the violent controversy over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave in neighboring Azerbaijan, the Kremlin not only imposed virtual martial law on both republics but also arrested 12 Armenian activists early this year. Charged with inciting interethnic tensions, they were released on bail in June--after the authorities had demonstrated an ability to act as arbitrarily as in the past. The most chilling crackdown came in response to peaceful pro-independence demonstrations in the Georgian capital of Tblisi. On April 9, security forces attacked the protesters with toxic gas, sharpened shovels and clubs, killing 20 or more people.

While Kremlin officials denied having approved the use of force, a report in the samizdat journal Glasnost said the attack was carried out by special-forces units, whose deployment in Tblisi could only have been ordered by Moscow.

In the Baltic, the threat of violent repression is also never far from the surface. Russian settlers in Estonia have vociferously protested new laws making Estonian the official language of the republic and establishing local residency requirements for voters and political candidates. At a recent meeting of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, a Russian delegate from Estonia warned that such measures could produce “another Tblisi.” Last week, angry Russian workers went out on strike at several Estonian shipyards and factories.

Such threats have not deterred Baltic activists who remain convinced that their special economic role gives them considerable room to maneuver. “It is difficult for our opponents to separate our demands from the more general push for perestroika ,” argued Vytautis Landsbergis, the president of Lithuania’s Sajudis reform movement. His allies insist that they intend to keep pushing their revolutionary goals in an evolutionary manner, avoiding violent confrontations. But they are convinced that the Soviet empire is in terminal decline, and are unambiguous about seeing this process culminate in their total independence.

Baltic members of the special commission urge public denunciation of the Nazi-Soviet pact as “shameful and unlawful.” And they look to Western nations, which never officially recognized the Baltics being swallowed by the Soviet Union, to offer more than perfunctory support for their cause. Balts argue, convincingly, that glasnost has a momentum dramatically exceeding anything Gorbachev originally envisioned.

At stake is nothing less than the Soviet Union’s ability to keep its vast territory intact.