The Baltic Way

It gives me great pleasure to be with you here in Riga as we celebrate and commemorate the Baltic Way, the human chain that was formed through the three Baltic countries on 23 August 1989, a little over 35 years ago. You know this story better than I do but I think that the information we got in the media in my home country of Iceland at the time was more or less correct; that over two million people in the three Baltic countries joined hands – joined hands literally and figuratively. This they did from the Estonian coast at the Gulf of Finland, through Latvia and to the southern border of Lithuania. This they did to remind the outside world of the atrocious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 23 August 1939, on the eve of the Second World War – to remind the outside world that as long as Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians could not enjoy freedom and independence, that monumental conflict was not really over. And this they did to demand – yes – freedom and independence, after decades of Soviet rule.

Dear friends. We cannot overstate how historic this moment was. It will always rank among the strongest demonstrations of peoples’ power in our lifetime at least. It should fill you with pride, my Latvian hosts, for it took some courage. To be sure, in the summer of 1989 the winds of change had been felt for some time in the Baltic region. Here in Latvia, for instance, we had seen environmental protests and the formation of the Popular Front. But going out from your home and calling for change, calling for an end to an alien regime that was still powerful and had shown for decades how it could oppress innocent civilians; that took some courage indeed.

So let us praise the people who joined hands in this part of Europe some 35 years ago. Let us praise solidarity and togetherness in the face of a common foe. All those who took part in the Baltic Way found increased strength in each other. If you’re a dictator you can have two people arrested or silenced without any consequences whatsoever; twenty as well, even two hundred. Two thousand might be a substantive project but manageable, and probably twenty thousand as well. However, getting rid of two hundred thousand people would be a challenge, even for the most strong-willed and powerful dictator, and two million people…

What we do know is that on 23 August 1989, the rulers in Moscow could not have arrested two million people. What we do know as well, however, is that some 40-50 years before, they were able to arrest and deport well over half-a-million persons from the Baltic states.

These are the people whose memory we also must honour. Furthermore, we must praise those who dared to stand up and protest in the dark decades of Soviet rule in the Baltic region; the Forest Brothers and all those who supported them, then all those people who risked their education or career, even their life to oppose and fight tyrannical rule – dissidents when dissent could be deadly.

Now, how could this be allowed to happen? This loss of freedom and basic human rights for millions of innocent people? Let us recall how the leaders of the free Western world promised to fight for the liberation of the Baltic states early on in the Second World War. In August 1941, US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter where they recorded their wish – quote ‒ “to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them”. Almost four years later, in February1945, they reaffirmed this pledge, but joined with their wartime ally, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. Fighting the Axis powers together, they signed the Declaration on Liberated Europe ‒ in Yalta, that historic seaside city in Ukraine. In this statement, you see similar promises of freedom and human rights as in the Atlantic Charter – almost word for word. These allies promised – and I quote again, to see “the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them”. There was however, a little-noticed addition to that sentence, an addition that meant a lot for the fate of you here in the Baltic region. I quote the sentence in full now: “The restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations”. By the aggressor nations. At that time the Soviet Union was not counted among the aggressor nations – with dire consequences for Latvia and its neighbouring countries.

Dear friends. This brings me to the question of morality and realism in international relations. The conflict or connection between these two approaches has been called the “first debate” in the academic world of IR studies. More importantly – much more importantly – in the real world it can determine the fate of peoples, societies and states.

To be sure, Churchill and Roosevelt did not want to the see the Baltic states subjugated to Soviet tyranny. They did not want to see people arrested, killed, and deported to Siberia. But what they wanted most was to destroy the Axis powers. Everything else became secondary to that primary goal.

In the simplest of explanations and historical narratives, morality and realism clashed, and realism won – the realists won. Again, at the risk of oversimplification, the realists in the field of international relations, both in academia and outside its walls, will kindly mention that we do not live in a Wilsonian dreamworld, referring to US President Wilson’s hopes for everlasting peace after the First World War, universal self-determination and other “lofty” ideals. The realists will argue further that the national interest must be the main concern of all statespersons, coupled with realistic calculations of power and capabilities. This can be called Realpolitik and with it you may hear well-known phrases: “My country, right or wrong”, or “legitimate security concerns”, a justification for aggression that has been heard in recent years.

To be fair, realistic realists, if you like, will maintain that the primacy of national interest does not have to be cruel and immoral. In that connection it is popular to quote Hans Morgenthau, the high priest of classical realism in the twentieth century, for example his words that the choice facing people in positions of power is not “between moral principles and the national interest, devoid of moral dignity, but between one set of moral principles divorced from political reality, and another set of moral principles derived from political reality”.

And then fast forward to 1989. I think it is safe to say that most of us in the West, in the free part of Europe, rejoiced and welcomed the Baltic Way. We then witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the glorious revolutions in Eastern Europe, the end of communist dictatorships and the advent of democratic rule, free elections, freedom of expression, travel, religion and all the rights we deem essential in a civic society.

Still, the Baltic question remained difficult. Although only a handful of states had recognized de jure the forced incorporation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union, that state of affairs had been accepted de facto. And while statespersons in the West welcomed the winds of change sweeping through the eastern part of Europe, they did not want them to force Mikhail Gorbachev out of the Kremlin.

Another clash between morality and realism seemed to be in the making. Perestroika, Glasnost. Because of Gorby, as he was affectionally known in the West, these Russian words entered the international vocabulary, with high hopes that the cold war would come to a peaceful end, within a unified Europe.

I am sure that many of you in this audience remember the narrative; that the reformist leader in Moscow must not be pressurized too hard to live up to his words about freedom and democratization for all because he might then be toppled by hardliners and nobody would benefit from that. Caution became the keyword, or should I say realism – a realistic risk assessment of options for the West and the Baltic peoples as well, usually in a warm-hearted manner but of course it also smacked of haughtiness and besser-wisserism.

I am also sure that you remember Iceland’s support for Latvian independence, as well as its support for your neighbours in Estonia and Lithuania. The name of Foreign Minister Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson is well known in the Baltic region. Supported by the general public, Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson and the large majority of other politicians, he chose morality rather than realism. In the dark days of January 1991, when Soviet units murdered innocent civilians here in Riga and Vilnius, he visited all three Baltic capitals. In August the same year, Iceland became the first country to reestablish diplomatic relations with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – even though you might hear my good friends in Denmark claim that they were actually the first to do so.

This is the simple description of Iceland’s actions and there is nothing wrong with that. However, the story becomes more complex at closer look. It becomes more complex unless we just want to produce a hagiographic tale of heroism and selflessness, a praise of our own morality and bravery in contrast to the naked realism, selfishness and cowardice of most others in the West. But that would not be moral. It would be wrong.

So, in the Icelandic case, while we continue to highlight important support in the immediate years after the Baltic Way, we can mention as well that in the decades before the Soviet Union was among Iceland’s most valued trading partners. Icelandic ships sailed to what was known as the Soviet ports of Riga or Ventspils. Icelandic members of parliament and Iceland’s ambassador in Moscow went on official visits to what these public representatives called the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, even though Iceland never formally recognized the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union. In late January 1991, right after the atrocities here in Riga and in Vilnius, an official delegation from Reykjavik concluded a favourable trade agreement with the Soviet Union in Moscow, with handshakes and toasts for continued cooperation and friendship.

Furthermore, Iceland’s moral support here in the Baltic region was not devoid of realism. Until August 1991, calls for immediate diplomatic recognition which could sometimes be heard were not heeded. It was the failed putsch in the Kremlin that month which provided a window of opportunity.

At that stage Iceland’s moral support may have mattered at a key moment. It may have been so that Iceland’s determination to offer diplomatic recognition encouraged others to follow suit, first Denmark and then a stream of others. Admittedly, it could also be argued that the tide was turning anyway, that Latvia and the other Baltic states would have regained their rightful place in the family of nations even if had happened slightly later.

Still, this we will never know for sure. Historical events are not like an experiment in a laboratory where you can replace one ingredient with another and see what happens. Moreover, history is best told when it is devoid of clear political or personal purposes, when the guiding principle is rather to describe the past in all its complexities. We do not have to look far across Latvia’s eastern borders to see a state leader who abuses history, propagating to the population a skewed version of the past. And while I am of course no expert on Latvian history, I know that in the interwar years Latvia was not a bastion of democracy and freedom, and that the history of this beautiful country during the Second World War is not without its dark chapters.

At present, moreover, we need to make sure that regained independence benefits everyone in society. While we safeguard heritage, language and the right to live in security and peace we need to cherish compassion and diversity; freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of love.

Dear listeners: That should be our guiding light into the future, our lesson from the past. In our minds, morality should be stronger than naked realism at its worst. Our lesson from the past must also include the brave people of the Baltic Way. It was their determination that allowed others to demonstrate moral support to people in need. Finally, our lesson from the past must be frank. Despite our best intentions, politics is almost always the art of the possible, full of uneasy compromises and even betrayals of principles, in the hope that limited sacrifices will later bring full satisfaction. Sometimes, however, cold calculations of that kind can go too far. And then we rely on heroes, hoping that right will ultimately prevail, hoping that people can rise above the limits of what is considered possible. Yes, sometimes politics becomes the art of the impossible. That happened here in Latvia and in your neighbouring countries in the summer of 1989. That is the lesson of the Baltic Way.