Communist Party of Estonia

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Eestimaa Kommunistlik Party (EKP)
Communist Party of Estonia
26em
Party leader Karl Säre (1940–1943)
Nikolai Karotamm (1943–1950)
Johannes Käbin (1950–1978)
Karl Vaino (1978–1988)
Vaino Väljas (1988–1990)
founding 1920
Place of foundation EstoniaSoviet Socialist RepublicFlag of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1953) .svgEstonian SSR , Tallinn
Prohibition 1990
(: "Eesti Demokraatlik Tööpartei" from 1992)
Headquarters Tallinn
Youth organization Komsomol
Alignment Communism
Marxism-Leninism

The Communist Party of Estonia ( Estonian Eestimaa Kommunistlik Party ) was the leading communist party in Estonia from 1920 to 1990 . During the Soviet occupation of Estonia, it functioned as an Estonian sub-organization of the CPSU . CPSUКПСС.svg

prehistory

Socialist-revolutionary ideas reached the Baltic provinces of Russia relatively late in the face of political repression . It was not until the end of the 19th century that Marxist ideas spread to Estonia and Livonia , which were then part of the Russian Empire . At the turn of the century, as in other parts of Europe, various Marxist circles were formed.

The emergence of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Российская Социал-Демократическая Рабочая Партия), which was established illegally in Minsk in 1898 , exerted an influence on developments in the Baltic States . In 1902 the party was founded again in exile in London . As a result, left-wing Estonians founded underground sub-organizations in Narva , Tartu and Pärnu . After the party was split into two camps at the 1903 party congress, the Bolsheviks (majority) and Mensheviks (minority), the Bolshevik faction under Lenin called itself the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) , RSDAP (B). The parliamentary group constituted itself in 1912 as an independent party.

Revolution in Russia

With the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party tried to increase its following in the Baltic States as well. Despite persecution by the tsarist authorities, the membership grew to around a thousand. At the same time, different ideological positions between the individual wings repeatedly split the Marxist groups in Estonia.

At the conference of the Estonian section of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party from March 2 to 4, 1907 in Terijoki near St. Petersburg , Finland, the more radical Bolsheviks finally prevailed against the Mensheviks in Estonia. Thereupon the Mensheviks split under the name Estonian Social Democratic Workers' Party ( Eesti Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Tööliste Party ) under the leadership of August Rei , Mihkel Martna and Karl Ast from the Bolsheviks.

October Revolution

With the October Revolution in Russia in November 1917, the Bolsheviks also tried to take sole power in Estonia and (northern) Livonia. State power was exercised there from November 1917 to February 1918 by the War Revolutionary Committee of Estonia ( Eestimaa Sõja-Revolutionary Committee ). Its chairman was Ivan Rabchinsky, his deputy Viktor Kingissepp . The reign of the communists was accompanied by the murder of opposition members in northern Livonia and Estonia, including the Orthodox Bishop Platon and Lutheran pastors such as Walther Paucker and Traugott Hahn . In 1918 the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communist Party of Russia (B).

On February 24, 1918, the democratic forces of the bourgeois provisional government of Estonia proclaimed the independent Republic of Estonia. This was deliberately against the Bolsheviks. In the subsequent war of freedom against Soviet Russia , Estonia defended its independence, but also its democratic system of government based on the western model. With the peace treaty of Tartu of February 2, 1920, Soviet Russia had to recognize the independence of Estonia. However, the Bolshevik government in Russia did everything in its power to transform Estonia into a communist state through subversive measures. The following Estonian governments therefore persecuted the Estonian Bolsheviks as allegedly or actually Moscow-controlled subversives.

Interwar period

Jaan Anvelt (photograph from 1925)

On November 5, 1920, with the support of the Russian Bolsheviks in Tallinn, the Communist Party of Estonia (EKP) was founded underground. It acted in a conspiratorial manner and in illegality. She maintained close contacts with the Russian Communist Party - KPR (B) . Belief in the imminent world revolution was also widespread in the EKP. In 1922, the Estonian Communist Party decided to join the Comintern . The right wing of the party rejected this and finally split off as the Independent Socialist Labor Party (Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Party) from the EKP.

The young Republic of Estonia persecuted the communists, whom they viewed as the henchmen of the Soviet government, with increasing severity. On May 3, 1922, the Estonian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Kaitsepolitseiamet, arrested the founder and party leader of the EKP, Viktor Kingissepp , who was hiding in Tallinn. He was sentenced to death in an express trial that same day and shot . His body was thrown into the sea. In 1923 the leading communist Jaan Kreuks was shot. From November 10th to 27th, 1924, the so-called " Trial of the 149 " took place after plans for a coup which had already become known . In it, 149 alleged communists were charged with espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. One was executed and 141 sentenced to life imprisonment and forced labor. At the same time, communist ideas never played an important political role in Estonia.

On December 1, 1924, members of the EKP tried to carry out a coup in Estonia with material and personal help from the Soviet Union . It was headed by the Estonian communists Jaan Anvelt and Karl Rimm. However, the violent attempt to seize power collapsed that same day due to a lack of support from the Estonian people and the Estonian military. The Estonian head of state, Friedrich Karl Akel , narrowly escaped an attempted murder by the putschists. Of the approximately 350 insurgents, 125 were killed in fighting. Some of the communists, including Anvelt, managed to escape to the Soviet Union, while others were sentenced to long prison terms.

Soviet occupation and annexation

Athletes want Estonia to join the Soviet Union. Tallinn, July 17, 1940

With the beginning of the Second World War , the independence of the Baltic states and Finland was increasingly endangered. In the summer of 1940 Estonia was occupied by the Red Army under the secret agreements of the Hitler-Stalin Pact . The EKP and its functionaries functioned from now on as a sub-organization of the CPSU . In the 1950s, numerous Estonian communists were expelled from their offices and replaced by Russian communists of Estonian origin.

In 1940 the EKP was declared the only party allowed in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic . The Estonian people felt the hardship of Stalinism . The nationalization of the factories, expropriations, the deportation of large parts of the Estonian elite to Siberia , the persecution of political opponents and the Russification of Estonian society were carried out or supported by the EKP. The Estonian economy was completely transformed into a planned economy based on the Soviet model. The First Secretaries of the Central Committee of the EKP carried out Moscow's policy in Estonia until 1988 . As a cadre party , the EKP belonged to around 15 percent of the Estonian population during the Soviet occupation. The proportion of Estonians within the EKP is estimated at 40 to 55 percent.

The first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia during the Soviet occupation of Estonia were:

After 1990

It was not until the Gorbachev era and the collapse of the Soviet Union that political freedom and pluralism were brought back to Estonia in the late 1980s. The one-party rule of the EKP was finally abolished.

Shortly before Estonia regained its independence, the EKP renounced communism at a congress on March 25, 1990 and declared itself a social democratic party. She resigned from the CPSU. As a result, part of the old communist cadre split off.

The EKP renamed itself in November 1992 to the Democratic Labor Party of Estonia ( Eesti Demokraatlik Tööpartei ), in January 1998 to the Social Democratic Labor Party of Estonia ( Eesti Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Tööpartei ) and in December 2004 to the Estonian Left Party ( Eesti Vasakpartei ). Since then she has tried to distinguish herself with a democratic socialism . The Estonian Left Party has been a member of the European Left Party since 2004 . It is politically meaningless. She received 0.1% of the vote in the 2007 Estonian parliamentary elections .

literature

Movies

  • December Heat (International title, Estonian: Detsembrikuumus , Estonia 2008, director : Asko Kase, with Sergo Vares). Historical drama about the communist uprising on December 1, 1924 in Reval .

Remarks

  1. ↑ to 1923 Eestimaa Kommunistlik (bolševike) party - EK (b) P
  2. ↑ from 1925 Communist All-Union Party - WKP (b)
  3. ↑ from 1992 party chairman of the successor party "Democratic Labor Party of Estonia" ( Eesti Demokraatlik Tööpartei )
  4. ↑ The old communist dissidents remained meaningless and officially dissolved as a party in 1998.