they choose not to be aligned with Russia.

Submitted by the Grand Infidel of Kaffiristan (Australia), Nov 21, 2009 at 23:03

Ianus:

"On the 17^th of March 1991 there was an (almost) all-Union referendum where most voters voted for the preservation of the USSR. Curiously enough, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Armenia all banned the referendum on their territories. Somehow they pre-sensed correctly the results would hardly confirm their jingoistic self-righteous political dogmatism."

I can see the sense in not wanting a referendum if a third or more of the population was actually Russian.

But the fact that the Baltic states finally saw a chance where they could be possibly freed of the yoke of the Soviet Union has to be taken into account. All those countries you've mentioned were successful in obtaining their former independence. If you asked people (non-Russian residents of those countries) whether they were happy to sacrifice this referendum in order to be able to at last break all links with their former masters - I'll let you guess what the answer will be.

So aren't you happy that they got more or less what they wanted - independence? That has to be the yardstick by which we measure 'success' in these matters. This was NOT an idea foisted onthem by the evil West. I knew Estonians in 1987 - before independence happened. They themselves wanted the freedom to have the lifestyle they saw across the Baltic in Funland and Sweden.

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