BALTIC TEARS AND VODKA
Andrew Brown sails with
the Peace and Freedom Cruise off the Soviet coast
Stockholm/Helsinki TASS had no doubt what the 'Baltic Peace and Freedom Cruise' was to be: danger- ous provocation in the Baltic sea zone . . . organised by a gang of CIA agents . . . accompanied by a bunch of overheated "Free Emigre Youth" on a specially char- tered piratic ship', which would send 'heaps of subversive leaflets from the 'CIA's depots . . . onto the coast of the Soviet Baltic Republics . . . before dis- embarking a group of hoodlums in Hel- sinki,' and so on for nearly 1,200 words. It was clearly something on which the Specta- tor would have to be represented.
More than that was unclear when I arrived in Copenhagen to join the night train which would take us to Stockholm where the cruise was to begin. It had been preceded by a tribunal similar to the one held to investigate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This tribunal had rehearsed the fundamental facts of the Soviet occupa- tion of the Baltic States: that the Russian annexation in the summer of 1940, though sanctioned by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was illegal by any other measure; that the workings of Stalinism in these countries had been almost more terrible than any- where else in Eastern Europe: during the first two periods of Russian occupation, from 1940 to 1941, when the Nazis con- quered these countries, and from 1944 to 1952, when organised guerrilla warfare in the Lithuanian forests ceased, the Baltic republics lost 10 per cent of their popula- tions by deportation, exile, or judicial murder. (This figure, remember, does not cover wartime losses between 1941 and 1944.) Since 1953, the Russian occupation of these countries has been less obviously violent. In 1972, three Lithuanian students burned themselves to death in public to protest against Russian rule. The Helsinki monitoring groups set up in these countries have all been smashed. Linguistic and cultural colonialism continues, greatly assisted by large-scale Russian emigration into the two northernmost countries, Esto- nia and Latvia. While their economies are well-developed by Soviet standards, a week's wages for an Estonian worker will buy him no more than it would have done in 1938. The trouble with this history, though, is that it seems to be one of constant defeat. As a publicity stunt the cruise was a tremendous success, but what the organis- ers seemed to be publicising was the hopelessness of their cause. For many of the participants, a majority of whom came from North America, the cruise seemed at first nothing more than a chance to see Scandinavia (a part of Yurrup) on the cheap. A professor of English Literature told me on several occasions how he had not managed to reach his allotted sleeping car on the train from Copenhagen to Stockholm until 7.30 in the morning, when he slid through the sliding door, apologised to his room mate for being late, collected his baggage and lurched away to disembark onto the platform. I had myself spent part of the night listening to a very large Lithuanian explaining that while the stories of Latvia and Estonia were no doubt tragic, Lithuania had been a recognised country for a thousand years, as Catholic and European as ever Poland was, so that the Russian occupation of his parents' 'Those South African riots are really out of order.' homeland was a far more terrible crime.
Here, then, were the enemies of the cruise: vodka and revanchist nationalism: yet they seemed at the same time an essential part of the business, since they expressed the same emotional force as had driven the organisers to arrange their demonstration.
It was not until we embarked in Stock- holm that the outlines of something better began to emerge. The organisation of the trip had been hindered by constant bomb threats; and the boat was delayed for three hours while police with sniffer dogs sear- ched through 420 people's luggage. Instead of dispersing, the crowd of passengers and wellwishers began to sing. Three Latvians, it is said, will form four political parties. But five Latvian political parties will form one choir, and if there are any Latvians who cannot sing in tune, none of them is politically active. Some of the passengers were exiles. Many more were emigres. But the majority were Baits by choice rather than necessity. They sang and they talked their own languages as much to discover as to affirm their identity. In fact 'the Baltic States' themselves are a fairly new idea. The idea that the small nations of the Baltic should co-operate rather than compete is some- thing that has grown up since 1944, and has hardly taken root. This became apparent when we reached Helsinki, but by that time the character of the cruise had changed. The change came gradually as we sailed northwards from Gotland, 17 to 18 miles off the occupied coasts. It was not primar- ily intellectual. There had been a panel discussion which served to illuminate, but not to explore the confusions about what the Baits were trying to achieve. The point at issue was whether nationalism could be enough. This was after all a 'Peace and Freedom' cruise, and one of the oddest things about it was that people on board took these slimy words seriously. 'Freedom for the Baltic States' is a political demand, and a nationalist one; yet European nations are what they are be- cause of war and the threat of war. This unpeaceful history can be traced back as far as you like: neither Stalin nor Hitler invented it. One reason for the European orientation of the Baltic States is their religion: Estonia and Latvia are Protes- tant, and Lithuania Catholic, and they were Christianised by a series of crusading wars mounted from Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden. Even the distinctive languages and cultures of the Baits are the fruits of old, successful wars. The Prussian peasan- try once spoke a Baltic language similar to Lithuanian and Latvian, but they were conquered. To try and turn nationalism into a force for peaceful change is not an easy task, but the arguments against war as an instrument of policy in this case are overwhelming. They do not depend on the new horrors of nuclear war. The Soviet Union has sta- tioned a great many nuclear missiles in the Baltic republics (there are supposed to be three SS-20 bases in Estonia alone) but What is germane to the argument is that there are, for example, 130,000 Russian soldiers in Estonia. Even allowing for the high proportion of back-up forces to fight- ing soldiers in any modern army, this is still a sizeable army of occupation. No nuclear Weapons were needed to convince Lithua- nian guerrillas after the war that the struggle was hopeless: only 30,000 Lithua- nian casualties (and an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Soviet).
But if these armies cannot be expelled by force, what grounds are there for supposing that their expulsion is a desir- able, practical goal? One answer was sug- gested by what one might call the 'suffering nationalists' on board such as Tomas Venc- lova, an exiled Lithuanian poet, and the only member of the Lithuanian Helsinki monitoring group now in freedom. (`The record for our group,' he remarked in passing, 'was held by the man who was sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison.' No wonder the Russians thought this cruise Would spoil the tenth anniversary celebra- tions of the Helsinki Accords.) When one speaks of intellectuals under communism finding themselves in the same camp, this is seldom solely a metaphor. Gunnars Rode, a Latvian nationalist, and Vladimir Bukovsky had shared a cell in Vladimir prison outside Moscow, and organised hunger strikes together.
For all these people the central issue was resistance to Soviet imperialism. If enough people in the West could be brought to realise the urgency and moral necessity of this task, then practical support for the Baltic republics would follow of itself. Bukovsky especially believes that the Soviet Union is facing such monumental economic, technological and ecological crises that it can only surmount them with Western help, and that we in the -West can now and should demand a partial demili- tarisation of a still communist Russia and that it abandon its European empire as the price for this help. There may be only a difference of emphasis between this approach, based on competition by all means short of conven- tional or nuclear war, and the rival approach which asks how human rights can be restored in those countries the Kremlin considers it essential to control. But tone and emphasis are important in politics. The essential difference between these approaches is not which one is more palatable to the Russians, but which one is more palatable to the allies the Baltic States will need.
While these discussions continued, the ship moved across an apparently endless sea. None of the countries we were talking about could be seen; and the ceremonies held on deck, where flowers were thrown into the sea to commemorate the people who died under Russian rule, or trying to escape from it, were almost invisible for anyone standing behind the television crews crowded into the front row. After dusk it was announced that one of the large Estonian islands could be seen 'on the right side of the ship'. The portholes were smeared with rain and salt, and the view beyond them seemed only a continuation of this grey-blue smear, with a darker fringe at the end which might or might not have been an island. At length it was possible to see a double flash of yellow light on the horizon from a lighthouse. Beneath it was a low, slate-grey corruga- tion on the sea, like the teeth of a worn-down chain saw. As if to confirm the reality of this apparition, a Soviet patrol boat, very dark grey with a high white bow wave, cut capers between us and the mainland for half an hour.
At half past midnight, the Estonian ceremony was held. It was quite dark by then, and the darkness gained a quality of emptiness from the television lights. Be- hind the speakers was a bright ring of placards with the names and faces of political prisoners on them. The blue, black, and white flags wandered in the wind, while the ship's motors made a steady noise. A West German made a bad speech very well, about refugees dying on overcrowded German hospital ships in the light of the flames of burning Tallinn. A guitarist played quietly: the singing was low and inaccurate, and all the more moving for that. The participants walked to the railings to throw their flowers overboard; as they returned, I saw that even the guitarist was weeping. Returning to the dining room, we saw that the sea had become invisible: there was only a pattern of flowers heaving and shuddering as they drifted towards the Estonian coast.
There were more tears in Helsinki (where we were greeted by the telephoto lenses of the Finnish security police), but they came from civilian spectators of the demonstration there. The Baits processed through the centre of town to lay a wreath at the monument to Finnish volunteers who died in the Estonian war of independ- ence. I had never thought to hear Finns shouting 'Met niet niet Soviet'; but they joined in the demonstrators' chanting. Suddenly one realised that Finland was a Baltic country too. It does not lie on the invasion route between Berlin and Lenin- grad, so it is free, but it is easy to forget that the Finns understand what price must be paid for freedom far better than do the Swedes or the Danes. Even the police were courteous and understanding to the de- monstrators. They cordoned off the Rus- sian Embassy very efficiently, but as rein- forcements arrived to strengthen this cor- don, they waved to the Baits outside, who cheered their arrival. It was an extraordin- ary exchange of gestures because it was so grown-up. Finns and Baits alike have good reason to know that peace and freedom are words which are slimy with blood as well as hypocrisy; yet here in a 'demonstration', that most childish of all public acts, both sides could recognise that there were ideas worth being goodhumoured about.
Though plenty of spectators had wept as we passed through the streets, and though the object of our procession had been to make speeches about slavery beneath a war memorial, the demonstration had a hugely elating effect. It was difficult to concentrate on a purely intellectual apprehension of Baltic culture as the, boat returned towards Stockholm. At about three in the morning, the boat came under the protection of St Vitus, the patron saint of Lithuania. I saw his spirit take possess- tion of a full professor of International Relations while 'a mixed Estonian- Lithuanian punk band put 'Johnny B. Goode' to death, slowly. It was more frightening than the Russian navy had been. But a Latvian was on hand to reassure me: `Nikshana', which my notes define as 'a stale of cotteclive satori in- duled by alco . . .' is apparently a fun- damental concept of Latvian philosophy. For some reason she thought it untranslat- able. She was undisturbed by the appalling noise on the dance floor. Whatever might be the case in decadent Lithuania, real culture still flourishes in Riga, as shown by the success of 'Arvids un mursiteji', a Latvian punk band whose name translates as 'Harvey and the Wallbangers'. As for Estonia . . . a Latvian member of the 'gang of CIA agents' took pity on my ignorance: 'Why, Estonia is the only Baltic country with handholds on the lampposts . . . even the suicide rate goes up and down with the potato harvest there.'
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