I’m from one of the worst post-soviet countries in terms of nazi apologia. You hear constant anti-Soviet ramblings from every politician. They whine about how oh so many people fled in '44, from the Soviets. Any critical mind could parse together how this is problematic. Why did these people flee? Out of fear of prosecution? Why? Why did they not fear such prosecution during the Nazi occupation? The logical conclusion here is that they were either Nazis (SS or Wehrmacht), collaborators or sympathisers.
There is of course the deportations, or ‘genocide’ (funny) that the Soviets supposedly commited. I’m not gonna touch on this much, just gonna say this. If there was a concerted effort to commit ‘genocide’, there’d be evidence of this in the Soviet archives. And, if anyone is wondering why these people were deported… I think it’s pretty obvious why.
The most common case of Nazi apologia here, I feel, is the complete forgetting of what the Nazi occupation was about. Of course, they say it was bad and all, but then they, for some reason, feel the need to mention how harsh the Soviets supposedly were. That many of us actually fought against the Soviets (with the Nazis, of course), because they treated us better.
I remember a specific massacre in which they made concentration camp inmates build wooden pyres which they would shortly after use to burn their bodies after they had shot them in the back of their head. Witnesses told that screaming was heard after the fires were lit, meaning some survived the shot and were burned alive. The total number of people murdered in this massacre was ~2000. Usually they had enough time to cover up what they did, burn the victims bones to dust an scatter them in empty fields, but this was done out of haste, as the Soviet army was fast approaching.
These acts have been completely forgotten in popular memory. More accurately, forced to forget.
The folks who did this, the SS, now have memorials built for them. Same with the forest brothers, who were petty anti-Soviet terrorists covertly aided by western intelligence to destabilise the union with Nazi origins. They’re now venerated, not liking them is something of an oddity. You have state funded museums calling these Nazi bandits heroes and freedom fighters. Of course they never mention how most of the people they killed were civilians or anything like that
Little Poland, aka Estonia:
There is a rehabilitation/whitewashing of the Forest Brothers and their collaboration with the Waffen-SS, with several monuments present and maybe a year or two ago, another one was unveiled. The Nazi collaborators are regarded as “national heroes fighting for independence”, with statements to the contrary dismissed as Putinist/Kremlin propaganda.
uKKKrainian flags are still plastered everywhere at least in Tallinn, with company logos and even government services adopting the blue-yellow colour pattern. The Russian-Ukrainian war has also prompted a drive to specifically erase any monuments or remembrance of the Soviet Union specifically.
The Estonian government is heavily involved with NAFO to the extent that the former PM has a fanatic obsession and probably a non-insignificant amount of money funneled to them out of Estonian taxes and EU benefits.
Cursed with the ability to read Estonian, the Russophobia has approached nearly 1930s levels, in large part likely also fueled by NAFO’s activities. A r*ddit post I remember seeing was some guy in Estonian literally screaming at Russians living here to “unconditionally condemn Putin”, the intentional misspelling of Russia and Putin and casual mentions of Final Solution. Yeah I literally offended someone by countering with the statement “Well, I personally don’t think we should forcibly expel 300,000 Russians out of Estonia because I’m not a Nazi”.
The huge cross in Tallinn’s Vabaduse Väljak (“Freedom” Square) that I frequently pass by on my commute to and from work, with the emblem of a large E, with a hand holding a sword in the middle of the cross, definitely gives off some straight-up fash vibes.
The political parties in Estonia can largely be summed up as Reform (turbo-liberal NATO fanatics), EKRE (Conservatives, so basically hitlerite), Isamaa (Fatherland, yeah that name is already straight-up hitler particles, EKRE/Conservatives but oppose public healthcare) and a bunch of other smaller pro-NATO parties with varying right-wing leanings. There is also the Social Democrats and the “Estonian so-called Left”, the latter which would probably consider me far too radical and reject me for dismissing the NATO-approved narrative regarding the Russia-Ukrainian war.
The anti-Palestinian sentiments however, rapidly outgrew the Russophobia in Estonia. After one major rally on 5 November 2023 in Tallinn, the phrase “from the river to the sea” became criminalized with one individual attempting to fight it in court and now saddled with some €10,000 in fees. Someone in response also literally took the time to post an article (I think on Postimees or Delfi, probably deleted now, idk), complaining that even steep fines or lawsuits are not “harmful enough”. Estonia is still one of the least openly anti-Palestinian countries compared to others in the EU, certainly when compared against Germany, Austria and Hungary.
Some bellend also frequently goes to Tallinn’s Tammsaare Park with a megaphone and constantly plays a pre-recorded actually antisemitic speech in Estonian, sped up. How strange indeed that police have allowed it and continue to do so.
Somehow, despite all this, Estonia is still the least
of the BaltiKKKs.
Oh yeah, one time I was buying groceries and this old lady wearing a tufted beanie in Estonian flag colours was throwing a fit for at least 15 minutes nonstop because she heard an employee speak Russian. She was still complaining even at the register by the way.
I have a question. Do you know if there any other left wing circles in Estonia? I am actually from there and have really struggled to find like-minded people.
As you mentioned, the Vasakliit is very much not that. They’re pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO and although they oppose Netanyahu’s government and the onslaught in Gaza, they’ve still mentioned that they think Israel has a right to defend itself. Besides, their current court appointed leader was a former member of the Parempoolsed. I guess there could be some form of reorientation with ongoing restructuring efforts.
After 1991 and the putsch when the EKP Split and one half became what is now the Vasakliit(they’ve changed their name like 50 times) and the other, I forgot the name, became some underground communist group. Don’t think that’s still around though, correct me if I’m wrong.
Really sad how far the left here has fallen. The Bolsheviks got like 40% of the vote during the 1917 elections, the most any party in Estonia got. Rest of the vote mostly went towards other leftist or leftish parties. There was a lot of underground communist activity in the 20s, 30s and early 40s. All of that of course culminated in 1940 when all three of the Baltic facist dictatorships were toppled.
Yeah there’s very little leftist circles in Estonia. Those that I’ve found to be at least amicable to left-wing views are mainly foreigners (my workplace has lots of people from Western Africa with who I immediately found common ground with in agreement of how based the EFF/Julius Malema and Ibrahim Traore are).
There is also surprisingly enough, a somewhat active pro-Palestinian group located in Tartu (200km southeast of Tallinn) who often come to Tallinn for demonstrations stations, film screenings and discussion boards. Though they are also extremely pro-uKKKraine to the point of “big bad p00pin is also committing a genocide in uKKKraine and Russia did the same thing in Estonia as Gaza 85 years ago” and might have “China bad” vibes too. So they tend to stray a bit far into liberalism. They even claim that most Ukrainians support Palestine, which is an obvious lie (maybe the Donbass region is an exception, verify pls). Of course, they still differ greatly from the NAFO-mandated views in that there doesn’t appear to be hostility towards anyone who happens to be Russian. The group is called “PALEstonia”.
Alright, I’ll check out PALestonia. Hopefully the liberal brain worms are something I can ignore. Thanks for responding