Vahur Made

Published in "Estonian Foreign Policy at the Cross-Roads" (edited by Eero Medijainen and Vahur Made). Kikimora Publications, 2002. ISBN 952-10-0754-0. Pp. 113-129.

Introduction

The Baltic issue during the Cold War seems to be an ideal argument for those critics who argue that traditional realist and geopolitical theories fail to provide an adequate and full-fledged explanation of international politics. When the Second World War ended, the fate of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania appeared to be sealed forever. They were occupied by the Soviet Union and added to the territories of the Communist empire. Their national statehood was destroyed and there was nothing to offer any hope of a different future. 
In the West it was considered only a matter of time until the Baltic ‘problem’ would lose its actuality. The Baltic diplomats abroad who remained in exile after June 1940 were getting older, and as time passed many died and their successors were often not recognised as representatives of truly existing governments. By the mid-1970s most of the Baltic missions in Europe and Latin America had had to close their doors due to financial and political difficulties. Only in the USA did the embassies of Latvia and Lithuania and the General Consulate of Estonia continue their work until the independence of their countries was re-established in 1991. 
The organisations of Baltic emigrants were undoubtedly active. But they were far from being a major political force. Their activities were restricted to political lobbying, pro-independence propaganda and anti-Soviet protest meetings. The perspective that they would really challenge Soviet power in the Baltics was unrealistic. So were their hopes that pressure on international organisations would bring any change to the political situation in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. From the Western point of view the Baltic nations were considered to have been so pacified by the Soviet terror, assimilation and military presence that no national movement able to restore independence was expected to emerge. It seemed that the Baltic issue was like a romantic reflection of memories from the 1920s–30s.
Suddenly, and to the surprise off many political observers and Sovietologists, the Baltic issue ‘dropped out of the blue’. Since the second half of the 1980s it became one issue of world politics, a matter of discussion between the Soviet Union, USA and the European countries and organisations. It appeared that the Baltic organisations both at home and abroad were strong enough to carry out considerably extensive activities in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and other world centres. Baltic nationalism reappeared with strong roots in the historic memory of the pre-1940 national statehood. 

The focus
It is useful to avoid seeing the Baltic issue as a very restricted regional issue that has no connections to global or European politics. It is clear that the Baltic issue is a part of WWII and Cold War history.
Different actors played crucial roles in shaping the nature and essence of the Baltic issue: the Soviet Union, the USA, the European countries – especially the Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom, and international organisations. The article analyses the role of these different actors, especially in the second half of the 1970s and during the 1980s.
Thus it is useful to see the Baltic issue not only as a matter of inter- (super) state power and propaganda, military geopolitics and a specific case of Cold War diplomatic history, but also as a case of economic and ethnic development inside the Baltic States, with its reflections on international relations.
The article also devotes considerable attention to the role of individual policy-makers in the development of the Baltic problem. The way the politicians in the West and East viewed the general state of international affairs in Europe and on a global level directly influenced their actions in the context of the Baltic issue. From this point of view the ideological preferences and political experiences of different state actors play the key role.
It is also true that the Baltic issue was not a static one, as it may appear at first glance, but it also changed rather dynamically along with the general developments in the policies of the Cold War super powers. We can point to at least three periods when US policy in the Baltic context was especially active. The first was during the 1950s after the death of Stalin and during the administration of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the second was in the middle of the 1970s, associated with the CSCE process and the 1975 Helsinki Summit and the third period was in the 1980s, especially under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Accordingly, we can see the activation of European institutions, especially the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, in the second half of the 1970s and during the 1980s.
On the other hand, the 1960s clearly differ from the previous and following decades in terms of the intensity of Baltic exile activities in the West. The 1960s appear to have been a considerably silent decade, having no major landmarks comparable to the reports of the US Congress’ Kersten Commission of 1953–55  and the US presidential addresses on the Baltic issue in the mid-1970s and 1980s. It would be worth investigating whether such a ‘freezing’ of the Baltic issue in the 1960s had direct connections to the period of liberalisation (‘thaw’) in the USSR, also in the occupied Baltic States. The parallels between the activation of Baltic organisations in exile since the 1970s (with increasing pressure on Western governments and organisations) and the deteriorating economic conditions together with the tightening of imperial policies in the Baltic States also deserves more detailed research.

Traditional Soviet approaches: geopolitics and ideology
The problem of Soviet insecurity
Looking at this problem from the point of view of the realist tradition of international relations theory, the question could be whether the Soviet Union had geopolitically well-founded reasons to incorporate Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940 and make them part of its territory? A sub-question to this problem is why the Soviet Union was interested in incorporating these countries? Why was it not sufficient to ‘Finlandise’ these countries or to make them ‘people’s democracies’ in the East European style?
It could be further asked how the Soviet leadership viewed the Baltic issue? Was it a matter of security question directed against the feeling of insecurity and fear of possible European attack? Or was it an economic necessity, the need for the Baltic ports in order to possess better and more efficient channels for transporting raw materials to Western markets? Or was it purely an ideological issue, a matter of Russian grandeur, the desire for the territories that in the past had been part of the Russian Empire. In brief, was it a matter of Russian national historical narrative?
We cannot proceed further without answering these numerous questions, as they form the basis for the entire Baltic issue in the Cold War period with clarifying the Soviet perceptions of the Baltic policies.

The military-strategic approach
The military-strategic importance of the Baltic States to the Soviet Union is generally associated with two main determinants: the security (or protection) of Leningrad from foreign attack and Soviet access to the Baltic Sea and further to the Northern Atlantic.
When St. Petersburg was established as the Russian capital, its geographic location served several goals. First it was meant to be Moscow’s stronghold in northwestern Russia, a region that for centuries was ruled by Novgorod and then by Sweden, two of Moscow’s traditional rivals. St. Petersburg was also an opening to the West for Moscow, the imperial elite and the whole Empire.
From the military point of view the capital’s location was carefully considered. Situated in the easternmost part of the Finnish Gulf, it was well guarded against sudden attack from the sea. The Kronstadt Naval Base also protected the capital from such a surprise. More problematic was the securing of the mainland approaches to the city. This problem was ‘solved’ by Russia’s military victories and further annexations. In 1721 the Baltic provinces (what is now present-day Estonia and Northern Latvia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire under the Uusikaupunki Peace Treaty, and in 1809 Finland was annexed under the Hamina Peace Treaty. Russia then possessed all territories around the Finnish Gulf.
Before the First World War the defences of St. Petersburg were further strengthened by the construction of marine fortifications on the coast and islands of Estonia and Finland. When these countries became independent in 1917–18, the question of the strategic vulnerability of St. Petersburg/Leningrad was once again ‘open’, at least from Moscow’s point of view. In 1939 the need to ‘protect’ Leningrad was used as a pretext for the Soviet attack on Finland. The Baltic States were also confronted with the same argument when in September 1939 the pacts of mutual assistance were concluded and Soviet military bases established in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The rationale for the argument of ‘the defence of St. Petersburg/Leningrad’ may be both supported and criticised. Those who support such an argument maintain that the control and possession of the Baltic States was and is vital for Russia in order to secure the defence of its second largest city.
The history of the WWII demonstrates that Leningrad remained unconquered by the German army, although it suffered a horrible 900-day blockade with 640,000 civilian casualties. It cannot be assessed whether the fact that the Baltic States were under Soviet control when the war with Germany broke out helped to save the city or not. It would be equally speculative to answer the question whether Germany would have used the Baltic States as an attacking ground against the Soviet Union if these small countries had not been annexed by the Red Army in June 1940. It may be argued that if Germany had in fact opted for a military attack against the Baltic States in 1940 or early 1941, the events that occurred would have been much the same as in summer-autumn 1941. There would have been fighting between German and Soviet armies in the Baltic States.
The end of the Second World War brought an end to the ‘defence of Leningrad argument. The Soviet Union emerged from the war with a buffer zone of satellite states in Eastern Europe. Finland attempted to refrain from any policy that would be unacceptable to its eastern neighbour. In this context there was no military threat to Leningrad or the northeastern parts of Russia whatsoever, and the relative military importance of this region for Russian military planning declined rapidly. Moscow possessed regional military superiority in the whole Baltic Sea region.
Therefore the Baltic States’ importance to the Soviet Union can be viewed from another strategic perspective – the attempt to control the Baltic-Scandinavian region. This attempt may be observed since the end of WWII. Soviet penetration to Northern Germany gave Moscow the possibility of obtaining access to the Danish Straits with a perspective to open the way to the Northern Sea and the Atlantic. For example, the brief occupation of Bornholm Island by the Red Army in 1945 can be viewed in this context. When the World War ended it eventually became clear that Soviet aspirations of control of the Danish Straits were not to be realised. The Soviet Union controlled the Baltic Sea but could not use it as its ‘internal lake’ and a basis for further naval expansion.
Certainly, the Baltic Sea remained heavily militarised. Soviet naval bases stretched from Kronstadt to Rostock, literally covering the whole southern coast of the Baltic Sea, including the main ports of the Baltic States (Tallinn, Paldiski, Riga, Liep?ja, Klaipeda). Yet the military importance of the Baltic States to Russia therefore changed considerably. They lost practical importance as military outposts for the defence of Leningrad or further western expansion, and functioned as military supply channels for Soviet forces in East Germany. As Finland’s policy changed from Mannerheim’s military resistance to the Paasikivi-Kekkonen line and Sweden refused to join NATO, the Baltic States also lost their theoretical military value as bases for Soviet military operations in a ‘regional’ conflict with the Scandinavian countries.
What was important for Moscow was the fact that by possessing the Baltic States, the Soviet Union was able to put not only Finland but also Sweden in a position in which it was able to control the security policies of these countries and guarantee that NATO was generally ousted from the Baltic Sea.
Another argument that may traditionally be presented to justify the strategic importance of the Baltic States for the Soviet Union during the Cold War was the German issue. A relatively common view is that since the end of the WWII the issue of Germany’s future was one of the major conflicts in great power relations. The unsettled German issue long prevented the Soviet Union from finally legitimising its military-political acquisitions in Eastern Europe. And it was not until the mid-1970s, via the Ostpolitik and CSCE agreements, that Moscow managed to achieve Western recognition of Eastern Germany and the division of Berlin. No peace treaty was concluded with Germany.
The possession of the Baltic States was seen as a strategic route to control the Soviet supply lines to Germany in the case of a possible major confrontation with the Western countries and NATO. In such a case Lithuania could serve as a possible transport route for additional army units, while Estonian and Latvian ports and airfields could guarantee further supplies from the Leningrad region and northwestern Russia.
But this, the ‘Germany-based’ vision, can also be easily challenged. First, a major conflict fought with massive land armies with the support of naval operations, could at best materialise on the maps of military planners. It could not become a reality, even during the years of Stalin’s rule. The Soviet fear that the US and Britain may launch a military attack was probably strongest immediately after the end of the Second World War. Stalin evidently tested this during the First Berlin Crisis of 1948–49.
In fact, the USA and its European allies were not willing to respond with a major counteroffensive against Soviet forces in East Germany and Poland. They instead strengthened their own defences by creating NATO in April 1949. Later, even during the Berlin crises of 1958 and 1961, Germany ceased to be a source of serious conflict between the Eastern and Western blocks.
In this light the military value of the Baltic States diminishes almost to the point of being non-existent. And although large Soviet army units were dislocated in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania until the end of the 1980s, their main reason was clearly to control the occupied republics themselves.

The problems with imperial narrative
As stated above, the military-strategic importance of the Baltic States for the Soviet Union was rather limited. It may be argued that the importance of the Baltic States to the Soviet Union was not of a military nature, but instead much more narrative-related. Possessing the Baltic States was part of the Russian imperial narrative, part of the understanding that the Baltic States were ‘traditional Russian territory or a ‘window to Europe’ (a legacy from the rule of Peter the Great).
The narrative aspect had different forms. First, it reflected the traditional imperial thinking that all the territories that had once been conquered by Russian armies had to be kept under Russian administration, no matter how harmful that might be in the foreign policy context. The possession of the Baltic States was seen as a historical right. Secondly, the Soviet refusal to discuss Baltic issues with the West and to restore the independent statehood of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, was justified with the competition among the great powers. The strength of the Soviet Union was seen in its landmass. The more territorial acquisitions, the better position the Soviet Union had in world politics and in the world economy. Western interference in the Baltic issue was considered dangerous because it challenged the concept of ‘territoriality’. Any concession in the Baltic issue would mean that other great powers had driven the Soviet Union out of its territorial advances.
Thirdly, from the imperial perspective the granting of wider autonomy or even independence to one non-Russian territory was considered a potential threat to the existence of the whole empire. Other nationalities might follow suit, disturbances might occur and the empire might lose more territory than initially planned.
These narrative-related considerations help to explain the emotional background of traditional Soviet thinking concerning the Baltic issue during the Cold War. But it is doubtful whether such thinking was always followed in Soviet decision making in the Baltic context, especially after 1985. What seems more relevant is to argue that both the imperial narrative and western-oriented Realpolitik thinking influenced Soviet policy towards the Baltic issue. In this light the dogmatic views of imperial grandeur were considerably challenged with alternative views, including the understanding that Russia’s full-scale participation in international co-operation was more important than possessing the greatest land empire in the world.

Stalin’s mistake?
An alternative view of the Baltic issue could be that the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union was Stalin’s mistake. He miscalculated the international situation in the first half of the 1940s and overestimated the strategic importance the Baltic Sea region, including the Baltic States, for the Soviet Union. By incorporating the Baltic States Stalin created a foreign policy problem and domestic problem for his successors. However, being afraid of the possible consequences (see the third aspect of imperial narrative) subsequent Soviet leaders did not see any other option than to maintain the status quo established by Stalin.
A brief historical insight is needed to explain this argument. The Baltic States were the first and smallest East European states that fell under Stalin’s rule. It might have been that in 1939–40 Stalin simply felt it more secure to add Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Soviet territory rather than leave them into the position of satellite states, particularly if we presume that in Moscow German penetration as far as the Baltic States was considered possible.
In the case of other Eastern European countries the situation was different. The Red Army entered these countries in 1944–45, in the situation where Germany was facing inescapable military collapse. For Stalin there was no immediate military-political need to turn these countries into Soviet territory. In addition Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were much larger countries than the Baltic States. They also had more political contacts with the West, which also meant stronger western support for the independence of those countries. In these countries Stalin could also expect much stronger local resistance to direct incorporation.
After Stalin’s death in 1953 it was already too late to change the existing system. Fear for the empire’s stability, not the strategic or emotional importance of the Baltic states seems to have been the leading factor that shaped Moscow’s position towards the Baltic issue during the Cold War.

Gorbachev’s mistake?
Did Gorbachev underestimate the possibility of the rise of nationalism in Baltic States and other parts of the Soviet empire? Was he too shortsighted, hoping that his reforms could be easily guided from the centre without provoking any independent activity in the regions?
We may strongly doubt whether this was the case. But there is no real ground to suspect that the Soviet leadership was unaware of the ethnic sentiments in the non-Russian regions of the USSR. Although the official propaganda for decades praised the ‘friendship of peoples’ and stressed the leading role of the ‘great Russian nation’, and although the Party organisations, KGB and army attempted to suppress any ethnically-flavoured political activity, it was clear that by the end of the 1980s national sentiments had remained a force as strong as seventy years before. Soviet propaganda had not had considerable success in shifting ethnic identities towards the ‘Soviet identity’. In the case of the smaller nationalities such as the Estonians and Latvians, the Soviet state attempted to implement a massive Russification campaign. But this only intensified regional opposition to the centre.
It can be assumed that Gorbachev’s miscalculations in the ethnic issue were not made through an underestimation of the strength of ethnic sentiments. It was most probably a miscalculation in locating the region of the heaviest outbreak of nationalism. Due to the war in Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in Iran, ethnic, national and religious claims were expected to be highest in Soviet Central Asia and Trancaucasia. The Armenian-Aserbaidjan clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh and Uzbek-Turkish riots in the Fergana Valley (Uzbekistan) partly justified this approach.
In fact, the real surprise for Gorbachev was the strong Baltic demand for independence. For Gorbachev it was especially surprising that small regions like the Baltic States could come up with political agendas and demands so different from the reform plans designed in the centre. The Baltic States placed Gorbachev in the middle of the pro-imperial conservatives and the pro-Western radical reformers.
This clearly separated Gorbachev from Baltic demands for independence. The problem was not so much whether Gorbachev supported Baltic independence or not. The problem was that he could not present the events in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as part of his policy. Ideas expressed by the Baltic nations were not designed by Gorbachev’s centre. Elections and referendums held in these states were not organised according to Gorbachev’s programs. The events in the Baltic States actually showed that Gorbachev lacked a clear program or vision of what he exactly wanted to do. His reforms were launched in order to cure the Soviet Union’s economic situation, but they ended up changing the whole existing political system. What Gorbachev had to discover was not the ethnic/regional response to his reform attempts and the strength of this response, but that he was not running a strong central power system that could control all developments across the empire, including those that occurred in the Baltic States.
The process of the acceptance of Baltic independence by the Soviet Union shows that in military terms it was quite easy for Moscow to leave these territories. The most important weapons systems, including nuclear weapons, had already been removed from the Baltic States by the end of the 1980s.
If one takes a pragmatic view of Gorbachev’s policies, it is evident that the Baltic issue was not one of his primary concerns. Understanding that Europe posed no threat to Russia and that there was no need for a Russian military build-up in the west, that Russia badly needed Western economic and political support, he corrected Stalin’s mistake, without making a new one himself.

The other side of the traditional approach: the Western view of the Baltic issue
The classical realist approach to Cold war history as expressed in the works of Henry Kissinger, Stephen Ambrose and John Lewis Gaddis (see for example Kissinger 1994; Ambrose 1988; Gaddis 1997). confronts the Western world with Soviet expansionism. Realists maintain that Moscow’s aspirations to grow into a superpower grew rapidly since the beginning of the Second World War. Among many other countries and regions of the world, this process sealed the fate of the Baltic States.
In as early as December 1941, during the visit of British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to Moscow, the Soviet Union presented territorial demands, including British recognition of the Soviet Union’s 1941 western border together with possession of the Baltic States. After WWII the Soviet satellite state system was established in Eastern Europe and Communist rule penetrated to the Far East. The realist view from the West saw the Soviet desire to enlarge its sphere of influence and challenge Western democracies through a global power contest.
In this situation the Baltic issue became a part of Western criticism against Soviet politics. Thanks to the emergence of the Cold War, the Baltic issue was saved from being completely removed from the agenda of world politics. Baltic diplomatic missions in the USA operated throughout the Cold War years and numerous statements from different US administrations secured that the Baltic issue was among international issues, at least on the verbal level.
The traditional American approach tends to view the Baltic issue first and foremost as a moral concern for the Western community. Arguably the dislike presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman felt towards totalitarian regimes was the main reason why the Baltic issue was ‘kept on the agenda’ through the non-recognition policy, propaganda and the formal recognition of the diplomatic rights of Baltic representatives in the USA. In this way the US maintained its virtual political presence in the Baltic region, where actual US interference was seen as both impossible and undesirable.
In practical Western policy-making the situation in the Baltic States was a non-issue. The Soviet occupation was accepted de facto by all Western states. Developments in the Baltic States were observed as regular Soviet domestic events. This was only for collecting information and not for planning any kind of active policy.
This largely explains why the Soviet Union tolerated the activities of the Baltic missions and organisations in exile and did not see their activities and the support given to them by different US administrations as an issue that could significantly influence US-Soviet relations. The Baltic diplomatic missions in exile were considered quite harmless as long as their existence and activities did not bring any ‘real’ US/Western policy towards the Baltic issue.
Washington’s Realpolitik long assumed that the Baltic States were not an area of the US vital interest and the Soviet presence there was actually relatively justified. This understanding reflected the Wilsonian principle of preserving the integrity of the Russian Empire in order to preserve the working relationship with Moscow. When the Second World War ended it was clear that the USSR would establish its sphere of influence in the Eastern European countries. To change this situation would mean America waging another large-scale war in Europe. The respect of each others spheres of influence in Europe became such a deeply rooted understanding in US-Soviet relations that even in 1989–91 President George Bush warned Eastern Europeans, the Balts included, not to ‘shake the stability’ and not to ‘undermine Gorbachev’s position’.
The European countries generally followed the US practice. The concept of the non-recognition of the Soviet occupation was approved, but not as prominently as Washington did. The moral approach to non-recognition was quite narrow and theoretical. Baltic diplomatic activities were generally rejected. In the United Kingdom the Baltic embassies ceased operations in the 1970s. The Nordic countries carried out semi-official contacts with Soviet administrations in the Baltic States, particularly in the form of mutual visits.
In 1989–91 European countries had to reply to the Baltic demands for independence. Although the general mood was supportive and there was widespread sympathy for Baltic aspirations, many European leaders called for the Balts to be more moderate in their demands and actions. On the other hand, many European countries, including the Scandinavians, recognised the newly independent Baltic States before the USA.

The Baltic choice: realist or rationalist approach?
According to the classical realist view it was only the Soviet Union that could restore Baltic independence. All outside interference was unrealistic. The USA did not want to connect the resolution of the Baltic issue to any of the longstanding agreements it was negotiating with the USSR, be that either political, economic or security arrangement.
Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians had to rely on the development of the general political situation. The Baltic issue could not have been a success story if the realist paradigm had ruled and the international relations of the Cold War period had been based only on power struggle, mistrust and Realpolitik. We may find better arguments if we rely on the rationalist concepts of the changing nature of international relations and the existence of common rules that unify the international community. Therefore it is possible to highlight several aspects that actually question the classical, state- and Realpolitik-centered view of Cold War history and the Baltic issue as one part thereof.
First, US decision to keep the Baltic diplomatic missions working. Strengthened with the existence of the national organisations and pressure groups, like BATUN (the Baltic Appeal to the United Nations), this aspect helped to build up a pro-independence lobby and establish the political contacts necessary to gain international support for the idea of Baltic independence.
Secondly, economic decline in the USSR and the reaction of M. Gorbachev to this with liberal reforms that also included the establishment of a free press and discussion of the changes needed in the political system.
Thirdly, the failed coup in Moscow in August 1991 that created a power vacuum in the Soviet Union and offered the Baltic States an ideal situation for proclaiming the independence which was then recognised by Russia and the Western democracies.
However, the purely realist approach that simply adds the Baltic issue to the Cold War superpower rivalry and to the great domestic changes that took place in the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev presidency does not offer an adequate explanation. It does not take into account the domestic developments in the Baltic States during the Soviet occupation. It does not analyse the national identities and the political organisation in those countries. It also fails to recognise the role of the foreign contacts the Balts under the Soviet occupation had with their countrymen abroad, with Western intellectual and political circles as well as with democratically-minded forces in Russia. Concentrating too much on state-level relations and seeing the Baltic issue as a sub-product of great power rivalry, the realist approach proves helpless in explaining why Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independent statehood was restored.
The realist approach tends to uniform all events that shaped the East-West relationship and treat them as ready-made products rather than constantly changing situations of history.
I will offer just a few examples. Any classical reading of Cold War history states that the creation of the Communist system in Eastern Europe seriously worsened US-Soviet relations. However, one can clearly see that what actually happened was that a common understanding developed of the power divide in Europe and Western acceptance of the situation behind the ‘iron curtain’ and the West treating it as a ‘stabilising factor’ for Europe.
In addition, one could mention the détente policies of the 1970s. Détente is often misunderstood as a process that brought the superpowers closer to each other and helped erase and ease previous difficulties and rivalries. Sometimes it is considered surprising that détente in the nuclear armament race did not bring along rapprochement in other political and military issues, including Western rhetoric in the Baltic issue. The opposing view to this could be that détente was mainly intended for agreeing on the post-war power divide in Europe (Helsinki Agreements of 1975), and the question of armaments (SALT Accords) played a secondary role.

Three views on non-recognition
In the classical US traditionalist-revisionist debate on Cold War history, the proponents of revisionist ideas are associated with leftist political views. Those who criticised the traditional ‘the-Soviets-are-to-blame’ approach to the Cold War, the so-called ‘New Left’, came actively to the academic dispute at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Walter LaFeber and others were especially engaged with finding an alternative to the ‘Soviet guilt’ concept (see LaFeber 1991). They maintained that the USA was equally or even more responsible for the tensions with the Soviet Union and that there were certain US ambitions to gain global economic and political power.
The aim of this chapter, however, is not to perpetuate the labelling of revisionists with the title ‘leftist’. Basically, the results of archival studies during the 1990s have in many cases cast severe doubt on revisionist claims and only strengthened many of the traditionalist arguments.
Still, for the subject discussed in this article, the revisionists ask a question that is worth investigating further. What was the role of the USA in the Baltic case? Was it simply a mixture of rational morality and practical Realpolitik or was there something more behind US policies towards the Baltic States? In order to answer this question we will examine three views on the US policy of the non-recognition of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union:
The Baltic issue was a pretext to revitalise the Stimson doctrine in order to destabilise Soviet politics in Eastern Europe.
The linking of the Stimson doctrine and the Baltic issue was not part of a large-scale US foreign political doctrine but rather a special case.  If one emphasises the element of moral commitment to the idea of the non-recognition of forcible seizure of territory, it should be expected that the doctrine was used in every similar case. However, there were a number of cases during and after WWII when the USA did not apply the Stimson doctrine (for example the incorporation of the eastern provinces of Poland into the USSR in 1939 and the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania in 1940). The post-war period adds even more such events (for example the incorporation of the Republic of Tuva into the USSR in 1944 or Tibet into China in 1951, etc.). Yet it is questionable whether the Baltic issue was used to revitalize the Stimson doctrine (originally meant to protest the Japanese annexation of Manchuria from China). There should have been a certain necessity for the US to connect the Stimson doctrine to the Baltic issue. Probably because the US wanted to create obstacles to Soviet enlargement in Eastern Europe and have some influence in the Baltic Sea region, even though in practice it was clear that it would be dominated by the USSR.
Non-recognition was a result of the events of the early years of the Second World War and was later used as a foreign policy tradition.
This view concentrates specifically on the war events of 1939–41. During this period it was still unclear which form the alliance against Germany would take. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of the August 1939 left a question mark over the USSR’s position in the emerging war. Soviet territorial acquisitions in 1939–40 were viewed with great revulsion in many Western political circles, including the USA. As Richard Nixon has pointed out: the Cold War started before World War II ended. Acting under cover of the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939, Moscow annexed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (Nixon 1992, 16).
Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom wanted any territorial benefits from the war. Stalin’s annexation policy, including the incorporation of the Baltic States and the war against Finland in 1939–40 were reminiscent of Hitler’s aggressive policies. In addition, Hitler’s and Stalin’s policies were carried out simultaneously. Andrei Gromyko voices the classical Soviet response to Western critics of this period: American ruling circles were interpreting the Soviet-Finnish war, which had just ended, in their usual anti-Soviet way, and were condemning the unification of the Baltic republics with the USSR (Gromyko 1989, 34).
Finally, the Soviet rejection of the Atlantic Charter was a great insult to the Roosevelt administration. In this light, presenting the non-recognition of the occupation of the Baltic States may be seen as a means for the USA to gain a bargaining position in future negotiations with the Soviets over post-war Europe. As wartime events developed and allied leaders met at the Tehran and Yalta conferences, it became clear that the USA did not have a realistic chance of bargaining over the territories under Soviet domination. Therefore the non-recognition policy lost its political value, but was still kept alive for the sake of public opinion in the form of an American foreign policy tradition.
Non-recognition was established as a cornerstone of the United States’ Baltic policies in the second half of the 1940s and during the 1950s.
This view accentuates the importance of non-recognition in the Cold War context. By refusing to recognise the Baltic States as part of the USSR, the USA had a strong propaganda tool in its hands. Therefore the systematic utilisation of non-recognition began with the outbreak of the Cold War. President Harry Truman and later Secretary of State John F. Dulles needed strong arguments against the USSR for the political debate. The Baltic case was one such argument. The same motives were behind the Baltic policies of the Reagan Administration.
In presenting these three views, it can be argued that the USA had its political interests when it continuously supported the idea of the illegality of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union and raised the Baltic issue on the international level. It seems that two of these interests prevailed over the others: 1) the need for arguments against Soviet policies and 2) the desire to have at least a virtual US presence in the Baltic Sea region. On the other hand, it would be incorrect to state that the Baltic issue in international relations was generated by the corresponding US policy.
Moreover, there were clearly periods when US interest in the Baltic issue was rather low. Especially in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the Baltic issue remained on the international agenda largely due to the pressure of Baltic exile organisations. During this period no significant moves were taken from the US side. It is also noteworthy that during such periods of small US interest the Baltic issue also suffered its most serious setbacks in British Baltic policies. In 1968 the Baltic gold deposited in the Bank of England during the inter-war period was transferred to the Soviet Union. British recognition of the Baltic diplomatic representatives ceased in the first half of the 1970s.

Conclusion
The Baltic issue during the Cold War is not a closed chapter of history. In this article several, sometimes contesting views on that issue have been expressed. The aim of the author was to point the diversity of approaches from which the Baltic issue can be analysed. The value of these approaches can be tested with the fundamental primary source research that utilises the US, Russian and European archives.
International relations theory may also be a helpful tool in clarifying the position of the non-sovereign Baltic States in the sovereignty-based international community of the Cold War period. Furthermore, the evaluation of the Cold War period is constantly adding new aspects to the historical analysis. This also enables one to see the status of the Baltic States during the Cold War as an issue influenced by many different political, economic and social factors.

Literature
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Dunsdorfs, E. (1975), The Baltic Dilemma: the Case of the de jure Recognition by Australia of the Incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union. New York: Robert Spellers&Sons Publishers.

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