How Political are the Social Movements in the Baltic Republics?

Abstract

Before the 1980s one hardly spoke of any significant social movements in the Baltic republics. Political apathy, bordering on hopelessness, as far as the masses were concerned, and an emphasized apoliticism of the intelligentsia, whose members never tired of stressing that their only concerns are professional, cultural, maybe aesthetic, but not at all political—that was the social situation in the Baltic states most of the time under Soviet rule.This overall image of apathy, complacency, and acquiescence was, however, not entirely correct. Underneath there were many things happening, as very few Balts indeed were total conformists and total loyalists of the Soviet regime. Most of them were, rather, “conservationists.” That is a special term I use for people outwardly loyal to the Soviet system, working within that system, trying to comply with the rules of the system, but at the same time using whatever position in the system they have to preserve their nation's economic, cultural, and historical heritage. They were trying especially hard to safeguard their nation's economic well-being, ecological situation and, of course, spiritual identity and heritage, by promoting art, literature and other activities, mainly under the slogan “national in form and socialist in content,” but more and more national in form and less and less socialist in content, as far as the circumstances allowed it. These people wore the disguise of Soviet loyalism for the benefit and the advantage of their own nation; that was the attitude I call conservationism in the Baltic states and that was the attitude that was prevalent among most native Balts.