Solidarity and the Baltic Way: How nonviolence buried the last vestiges of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

 "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

History weighs heavily in August of 2014: the 110th observance of the start of World War 1; eighty fifth anniversary of the signing of Molotov Ribbentrop, the treaty that triggered World War 2 by splitting Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; 44 years on the 31 of August 1980 the Polish Solidarity union came into existence; and Cubans observed the 30th anniversary of a mass uprising in Havana known as the Maleconazo that sparked another huge exodus of tens of thousands of Cubans fleeing to freedom.

Within this somber month of needed reflection on what not to do there is an incident that took place that needs to be remembered on what needs to be done. In addition to dismembering Poland, the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact placed the Baltic States under Soviet control. A nonviolent moment thirty five years ago that ended up liberating Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia brought an end to this part of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact and it was called the Baltic Way.

Today we gathered in Washington DC to mark 35 years since the #BalticWay. This peaceful demonstration in 1989 linked 2M 🇱🇹🇱🇻🇪🇪 people in protest the Soviet occupation & is now a symbol for the fight for freedom across the 🌎.@JBANCchatter @VoCommunism @Latvia_USA @Estonia_in_US pic.twitter.com/YEaknwZrZZ

— Embassy of Lithuania in DC | #StandWithUkraine (@LTembassyUS) August 23, 2024

On June 4, 1989 the Solidarity labor movement won in free elections and the Polish people finally regained their sovereignty after nearly 50 years under totalitarian oppression. They did it nonviolently. So did the people of the Baltic states when two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands together in a giant human chain stretching 370 miles on August 23, 1994. Fifty years to the day after the treaty that brought them so much grief had been signed. 

A number of excellent and well sourced websites describe and show with images and videos what happened on August 23, 1989. This is how the UNESCO website described it:

On 23 August 1939 foreign ministers of the USSR and Germany - Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, as ordered by their superiors Stalin and Hitler, signed a treaty which affected the fate of Europe and the entire world. This pact, and the secret clauses it contained, divided the spheres of influence of the USSR and Germany and led to World War II, and to the occupation of the three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

50 years later, on 23 August 1989, the three nations living by the Baltic Sea surprised the world by taking hold of each other's hands and jointly demanding recognition of the secret clauses in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the re-establishment of the independence of the Baltic States. More than a million people joined hands to create a 600 km long human chain from the foot of Toompea in Tallinn to the foot of the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius, crossing Riga and the River Daugava on its way, creating a synergy in the drive for freedom that united the three countries.The Baltic Way was organized by the national movements of each of the Baltic States: the Popular Front of Estonia Rahvarinne, the Popular Front of Latvia and the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis.

The Baltic Way brought important changes to the history of the world. This was achieved through social unity and through the joint commitment and confidence manifested by every individual in pursuing the common goal. This impressive act of non-violent protest and solidarity whilst keeping sovereignty was a living example of the culture of peace, opening up access to information and leading to the acknowledgement of the secret treaty and its hideous consequences for the whole world. It increased the opportunity for the national self-determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and encouraged democratic movements throughout the Soviet Union. The three Baltic States succeeded in gaining their freedom in a peaceful way, creating a precedent that was, and hopefully will be, followed by a number of countries all over- the triumph of humanity over totalitarianism.

Its a powerful testament that the liberation of Poland and the Baltic states from totalitarian occupation was achieved after fifty years through nonviolent resistance. Now in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia August 23rd has a double significance.

Today we gathered in Washington DC to remember and celebrate this enduring nonviolent victory, and its continuing lessons.

Celebrating 35 years since the Baltic Way. 🇪🇪-🇱🇻- 🇱🇹 This nonviolent demonstration in 1989 linked 2M people to protest the Soviet occupation & is now a symbol for the fight for liberty. Gathered in Washington DC today to mark the #BalticWay anniversary. https://t.co/dwHG9pPH1D pic.twitter.com/IqZ3CopVPT

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) August 24, 2024

Black Ribbon Day 2019: The Hitler-Stalin Pact that started WW2 and that communists would like to erase.

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera

Eighty years ago on August 23, 1939 the world was shocked to learn that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was named after their respective foreign ministers, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Observers would have been even more horrified had they known of the secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian powers. What they called a "peace treaty" in reality was a war treaty.

Rolling Soviet tanks and Nazi motorcyclists in Poland (September 1939).

Nine days later on September 1, 1939 at 4:45 am Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II started. Sixteen days later the Soviet Union exercising its secret agreement with the Nazis invaded Poland from the East and met their German allies in the middle of Poland. On September 22, 1939 the German Nazi army joined with the Soviet Communist army in a military parade in Brest-Litovsk and the two sides celebrated together.

Nazi and Soviet soldiers greet one another in Poland (1939)

About 230,000 Polish soldiers and officers and thousands of military service representatives were taken captive by the Russians. The Soviet precursor to the KGB was the NKVD. "From October 1939, the delegated NKVD officials from Moscow heard the prisoners, encouraged them to cooperate and collected data. Only a few of the prisoners agreed to collaborate. The commanding officers’ reports included opinions about hostile attitudes of the Poles and a minimal chance of them being useful to the USSR authorities."

The decision to shoot the prisoners was signed on March 5, 1940 by seven members of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) authorities: Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria (proposer), Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Kalinin and Lazar Kaganovich.  Thousands of Polish Army officers and intellectual leaders were taken into the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, shot in the back of the head or in the neck and buried in mass graves.

Months later, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed the Baltic States in June 1940.

This should not have come as a complete surprise.

The same people who would join Hitler's brown shirts were also susceptible recruits to join Antifa. Communists viewed the SA as a "proletarian-revolutionary paramilitary wing"of the Nazi movement and susceptible to being recruited to the communist cause. The case of Richard Scheringer, a supporter of Adolf Hitler and army officer who converted to communism in the early 1930s is a high profile example of this.

Harvey Klehr, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Politics and History, Emeritus, at Emory University, described how communists had mistakenly viewed the Nazis as a means to achieving power and undermining capitalist democracies. Antifa identified all political parties that were not communist as fascist. This meant that social democrats, centrist political parties, and conservative parties were together with the Nazis all labeled fascist. Fascism, according to Antifa, is anti-capitalism. This was the Comintern's class against class approach and fractured any potential broad anti-Nazi coalition.

"Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1932 had been immeasurably aided by the German communists' steadfast support for the Comintern tactic of “class against class,” which demanded no cooperation with other anti-Nazi forces. German communists blithely insisted that Hitler’s triumph would be evanescent—summarized in their optimistic slogan, Nach Hitler, kommen wir ('After Hitler, us'). 

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is this strategy but on a grander scale. Let the Western democracies and the Nazis exhaust each other in the conflict and then seize everything. Victor Davis Hanson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. reported that "Stalin shipped huge supplies of food and fuel for the German war effort against the West."

Soviet and Nazi soldiers fraternize after conquering Poland in 1939

The Communist International (Comintern) issued new orders to their members once the non-aggression pact had been made public.  Professor Klehr described the new directive.

Good communists were ordered to oppose anyone intending to stand in Hitler’s way.  With Ribbentrop’s second visit to Moscow at the end of September and the signing of a German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, the Comintern emphasized that the primary adversary was those countries that were at war with Germany, and those socialists and social democrats fighting against fascism. Germany had concluded a pact with the USSR, while “reactionary” England, at the helm of a vast colonial empire, was the “bulwark of capitalism.” Thus, communist parties in England and France were ordered to call for the defeat of their countries—ordered, in other words, to officially embrace treason. 

According to Klehr, Nazi reports confirmed that Communists were fulfilling their part of the agreement siding against Western Democracies.

 A June 1940 Gestapo report approvingly noted that the Soviet government was favorably disposed to the Third Reich and had endorsed its invasions of the Scandinavian states and Belgium and Holland “as necessary and proper.” The report went on to note that the Comintern had avoided open attacks on Germany,  and that the parties and publications allied with the Comintern were not pushing for communists to struggle against National Socialism or denounce fascism.

This arrangement only ended on June 22, 1941 when the Nazis double crossed their Soviet allies and launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Joseph Stalin, and Soviet foreign minister, Molotov

Communist morality has no problem with any of it because as the communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin observed in a speech to Russian communist youth on October 2, 1920:

"The class struggle is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to that struggle. Our communist morality is also subordinated to that task. We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society."

The myth that the communists were anti-fascists is a dangerous one, and the fact is that they viewed the Nazis as an instrument to wipe out Western Democracies and replace them with communist regimes believing that the fascists would quickly fade out of power.


This reckless strategy cost 22 to 28 million Russian lives in World War Two, and nearly led to the Nazi conquest and occupation of Russia.

It also led to Poland spending another half century under Soviet domination and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia occupied by the Russians.  A conquest that arose out of the Hitler-Stalin pact that endured following the end of the war.  

The Baltic Way brought an end to one key element of Molotov Ribbentrop

It was a nonviolent movement thirty years ago that liberated the Baltic nations. The Baltic Way brought an end to this part of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. 

On June 4, 1989 the Solidarity labor movement won in free elections and the Polish people finally regained their sovereignty after nearly 50 years under Soviet domination. They did it nonviolently. 

So did the people of the Baltic states when two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands together in a giant human chain stretching 370 miles on August 23, 1989. Fifty years to the day after the treaty that brought them so much grief had been signed.

This history must not be forgotten. The Spanish scholar George Santayana understood that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The Embassy of Estonia, Embassy of Latvia, Embassy of Lithuania, JBANC, Estonian American National Council, EU Delegation to the USA, Lithuanian American Council, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation are organizing a reenactment of this nonviolent action that freed three peoples. 

Be a part of history: join this reenactment of a unique historical event. All nationalities are welcome.

Save the date: August 23, 2019 at 1:00pm

Holding hands in a human chain to celebrate freedom in front of the U.S. Capitol (West side, First Street SW & 1st Street NW)

Afterwards informal gathering at 2.30 PM at Biergarten Haus, 1355 H St NE, Washington, DC.

Solidarity and the Baltic Way: How nonviolence buried the last vestiges of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

The Baltic Way brought an end to one key element of Molotov Ribbentrop

History weighs heavily in August of 2014: the centenary of the start of World War 1; seventy fifth anniversary of the signing of Molotov Ribbentrop, the treaty that triggered World War 2 by splitting Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; thirty five years later, leaders of the Khmer Rouge are finally brought to face justice before an international tribunal; 34 years on the 31 of August 1980 the Polish Solidarity union came into existence; and Cubans observed the 20th anniversary of a mass uprising in Havana known as the Maleconazo that sparked another huge exodus of tens of thousands of Cubans fleeing to freedom.

Within this somber month of needed reflection on what not to do there is an incident that took place that needs to be remembered on what needs to be done. In addition to dismembering Poland, the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact placed the Baltic States under Soviet control. A nonviolent moment twenty five years ago that ended up liberating Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia brought an end to this part of Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact and it was called the Baltic Way. On June 4, 1989 the Solidarity labor movement won in free elections and the Polish people finally regained their sovereignty after nearly 50 years under totalitarian oppression. They did it nonviolently. So did the people of the Baltic states when two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands together in a giant human chain stretching 370 miles on August 23, 1994. Fifty years to the day after the treaty that brought them so much grief had been signed.


A number of excellent and well sourced websites describe and show with images and videos what happened on August 23, 1989. This is how the UNESCO website described it:

On 23 August 1939 foreign ministers of the USSR and Germany - Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, as ordered by their superiors Stalin and Hitler, signed a treaty which affected the fate of Europe and the entire world. This pact, and the secret clauses it contained, divided the spheres of influence of the USSR and Germany and led to World War II, and to the occupation of the three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

50 years later, on 23 August 1989, the three nations living by the Baltic Sea surprised the world by taking hold of each other's hands and jointly demanding recognition of the secret clauses in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the re-establishment of the independence of the Baltic States. More than a million people joined hands to create a 600 km long human chain from the foot of Toompea in Tallinn to the foot of the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius, crossing Riga and the River Daugava on its way, creating a synergy in the drive for freedom that united the three countries.The Baltic Way was organized by the national movements of each of the Baltic States: the Popular Front of Estonia Rahvarinne, the Popular Front of Latvia and the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis.

The Baltic Way brought important changes to the history of the world. This was achieved through social unity and through the joint commitment and confidence manifested by every individual in pursuing the common goal. This impressive act of non-violent protest and solidarity whilst keeping sovereignty was a living example of the culture of peace, opening up access to information and leading to the acknowledgement of the secret treaty and its hideous consequences for the whole world. It increased the opportunity for the national self-determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and encouraged democratic movements throughout the Soviet Union. The three Baltic States succeeded in gaining their freedom in a peaceful way, creating a precedent that was, and hopefully will be, followed by a number of countries all over- the triumph of humanity over totalitarianism.

Its a powerful testament that the liberation of Poland and the Baltic states from totalitarian occupation was achieved after fifty years through nonviolent resistance. Now in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia August 23rd has a double significance.

Norwegian Girl of Cuban descent on mom's side number eight with a new single on Norway's music charts

Two years after "diplomatic" incident, singer and entertainer Alexandra Joner has a hit single "Sunrise"

Update (November 28, 2012): Alexandra Joner voted Sexiest Woman in Norway

Alexandra Joner, a Norwegian girl of Cuban descent on her mother's side (age 21) has a hit single "Sunshine". Two years ago she was attacked by Cuban diplomat, Carmen Julia Guerra, as she video taped her mom holding a nonviolent demonstration at the Cuban embassy in Oslo for Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban political activist and Amnesty prisoner of conscience who died during a hunger strike in a Havana prison on February 23, 2010.

Wonderful news from Norway, Alexandra Joner now has a new hit single "Sunshine" that is number eight in Norway that was released the weekend of May 12, 2012. Writers with insight into the intricacies of pop music say that her single "may be a calling card for a much bigger look worldwide." The new single is accompanied by the video below:

Alexandra Joner, the now 21 year old Cuban-Norwegian girl who was physically assaulted by a Cuban diplomat two years ago on May 22, 2010 in Oslo in an incident that made news around the world, and  is found described in an online biography on LastFM as follows:

In 2010, in an odd turn of events, Joner was threatened and bitten by a Cuban diplomat, Carmen Julia Guerra, while outside of the Cuban embassy in Oslo. She was partaking in a non-violent demonstration in remembrance of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban political activist who died during a hunger strike in a Havana prison.

The reason that the attack became worldwide news was that it was captured on video. The image of the violent and aggressive undiplomatic diplomat, Carmen Julia Guerra, rushing across the street hurling insults as she sought to wrest away the camera from the young woman.



In the Hip Hop Magazine XXL Alexandra Joner discusses her background and the importance of her mom:

My mother is Cuban and my father is Norwegian, actually half Norwegian, half Latvian if you want to be exact. I sing and dance. I’ve been performing since I was nine. It started with ballet, then I got into hip-hop when I was 14 and I stuck to that.I live with my mom now and she definitely pushes me. When she was younger she was a salsa dancer and she played the violin. I just got a manager here in Norway and we’re trying to find that hit single.

At 2:13 in the video below Alexandra discusses her Cuban, Norwegian and Latvian heritage:



Keep an eye out for this young woman, Alexandra Joner just may conquer the pop music world. Not to mention that friends of freedom everywhere should demonstrate their solidarity for a rising artist who just two years ago was attacked for exercising her rights by purchasing her music.