Unrest in Estonia Tests Kremlin’s Risky Policy

Galina Rybanskaya, an ethnic Russian, has lived comfortably for 28 years in the Baltic republic of Estonia, but now she is troubled as never before by what she delicately calls “elements of discrimination.”

Sasha Kopytina, also Russian, married an Estonian and moved to the republic just a year ago. “I had planned to stay here all my life, but now I don’t know. My rights are being restricted,” she said.

Both women, whose comments appeared in the Socialist Industry newspaper over the weekend, are among about 50,000 Russians from 40 enterprises who are staging a counter-rebellion in the tiny republic on the shores of the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland.

Russians who live in Estonia have been striking for nearly a week to try to pressure Moscow to rein in Estonian nationalists.

The strike, which threatens to seriously disrupt passenger and cargo rail traffic originating in the port city of Tallinn, the republic’s capital, goes to the heart of a national crisis in inter-ethnic relations and presents a serious challenge to the Kremlin.

Risky Bid in Conflicts

Moscow has permitted some republics greater freedom in a risky bid to defuse ethnic conflicts and dissuade the republics’ parliaments from voting to secede from the Soviet Union, a move theoretically permissible under the Soviet constitution.

Many ethnic Russians--the majority in the Soviet Union and long secure in positions of power throughout the country--are being forced to relinquish control in some outlying republics to local ethnic groups, and they are watching warily to see how far the power sharing will go.

In Estonia, many feel it has gone far enough. The strike is a warning to Moscow that the Russians won’t sit by passively if they fear their way of life is being endangered.

The Soviet Parliament, responding to demands from the Estonian Popular Front movement, agreed last month to grant Estonians freedom from central economic planning and the right to make decisions about their own economy.

Republic authorities have been permitted to fly their previously outlawed flag and to make Estonian the republic’s official language.

Bitter Complaints

Russians have complained bitterly that each of these steps encroaches on their rights, and they formed an opposition group of their own, known as Inter-Movement, which claims to have 90,000 members in Estonia.

Inter-Movement spokesmen have argued against putting industrial enterprises with a predominantly Russian-speaking labor force under Estonian control.

They have opposed the language requirement as unreasonable, saying language classes are largely unavailable and expensive.

But the proverbial last straw was a vote last week by the Estonian legislature requiring a minimum of two years residency in one district or five in the republic in order to vote.

The Estonian Popular Front hopes the new law will enable it to keep Russians out of positions of power and install independent-minded Estonians instead.

“We’ll never agree to this,” strike committee spokesman Mikhail Lysenko, an ethnic Russian, was quoted as saying in Socialist Industry’s Sunday edition.

120,000 Non-Estonians

He said the regulations would disenfranchise about 120,000 non-Estonians, primarily Russians, who are living in the republic on short-term work contracts.

Just over 25% of the republic’s population of 1.5 million is Russian and about 65% is Estonian, with the rest made up of other ethnic minorities.

Soviet Justice Minister Vinyamin F. Yakovlev has said the Estonian voting law is unconstitutional. But the Estonian Parliament defiantly declared last November that its local laws take precedence over national laws, and republic authorities are not likely to back down willingly.

The Estonians, for their part, have said the Russians’ strike is illegal, and officials in the republic have imposed fines on strike leaders. But the ethnic Russians have refused to negotiate with the Estonian leadership and have instead sent a delegation to Moscow.

Western analysts say that ethnic minorities outside of Estonia will be watching carefully to see how the Kremlin handles the Russian rebellion in the Baltics.

Pretext to Crush Rebellion

The Kremlin could use the Russian rebellion as a pretext to crush the Estonian independence movement, one Western analyst said, but he added that may simply add fuel to ethnic protests in other republics.

“There is no question that the Russians have in many cases acted like occupiers. They’ve been oblivious to the cultures and desires of other ethnic groups,” the analyst said.

Estonians don’t seem to want to share power, a senior Western diplomat noted. They instead have tried to shut out the Russians, and Moscow is concerned that the election law “may be the first step on a slippery slope,” said the diplomat.

The fear, the diplomat said, is that Estonians could next enact residency requirements, preventing Russians from even living in the republic.

Ethnic hostility in Estonia is likely to intensify next week when demonstrations are expected to mark the 50th anniversary of the Soviet nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany.

The pact, signed on Aug. 23, 1939, included secret protocols that led to the incorporation into the Soviet Union of then-independent Estonia and its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania.

Leaders in the Baltic republics argue that the secret protocols were illegal and should be declared null and void, and Soviet sources say a government commission studying the pact, whose findings have not yet been released, will concur.