Baltic Way (1989): The Human Chain Across Three Nations

The Baltic Way was a peaceful demonstration on 23 August 1989 in which about two million people joined hands to form a human chain roughly 675 kilometres long across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Held on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it protested the Soviet occupation of the three Baltic states and called for their independence. It became one of the most memorable images of the year in which communism collapsed in Eastern Europe.

Background

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became independent states after the First World War. On 23 August 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. The Baltic states were assigned to the Soviet sphere.

In June 1940 the Red Army occupied all three countries, and they were annexed into the Soviet Union that summer. Mass deportations to Siberia followed in 1941 and again after the Second World War, along with heavy Russian-speaking immigration. Most Western countries, including the United States, never formally recognised the annexation. The Soviet government, however, long denied that the secret protocol existed.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost (openness) in the late 1980s allowed Baltic people to speak more freely about their history. In 1987 and 1988 demonstrations marked the anniversaries of the deportations and of the pact. Mass movements formed in 1988: the Popular Front of Estonia (Rahvarinne), the Popular Front of Latvia (Latvijas Tautas fronte) and the Lithuanian Reform Movement, Sąjūdis.

In Estonia, huge gatherings at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds in 1988, where hundreds of thousands sang banned national songs, gave the movement its name: the Singing Revolution. The term is now often used for the whole Baltic independence movement of 1987 to 1991. National flags, long forbidden, reappeared, and the local languages were declared official state languages.

Organising the chain

The idea of a human chain linking the three capitals was agreed by the three popular movements in the summer of 1989. Their main demand was that Moscow admit the existence of the secret protocol and recognise that the annexation of 1940 had been illegal, opening the way to independence.

Organisers divided the route into sections and asked towns, workplaces and organisations to fill them. They arranged buses and private cars to carry people to rural stretches, and used radio broadcasts to direct participants to places where gaps remained. The route ran from Toompea Hill in Tallinn through Riga, past the Freedom Monument, to the Gediminas Tower in Vilnius.

23 August 1989

At 7 p.m. local time participants joined hands for 15 minutes. Many carried the national flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with black ribbons in memory of the victims of Soviet repression. In many places people lit candles, laid flowers and sang national songs, and some marked the evening with church services and commemorations.

Organisers estimated that about two million people took part, out of a combined population of roughly eight million. The chain was largely unbroken, and where people were thin on the ground, participants held ribbons or flags to bridge the gaps. Sympathy events were also held in other countries by Baltic communities in exile.

The demand for the truth about 1939

The Baltic Way was not only a call for freedom but also a historical argument. The three popular movements maintained that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had never joined the Soviet Union voluntarily, as Soviet history books claimed. Instead, they argued, the states had been occupied as a direct result of the deal between Hitler and Stalin.

If the secret protocol could be shown to exist and the annexation declared illegal, independence would be a restoration of lawful statehood rather than secession from the Soviet Union. This distinction mattered both legally and politically. It allowed the Baltic movements to present their goal as undoing a wrong, and it gave Western governments, which had never recognised the annexation, firmer grounds to support them.

Around the day of the chain, the popular movements set out this position in public statements aimed at both Moscow and world opinion. The text of the secret protocol, known from a German microfilm copy published in the West since the late 1940s, had already been printed in the Baltic press during 1988 and 1989.

Participants and organisers

The organisers were the Popular Front of Estonia, the Popular Front of Latvia and Sąjūdis, working with other groups such as the Estonian National Independence Party. Each movement handled the route through its own republic and coordinated the timing with the others, at a time when communication between the republics relied on telephone lines controlled by the state.

People of all ages took part: families with children, students, workers, farmers and pensioners, some of whom had themselves been deported to Siberia. Members of the local communist parties and even some officials joined in, a sign of how far opinion had shifted.

The Soviet response

The protest alarmed the Soviet leadership. On 26 August the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued a statement condemning what it called “nationalist hysteria” and warning of dangerous consequences. Despite the harsh words, Moscow took no direct action against the participants.

Pressure for the truth about 1939 continued. On 24 December 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union formally acknowledged the secret protocol and declared it invalid from the moment of its signing. This admission undermined the legal basis of Soviet rule over the Baltic states.

Road to independence

Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare the restoration of its independence, on 11 March 1990. Moscow responded with an economic blockade, and in January 1991 Soviet troops attacked the television tower and other sites in Vilnius, killing 14 civilians. Latvia saw deadly clashes in Riga in the same month.

During the failed coup attempt against Gorbachev in Moscow in August 1991, Estonia declared full independence on 20 August and Latvia on 21 August. The Soviet Union recognised the independence of all three states on 6 September 1991, a few months before its own dissolution.

Legacy

The Baltic Way showed the discipline and unity of the Baltic peoples and drew worldwide attention to their cause, helping to make their claim to independence impossible to ignore. Its peaceful form inspired later protest chains elsewhere, including in Catalonia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In 2009 its documents were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Monuments to the chain stand along the route, and anniversaries are commemorated in all three countries. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined both NATO and the European Union in 2004.

Timeline

• 1939, 23 August: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol are signed.
• 1940, June: Soviet forces occupy Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
• 1988: Popular fronts and Sąjūdis are founded; mass song gatherings take place in Tallinn.
• 1989, 23 August: About two million people form the Baltic Way human chain.
• 1989, 24 December: The Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies condemns the secret protocol.
• 1990, 11 March: Lithuania declares the restoration of its independence.
• 1991, 20–21 August: Estonia and Latvia declare full independence during the Moscow coup attempt.
• 1991, 6 September: The Soviet Union recognises Baltic independence.

Why it matters

The Baltic Way was a defining moment of the revolutions of 1989 and a powerful example of nonviolent protest. By forcing an open reckoning with the secret deals of 1939, it helped pave the way for Baltic independence and contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.